Irony and Maekar's 4 sons

[Duranaparthur]

Since TWOIAF has arrived with more stories about the Targaryen family, I just realized there's some fascinatingly hilarious context to the names of Maekar and Dyanna's kids, when viewed through the lens of both the Targaryens' whole history, and the political family scene by the rough time of Maekar's marriage. All of his sons are named after Targaryen Kings, warriors and patriarchs, and yet the boys wound up inverting the fates of their namesakes.

Daeron the Drunkard becomes neither as fierce a warrior as Daeron the The Young Dragon nor as politically skilled as Daeron the Good, and seemed to choose the obscurity that was anathema to both men's legacies. In fact, his epithet as "The Drunkard" is a pathetic denigration compared to his namesake's honorifics. It's even more insulting when you consider that Maekar might have named him after his own father, and yet Daeron seems, on the surface of things at least, to take after his Unworthy grandfather's alcholholism.

Aerion Brightflame is named after the father of Visenya, Aegon the Conqueror, and Rhaenys, basically the patriarch of the Targaryen dynasty, with the work he did for his children setting them on the path to power. If the Targaryens are the Plantagents, he's Geoffrey Plantagent. Aerion Brightflame, on the other hand, managed to so succefully damage his own reputation that his son Maegor was skipped right over after Maekar's death, strictly on the basis of Maegor being Aerion's son. And as the second oldest son, maybe Maekar's hope was that he would form a cadet branch of the family, not dishonor it.

Maester Aemon is named after one of the greatest warriors in the Targaryen line, Aemon the Dragonknight, someone so awesome that a Targaryen and a Blackfyre were named after him in the same age by their warrior fathers. He was also the First of his siblings to die, and did so in a violent end. Maester Aemon meanwhile is both a total pacifist as a Maester and the last member of his family to die, of old age, no less. Though here you see a bit of overlap; both Aemons were middle children who served their family. Getting the warlike name, and in a manner that seems to have followed up on Daemon doing the same thing, implies that Maekar was hoping for a warrior son and got the only one of his kids to end up going to the Citadel.

And Aegon, little Egg, gets a king's name that almost certainly came from Maekar's desire to either honor the Conqueror or maybe, like he might have done with Aemon, try and match an Aegon Blackfyre with an Aegon Targaryen (maybe the reason he was younger than Aemon in that scenario was because Maekar wanted to honor the Dragonknight first? Just spitballing here). And Aegon's kingly predecessors include only one great King, one trauma victim, and two turds, including the grandfather of Maekar whose actions almost got Maekar and his family killed. The fact that Maekar waited till his unlikely-to-inherit fourth son for the name has some extra irony in that he became the Lucky King.

[aadam13]

Aegon V is very ironic compared to Aegon IV since Aegon IV didn't care about the peasants and was corrupt while Aegon V wanted to improve the peasant rights and tried to diminish corruption (I assume).

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 18-8-2016 at 3:14 AM, Duranaparthur said:

And Aegon, little Egg, gets a king's name that almost certainly came from Maekar's desire to either honor the Conqueror or maybe, like he might have done with Aemon, try and match an Aegon Blackfyre with an Aegon Targaryen (maybe the reason he was younger than Aemon in that scenario was because Maekar wanted to honor the Dragonknight first? Just spitballing here). And Aegon's kingly predecessors include only one great King, one trauma victim, and two turds, including the grandfather of Maekar whose actions almost got Maekar and his family killed. The fact that Maekar waited till his unlikely-to-inherit fourth son for the name has some extra irony in that he became the Lucky King.

According to Aemon himself, it had been King Daeron who chose his name, not Maekar.