Hey youtubers it's Charlie, since we just ended season 4 and a lot of you requested
more history stuff from the books I thought would be fun to talk about Aegon Targaryen
the first, Aegon the Conqueror.
So far in the books and on the show he's the most famous member of their house to ever
live.
Daenerys right now is kind of polarizing, love her or hate her, her destiny isn't fully
written yet.
So after all the books are done she might become the most famous member of house Targaryen.
If you're just finding me for the first time I'm doing game of thrones bonus videos in
the off season every Sunday.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything.
A lot of times the topics I pick are things that you guys suggest in the comments.
So if there's something you want to learn more about just let me know.
I'm also doing a special giveaway I'll explain at the end of this video.
So who is Aegon the 1st and why is he so much more important than the other thousands of
Targaryen's that followed him?
The answer is he's largely associated with The War Of Conquest, that's a span of time
when Aegon gave the Andal rulers of Westeros an ultimatum.
Bend the knee or you get the dragons.
That's why he's known as Aegon the Conqueror.
He conquered the Six Kingdoms and eventually Dorne was brought in too.
The iron throne is made from thousands of melted down swords of the andals he defeated.
On the show the throne is way smaller, so it's harder to tell.
Originally George RR Martin described the Iron Throne as being this big.
It's so huge because that's a lot of swords.
It's just not practical for television.
That's the cliff's notes.
But George RR Martin has recently published a lot more details about Aegon the first's
personal history, as well as their early days in the Seven Kingdoms right after they fled
the Valyrian Freehold up to the day he declared war on the Andals.
So starting off, about 12 years before the Doom of Valyria in 114 BC, Before Conquest,
Aenar Targaryen the head of the house at the time, moved everything of theirs to Dragonstone
after one of his daughters Daenys had a vision of the Doom.
When I say everything, he took all their dragons, wealth and servants.
If you've ever thought about events repeating themselves in Song of Ice and Fire, the eastern
continent around the Valyrian Freehold was known as the land of the Long Summer before
the Doom.
Right now on the show, the Long Summer is just now ending.
That's why you keep hearing, Winter is Coming.
It's a metaphor for the end of prosperity.
Unlike the Targaryen's very few characters are fleeing the current Lands of Summer, in
this case being Westeros.
Dragonstone had up to that point been the western most outpost of the Valyrian Freehold
and had served as a heavily defensible point where the Dragonlords of Valyria could control
Trade around Blackwater bay.
But now it became the permanent and only home of the Targaryens.
Five generations passed after the Doom before Aegon the Conqueror was born, so the House
lived at Dragonstone for about a 100 years before he came along.
His birth date is recorded as 27 BC, so he wasn't quite 30 before he began the War of
Conquest.
He was a middle child, his older sister was Visenya and his younger sister was Rhaenys.
Even though it was customary to marry brother to sister in Old Valyria, Aegon supposedly
also married his younger sister out of Lust and the older one out of responsibility.
At the time of Aegon's birth, they only had 3 dragons.
When they fled from Valyria to dragonstone, they had 5, but only Balerion the Black Dread
survived the trip.
So far none of the literature explains why the other four died.
Only that Balerion survived.
In the years between their landing and Aegon's birth, two more dragons had hatched, Vhagar
and Meraxes.
Aegon did spend time visiting Westeros before the conquest and if you've seen that epic
table Stannis uses at Dragonstone, the one carved in a perfect topographical map of the
Seven Kingdoms.
Aegon was the one who had that carved.
It's probably one of the most famous non-magical antiques in the seven kingdoms next to the
Iron Throne itself.
The start of the War of Conquest came when Argilac the Arrogant, ruler in the Stormlands
asked Aegon for help in suppressing Harren the Black, ruler of everything up north of
the Stormlands.
As you can imagine, he was building Harrenhal.
Supposedly it was so big it took over 40 years to complete.
Harren had been slowly taking land from the Argilac over the years until he contacted
Aegon and offered him his daughter in marriage and pretty much all of their land.
Aegon was already married to his sisters so he turned down the proposal and countered
by offering to help in exchange for all the land and the marriage of Argilac's daughter
to Aegon's childhood friend Orys Baratheon.
Now you're starting to see where House Baratheon came from.
They were born or elevated to Lordship during the War of Conquest.
After Arglic threw Aegon's proposal back in his face, he pulled a Reek thing where he
sent pieces of Aegon's messenger back to him in a box.
Aegon decided to make war on all the andal kings.
The way the calendars work on the show right now, BC Before Conquest and AL after landing
refer to when he first landed right here at the black rush.
The place where he would eventually build King's Landing.
That's generally regarded as the start date of the War, it took about two full years to
completely subdue 6 of the kingdoms, not including Dorne.
The Kings that he defeated included Torrhen Stark, King in the North.
Ronnel Arryn, King of the Vale, his mother was his regent like Cersei did for Joffrey
because he was a young boy, Harren Hoare, King of the Iron Islands and the Riverlands.
Lorren Lannister, King of the Westerlands, Mern IX Gardener, King of the Reach and Argilac
Durrendon, King of the Stormlands He didn't just march right in and defeat everyone
with sustaining heavy losses.
That's why the war took so long, and even then he couldn't defeat the Martells in Dorne.
By the end of the war some of the kings had honorably bent the knee like the Starks and
the Arryns and the rest were smashed or melted in battle, big dragons remember.
I don't think they mentioned it on the show, but the Kings who submitted and joined forces
with Aegon didn't get their swords melted down into the Iron Throne.
The Starks were one of those Houses.
So there is no Stark sword inside the Iron Throne.
However, as of Season 4 Episode 1, Tywin Lannister melted down Ned Stark's valyrian blade Ice.
Because he was silent during that scene it's hard to tell if he was thinking about that
historical fact.
That seems like something Tywin would think about even though it happened hundreds of
years before he was born.
Actually the Lannisters defeat during the War of Conquest was really cool.
Towards the end of the war before he marched on Dorne, Aegon met the Lannisters and the
Gardeners in battle, they had formed an alliance.
Instead of starting an all out ground assault, Aegon had the dragons set the whole field
of grass on fire, where the enemy army was.
They flipped their shit and surrendered.
It's a good example of sophisticated use of dragons in battle.
Rather than have the dragons crush everyone one by one, they just turned the heat up in
the oven.
Much more efficient.
Right now on the show I don't think Daenerys has the dragonlore to attempt something like
this, plus in the desert all the land has already been burnt to a crisp.
Aegon was eventually confirmed as King of the Seven Kingdoms in Oldtown, but he built
a new city, King's Landing around his fort overlooking Blackwater Bay.
It was called Aegonfort, but eventually Aegon moved back to dragonstone while the city continued
to be built and a better castle which would become the Red Keep.
The Red Keep is the name of the whole castle, including Maegor's Holdfast, the Queen's Ballroom,
the Maidenvault, the White Sword Tower, the Great Hall, Traitor's Walk and four different
levels of dungeons all the way down to the Black Cells.
That's the lowest area of the Dungeons where Tyrion was when Jaime helped him escape in
the finale.
We've seen most of the other areas on the show.
The White Sword Tower is where the Kingsguard stay, that was where Jaime and Cersei were
humping their brains out in the finale.
Aegon died about 37 years after his conquest, so he would have been in his mid 60s.
We don't know anything about how he died, but when his son Aenys the first took the
throne the church of the seven flipped out because it was a son born out of incest.
It led to the first Faith Militant Uprising.
That's the army of the church, it's just like a regular army, they just take orders from
the church.
Aenys mother was Rhaenys, Aegon's younger sister.
He was about 30 when he took the throne.
But that's a somewhat abridged version of Aegon the conqueror's history.
George RR Martin is publishing a book called World of Ice and Fire this fall, so hopefully
that will have new historical information to add to all this.
I'm not planning on doing a Q&A for this video just because Teen Wolf is starting tomorrow
night and I'm doing videos for it.
But I am going to start a new Game of Thrones Giveaway.
I'm going to be giving away copies of the books to one person per Game of Thrones video.
I'll just be picking winners randomly from the comments.
All you have to do to participate is be a subscriber and leave a comment on this video.
It's starting with this video right here.
I'll announce who the winner is when I post my next game of thrones video next Sunday.
I'll do that for the next 6 or seven weeks and see how it goes.
The prize will just be your choice of one of the books.
Either Kindle edition or paperback.
It's open to international people too so no worries.
Feel free to ask me any questions about Aegon or the giveaway.
Right now click here for my top 10 moments from season 4 and click here for my season
5 predictions.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tomorrow.
High Fives!