Your Guide to (Almost) Every Aegon and Viserys in the Targaryen Family Tree on ‘House of the Dragon'
Watching House of the Dragon is like reading a book, and sometimes I really wish I could flip to the end and look at a Targaryen family tree. Just when you think you’ve got it under control the show is like JK, six years have passed and there are six more kids. The opening theme really knows what’s up. While Game of Thrones was all about the map, House of the Dragon is all about who’s married to who and who has kids with who. Go ahead and bookmark this right now, because I’m going to explain the Targaryen family tree so you can have it on hand. Be warned: there are some minor and some potentially major spoilers for House of the Dragon ahead. I won’t tell you who dies, when they die, and how they died, but you could make an educated guess if you read too closely.
If you want to follow along with a visual aid, one of the more popular Targaryen family trees online is one made by artist poly-m on DeviantArt.
We don’t need to go through the whole, uber-complex tree. But let’s look at what came before House of the Dragon and what we see on House of the Dragon.
Aegon the Conquerer through the Dance of the Dragon
The first and arguably most important Aegon Targaryen, the one whose dream caused so much confusion on House of the Dragon, is Aegon I, also known as Aegon the Conquerer. He’s the one who brought the Targaryen family from Old Valyria and conquered Westeros. He married both of his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys.
Aegon also had a rumored half-brother named Orys Baratheon whose son and granddaughter married back into the Targaryen family. Further down the line, another Baratheon married Daenerys Targaryen’s great-aunt. That’s one reason why, just prior to the events of Game of Thrones, Robert Baratheon felt emboldened to rebel against the Targaryen dynasty and stage a coup. His house was one of the only ones with substantial ties to the throne and the realm accepted his claim, at first.
Aegon I and Visenya had a son called Maegor. Aegon I and Rhaenys had a son called Aenys, who married Alyssa Velaryon and had five kids of their own. Those five are named: Alysanne, Jaehaerys, Viserys, Aegon, and Rhaena. Aegon and Rhaena married each other and had two kids. Alysanne and Jaehaerys also married each other and had nine kids. Viserys, classic middle child, was left out.
Of Alisanne and Jaehaerys’ nine kids, the four most important are Aemon, Daella, Alyssa, and Baelon. Aemon married Jocelyn Baratheon (that’s the granddaughter I was talking about before) and had a daughter named Rhaenys.) Daella married a man from House Arryn and gave birth to a daughter named Aemma. Alyssa and Baelon married each other and had two sons, Daemon and another Viserys, who ended up marrying Aemma. You’ve met this Viserys and Aemma on House of the Dragon! Those are Princess Rhaenyra’s parents. You also know Rhaenys Targaryen from House of the Dragon. She married Corlys Velaryon, also known as the Sea Snake, and had two children with him. You also, obvs, know Daemon. We’re caught up.
The Dance of the Dragons
So as we know, King Viserys and Queen Aemma had one daughter, Rhaenyra. She married Rhaenys’s son Laenor Velaryon. They legally had three sons: Jaecarys “Jace” Velaryon, Lucerys “Luke” Velaryon, and Joffrey Velaryon. (The two were in a polyamorous open marriage and the children weren’t biologically Laenor’s, which causes a lot of drama on House of the Dragon.) After Laenor faked his death, Rhaenyra married her uncle Daemon and had two more sons, Aegon and Viserys, as well as a daughter named Visenya, who was stillborn. Daemon also has two daughters from a previous marriage with Laenor’s sister Laena, Rhaena and Baela.
Meanwhile, after Aemma’s death, King Viserys married his daughter’s BFF Alicent Hightower and had four more children: Aegon, Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron. We have not yet seen Daeron on House of the Dragon. Rumor has it he was born, grew up, and left to study abroad during the various time jumps. Aegon and Helaena are married to each other and will eventually have three children named Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor.
King Viserys is dead on House of the Dragon, so we only need to worry about one character named Viserys now. There are, however, multiple Aegons. To avoid confusion, the book that House of the Dragon is based on says we can refer to Alicent’s son Aegon as “Aegon the older” and Rhaenyra’s son Aegon as “Aegon the younger.”
His death starts a Targaryen civil war called the “Dance of the Dragon,” which takes a lot of casualties. Spoiler alert but it is Rhaenyra and Daemon’s kids who end up carrying on the legacy of House Targaryen all the way down to Daenerys and Jon Snow, which is still 160 years and at least seven generations away from anyone we’ve seen on House of the Dragon.
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