Will it reveal the mother of Aerys II & Rhaella or other Targaryen Queens?

[Addam Velaryon]

The Targaryen family's penchant for dynastic incest has always been put forward, & I must admit a bit exaggerated, as the cause of madness in the family, and yet it would seem the generations of enthroned Targaryens that came after Daeron II took Myriah of Dorne as his queen - aside from the children of Aerys II & Rhaella - were not born of incest at all (though Daeron II was succeeded by his son Aerys I who took his sister Aelinor as his queen, they had no children & were in turn succeeded by their brother Maekar)

The queen of Maekar has never been revealed, but unless he married Aelinor after his brother's death than he surely didn't wed his sister. The queen of Maekar's son & successor Aegon V has never been revealed either. Aegon V's queen was also not his sibling, as he never wed one of his two sisters Daella or Rhae (though he was briefly betrothed to Daella). It has only hitherto been stated that Aegon V "married for love", but to whom?

The queen of Aegon V's son & successor Jaehaerys II has also never been revealed. Jaehaerys II was the father of both the mad king Aerys II & queen Rhaella, but who was their mother? Again, their parents were not siblings, since their father Jaehaerys II's only sister was Rhaelle Targaryen who married into House Baratheon & as such is the grandmother of Robert, Stannis & Renly Baratheon (or, according to the simplified family tree of the TV show, Rhaelle is their MOTHER!)

--Daeron II seems to have been the last Targaryen to sit on the Iron Throne who was not born of a union between brother & sister (his parents being Aegon IV & his sister-wife Naerys)

--Daeron II takes Myriah Martell as his queen. He is succeeded by his & Myriah's son Aerys I (he married his sister Aelinor, but they had no children)

--Aerys I was succeeded by his full-blood brother Maekar

--Maekar was eventually succeeded by his son Aegon V (unless Aegon's father also married Aelinor after Aerys I's death, we have no clue who Aegon's mother was, since Aelinor was his father's only sister)

--Aegon was succeeded by his son Jaehaerys II (Jaehaerys was not born of incest since Aegon didn't marry either of his sisters)

--Jaehaerys was succeeded by his son Aerys II who married his sister Rhaella, but they were not born of incest either since Jaehaerys's only sister wed the lord of Storm's End.

a thought - these are the most out-bred generations of Targaryens since Aegon's conquest & yet they seem to be the one's more likely to go mad! I know there are those who will argue that Maegor was mad & so was Baelor the blessed, but being a monster or a religious fanatic doesn't necessarily count for "madness". Also, I don't seem to see any mad female Targaryens ever mentioned.

Any thoughts from my fellow readers & TV show watchers?

[The hairy bear]

Well, I wouldn't understimate the amount of inbreeding in the Targaryens. Looking at the direct line of the kings (Rhaegar's ancestors), we have:

1) Aegon I+ Rhaenys Targaryen

2) Aenys I + Alyssa Velaryon (the family of his grandmother)

3) Jaehaerys I + Alysanne Targaryen

4) Baelon + ? (but it seems likely that it was a sister)

5) Viserys I + Arryn bride (first cousin)

6) Rhaenyra + Daemon Targaryen

7) Viserys II + ? (but Ran said it wasn't a Targaryen)

8) Aegon IV + Naerys Targaryen.

9) Daeron II + Myrah Martell

10) Maekar I + ? (a daughter of Elaena Targaryen is a likely option)

11) Aegon V + ? (non Targaryen)

12) Jaehaerys II (most likely non Targaryen)

13) Aerys II + Rhaella

So, out of the 13 generations preceeding Rhaegar, we have 4 brother-sister unions (possibly 5), and 3 more unions with close family (possibly 4). In total, 7 to 9 out of 13.

[Bael's Bastard]

I think a few more kings will turn out to have been married to Targaryens (though not necessarily full sisters) or non-Targaryens with a Targaryen mother.

Of the 17 Targaryen kings, we know some of the wives for 12 of them. Of those 12, we know 8 of them married at least one full or half sister during their lives (Aegon I, Maegor I Jaehaerys I, Aegon II, Baelor I, Aegon IV, Aerys I, Aerys II).

One more, Aegon III, married a more distant Targaryen, a daughter of his mother's half brother and half sister.

The first wife of another, Viserys I, was an Arryn whose mother was his father's sister.

Another, Aenys I, married a Velaryon who may have had Targaryen ancestry (his own grandmother on both sides was a Velaryon who had a Targaryen mother).

So of those 12 where we know some about some of their wives, 8 had at least one wife that was full or half Targaryen sister, 2 had at least one wife who had a Targaryen mother, and 1 had a Velaryon wife that could have had Targaryen ancestry. Of those 12, only Daeron II is almost certain to have had no wife with Targaryen ancestry.

Some non-kings who were at one point either heirs or possible successors,

Aenys I's oldest son Aegon married his sister Rhaena

Jaehaerys' oldest son Aemon married Jocelyn Baratheon (possible Targaryen ancestry?)

Aemon's oldest child Rhaenys married Corlys Velaryon (possible Targaryen ancestry?)

Viserys I's oldest child Rhaenyra married Laenor Velaryon (Targaryen mother) then her father's brother Daemon Targaryen

Aerys II's oldest child Rhaegar married Elia Martell (descended from Daenerys, a sister of Rhaegar's great-great-great-grandfather)

It may be likely that the three kings before Aerys II didn't marry full siblings, but I don't think marrying Targ to Targ was ever really abandoned for any stretch except perhaps where there were none available to match, and even then, I think they looked for Targ ancestry.

Since Daeron II, Prince Rhaegar married the closest known thing to a Targaryen at the time in Elia Martell, his father Aerys II married his full sister, his grandfather Aegon V was betrothed to his full sister (we don't what if any relation his eventual wife had to him), Aerion (granted, a psycho) seems to think he would have married a sister if he had one/had one closer in age, Aerys I married his full sister.

And I think we all make assumptions that may or may not be true about what it means that Egg and his sons married for love. Egg was betrothed to a full sister and eventually married (presumably someone else) for love, but that doesn't necessarily mean he married a non-Targ (I happen to think he married a Lannister, but that's beside the point).

I think it is most likely that Egg's sons were betrothed to non-Targaryens, but I am not sure they all married non-Targaryens for love. They could have broken their betrothals because they fell in love with other non-Targaryens (as Prince Duncan did), but I don't think it a stretch that maybe one or two actually fell in love with and married an otherwise politically irrelevant Targaryen rather than whatever house their marriage was intended to strengthen ties with.

All in all, I think most of the kings whose wives we don't yet know about will turn out to have had at least one Targaryen wife or wife with recent Targaryen ancestry. I don't think they ever made a habit out of marrying non-Targs with no Targ ancestry. Maegor's later wives, maybe Viserys I's second Hightower wife, Daeron II's Martell wife. The only one of these that was a first wife was Daeron's, which ended nearly two centuries of war with Dorne.

[Winterfell is Burning]

The Targaryen family's penchant for dynastic incest has always been put forward, & I must admit a bit exaggerated, as the cause of madness in the family, and yet it would seem the generations of enthroned Targaryens that came after Daeron II took Myriah of Dorne as his queen - aside from the children of Aerys II & Rhaella - were not born of incest at all (though Daeron II was succeeded by his son Aerys I who took his sister Aelinor as his queen, they had no children & were in turn succeeded by their brother Maekar)

That's true, although seems clear to me that Baelor was mad. I suppose over time the effects of early inbreeding were shown.

(or, according to the simplified family tree of the TV show, Rhaelle is their MOTHER!)

A grandmother is most likely; Egg's sister rather than a daughter. Since the Robert/Ned generation characters in the show are clearly 5-10 years older in most cases (and Tywin is mentioned to be 67), it wouldn't make sense to have Egg be Aerys grandfather.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Aelinor will not have been Aegon's mother :) Aegon mentions in 209AC that his mother is dead, and Aelinor is still alive. Also, due to other timeline reasons, that wouldn't work out (Aerys dying when Aegon is already in his 30ties, for example).

Also, we don't know if Aelinor was the only sister of Baelor, Aerys, Rhaegal and Maekar. She's just the only one whose name we know about. The same goes for Rhaelle. She might have been the only daughter, but it's possible that there were more daughters who just haven't been mentioned until now because for the story, they weren't important.

That we don't know about any mad female Targaryens might come from the fact that for history, the men are somewhat more important. They are the ones who rule, after all. They call the shots, the women don't.

That Aegon V and Jaehaerys II married out of the family seems highly likely, since it was for love.

As the hairy bear already said, most non-Targaryen marriages were to close relatives, close cousins. And there will have been some, since Jaehaerys and Alysanne had 9 children.. That must have produced some offspring (though at the moment, we only know about Rhaenys, Viserys I and Daemon as the grandkids of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, there must have been more; these are just the children from 2 of Jaehaerys' children.)

The family tree of the show is non-canon, in my opinion. Discussions on that tree should be on show parts of the forum only, since it's a modified tree, simplyfied to prevent those who only watch the show from getting confused. IIRC, Jaehaerys II is removed from that tree, making Aerys II the son of Aegon V. In that case, it would only be logical that they cut out a generation from Robert's tree as well, though it seems they didn't want to change the name, so instead of Rhaelle being Aegons daughter, they made her his sister.

[Lord Varys]

Jaehaerys II is back in the German show family tree, by the way. He did not rule as king, but Aerys was Egg's grandson. I saw to that.

But you are right, the show stuff should not concern us here.

I'd not be surprised, though, if Jaehaerys II had a Valyrian-looking wife. Aerys - and Rhaella, too, I guess - both looked very Valyrian, and all their children, too. I'd thus not be surprised if Jaehaerys wife was a Velaryon - or much more interesting - a noblewoman from Lys or Volantis, perhaps a woman prone to arts and music and stuff. Jaehaerys was much softer than his true brothers, apparently.

And this could also indicate why Aerys tried to find a bride for Rhaegar in the Free Cities - his mother came from there.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

BTW, as to the question asked in the title of the thread :) Yeah, the book will feature a family tree of the Targaryens, so all the wives of the kings should be in there

[Bael's Bastard]

My theory has been that Egg or Jaehaerys married a Lannister.

[Arataniello]

[mod]

Once again I have to ask people to not make references, even casually, to material that was in the UNSANCTIONED release of material from the World book.

[/mod]

[Lord Varys]

Arataniello,

the Aegon-Rhaena stuff should be clear now, since the Westerlands reading did also reveal details on that. We learned in that one 'officially' about the Battle Beneath the God's Eye, the fact that they were married to each other, and that Prince Aegon was killed by Maegor in the battle.

[Arataniello]

I was referring to the name of a female Targaryen.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

O, than that must have been me. Sorry. I had seen her name pop up on the forum quite a lot in the last few weeks, so I thought mentioning her name was allowed by now.

I apologize :)

[Bael's Bastard]

I was referring to the name of a female Targaryen.

Ah, you are referring to material from the book coming out this month?

[Arataniello]

Ah, you are referring to material from the book coming out this month?

Material from the World book (due out in the fall) were illicitly published on a Central European site. Certain names and such in that extract are not appropriate for discussion, at Ran's request.

Rogues, due out in two weeks (yabadabadoo!) was not to what I was referring.