Aegon Targaryen

Aegon was born at Dragonstone, the younger son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. A comet was seen over King's Landing on the night he was conceived, and Rhaegar read it as a sign that his son would be "the prince who was promised," the figure of an old prophecy about the end of the world. Maester Aemon knew of Rhaegar's belief, though it isn't clear whether he shared it.

As a Targaryen, he had — according to semi-canonical sources — the look typical of the house, with the pale hair of dragon blood.

Aegon was still a baby of a few months when the war against his grandfather began. Before the Battle of the Trident, Aerys II held Elia Martell, Aegon, and his sister Rhaenys hostage in King's Landing, and reminded Prince Lewyn Martell of the Kingsguard of it without softening the blow, to bind his loyalty. Lewyn took command of ten thousand Dornishmen and died in the battle, as did Rhaegar.

After Rhaegar's death, Aerys became convinced the Dornishmen had betrayed him and refused to let Aegon, his mother, and his sister flee to Dragonstone with Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys. The three remained in the city as a guarantee of Dornish loyalty.

When Tywin Lannister's forces sacked King's Landing, Ser Jaime Lannister killed Aerys II in the throne room. Convinced his father would do the children no harm, he did nothing to stop Ser Gregor Clegane and Ser Amory Lorch from scaling the walls of Maegor's Holdfast and killing Aegon, Rhaenys, and Elia.

Tywin Lannister brought the bodies of Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys before King Robert Baratheon as a "token of my House's loyalty," wrapped in his guards' crimson cloaks to hide the blood. Aegon's skull was left a ruin that even Robert couldn't bear to look at; Ser Kevan Lannister would later recall that nothing was left of the boy but bone, brains, and blood, with a few strands of blond hair.

According to Eddard Stark, Tywin's men tore Aegon from his mother's breast and dashed his head against a wall; Prince Viserys later told this same story to his sister Daenerys, along with the plea for mercy Elia was said to have cried out as it happened. There were also rumors, which Eddard never heard repeated in front of Gregor Clegane, that Gregor himself killed Aegon and then raped and beheaded Elia; Tyrion Lannister would say it was common knowledge at Casterly Rock.

The deaths divided those who knew of them. Robert Baratheon felt relieved, and called the children "dragonspawn" when Eddard reminded him they were just babies; the quarrel between the two friends ended with Eddard riding south in fury. Ser Barristan Selmy, who never saw the bodies, was haunted by them all the same, and Thoros of Myr, who did see them, believes House Clegane was built on dead children. Daenerys, in exile, blames the "Usurper's dogs" of House Lannister and House Stark alike.

Years later, rumors still circulated in King's Landing that the slaughter of Rhaegar's children was one of House Lannister's great sins, and that the gods were punishing the whole city for it, as Jacelyn Bywater recorded.

In the House of the Undying, Daenerys Targaryen had a vision of Rhaegar and Elia with their newborn son: Rhaegar chooses the name Aegon, which he believes fitting for a king, and tells Elia the boy already has a song, "the song of ice and fire," though he insists there must be "one more," since "the dragon has three heads." Jorah Mormont later helped Daenerys identify the people in the vision, and noted that if Aegon was the prince who was promised, his death broke the promise.

In Meereen, Daenerys thinks of the Aegon who might have been: the sixth of that name to sit the Iron Throne, and perhaps someone she could have married, closer to her own age than her brother Viserys.

Aboard the Shy Maid, bound for Volantis, Tyrion Lannister meets a boy introduced as the son of the sellsword "Griff." In time he works out that "Griff" is really Jon Connington, and that the boy is not his son but Aegon Targaryen. "Young Griff" tells him his version of events over a game of cyvasse: the baby killed during the sack was actually a tanner's son, sold to Varys for a jar of Dornish Red after the mother died in childbirth; Varys is said to have switched the two infants, leaving the tanner's son with Elia and smuggling the "real" Aegon to safety.

When the news reaches King's Landing, King Tommen's small council declares him an impostor. Ser Kevan Lannister, who remembers Aegon from Aerys II's court, isn't so sure: he thinks of how unrecognizable that baby was, and wonders whether, after all, he might have survived.