Aegon Targaryen Quotes

She is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother of dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats.

Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.

Fire and Blood were the words of House Targaryen, but Dunk once heard Ser Arlan say that Aegon’s should have been Wash Her and Bring Her to My Bed.

Dear brother. I had hoped that you were dead." "After you," Aegon answered. "You are the elder." "I am pleased to know that you remember that," Rhaenyra answered. "It would seem we are your prisoners...but do not think that you will hold us long. My leal lords will find me." "If they search the seven hells, mayhaps.

No hatchlings can hope to stand against Vermithor and Dreamfyre." "And Silverwing?" asked Rhaena. "Our sister—" "—had no part in this. I will not put her at risk." The Queen in the East smiled then. "She is Rhaenys and I am Visenya. I have never thought otherwise.

Aegon had made the seven kingdoms one with fire and blood.

Sixteen Targaryens followed Aegon the Dragon to the Iron Throne, before the dynasty was at last toppled in Robert’s Rebellion. They numbered amongst them wise men and foolish, cruel men and kind, good men and evil. Yet if the dragon kings are considered solely on the basis of their legacies, the laws and institutions and improvements they left behind, the name of King Aegon I belongs near the top of the list, in peace as well as war.

I know that she spent her childhood in exile, impoverished, living on dreams and schemes, running from one city to the next, always fearful, never safe, friendless but for a brother who was by all accounts half-mad... a brother who sold her maidenhood to the Dothraki for the promise of an army. I know that somewhere upon the grass, her dragons hatched, and so did she. I know she is proud. How not? What else was left her but pride? I know she is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen are proof enough of that. She has survived assassins and conspiracies and fell sorceries, grieved for a brother and a husband and a son, trod the cities of the slavers to dust beneath her dainty sandaled feet." - Tyrion Lannister to Aegon Targaryen, about Daenerys

Each of the conquered kingdoms had its own laws and traditions. King Aegon did little to interfere with those. He allowed his lords to continue to rule much as they always had, with all the same powers and prerogatives. The laws of inheritance and succession remained unchanged, the existing feudal structures were confirmed, lords both great and small retained the power of pit and gallows on their own land, and the privilege of the first night wherever that custom had formerly prevailed.

There were two principal claimants to the Iron Throne upon the death of King Viserys I Targaryen: his daughter Rhaenyra, the only surviving child of his first marriage, and Aegon, his eldest son by his second wife.

Helaena Targaryen, sister, wife, and queen to King Aegon II and mother of his children, threw herself from her window in Maegor’s Holdfast to die impaled upon the iron spikes that lined the dry moat below. She was but one-and-twenty.

Prince Aenys was the first to marry. In 22 AC, he wed the Lady Alyssa, the maiden daughter of the Lord of the Tides, Aethan Velaryon, King Aegon’s lord admiral and master of ships. She was fifteen, the same age as the prince, and shared his silvery hair and purple eyes as well, for the Velaryons were an ancient family descended from Valyrian stock. King Aegon’s own mother had been a Velaryon, so the marriage was reckoned one of cousin to cousin. fruitful. The following year, Alyssa gave birth to a daughter. Prince Aenys named her Rhaena, in honor of his mother. Like her father, the girl was small at birth, but unlike him she proved to be a happy, healthy child, with lively lilac eyes and hair that shone like beaten silver.

True scholars know that such dating is far from precise. Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of the Seven Kingdoms did not take place in a single day. More than two years passed between Aegon’s landing and his Oldtown coronation … and even then the Conquest remained incomplete, since Dorne remained unsubdued. Sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm continued all through King Aegon’s reign and well into the reigns of his sons, making it impossible to fix a precise end date for the Wars of Conquest.

The first law of the land shall be the King’s Peace,” King Aegon decreed, “and any lord who goes to war without my leave shall be considered a rebel and an enemy of the Iron Throne.” King Aegon also issued decrees regularizing customs, duties, and taxes throughout the realm, whereas previously every port and every petty lord had been free to exact however much they could from tenants, smallfolk, and merchants. He also proclaimed that the holy men and women of the Faith, and all their lands and possessions, were to be exempt from taxation, and affirmed the right of the Faith’s own courts to try and sentence any septon, Sworn Brother, or holy sister accused of malfeasance.

On Dorne and the North: One is hot and one is cold, yet these ancient kingdoms of sand and snow are set apart from the rest of Westeros by history, culture, and tradition. Both are thinly peopled compared to the lands betwixt. Both cling stubbornly to their own laws and their own traditions. Neither was ever truly conquered by the dragons. The king in the North accepted Aegon Targaryen as his overlord peaceably, whilst Dorne resisted the might of the Targaryens valiantly for almost two hundred years, before finally submitting to the Iron Throne through marriage. Dornishmen and Northmen alike are derided as savages by the ignorant of the five 'civilized' kingdoms, and celebrated for their valor by those who have crossed swords with them.

with walls of bare black stone and four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of the compass. In the center of the chamber was the great table from which it took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon Targaryen in the days before the Conquest. The Painted Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. Aegon’s carpenters had shaped it after the land of Westeros, sawing out each bay and peninsula until the table nowhere ran straight. On its surface, darkened by near three hundred years of varnish, were painted the Seven Kingdoms as they had been in Aegon’s day; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and forests.

Ser Osmund Strong was the king’s fourth Hand. His first had been Lord Orys Baratheon, his bastard half-brother and companion of his youth, but Lord Orys was taken captive during the Dornish War and suffered the loss of his sword hand. Aegon next called on Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, to take up the Handship. Lord Edmyn served from 7–9 AC, but when his wife died in childbed, he decided that his children had more need of him than the realm, and begged leave to return to the riverlands. Alton Celtigar, Lord of Claw Isle, replaced Tully, serving ably as Hand until his death from natural causes in 17 AC, after which the king named Ser Osmund Strong.

Lord Toland

She would wed as he commanded, or he would make her half-brother Aegon his heir in place of her. At this the princess’s will gave way.

King Viserys wed his son Aegon the Elder to his daughter Helaena.

whilst her brother Aegon’s young Sunfyre was said to be the most beautiful dragon ever seen upon the earth.

Vhagar, the greatest of the Targaryen dragons since the passing of Balerion the Black Dread, had counted one hundred eighty-one years upon the earth. Thus passed the last living creature from the days of Aegon’s Conquest,

When Aegon refused, Visenya grew furious. "Even with Blackfyre in your hand, you are only one man", she told him, "and I cannot always be with you." When the king pointed out that he had guardsmen around him, Visenya drew Dark Sister and slashed him across the cheek so quickly the guards had no time to react. "Your guards are slow and lazy," she said. "I could have killed you as easily as I cut you. You require better protection." King Aegon, bleeding, had no choice but to agree.

On the seventh day, a cloud of ravens burst from the towers of Dragonstone to bring Lord Aegon's word to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. (...) All carried the same message: from this day forth there would be one king in Westeros. Those who bent the knee to Aegon of House Targaryen would keep their lands and titles. Those who took up arms against him would be thrown down, humbled and destroyed.

returned to King’s Landing, having won the support of Storm’s End for his brother Aegon, and the undying enmity of Queen Rhaenyra.

In his grief and fury, King Aegon II commanded that all the city’s ratcatchers be taken out and hanged, and this was done.

Aegon and his wife slept separately thereafter, and Queen Helaena sank deeper and deeper into madness, whilst the king raged, and drank, and raged.

Rhaenyra has no choice but to take your heads if she wishes her bastards to rule after her.” It was this, and only this, that persuaded Aegon to accept the crown that the small council was offering him, insists our gentle septon.

Unbeknownst to King Aegon, the Hand, or the Queen Dowager, he had allies at court as well, even on the green council…

King Aegon also desired to avenge the murder of his heir by Blood and Cheese by means of an attack on Dragonstone, descending on the island citadel on dragonback to seize or slay his half-sister and her “bastard sons.

For the traveler’s “son” was Maelor Targaryen, the younger son of King Aegon II, and the traveler was Ser Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard, his sworn shield and protector.

129–131 Aegon II eldest son of Viserys [Aegon II’s ascent was disputed by his half-sister Rhaenyra, ten years his elder. Both perished in the war between them, called by singers the Dance of the Dragons.]

Aegon’s Conquest The maesters of the Citadel who keep

‏" It was said by some that Aegon wed Visenya out of duty and Rhaenys out of desire.

‏"My brother Aegon died at the hands of our uncle in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye,” His Grace said at her funeral pyre. “His wife, my sister Rhaena, was not with him at the battle, but she died that day as well.

Baelon was two years younger than Aemon, Alyssa nearly four

Every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. He sat the Iron Throne. He lived in the Red Keep. He wore the Conqueror’s crown, wielded the Conqueror’s sword, and had been anointed by a septon of the Faith before the eyes of tens of thousands.

Until that moment, Aegon II had believed his half-sister’s cause to be hopeless

If the princess would acknowledge him as king and make obeisance before the Iron Throne, Aegon II would confirm her in her possession of Dragonstone, and allow the island and castle to pass to her son Jacaerys upon her death. Her second son, Lucerys, would be recognized as the rightful heir to Driftmark, and the lands and holdings of House Velaryon; her boys by Prince Daemon, Aegon the Younger and Viserys, would be given places of honor at court, the former as the king’s squire, the latter as his cupbearer. Pardons would be granted to those lords and knights who had conspired treasonously with her against their true king.

Aegon II had fled. So had his children, the six-year-old Princess Jaehaera and two-year-old Prince Maelor, along with Willis Fell and Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard.

and the queen climbed the iron steps and seated herself where King Viserys had sat before her, and the Old King before him, and Maegor and Aenys and Aegon the Dragon in days of old.

King's Landing, the new town would be called. From there Aegon the Dragon would rule his realm, holding court from a great metal seat made from the melted, twisted, beaten, and broken blades of all his fallen foes, a perilous seat that would soon be known through all the world as the Iron Throne of Westeros.

The Dowager Queen Alicent of House Hightower, second wife of King Viserys I and mother to his sons, Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron, and his daughter Helaena, died on the same night as Lord Westerling, after confessing her sins to her septa.

The other hero, to the astonishment of all, was the young king. To the horror of his Kingsguard, Aegon spent his days visiting the sick, and often sat with them for hours, sometimes holding their hands in his own, or soothing their fevered brows with cool, damp cloths.

Aegon took his hand as he breathed his last.

King Aegon III Targaryen wed Lady Daenaera on the last day of the 133rd year since Aegon’s Conquest.

As the year waned, she brought forth a small but robust son, a pale princeling with dark purple eyes and pale silvery hair. She named him Aegon. Prince Daemon had at last a living son of his own blood…and this new prince, unlike his three half-brothers, was plainly a Targaryen.

With House Gardener extinguished, Aegon the Conqueror had granted Highgarden and the rule of the Reach to House Tyrell, the former royal stewards.

proclaiming him Aegon of House Targaryen, Second of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.

His mother, Queen Alicent, beloved of the smallfolk, placed her own crown upon the head of her daughter, Helaena, Aegon’s wife and sister.

With House Bracken thus broken and defeated, the last of King Aegon’s supporters in the riverlands lost heart and lay down their own swords as well.

Aegon the Usurper had won the allegiance of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, and Lord Tyrell of Highgarden was a mewling boy in swaddling clothes whose mother, acting as his regent, would most like align the Reach with her over-mighty bannermen, the Hightowers…

Until that moment, Aegon II had believed his half-sister’s cause to be hopeless. Harrenhal left His Grace feeling vulnerable for the first time.

House Hightower and Oldtown were solidly behind King Aegon, and His Grace had the Arbor too…

only with the support of the Iron Islands could Aegon hope to surpass the strength of House Velaryon at sea.

King Aegon began to drown his fears in strongwine, Septon Eustace tells us.

Ser Arryk had sworn his sword to Aegon, Ser Erryk to Rhaenyra.

Aegon II was two-and-twenty, quick to anger and slow to forgive.

The Sea Snake’s fleets closed Blackwater Bay, and every morning King Aegon had merchants whining at him.

King Aegon’s overtures to Dalton Greyjoy of Pyke had thus far failed to win the Iron Islands to his side.

And so one-eyed Aemond the Kinslayer took up the iron-and-ruby crown of Aegon the Conqueror.

Aegon the Younger and Viserys, Prince Daemon’s sons, were nine and seven, respectively.

In 5 AC, King Aegon, feeling that the realm might benefit from such wisdom, asked the Conclave to send him one of their own number to advise and consult with him on all matters relating to the governance of the realm. Thus was the office of Grand Maester created, at King Aegon’s request.

He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful. Yet they were. As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of his torch. They liked the fire, he sensed. He’d thrust the torch into the mouth of one of the larger skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind him. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flame of the torch was nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires. When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast’s empty eye sockets had watched him go. There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff’s skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long. From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen

Aegon granted the ruined castle of Harrenhal and its domains to Ser Quenton Qoherys, his master-at-arms on Dragonstone, but required him to accept Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun as his liege lord.

Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men.

My father was Maekar, the First of his Name, and my brother Aegon reigned after him in my stead. My grandfather named me for Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, who was his uncle, or his father, depending on which tale you believe. Aemon, he called me …” “Aemon … Targaryen!