Aemon Targaryen

Aemon was born in King's Landing, the third son of Prince Maekar Targaryen and Lady Dyanna Dayne. His grandfather, King Daeron II, chose to name him after his great-uncle, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, son of Jaehaerys I.

As a boy he was studious and curious. Together with his younger brother Aegon — whom he nicknamed Egg — he liked to imagine their dragon eggs might one day hatch, and the two re-fought the battle of Redgrass Field with painted figures on Maester Melaquin's table.

At nine or ten, Daeron II sent him to the Citadel over his father's objections, fearful of leaving too many potential heirs at court. Aemon forged his chain and, once his training was done, served for a time in the household of a minor lord before Maekar, now king, called him and his brothers back to court.

Aemon turned down a seat on the Small Council, unwilling to push the Grand Maester aside, and chose instead to serve at Dragonstone alongside his elder brother Daeron, until Daeron died of syphilis caught from a prostitute.

When Maekar was killed in the Peake Uprising, a Great Council convened in 233 AC. Some lords, who thought Prince Aegon too much a 'commoner', proposed releasing Aemon from his vows so he could take the throne instead. Aemon refused, quietly, and let the crown pass to his younger brother, who reigned as Aegon V. Years later, Aegon's youngest daughter, Princess Rhaelle, would call him Uncle Maester.

Fearing he might be used in a plot to seize his brother Aegon V's throne, Aemon chose to go to the Wall and take the black. The king gave him an 'honor guard' assembled by emptying the dungeons; among them rode Brynden Rivers, who would one day become Lord Commander. Ser Duncan the Tall escorted the new recruits as far as Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

At the Wall, Aemon kept up a correspondence with his great-nephew Rhaegar. He used to say every man who takes the black tests his vows at least once; his own, he claimed, were tested three times — as a boy, as a grown man when he was offered the crown after his father's death, and as an old man, on learning that Robert's Rebellion had destroyed his house and left his kin dead or in exile. That last, he said, was the hardest to bear.

Aemon served as advisor to Lord Commander Jeor Mormont and as the castle's healer. When he met Tyrion Lannister, visiting the Wall, he greeted him with a line that left the dwarf speechless: 'a giant has come among us.'

Among the new recruits helping him with the ravens was Jon Snow, whom Aemon later backed, alongside Sam, in getting Samwell Tarly made a steward so the boy could escape Ser Alliser Thorne's brutal training.

When word reached Castle Black of the treason charge against Jon's father, Lord Eddard Stark, Aemon counseled him, aware the boy might be tempted to desert — as Aemon himself had been during Robert's Rebellion.

Aemon sent messages to Pycelle in King's Landing, but the Grand Maester never answered.

Aemon was already too old to join the Great Ranging Mormont led beyond the Wall, so he stayed behind at Castle Black. Writing and sending word from the expedition fell to his steward, Samwell Tarly.

It was around then that Lord Mormont told Jon much of Aemon's history, including that he could have been king and turned the crown down. Mormont held him in great esteem — a regard Jon would come to share.

When Jon came back to the castle badly wounded by an arrow, Aemon, blind as he was, treated the injury with steady hands. Later, before Janos Slynt and Ser Alliser Thorne, who wanted him executed as a deserter, he spoke in Jon's defense and helped save his life.

When King Stannis Baratheon occupied the Wall, Aemon remained skeptical both of the sword Lightbringer and of Melisandre's claim that Stannis was Azor Ahai reborn.

Jon Snow, now Lord Commander, sent Aemon to Oldtown along with Samwell Tarly, Dareon, and the wildling Gilly, who carried Mance Rayder's infant son. The order was meant to put all 'royal blood' beyond Melisandre's reach, and Jon feared she might kill Aemon for his own 'king's blood.'

The voyage proved too hard for a man his age. Aemon fell ill at sea, and by the time they reached Braavos he had worsened so much that they could not sail on to Oldtown. His mind kept drifting back to his youth, and he grew fixed on a story about dragons that Daeron told him.

A sailor named Xhondo Dhoru told him of dragons seen in Qarth, and hearing of Daenerys Targaryen convinced Aemon she was the prince that was promised, since the Valyrian word carries no fixed gender. He asked that Sam speak for him at the Citadel, so a maester might be sent to advise her. He died during the crossing, aboard the Cinnamon Wind. With no way to bury him at sea, his body was kept in a cask of rum to be burned at Oldtown. According to Alleras, a Citadel novice, Aemon was by then the oldest living man in Westeros.

Samwell Tarly spoke a short prayer for him aboard the ship, calling him, in his own words, 'a good man' and 'a great man' who, though he might have been king, asked that the crown go to his brother instead.