Can someone explain the "Fake Aegon" theory for me, please?

[Jon Icefyre]

Right, family tree; wrong branch. I'm convinced the Darkstar is a Targaryen, but a descendant of the mad, sadistic brother of Egg - Aerion Targaryen whose son was passed over by the Great Council to put Egg on the throne. Remember when Lady Olenna tells Sansa "they tried to marry me to a Targaryen once, but I put a stop to it" (a paraphrase, not an exact quote.) Who would that Targaryen be that she could refuse to marry? Not the crown prince or his brother. The Redwynes don't have that kind of clout to refuse that wedding. No, it has to be the unnamed Aerion's son. If Egg was trying to marry a unwanted nephew with a better claim to the throne than he had into a loyalist house, he couldn't have found a better one than a obscure branch of the Dayne family. A couple of generations later we have Ser Gerold Dayne, a man exhibiting all of Aerion's worst traits and the "most dangerous man in Dorne" because he actually has the best Targaryen claim to the throne - Aerion was Egg's older brother.

This is a theory I've never heard before and I'm intrigued to say the least! The only thing is the Targaryen's were the royal family I mean they were the Kennedys of Westeros. If the least of the Targaryens did so much as take a shit the whole realm knew about it. How would the realm not know about this marriage? I mean they would have no reason to hide it at that point. How would they forget about that branch of the family when Robert's goin on his mad rampage killing every Targaryen he can find?? I could see Dorne hiding his family lineage after Robert's Rebellion but before it there would be no reason to hid that branch of the family. Why don't more people know about that branch it should be public knowledge?? Although it is a little suspicious that we can't find any information of what happened to Aerion brightflame's son, I mean they never said he died so wtf happened??? Interesting stuff...

[SFDanny]

The idea is that it is a tie that is not a state secret, but rather it is not talked about and forgotten about through the years. If true, then we have a Targaryen male who is passed over for the throne (a known fact as told to Jon by Mormont in A Clash of Kings) plus a daughter of that male who marries into a lesser Dayne household (so no carrying on the Targaryen name) and the birth of the Darkstar to this minor lordling family.) Through the generations it would not be hard to imagine that this side branch of the Targaryens are not exactly topic one on everyone's agenda. Until Aerys is overthrown, no one would pay attention to Ser Gerold buried as he is in obscurity in High Hermatige. After the rebellion, what is Robert to do? Invade Dorne over his presence? Not likely. He remains an artifact of the Great Council's action some century later, no more than that. It is only after all the chaos of Robert's death and the War of the Five Kings that Ser Gerold becomes the "most dangerous man in Dorne" because of his possible claim to the throne and its impact on any latent sympathy for a Targaryen restoration (particularly after Viserys's death.)

As to why I think this is the Darkstar's backstory, let me refer you to a recent attempt to explain it.

Ok, I put together a post on this three years ago or so, and I'll try to recreate it here. The clues, as I see it:

Ser Gerold's looks:

bold emphasis added

This is how Arianne describes Ser Gerold when we first meet him. The hair color and eye color both point to a possible Targaryen heritage. The remark about their possible future children being as "beautiful as dragonlords" is not, imo, a throw away line. Martin is practically screaming here about the Darkstar's heritage - especially if we add in Arianne's comments about his volatile nature. So, if, Ser Gerold is a Targaryen, just who is he? Let's look at some possibilities.

Lord Commander Mormont talking to Jon about Maester Aemon and his family's history:

So, after Aegon ("Egg") takes the throne the next generation of Targaryens include Egg's two sons, Duncan and Jaehaerys - who follows his father to the throne, and the unnamed daughter of Daeron and the son of Aerion. It also includes the Baratheon descendants of Egg's sister, but those we know about. Why is it important? Because of this quote from the Queen of Thorns in ASoS:

The Queen of Thorns is of the same generation of Egg's sons, and we know about all the male Targaryens of the previous generations (none are alive and available for marriage) so it really is only Egg's sons or Aerion's son as the possible matches Lady Olenna is talking about. Which puts the question before us how could Lady Olenna refuse a offer of marriage to the King's heir or his second son? I don't think she can. Refusing Aerion's son is, however, another matter altogether.

If this is the case, then what happened to this loose Targaryen? The "they" in the QoT's remarks is certainly Egg, so why would he stop trying to make a match for the boy once Lady Olenna refuses? I don't think he does. It makes sense for Aegon to try to marry his nephew into a house he thinks will remain loyal and not challenge his own in a generation. Now, suppose he does this and Aerion's son has a child - in this case a daughter. It seems likely that either Egg or his son Jaehaerys continue with the same plan for the daughter. The Daynes seem like a great fit for this. It is this hypothetical daughter who I think is the Darkstar's mother.

This then explains Doran's remark that Ser Gerold is the "most dangerous man in Dorne. He is not the most dangerous man because of his battle prowess - although unlike others I don't think his miss in killing Myrcella makes him unskilled. No, he is the most dangerous man in Dorne because he has a claim to the Iron Throne that in some ways is better than all the other claimants we know about. He has a reason to want war on the current "usurpers" of his family's crown, and it makes some kind of sense for him to want to provoke the war for his own reasons. Add in a very likely streak of madness inherited from Aerion and I think we have a very probable backstory for the Darkstar.

[eimorylorts]

why Doran Martel would risk his son‘s life by sending him to marry Dainerys while he have Aegon??If Darkstar is Aegon...

[Beorn Snow]

why Doran Martel would risk his son's life by sending him to marry Dainerys while he have Aegon??If Darkstar is Aegon...

Gotta catch them all.

[Ludd]

Regarding Darkstar

There ARE other real Targs out there many in Dorne. What we know!!!!

1. There was a halfwit daughter - what happened to her? My own pet theory is that she was married to a minor Crown land family. Stokeworths perhaps!!!! Lolys is the rightful heir. King Bronn anyone???????

2. There was a son of Aerion - what happened to him. could be an ancestor of Darkstar

3. Egg had a third son - who is he and where is he. Perhaps he married an ancestor of Gerald Darkstar. The son (Egg's) would be 65 or so assuming Egg would be 100 if alive. Egg married quite late I think. Any sons of this son no 3 would be so his own sons 30-50 and their eldest sons would be about 25

[ladyofslytherin]

While there certainly seems to be a preponderance of evidence that Aegon is a fake, and probably of Blackfyre lineage (which gives him Targaryen/Valyrian features to lend substance to the mummer's trick), I can't honestly say that I'd put it past GRRM to be telling the complete truth here.

Why? Because if Varys had word of Tywin's defection to the rebellion early enough, it wouldn't be difficult for him to set whole platoons of his little birds or mice or whatever to the task of finding a byblow with the right features. Whether the story about trading Arbor Gold for the replacement child in Pisswater Bend is true or not, the child would suit for what Varys intended as long as it had the right features and a trickle of Valyrian blood in its background somewhere.

Now, mothers recognize their own children, and even young babies have distinctive features. But it's a mistake to assume that Varys made the switch immediately. He could have hidden the replacement baby as a back-up plan, all the while urging Aerys to keep the gates closed. When that failed, all he needed to do was make the switch while Elia was elsewhere. He'd need the wet nurse to be in on it, but once the wet nurse was gone with the real Aegon and the sack had begun, Elia was likely to be too panicked to register any differences. It's not like she'd be doing a close examination of the facial features of the child she's just plucked from the cradle to try and save.

As for why she'd leave Rhaenys alone: maybe she intended to go back for her. Maybe Rhaenys ran and hid under the bed because she didn't know what else to do or where her mother was when the trouble started. Maybe Elia had told her daughter that if there was ever any trouble to find a safe place to hide and someone would find her later, splitting up the royal children in an attempt to ensure that at least one of Rhaegar's children lived to carry on the line of succession.

For Varys to do all of this, rather than making plans to help Elia, Rhaenys & Aegon escape unharmed, suggests a serious sociopathy on Varys' part. After all, in ensuring the escape of only the baby, it essentially means that he didn't care whether or not Elia & Rhaenys died as long as the prince was safe. But we've seen that Varys is willing to expend any lives necessary to achieve his ends, no matter how good or innocent that person themselves may be, so this really isn't beyond him.

And as horrific as it is, it's a well-established mode for bloodlust driven soldiers in the heat of a pillaging rampage to dispatch the babies of their hapless victims by simply taking the child by the feet and smashing them into a solid surface, crushing their skulls & killing them pretty instantly. It's fast, it doesn't require a weapon or even that much effort, and it creates even more paralyzing horror in the already terrorized mother, who then becomes a victim of rape and is probably killed afterwards herself. Gregor is practically following a tradition that's described all the way back to the Iliad. So with Varys knowing that's a behavior exhibited by soldiers far less sadistic than the Mountain, it wouldn't be a foregone conclusion that the baby wouldn't be recognizable once any of the soldiers Tywin sent got their hands on it.

Also, even if the child wasn't smashed into something face first, or at all, how many people would be able to identify any difference between the replacement baby and the real Aegon? His parents, elder sister and grandfather are all dead. His pregnant grandmother and young uncle have fled to Dragonstone. The wet nurse has gone missing and half the servants have been slaughtered in the sack; the rest have run for their lives. Those among the victorious peerage can barely stand to look at the corpses and may or may not have seen the baby more than a handful of times. Do you know how many parents mis-identify a child's body as their child because they can't bear to look more than a second and have already prepared themselves to see their child on that slab? It's not all that uncommon. And I'm betting Varys knew that, too.

So even though the Blackfyre Aegon theory is entirely plausible, I think GRRM could convincingly write Aegon as the real deal and that Varys came up with the whole plan to try and preserve the succession, having no idea whether or not any of the Targaryen family would survive Tywin's sack of the city if he didn't act.

As to why he would want to? To quote another, possibly even more devious character: "Question my motives all ye like, dearie, but they shall remain mine." Rumplestiltskin, OUaT, ep 2x10