Maekar I Targaryen was the youngest of King Daeron II Targaryen's four sons (Baelor, Aerys and Rhaegel Targaryen are his older brothers).
After the successive disappearance of many direct heirs to the crown, he ascended to the Iron Throne in the year 221. He succeeded his brother Aerys I Targaryen and became the fourteenth king of the Targaryen dynasty. His reign saw a period of relative peace between two Feunoyr rebellions marked by a very long summer of almost ten years followed by a very harsh winter.
Maekar had many children by his wife Dyanna Dayne, four sons, Daeron, Aerion, Aemon and Aegon, and two daughters, Daella and Rhae.
Maekar has a shady character and a fairly high propensity for anger. He is a hard, proud man, quick to judge and condemn, and his severity increases after the death of his elder brother, to whom he was close. However, if he did not attract only friends during his reign, he was an energetic king.
Like his brother Baelor Briselance, and unlike his other two elders, Aerys and Rhaegel, Maekar is a swordsman. He has a reputation as a formidable warrior, and is a prominent battle leader.
His responsibility for his brother's disappearance at the Cendregué Tournament has plagued him all his life, and when the throne falls to him, he is wont to say that it is his punishment for the unintentional death blow he dealt.
Maekar is a stern, powerfully built man with an impeccably trimmed beard of pale silver dotted with gold, but which does little to hide the pox scars that line his cheeks. When wearing his black dragon-clawed armor, he looks particularly fearsome. He wields a powerful studded mace.
When he takes the throne, he chooses to wear a new crown of red gold with black iron spikes, with warlike symbolism, and retains his personal emblem, four red dragons on a black field symbolizing that he is the fourth son of Daeron II Targaryen.
In 196, Prince Maekar distinguished himself in the first Feunoyr rebellion by leading the troops forming the "anvil" that defeated Daemon Feunoyr's forces at the Battle of Herberouge Field.
Around the year 207, he opposes his son Aemon's vocation to become a maester, deeming it a humiliating position. He was finally convinced by his father, King Daeron, to let his youngest son forge his chain at the Citadel, as the kingdom had many potential successors to the Iron Throne and "too many dragons is as dangerous as too few".
In the year 209, he was present at the Tournament of Cendregué, and participated in the Judgment of the Seven to defend the honor of his sons Daeron and Aerion, against Ser Duncan the Great. During this judicial duel, he is certainly the one who involuntarily hits his elder brother Baelor in the skull, which leads to his death.
His responsibility for the death of the crown prince has plagued him all his life, and since then he commemorates the fateful date of his brother's death every year.
Icone loupe.png See detailed article: Judgment of the Seven of Cendregué.
Aware of his son Aerion's fault, Maekar sends him into exile in the Free Cities. He also agreed to give his youngest son Aegon to Ser Duncan to serve as his squire, after offering him a place in his household, which Dunk refused.
On letting him go, Maekar gave his son a ring bearing his seal[6], and commanded him to serve his new master faithfully and without flinching, to obey and to carefully hide his identity by shaving his hair.
Following the Spring Plague of the same year, when his brother Aerys ascended the throne in the year 209 and appointed Brynden Rivers to the position of Hand of the King, Maekar left for his castle of Lestival, furious, feeling that he was a better choice for the leadership of the kingdom than "Freuxsanglant". He is then reputed to be angry with the king and his Hand.
In 219, when the third Feunoyr rebellion broke out, Prince Maekar led royal troops against the Feunoyr rebels, and again distinguished himself by his leadership.
