Aerys II Targaryen

King **Aerys II Targaryen**, more commonly remembered as the **Mad King**, was the seventeenth and final king of the Targaryen dynasty to sit on the Iron Throne of Westeros.

## Early life

Aerys was born to Prince Jaehaerys, the second son of King Aegon V. Whilst still a teenager, Aerys was married to his sister Rhaella in the Targaryen tradition. Rhaella became pregnant and gave birth to their son Rhaegar in 259 AL in the Targaryen summer palace at Summerhall. Rhaegar was born in blood and grief, during the blaze known as the Tragedy of Summerhall that killed King Aegon V, his heir Prince Duncan and many others.

Aerys' father only ruled for three years before he passed away, and Aerys became king as Aerys II Targaryen.

## Early reign

Aerys II's reign began with great promise. Under his father and grandfather, the court at King's Landing had become stuffy, filled with old men. Aerys II brought sweeping changes, replacing many at court with younger faces. Aerys, impressed by the ruthlessness of the young Lord Tywin Lannister with dealing with houses rebelling against Casterly Rock, named Tywin as the King's Hand.

The first ten years of Aerys' rule were peaceful. The realm recovered from the tragic events at Summerhall and grew both rich and strong. Closer ties were established with Dorne when Prince Rhaegar was married to Princess Elia Martell (to the disquiet of Lord Tywin, who had hoped to marry his daughter Cersei to Rhaegar). However, around 270 AL some problems arose which turned the character of Aerys' reign into something very different.

Also his marriage to Rhaella had become stagnated after nine pregnancies, with several miscarriages and deaths in infancy until Viserys III was born when Rhaegar was 17.

## The Defiance of Duskendale

Aerys had heard disturbing rumours that said that the peace and prosperity of the realm was due to the actions of his Hand, Tywin, and not to Aerys himself. Jealous of the respect and even fear afforded to Tywin, Aerys resolved to rely less on his Hand and solve some problems himself. He soon had the chance when Lord Denys Darklyn of Duskendale decided to withold port taxes from the crown. Taking a small force, Aerys personally marched to Duskendale to investigate. Lord Denys, not anticipating such a response, panicked. Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard was killed and Aerys was taken prisoner. He was held for six months whilst Tywin amassed an army and besieged the town in what became known as the Defiance of Duskendale. Eventually Ser Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard managed to rescue the king. In his fury, Aerys ordered every last branch of House Darklyn to be utterly destroyed, its members tortured at excruciating length before being burned alive.

After this point a certain rot seemed to set into Aerys' reign. He was brutal and capricious, indulging his fascination for fire at every opportunity. The pyromancers of King's Landing gained unprecedented power and authority under his rule. Any hint of a threat to the Targaryen line was crushed without mercy, as a group of bandits known as the Kingswood Brotherhood found to their cost when they began preying on traffic between King's Landing and the Stormlands. The Kingsguard and many retainers rode out to face them, and Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, killed their leader, Simon Toyne. During this battle the young squire Jaime Lannister proved his worth and was knighted.

## The Harrenhal tourney

A great tourney was held at Harrenhal by Lord Whent in what became known as the Year of False Spring (281 AL). This was a rich event, and even some of the Starks from distant Winterfell travelled over a thousand miles to the occasion. King Aerys travelled from the capital for the occasion, as did Prince Rhaegar and his wife. Rhaegar was the champion of the occasion, even defeating the usually unbeatable Ser Barristan Selmy. Rather than name his wife the Queen of Love and Beauty, he instead named Lyanna Stark. Whilst this solicited comment, it was the offer of King Aerys to Ser Jaime Lannister that he join the Kingsguard that was most shocking. Jaime accepted, disinheriting himself from his position as Lord Tywin's heir and leaving his malformed, misshapen brother Tyrion in that position. Lord Tywin, in a fury, resigned the handship and returned to Casterly Rock without delay. Ironically, this impulsive action made him panic for an entire day when he realized the son of a man who now hated him was protecting him.

## The War of the Usurper

A year after the Harrenhal tourney, Prince Rhaegar 'kidnapped' Lyanna Stark and took her south. Her eldest brother Brandon was on his way to Riverrun to marry his betrothed, Catelyn Tully, at this time but instead rode to King's Landing to demand that Rhaegar explain himself. With Brandon rode a number of prominent lords, most notably Ser Elbert Arryn, the heir to the Eyrie. Rhaegar was not present, but Aerys was. Believing that Brandon and his accomplices had come to kill his son, he had them arrested and demanded their fathers present themselves. They did so, and Aerys had them murdered.

The death of Lord Rickard Stark of Winterfell, his heir and the heir to Lord Jon Arryn of the Vale, among others triggered continent-wide shock. Eddard Stark, now Lord of Winterfell, was in the Vale with the young Lord Robert Baratheon of Storm's End at the time. Robert and Lyanna had been betrothed. Aerys commanded Lord Jon Arryn to turn over Robert and Eddard to him, but Jon refused and raised his banners. The North and the Stormlands, at Eddard and Robert's commands, followed suit. Eddard married Catelyn Tully in his brother's stead, and the Riverlands joined the rebellion as well. As Robert was the great-grandson of King Aegon V through his daughter Rhaelle, who had married the then-Lord Baratheon, he laid claim to the Iron Throne and vowed to kill Aerys the Mad King and his son Rhaegar.

The preponderence of force arrayed against Aerys was impressive, but with the remaining Tyrell, Lannister and Martell forces, he slightly outnumbered the rebels. Unfortunately, due to his insult to Tywin Lannister, the forces of Casterly Rock did not stir themselves and due to Rhaegar's insult to his wife Elia by taking Lyanna as a lover, Prince Doran Martell was also slow to stir. Lord Mace Tyrell was able to besiege Storm's End and pin down a large number of Stormland forces, but not before Robert escaped to the north-west, narrowly evaded capture at the Battle of the Bells and joined Eddard's large Northman, Vale and Riverland host north of the Trident.

Rhaegar took command of the Targaryen and Martell hosts and, backed up by elements of the the Tyrells, met the rebels at the Battle of the Trident. Rhaegar lost, and was killed by Robert Baratheon. As the army swept south towards King's Landing, Aerys sent his pregnant sister-wife and young son Viserys to Dragonstone for safety.

## Death

Mere hours before the lead elements of the rebel host, under Eddard Stark, reached the city, 12,000 Westerland forces under Lord Tywin Lannister reached the city and pledged themselves to the Targaryen cause. When the gates were opened, the Lannister host instead sacked the city. Aware that Aerys was planning to destroy the city with wildfire to deny it to the rebels, Ser Jaime Lannister betrayed his oath and slew King Aerys II at the foot of the Iron Throne itself, and was known as the 'Kingslayer' for this act. He also killed the senior pyromancers who were aware of the plan. Lord Tywin took possession of the city and surrendered it to Robert Baratheon. Robert was crowned the first king of the Baratheon dynasty.

Aerys' wife died in childbirth, delivering a girl named Daenerys. His two children fled into exile in the Free Cities beyond the Narrow Sea, aided by loyal retainers.

## Character and appearance

In younger life, Aerys was charming, handsome, proud and resolute, although quick to anger and not the most brilliant of men. He also enjoyed making grandiose and surreal plans until he grew bored and even denied concocting them in the first place.

As he grew older, Aerys became crueller and more manic, prone to furious outbursts and tirades, many of which led to acts of savagery that cemented his reputation as one of the worst kings in all of Westeros. He became jealous and suspicious of his once friend Tywin and seemed to resent the popularity of his son Rhaegar. After the Defiance of Duskendale these characteristics became more pronounced, and although amnesty was promised to his captors, he triggered a slaughter that led to the extinction of two powerful houses.

He developed a fascination with fire, and burning people alive became his favoured method of execution, as he believed himself to be a dragon in human form. He also developed a sick cunning, as evidenced by how he promised Rickard Stark a trial by combat, but loopholed that promise by declaring that fire was the champion of House Targaryen, setting the northman on fire in his armour and then strangling his son Brandon in the latter's attempt to save him. Aerys was also sexually aroused by his monstrous acts, and after he executed a man he would rape his wife, so violently that he let her with serious bruises, scars and even bite marks all over her body.

His initially happy marriage to his sister-wife Rhaella soon became cruel and, he took to forcing himself upon her when she was not receptive to his advances. It is often perceived that there truly wasn't any love between them, as Aerys filled his courts with beautiful young maidens and even openly lusted after Joanna Lannister, the latter fact souring the relationship between him and Tywin. The resentment towards Rhaegar made him belittle his daughter-in-law Elia, and he even shunned Elia's children by declaring that they 'smelled Dornish'. Rhaella suffered the worst out of Aerys' savagery, and two decades after both their deaths Ser Jaime Lannister deeply regrets not intervening to protect Rhaella from her husband. Aerys grew to despise Rhaegar, despite him being Aerys' own heir, and a rift was made between father and son that led to suspicions that Rhaegar planned to undermine him and even depose him. Nobody entertained this rumour more than Aerys himself.

During the last years of his life, Aerys was very thin (he was fearful of being poisoned), and gaunt with a long, straggly beard and fingernails which grown to several feet in length. He refused to let blades or razors in his presence, even to shave or trim his fingernails. He wore the big, elaborate dragon-emblazoned crown of Aegon IV.

## Appearances in the series

Although he is long dead by the time the books begin, he is remembered by various characters and appears most notably in Jaime Lannister's recounting of why he killed Aerys in *A Storm of Swords*. Tywin Lannister, his old friend-turned-nemesis, remembers Aerys constantly, especially after witnessing the king that Tywin's grandson Joffrey is becoming. He notes at one point that both Joffrey and Aerys tended to cut out the tongues of their enemies, and that neither man learned nor respected what it meant to be a truly strong or good king.