11 Years Later, House of the Dragon Finally Fixed Game of Thrones’ Most Brutal Targaryen Myth

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The story of Game of Thrones started and finished with House Stark, but many groups were vying for power. These included the great Houses of Westeros and Daenerys Targaryen’s efforts to build a new dynasty in Essos. Ultimately, the series could be seen as the Targaryen family’s final attempt to reclaim their power, but it ended in ruin under Daenerys’ rule. Many viewers felt the show’s disappointing ending was caused by Daenerys’ sudden and unexpected change in character, which they saw as another example of the legendary ‘Targaryen Madness’.

Throughout the series, there were clues suggesting Daenerys would ultimately fall from grace, shaping the direction of her story. Game of Thrones consistently portrayed the Targaryen family as ambitious and often cruel rulers, prone to instability – and Daenerys’ choices seemed to confirm this pattern. However, the show also presented a complex and surprisingly fragile family dynamic, demonstrating that the Targaryens were more than just destined for madness.

House Targaryen’s Power Waned Over the Centuries

The Targaryen family originally came from Old Valyria and settled in Westeros thanks to the prophetic dreams of Daenys the Dreamer, who predicted a looming disaster. While they spent a century on the new continent, their fortunes didn’t improve much until Aegon I Targaryen rose to power. Aegon’s Conquest dramatically changed Westeros, uniting many groups that had been fighting for centuries. With the help of his three dragons and his two sister-wives, Aegon quickly conquered the continent and brought its most powerful houses under his control.

With the help of their dragons – Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes – Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya conquered six of the Seven Kingdoms, leaving only Dorne unconquered. They skillfully combined powerful military force with clever negotiations, ensuring that important houses like Lannister, Stark, and Tyrell maintained their influence. This led to the unification of Westeros under the Targaryen banner – the three-headed red dragon – for the first time.

Balerion the Black Dread created the Iron Throne by melting down the swords of Aegon’s defeated enemies, and only House Targaryen could hold onto the power it represented. During Aegon’s rule, the city of King’s Landing was built, but his later kings weren’t as capable. Aegon’s son, Aenys I, was largely unremarkable, while his half-brother, Maegor I, ruled through fear. Westeros didn’t experience a lasting period of peace until much later.

Whether a king was cruel like Maegor or peaceful like Jaehaerys, Westeros remained under Targaryen rule for one simple reason: their dragons. With the dragons of Old Valyria gone, the Targaryens had to continue breeding the few they had left. While breeding dragons from a limited bloodline was always risky, the Targaryens didn’t face major problems because of it for hundreds of years.

Although dragons helped House Targaryen stay in power for a long time, they faced another significant challenge. Very few people carried the ancient Valyrian bloodline, and they risked being outnumbered and eventually fading away as the larger, native Westerosi population grew. Furthermore, the Targaryens, with their unique heritage, might have been reluctant to allow others to share in their ancestry. However, maintaining a “pure” bloodline proved far more difficult than conquering a kingdom.

It was common for the great Houses of Westeros to marry into each other, but the Targaryens often practiced marriage between family members. Just like inbreeding weakened their dragons, this practice actually lessened the strength of the Targaryen bloodline. Aegon’s sons were born to his sisters, and many subsequent kings married women who carried Targaryen ancestry. While Rhaenyra Targaryen was three-quarters Targaryen, her sons, who would later become kings, were almost 90% Targaryen due to being fathered by Daemon.

As a long-time watcher of the Targaryen dynasty, I’ve always found it fascinating how they almost avoided their family’s… issues. After the Dance of Dragons, there was a really smart move to marry outside the immediate family – into houses like Rogare, Martell, and others all over Westeros. For generations, every king had a mother from a different part of the realm, which seemed to dilute any negative effects of generations of Targaryen marriage. But then came Jaehaerys II, who unfortunately married his sister, Shaera. And that’s where things went horribly wrong. Centuries of carefully mixed bloodlines were essentially undone, and their son, Aerys II – the future Mad King – slowly descended into madness throughout his reign. It’s a tragic illustration of how easily good intentions can be derailed, and how deeply ingrained family history can be.

The Mad King’s cruel rule devastated Westeros, causing the deaths of many people because Aerys II refused to listen to advice. The people of the continent were relieved when he was overthrown, happy to be free from the Targaryen family. Aerys’ decision to marry his sister quickly destroyed the reputation of his entire line, making them seem unstable and dangerous.

The Targaryen Line Became Associated with Incest & Madness

Despite being known for his deep religious devotion and genuinely caring for his people, King Baelor the Blessed shared a strange trait with other Targaryens: signs of instability. This was a significant change from the typical, aggressive nature of House Targaryen, as seen in the failed Dornish invasion led by the young Daeron I. Interestingly, both rulers, though vastly different, demonstrated a kind of madness through their extreme personalities.

As George R.R. Martin observed, the difference between genius and insanity can be very subtle, and how things appear is often more important than reality. In the world of Game of Thrones, the Targaryen Dynasty suffered a terrible reputation because of the increasingly erratic and destructive behavior of King Aerys II. The show largely presents the story from the perspective of those who survived Aerys’ reign, which is why many characters were skeptical of Daenerys Targaryen’s ability to be a good ruler.

Throughout the story, characters frequently mention “Targaryen Madness,” either hinting at it or speaking about it directly. Illyrio Mopatis simply notes that Viserys clearly inherited his father Aerys’ instability. Ser Barristan Selmy tells Daenerys that King Jaehaerys II believed each Targaryen birth was a gamble, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. A shorter version of this idea is also used by others, reinforcing the already existing and understandable concerns about House Targaryen.

Daenerys Targaryen was frequently the target of jokes about incest, a particularly cruel irony given her own birth from a brother-sister marriage. Several characters, including Prince Quentyn Martell and Lord Mace Tyrell, voiced their suspicion that she might share the same mental instability as her father, suggesting a hereditary flaw. Ironically, despite her potential to reshape the world, Daenerys ultimately confirmed their fears by displaying signs of what appeared to be the Targaryen family’s tendency toward madness, though in a unique way in the television series Game of Thrones.

House of the Dragon Paints a Layered Picture of House Targaryen

While Game of Thrones often highlighted the horrors of the Mad King, Prince Viserys ultimately did more to damage the reputation of House Targaryen. He was incredibly arrogant and firmly believed he deserved the throne, regardless of who got hurt. After arranging a marriage between his sister and Khal Drogo, Viserys became increasingly unhinged as his plans failed. It’s hardly surprising someone would act so disrespectfully towards the Dothraki; he was clearly losing his grip on reality. Daenerys simply continued a destructive pattern started by her brother.

The idea that a single weakness caused the Targaryens’ downfall has long lingered. However, House of the Dragon challenges this notion. The show argues the Targaryens weren’t undone by one flaw, but by many, making them more compelling characters. Unlike the destiny-driven arc of Daenerys in Game of Thrones, the prequel focuses primarily on the intricate relationships and power struggles within House Targaryen itself.

As we discussed, the events known as the Dance of Dragons moved the family away from inbreeding, and House of the Dragon touches on this history without making it the main focus. The series doesn’t depict the family as solely focused on incest; it explores a wide range of feelings and relationships. However, the true strength of the show comes from its title – the dragons are just as important as the family, and their decline will mirror the Targaryens’ own downfall.

The first two seasons of House of the Dragon reveal that the Targaryen dynasty wasn’t destroyed by the supposed madness of Daenerys. Instead, the show demonstrates that the real cause of their decline was the devastating civil war between the factions known as the Blacks and the Greens – a conflict from which they never truly recovered.

As a huge history buff – and a fantasy one, naturally – I’ve always found it interesting how quickly things changed after Rhaenyra and Aerys II were gone. It’s like the whole ‘fire and blood’ vibe that defined the Targaryens just… faded. They’d pretty much exhausted all the drama and conflict, so the years that followed just didn’t feel like a Targaryen era anymore.

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2025-11-22 21:12