Aegon IV Targaryen

Aegon was born in King's Landing in 135 AC, the first son of the then-prince Viserys Targaryen and his Lyseni wife, Larra Rogare. His birth was welcomed at court, since it secured the succession beyond King Aegon III; Septon Bernard anointed him with the seven oils, the city's bells rang out, and a dragon's egg was placed in his cradle, as was the custom of his house. In Lys, his grandfather Lysandro Rogare declared a day of celebration.

A year and a half later his brother Aemon was born — tradition holds that Aegon climbed into the baby's cradle to strike him with his own dragon egg, though he did the boy no harm — and not long after, his sister Naerys. In 139 AC his mother returned to Lys, where she died six years later of unknown causes; Aegon, meanwhile, grew into a sturdy boy and, later, a handsome young man full of charm.

At fourteen, in 149 AC, Aegon took his first lover: Falena Stokeworth, ten years his senior. When a Kingsguard knight caught them together in 151, his father Viserys married Falena off to his own master-at-arms, Lucas Lothston, and had the king name him Lord of Harrenhal to remove her from court. The plan didn't fully work: for the next two years Aegon kept visiting Harrenhal often.

In 153 AC Viserys married Aegon to his sister, Princess Naerys, with the king's blessing. The marriage was never happy: Naerys got on far better with her other brother, Aemon, who knew how to make her laugh and treated her kindly. The two brothers argued at the wedding feast, and Naerys wept during the bedding. Their first son was born on the last day of that year.

According to Grand Maester Alford, a second pregnancy could kill Naerys, so she asked Aegon to annul their vows and let her become a septa: "I have done my duty by you and given you an heir. I beg you, let us live as brother and sister from now on." Aegon laughed at her — "That is what we are doing" — and made clear he would keep claiming his rights as a husband. By then he already had other lovers, among them Megette, whom he took from her blacksmith husband in 155 and returned to him three years later; in 161, Naerys gave birth to twins who did not survive.

Still a young prince, Aegon accompanied his cousin King Daeron I Targaryen on the conquest of Dorne; his brother Aemon, already a Kingsguard knight, went with them too. After the surrender of Sunspear, the king charged him with escorting the high-born Dornish hostages to King's Landing.

Among them was Cassella Vaith, whom Aegon took a fancy to and kept as his lover for several years, housing her in his own chambers. When the Dornish rebelled and killed Daeron I, it was decided the hostages would be executed; Aegon, already tired of her, did nothing to save her and returned her to the condemned group. King Baelor I ended up sparing their lives, and Cassella went back to Dorne, where she grew old convinced that Aegon would send for her one day.

When Baelor the Blessed inherited the throne, he dissolved his sister Daena's marriage and locked her away with her other sisters in the Maidenvault. Daena escaped three times, once with help from her cousin Aegon, and during one of those escapes she fell pregnant by him, though she never said whose child it was. In 170 AC she gave birth to a boy she named Daemon.

King Baelor starved to death during one of his religious fasts, and Daena and her sisters were passed over in the succession. Aegon's father, Viserys, became king then, but reigned only a year before dying; some historians suspect, without proof, that Aegon hastened his own path to the throne. In 172 AC Aegon was crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms.

As king, Aegon earned a reputation as one of the worst rulers in the history of Westeros; the nickname the Unworthy summed up his excesses and misrule. His conduct put the court at odds with his son Daeron and his brother Aemon, then Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Handsome and popular with women of every station, he kept as many as nine lovers and fathered numerous bastards; it was joked that his motto should be "Bathe her and bed her" instead of "Fire and Blood."

He filled his court with flatterers and thought nothing of stripping nobles of their inheritance when it suited him; on one occasion he traded a dragon's egg for a night with Lord Butterwell's three daughters. The one woman he couldn't seduce was his own wife, Naerys, whose goodness and frailty embodied everything he despised. When a knight named Morgil accused the queen of adultery and treason, it was Aemon who defended her honor in trial by combat and killed him; it later came out that Aegon himself had secretly stirred up that rumor.

Obsessed, like other Targaryens, with bringing dragons back to his house, he ordered seven mechanical dragons built of wood and iron, rigged to spit wildfire, meant for a new conquest of Dorne against his son Daeron's advice. The scheme failed quickly: one of the contraptions caught fire and burned away much of the Kingswood, and Aegon lost interest almost at once.

In 177 AC Aegon took notice of Bethany Bracken, the younger sister of a former lover, and brought her from Stone Hedge to King's Landing. By then the king had grown so fat that Bethany felt no attraction to him at all, and found comfort instead in the arms of Ser Terrence Toyne, a Kingsguard knight.

Aegon caught them together in 178 AC. Terrence was hacked apart piece by piece, and Bethany was forced to watch before dying herself. Terrence's brothers then tried to assassinate the king in revenge, and it was Aemon who, despite all the resentment between them, stepped in and gave his own life to save Aegon's.

A year later, in 179 AC, Naerys died in childbirth along with the baby she carried. Aegon did almost nothing to honor his brother's or his wife's memory; not long after, he began hinting at court that his own son Daeron might not be his.

In his final years, Aegon made moves that hinted at what was coming: he gave Blackfyre, the Valyrian steel sword traditionally carried by Targaryen kings since Aegon the Conqueror, to his bastard son Daemon when the boy turned twelve, and betrothed him to Rohanne, daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh, with an eye on the Tyroshi fleet for a future conquest of Dorne.

Aegon's reign ended in 184 AC in a horrifying way: he grew so obese he could no longer rise from his bed, his limbs rotting while he still lived. The maesters, who said they had never seen anything like it, gave him milk of the poppy so he could die without pain.

In his last moments he legitimized all his bastard children and placed them in the line of succession right behind Daeron: among them, Daemon, Aegor Rivers, Brynden Rivers, Mya Rivers, Gwenys Rivers, and Shiera Seastar. A few years after his death, Daemon would rise against his half-brother under the name Blackfyre, and his line would keep troubling House Targaryen for nearly a century.