Was Maegor conceived via sorcery?

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

He didn't have to keep them as heirs. The point of no turning back could've been the moment when he married Rhaena and named Aerea his heir, but before that, nothing was there to keep him from doing it so. In case of his sudden death at any point (the only time he needed an heir), someone from Aenys' line would've succeeded him anyway, no matter what he said about them.

You don't seem to have a very good understanding how kingship, royal succession/dynasties work ... especially such who wield power only a few decades.

If Maegor's succession wasn't crystal clear then the united Realm could easily fracture into seven kingdoms again, and the legacy of the Conqueror and Visenya would be destroyed.

Even if, miraculously, everybody would rally behind this or that Targaryen pretender ... the absence of a clear heir named by the king could result in a civil war.

In this context Maegor is very much inspired by Henry VIII who felt the desperate need to have a male heir of his body because the legal claim to the English throne of his Tudor dynasty was paper-thin and mostly fiction.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

That this never happened proves a point. Suggests something.

It could just suggest that Maegor had no clue about either Aenys' or his own true parentage.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Not at all. Look at the credibility of this idea. Most people wouldn't have given a single damn about it simply because of Maegor's nature. But it's definitely something a desperate man would've done in that situation. 

Maegor seems to have killed himself rather than use his gigantic dragon to kill his main enemies ... so I daresay that we cannot really say what this guy would do in any given situation.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

This propaganda had no value for the most part of Maegor's own reign. 

That is actually fundamentally false since Visenya's speech about Aegon being her love, etc. is part of what triggered the Targaryen loyalists in the city to stand with Maegor during the Trial of Seven. It is basically what put Maegor on the Iron Throne.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

That's what I said. But you certainly 'sounded' like you're presenting the actual canon plot/lore behind. 

No, I just point out what in the texts we discuss supports my view. I'm quite aware that we'll *never know the truth*.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Nope. I just wrote them down. The situation (even if Aenys was a bastard) of Aegon I and Robert are completely incomparable, wether Aegon knew the truth or not. 

They are separate but not incomparable.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

So I'm supposed to believe Rhaenys was sleeping around and at the same time Aegon didn't want to ruin her 'statue'? You shouldn't be coming up with contradictionary arguments.

Rhaenys and Visenya were the co-rulers of their brother-husband. They shared his Iron Throne. He was dependent on them.

Now, we have a polygamy scenario here where the guy sleeps with two women while said two women have to contend themselves to sleep only with him. That can easily be seen as 'unfair'.

Aegon was very much into Rhaenys ... but we don't know if Rhaenys was as much into him as he was into her (which is also the case for Tywin-Joanna, by the way). If Rhaenys was pissed that Aegon had sex with both her and Visenya it certainly could make sense that she would want to get back at him for that 'humiliation', 'betrayal of trust', name it what you will. After all, if Aegon truly loved Rhaenys so much and repeatedly told her ... why the hell did he bother having sex with Visenya?

In context of all this it certainly makes sense that Rhaenys took the right to entertain lovers of her own ... and Aegon had to turn a blind eye to that or risk losing her affection and companionship.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

The thing is: Rhaenys had a lot of singers around herself, she loved music, and Aenys was a good singer and loved music as well. This is the only single thing that could be a hint towards Aenys being a bastard of a singer, but at the same time, all this could've come from Rhaenys herself. And if, let's say, Aegon was willing to accept another man's son as his own, he probably didn't let a fucking singer bang the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, but may have looked at distant or not so distant bloodrelations in this case.

Who said anything about Aegon having any say in the question who his sister-wife was banging while he was with their sister?

Insofar as a sperm-donor for the conception of an heir is concerned we would expect Rhaenys to pick a nobody with the right looks because the more prominent the biological father, the more likely that this might cause problems further down the line.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Well, I certainlly didn't build up any of my arguments on the fact that Aenys was able to ride a dragon, yet I provided many. So not sure why this is something we have to discuss. 

Because that's actually the reason Gyldayn gives why the rumors about Aenys being a bastard died down.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Maegor is a child of sorcery (100% for you). To be fair, even myself are much more convinced he is at this point. So the issue of him not being sickly shouldn't be a problem. Rhaenys was a woman in his early thirties, and supposedly had a child with someone, yet Aenys turned out to be sicly? Does that make more sense to you?

Certainly not a 100%. It is just a theory I like, not a think is *actually true*.

If you look at 'the sons' of Aegon the Conqueror impartially then both are basically dialed-up male versions of their respective mothers - who in turn are representative of prominent Targaryen traits.

Rhaenys is changeable, one can even say 'half-mad' (in the not-so-destructive way we later also see in her granddaughter Rhaena), frivolous, no warrior or interested in martial stuff, interested in and a patron of the arts, etc. She also has charisma and the ability to make others love her.

Aenys basically inherited all those traits.

And Maegor is just a worse version of Visenya. He is a more capable warrior than she, more paranoid/distrustful than she is, has even less charisma/fewer friends than she did, etc.

Neither of those boys inherited anything from Aegon the Conqueror ... who seems to have been more like Rhaegar.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

People assumed Visenya was barren because they didn't want to assume the Conqueror was infertile. In case Visenya never slept in her life with anyone else beside her own husband (who we can agree was infertile), she may have been a fertile woman. We may simply never know, but she still gave birth to a son who was Aegon's (you provided no evidence why couldn't or wouldn't the father Aegon be. Mostly because he 100% is Aegon's son, there is no other logical explanation.).

Oh, now you put the cart before the horse. Yes, we would say that Aegon was most likely sterile ... but in-universe it isn't even clear that people accept or believe that men can be sterile. If a woman doesn't give birth she is barren. Period.

Granted, the Targaryens and folks obversing their polygamy marriage could have guessed that the man rather than the two women were the problem ... because there were two women and not just one, after all. But whether this actually happened on a large scale we don't know. I think there are hints that Sharra Arryn had figured things out ... which is why she asked Aegon to name her son his heir if they were to marry.

But this doesn't mean that Aegon himself, his court, and his sister-wives themselves didn't (mainly) blame the women for the absence of heirs.

And to be sure - we have no idea if Visenya was a faithful wife. There are no frivolous rumors about her (and Aegon himself, for that matter) doesn't mean they didn't sleep around. They could have been just more discreet than Rhaenys was. Keep in mind that Visenya apparently spent the bulk of her time on Dragonstone where things would have been less crowded than in the Aegonfort.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

She didn't have to be told Awnys is a bastard. She had many ways to find that out (in case she wondered why nor she nor her sister got pregnant. As you said, she most certainly did), via sorcery or other normal investigating methods.

Well, unless she was actually told she could never be really sure, could she? And we can expect that neither Rhaenys nor Aegon ever had any reason to confirm it for her ... and then Rhaenys also died three years after Aenys' birth.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Still not his own son. The age gap wasn't big either, and there is no reason Aegon had to expect an early death (he was a chad). 

The age gap is very significant. Five years mean Aenys was almost a man grown when Maegor was just ten.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Bullshit. Unless people gave Maegor rabbits to kill in the cradle. He turned out as he is, but these kind of problems don't show up AT FKCN BIRTH, but around the age of 8-10. Which is a lot of time. This is the dumbest thing I've heard today (i woke up recently, but still).

They showed up in his childhood and early years.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Which gave the Conqueror about 10 years that are exceptionally ideal to simply deal with this problem. This argumemt didn't stand for the first time either, how many times you want to bring it up?

It is the main argument why Aegon the Conqueror would have likely never named Maegor his heir, even if he was his only biological son.

10 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Sorry, you're making shit up. Maegor wasn't always a sadist, Aegon had a reason to favor Maegor over Aenys, especially if Rhaenys did cheat on him while he didn't know. You often apply modern views (or simply quite unnatural ones) on these people (like the one with Corlys, I think you remember it), but you gotta admit these aren't really favorite ideas to anyone. 

Oh, Corlys clearly shows in our sources that he didn't give shit about the rumors about his grandsons ... and it clearly is the same with Aenys. Because, quite obviously, Aegon would have known the rumors about Aenys' true parentage himself ... but chose to ignore them entirely. He could have never actually known that he was the father of the boy in any case. But he still treated him as his son and named him his heir.

Aegon also decidedly did not favor Maegor or Visenya ... to the point where he basically hid the boy from the public letting him stay with his mommy while he kept his chosen heir always at his side.