Aegon II Targaryen

Born in the year 107, King Aegon II Targaryen was the eldest son of King Viserys I Targaryen and his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower. His personal coat of arms was the golden Targaryen three-headed dragon on a black field, probably in reference to the color of his personal dragon Sunfire. 

Aegon II Targaryen Personality

From his youth, Aegon is a man of appetites: he enjoys food and alcohol, as well as women, all of which he abuses. He is also quite lazy and sulky. He also seems to have few scruples, since rumor has it that he impregnated a prostitute whose virginity he won at auction.

With the Dance of the Dragons, his most negative personality traits are exacerbated: he is impatient, angry and cruel, even to members of his own family. After his very serious accident at the siege of Repos-des-Freux, he becomes a bitter and withdrawn man.

Aegon II Targaryen Physical Appearance

If, in his youth, Aegon II is rather handsome, bearing all the characteristic features of the Targaryens, his successive wounds make him ugly; half of his face and body bear traces of burns; his hip, broken and badly repaired, makes him stand crooked; his fight against Baela Targaryen and Danselune leaves him with two broken legs, not allowing him to stand. Finally, his abusive use of milk of the poppy makes his features puffy.

Aegon II Targaryen Before the Dance of the Dragons

When Prince Aegon, his first son and eldest with his second wife, was born in 107, King Viserys did not question his initial choice: Princess Rhaenyra, ten years older than the newborn, would succeed him, much to the displeasure of the prince's mother, Alicent Hightower, and his grandfather, Ser Otto Hightower.

This decision goes against the Great Council of 101, which had designated Viserys following the rule of the pre-eminence of the male line over the female.

When it comes to marrying the princess, Queen Alicent proposes her son, which the king refuses, seeing it more as ambition than as a sudden sign of Aegon's love for Rhaenyra (indeed, the brother and sister do not get along well).

At the age of thirteen, he is already riding his dragon Sunfire. Like his brothers, he does not get along with the three sons of Rhaenyra Targaryen, and does not hesitate to feed the rumors of bastardy of the latter.

In the year 122, according to Targaryen tradition, Aegon married his younger sister, Helaena Targaryen; he was then fifteen years old, and she thirteen. Soon, the following year, they had twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera.

Over the years, the rivalry between the two parties, which will be called Green for Queen Alicent and her son, and Black for Princess Rhaenyra, grows stronger and breaks out at the death of King Viserys.

Aegon II Targaryen During the Dance of the Dragons

Upon the death of King Viserys I Targaryen in the year 129, two suitors are pitted against each other. First, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, who, as the eldest daughter and longtime only child of her father, is the heir apparent.

Then Prince Aegon, eldest son by King Viserys' second wife, supported by the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, who pushed him to claim the Crown.

The small council of the late king, dominated by the Greens, dismisses Princess Rhaenyra, taking advantage of her absence (pregnant, she is in Peyredragon) and crowns Prince Aegon, who becomes King Aegon II Targaryen. The dynastic conflict quickly degenerates into an open and fratricidal war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

Aegon II Targaryen is crowned at the beginning of the year 129, in Fossedragon. Ser Criston Cole places on his head the crown (of Aegon the Conqueror), while septon Eustace blesses him, the Great Septon of Villevieille being too old to move. The queen mother Alicent Hightower places her own crown on the head of her daughter Helaena Targaryen, now queen of the seven crowns.

The first fratricidal bloodshed was in 129 by her brother Aemond, who killed his nephew Lucerys and his dragon not far from Accalmie. This death provoked the assassination of the king's eldest son, Crown Prince Jaehaerys, in the Red Keep itself. His sister-wife Helaena will never recover.

These deaths exacerbate the hatred between the two sides, and the king also takes an active part in the conflict. Exasperated by the lack of action of his Hand, Otto Hightower, he dismisses him and replaces him with the Lord Commander of the Royal Guard, Criston Cole.

Where the previous Hand had sought allies, this one recommended going into battle. That same year, he participated in the siege of Repos-des-Freux, where his relative, Princess Rhaenys of the Blacks, was killed and where he received terrible wounds (multiple fractures and severe burns on half of his body). His dragon Feux-du-Soleyl is crippled.

After a long convalescence of several months, his brother Aemond becomes Prince Regent and Protector of the Kingdom. Shortly after the Battle of the Hydromel, King Aegon returned to the throne, and sent his brother to fight Daemon Targaryen.

The Dark Ones won many victories, but not without losses, and by trickery took King's Landing in 130. The master of the whisperers, Lord Larys Fort, organized the escape of the king with his surviving children through secret passages, while his mother and wife were imprisoned.

The course of the war is reversed at the Battle of Chutebourg thanks to the treachery of two dragon seeds. Queen Rhaenyra's mistakes and fear of dragons lead to the massacre of the dragons in the capital and the queen's flight to Peyredragon. Aegon's sister-wife, Helaena, commits suicide during the insurrection.

Following an idea of Lord Fort, King Aegon II is in fact a refugee during this period in Peyredragon, convinced that Queen Rhaenyra would never have imagined such subterfuge. There, he continues his convalescence.

Eventually, the fortress, stripped to occupy King's Landing, falls easily into the hands of the Greens, especially since the king has found his dragon, Sunfire.

Princess Baela Targaryen intervenes and again the king is seriously wounded, both legs broken, in the dragon duel against her, and the Sunfire is dying.

On her arrival, Rhaenyra, betrayed by her family, is brought before Aegon II who, mad with hatred towards his half-sister, feeds her to his dragon in front of his son, a prince also named Aegon. The latter is kept as a hostage.

The capital, for a moment given over to anarchy, is taken back by Lord Borros Baratheon on behalf of the Greens. With the Black chiefs dead, prisoners or having changed sides, the victory of the Greens seemed to be assured.

At the end of 130, Aegon returned to King's Landing to rule. Very weakened by his numerous wounds, he can neither stand nor sit on the throne; he therefore sits in a wooden chair stuffed with cushions, a blanket on his knees. He orders the death of Trystan Vrayfeu and the Shepherd, but spares the very young Gaemon Pale-hair.

However, Rhaenyra's cause still has supporters, including the young Lord Tully and Lord Stark. In the year 131, Lord Borros was defeated and killed at the Battle of the Royal Road, his forces swept away, leaving King's Landing defenseless.

Faced with imminent defeat, Lord Corlys Velaryon, freed, pardoned and appointed to the king's small council, advises the king to surrender and take the black.

But Aegon II does not want to give up the fight and goes to mutilate his nephew as a warning to the Blacks. He does not have time to carry out his threat and dies poisoned (probably betrayed by his entourage). With the original main characters now all dead, the Dance of the Dragons comes to an end.

Lord Cregan Stark's forces then occupy the capital, and the nephew of the late king and son of Rhaenyra succeeds Aegon II as Aegon III. He married the young princess Jaehaera, daughter of Aegon II, thus reuniting the two fratricidal lines.