In Season 6 of Game of Thrones – and hopefully soon in the books – Daenerys Targaryen sails
west, hoping to take the Throne of Westeros. She brings with her an army, and a navy, and
three dragons – but her war won’t be easy. If Dany’s to succeed in her conquest, she
should take some lessons from Game of Thrones history – because this is actually the second
time a Targaryen has invaded Westeros from the east with three dragons. The first time
was three hundred years ago, in the Conquest of Aegon Targaryen.
So before Tommen and Joffrey and Robert Baratheon, the King of Westeros was Aerys Targaryen,
the father of Daenerys and Viserys. Before Aerys was a dozen generations of Targaryen
kings, a dynasty of three centuries, which was founded by Aegon Targaryen. Aegon’s
family originally came from Valyria, the empire of the dragonlords, but it blew up – which
is kind of its own story. The Targaryens escaped this Doom and settled on Dragonstone, an island
just off Westeros, and for generations they stayed there, trading in the Narrow Sea , and
meddling in eastern politics, but when Aegon became Lord of Dragonstone, his interest was
Westeros . Westeros, at the time, was divided into seven
Kingdoms – the north was ruled by King Torrhen Stark, the Vale by Queen Regent Sharra Arryn
for her young son Ronnel, the Iron Islands and the riverlands ruled by King Harren Hoare,
the westerlands ruled by King Loren Lannister, the Reach by King Mern Gardener, the stormlands
by King Argilac Durrandon, and Dorne by Princess Meria Martell. These kingdoms had been fighting
one another for centuries, but the way Aegon saw it, Westeros was “One realm, for one
king to rule alone” . He was to be that king – so he planned an invasion.
We don’t know much about Aegon as a person. He was a great warrior and leader, but also
an “enigma” – reserved, with few friends . His closest companions were his sisters
– who were also his wives, cause the Targaryens really love incest – Visenya and Rhaenys.
Visenya was a skilled warrior, stern and serious , while Rhaenys was more playful and impulsive,
a lover of music and dancing . There was also Orys Baratheon, Aegon’s friend and possibly
his bastard half-brother . The Targaryens had alliances with Houses Bar Emmon, Celtigar,
Massey and Velaryon , all minor houses that were based nearby to Dragonstone. And the
Targaryens also had dragons – Visenya rode a dragon called Vhagar, Rhaenys rode a dragon
called Meraxes, and Aegon rode a monster called Balerion, the Black Dread, a dragon so huge
“that whole towns were swallowed up” in the shadow of his wings when he passed over
them . After the destruction of Valyria, these three were the only dragons known to exist
in the world. So that was team Targaryen at the beginning of the Conquest – Aegon, his
sisters, and their three dragons, Orys Baratheon, the Bar Emmons, Celtigars, Masseys and Velaryons.
They raised a small army and landed on Westeros. At the place where they landed, the mouth
of the Blackwater river, Aegon built a small fort, the Aegonfort. Rhaenys and Visenya went
and took over the nearby small castles of Stokeworth and Rosby – which was pretty
easy because they had dragons. The lords of Duskendale and Maidenpool gathered an army,
and marched on Aegon with three thousand men, but Aegon easily destroyed them with his dragon
– if you pay close attention you might start to see a pattern here. Then back at the Aegonfort,
they had a ceremony where Aegon let his defeated enemies keep their old lands and positions
– so long as they joined his side. Visenya crowned Aegon, Rhaenys named him King of Westeros,
and they unfurled a Targaryen banner – a red three-headed dragon on black silk. The
Targaryens and their Valyrian ancestors didn’t have a tradition of heraldry, but Aegon used
this Westerosi custom as way of showing he was one of them. When the lords saw Aegon’s
banner, they took at as a sign that he was a worthy high king for Westeros . But there
was still some conquering left to do. One of Aegon’s first moves was to send a
fleet of ships led by Daemon Velaryon to attack Gulltown and the Vale of Arryn. The Arryns
got a fleet together and managed to beat the Targaryens, sinking a third of their ships,
and killing Daemon Velaryon. But in response, Visenya came and burned the Vale’s fleet
with her dragon, Vhagar. This kinda sets the tone for the rest of the Conquest – sometimes
the Targaryens did get beat, but never for long, because in the end, “Aegon’s enemies
had no answer for his dragons” . Well, except for Dorne – but we’re getting ahead of
ourselves. Aegon marched on to his first real challenge
– King Harren Hoare. House Hoare was originally from the Iron Islands, but they came to rule
the riverlands as well. Harren was called “the Black”, and was legendary for his
cruelty . He built a tremendous castle called Harrenhal, and made the riverlanders pay for
it , plundering from the local lords, and working thousands of people to death . As
Aegon approached Harrenhal with his army, he was attacked by Harren’s men twice. In
the second battle, two of Harren’s sons managed to sneak up and kill a bunch of Aegon’s
men in the night, but in the morning, Aegon burned Harren’s sons with his dragon as
they tried to escape across a lake. Harren tried to rally the riverlords to help him
fight, but instead, they rose up against him, under the leadership of a Lord Edmyn Tully
. Suddenly outnumbered, Harren retreated to his castle. When Aegon came, he offered Harren
peace, said if he gave up, he’d let him go home to the Iron Islands. He said he had
eight thousand men outside Harren’s walls. Harren said what’s outside of his walls
if of no concern, because his walls are strong and thick. Aegon said but I have dragons,
dragons fly. Harren said stone doesn’t burn. So Aegon said when the sun sets your line
shall end. When night fell, Aegon descended on Harrenhal with his dragon, bathing its
towers in fire until they began to melt like candles – everything inside was caught on
fire – wood and wool, hemp and straw, and all of Harren’s men. The greatest castle
in Westeros was made a ruin that night, and Harren died along with his entire line. In
the morning, the riverlords pledged their allegiance to Aegon, and Edmyn Tully was named
Lord Paramount of the Trident – the ancestor of Hoster, Brynden, Catelyn, Lysa and Edmure.
As for Harrenhal, its twisted melted ruins are now believed to be cursed – almost every
character who holds Harrenhal in the main story so far has ended up violently murdered
one way or another – Littlefinger and Roose Bolton in the books are two of the only ones
to survive – so far. But yeah, Aegon defeated Harren Hoare and took the riverlands. The
Iron Islands Aegon kind of ignored for a few years, but later he came and sorted them out
and allowed them to pick their own leader. They chose Vickon Greyjoy – ancestor of
Balon, Euron, Aeron, Asha – or Yara – and Theon.
While Aegon took the riverlands, Rhaenys and Orys went to take the stormlands. On their
way to the castle of Storm’s End, they were ambushed by Argilac’s men, who killed a
thousand Targaryen soldiers before melting back into the forests. So Rhaenys burned the
forests, killed the men, and kept on marching. By now, King Argilac had heard what had happened
to Harren, so he decided to leave his castle and attack the Targaryens in the field. From
dragonback Rhaenys saw them coming, so she and Orys and the Targaryen army dug in and
waited for them come. Right on cue, a huge, dramatic storm began, a steady rain became
a howling gale, setting the stage for a massive battle later called the Last Storm. Because
of the storm, Rhaenys’ dragon Meraxes couldn’t fly, so the battle was actually a pretty fair
fight. It raged well into the night , with Argilac charging the Targaryens with cavalry
and spearmen, until finally he broke though to his enemies’ centre, and was faced with
Rhaenys and Meraxes. The dragon burned Argilac’s best men and scattered his cavalry, and Argilac
was killed in single combat with Orys Baratheon. The battle ended, and after a brief resistance
by Argilac’s daughter, Argella, the stormlands were won for Aegon. Orys married Argella,
and took the Durrandon castle, sigil and house words for his own – and so the house Baratheon
was founded , ancestors of Robert, Stannis, Renly, and don’t forget, Robert’s bastard
Gendry. On the other side of Westeros, the Kings of
the westerlands and the reach – Loren Lannister and Mern Gardener – decided that enough
was enough . They raised the biggest army ever seen in Westeros, over fifty thousand
strong, and marched on the Targaryens. Aegon, with his much smaller army, came to meet them,
and they clashed in a field of wheat and grass, which Aegon noted was very dry, it hadn’t
rained in while. The battle began, blokes started killing blokes but then the Targaryens
activated their trap card – which was– it was– it was their dragons. Rhaenys and
Visenya started big fires to the sides and behind the enemy, trapping them, while Balerion
filled the enemy lines with flame and smoke. Thousands of men were burned alive in what
was later called the Field of Fire . King Loren Lannister managed to escape. He surrendered
to Aegon, and was made Warden of the West, ancestor to Tywin, Tyrion, Cersei, and Jaime.
But King Mern and his family were all wiped out, ending House Gardener, who had ruled
the reach for thousands of years. Control of the reach then fell to Harlen of House
Tyrell, who had served the Gardeners as stewards for many years. Harlen immediately surrendered
to Aegon, and so was given dominion over the reach as Aegon’s Warden of the South . Interestingly,
it’s implied, at least in the Blu-ray features for the show, that it was the Tyrells' idea
for the Gardeners to go get themselves killed so that the Tyrells could take over – these
schemers are ancestors of Margaery, Mace and Loras.
After the reach and westerlands were conquered, Aegon heard the northmen were on the march,
so he rushed up with all his army to meet King Torrhen Stark. Torrhen had a pretty big
army, with thirty thousand northmen, but he saw that Aegon’s was bigger, a huge host
of riverlanders, stormlanders, westerlanders, reachmen, everyone he had conquered and won
over to his side. Torrhen saw Aegon’s dragons, and heard how they burned thousands on the
Field of Fire, and at Harrenhal. And Torrhen thought – do we really wanna fight these
guys? Some of his bannermen wanted to attack, others wanted to fall back to Moat Cailin,
Torrhen’s “bastard brother Brandon Snow offered to” sneak into Aegon’s camp and
kill his dragons. But in the end Torrhen decided to make peace. He knelt, gave up his crown,
and swore the north to Aegon. Forever after Torrhen was known as the King Who Knelt, and
his Stark descendants were no longer Kings of Winter, but only Wardens of the North.
Some northmen were angry that their king would surrender, but it’s hard to deny Torrhen
saved the north from a war they probably wouldn’t have won. Still – this Brandon Snow thing
is interesting. Torrhen’s brother offered to “cross the Trident alone under cover
of darkness, to slay [Aegon’s] dragons [while] they slept”. Was this guy brave or stupid?
Did he have a plan to kill these dragons? There is a bit in Dance that could give a
hint of what Brandon was thinking. Bran Stark has a vision of the distant past where he
sees a pale, fierce youth in the Winterfell godswood, slicing three branches of weirwood
off the heart tree and shaping them into arrows. Some fans believe that that youth is Brandon
Snow, and speculate that those three weirwood arrows could have had some power to kill Aegon’s
three dragons – weirwood is linked to the magic of the old gods and the children of
the forest. So, there isn’t much to go on here, but it is an interesting possibility
– maybe dragon-killing weirwood arrows will come back into the story at some point.
In the Vale, Queen Regent Sharra Arryn had just seen five of Westeros’ seven kingdoms
fall to Aegon – so she raised her defences. She put a strong army at the Bloody Gate,
and garrisons all up the Eyrie – the reputedly impregnable castle of the Arryn Kings . But
all her defences turned out to be useless when Visenya flew over them on dragonback,
easily landing in the Eyrie’s inner courtyard . When Queen Sharra ran out to face her with
her guards, she found her son Ronnel sitting on Visenya’s knee, asking for a ride on
the dragon. In the end, Sharra and Visenya had a nice chat, Ronnel got a ride on a dragon,
and when he landed, he was no longer a little king, but a little lord . The Vale yielded
to Aegon, and joined his realm. After the Vale, there was one kingdom left
to conquer. Rhaenys mounted her dragon Meraxes, and flew out to the sands of Dorne. She came
to the castle of Vaith, and flew down to take it, but it was empty – none of the lords
or guards were there, and the peasants wouldn’t say where they went. So Rhaenys flew onto
Godsgrace, then Planky Town, but could find only women and children. Finally she came
to Sunspear, home of the Martell Princes of Dorne, and found it too abandoned except for
the Princess of Dorne herself, Meria Martell. Meria was old and fat and blind – some called
her the “Yellow Toad of Dorne” – but she was still very sharp. Meria told Rhaenys
that she wouldn’t fight, but she wouldn’t kneel – that the Martell house words are
“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”. She said that Dorne has no king, that Rhaenys isn’t
wanted in Dorne, to return at her peril. So, Rhaenys left – “and Dorne remained unconquered”.
Rhaenys did come back in another Targaryen attack ten years later, and when she did,
Rhaenys was killed. A scorpion bolt pierced Meraxes’ eye, and the dragon and the queen
fell from the sky . Every time the Targaryens tried to take Dorne, Dorne beat them, by using
these guerilla tactics. Whenever the dragons came, the Dornish wouldn’t line up to be
roasted like at the Field of Fire, they would “vanish”. Melt away, leaving “only stone
and sand for them to burn” , emerging when it was safe to kill their enemies from the
shadows. It wasn’t til over a hundred years later that Dorne finally joined the Seven
Kingdoms, and even then it wasn’t by conquest but by diplomacy and marriage – Dorne joined
Westeros on their own terms – an attitude upheld by some of Meria’s ancestors – including
Oberyn, Doran, Elia and Trystane. So Aegon failed to conquer Dorne, but six
out of seven kingdoms ain't bad. He came to Oldtown, the biggest city in Westeros, and
the centre of the Faith of the Seven , which is like the Catholic Church of Game of Thrones.
The High Septon, kind of the Pope, had spent seven days and seven nights praying to the
gods for advice on Aegon, and eventually he decided that he would not fight the guy with
the dragons who just conquered most of the country, but would declare him the rightful
ruler. So the Septon “anointed Aegon with … seven oils, placed a crown upon his head,
and proclaimed him Aegon of House Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals,
the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm”
. Aegon decided to rule his great new realm from the new town that was growing round the
Aegonfort, which eventually would become the city of King’s Landing. Aegon made a throne
out of the swords of his defeated enemies, the Iron Throne, which looks way cooler in
the books. So that is how Aegon conquered Westeros – what
can Daenerys learn from this? The first, most obvious lesson is that her most valuable assets
are her dragons. She can use them to destroy enemy castles and armies and fleets, to control
battlefields, to scout ahead, to intimidate – they’ll probably be very useful against
the white walkers – but Dany will also have to protect her dragons – they can be killed.
As Rhaenys learned in Dorne, a scorpion bolt can kill one . And historically they’ve
also been killed by arrows, even by mobs of angry peasants, if they get trapped indoors
. There might also be the risk of somehow losing control of one of her dragons. In the
books, Euron Greyjoy has a magic horn that he claims can “bind dragons to [his] will”
. There’s also speculation that Bran or the Night King could do some skinchanging
magic shenanigans to take one of Dany’s dragons, just like Bran wargs Hodor, and the
walkers control wights. Basically, there’re a lot of things that could go wrong with the
dragons, and honestly, Dany’ll probably lose at least one of them somehow – the
story’d be boring if she just easily won with them, right? Also, Dany should watch
out for guerrilla tactics like the Targaryens faced in Dorne. She’s already come up against
this sort of thing with the Sons of the Harpy in Meereen, who hide in the day, and strike
at night , and Dany wasn’t much good at dealing with these guys. The basic problem
is that dragons are great at killing your enemies, but only if you know who your enemies
are and where your enemies are. And sadly, in the game of thrones, things aren’t always
so straightforward. Something else Dany might wanna think about
is political and cultural legitimacy. Aegon was really smart in using symbols and traditions
that showed he’d be a worthy ruler, that he would rule not as some Valyrian foreign
overlord, but as a Westerosi king. He used Westerosi heraldry, he was anointed by the
leader of Westerosi religion, and he built a huge visible tangible symbol of his political
power in the Iron Throne, using the actual swords of his enemies to embody his right
of conquest. All these things contributed to Aegon’s legitimacy in the eyes of the
people he ruled, to make him the sort of leader that people were happy to follow. Dany should
consider this stuff too. She’s spent almost all her life far from Westeros, and she leads
a mostly foreign army – so there’s a risk that people will see her not as a rightful
queen, but as a foreign conqueror. One easy way to improve this is to remind everyone,
as she often does, that she is the blood of Valyria, a descendent of Aegon , and the inheritor
of his dynasty. She might not wanna remind people, however, that her father was the notoriously
cruel and crazy “Mad King”, who Robert fought a rebellion to usurp. So – might
wanna be sensitive there. Another interesting issue for Dany is religion. Dany seems to
have no interest in the Faith of the Seven, and besides, the High Septon just got blown
up in the show, so the Faith’s probably in disarray anyway. But Dany is making connections
to the Red God, the Lord of Light, she’s rubbing shoulders with red priests, who claim
she’s Azor Ahai. This might help get her support in Essos, but most Westerosi don’t
follow the Red God, so this could actually work against her – she’ll wanna be careful
there. Finally, part of what made Aegon successful
was that he didn’t just destroy all his enemies with dragonfire. He always offered
mercy – so long as foes bent the knee, he’d even let them keep their lands and titles
. Aegon turned his enemies into allies, Robert Baratheon did the same thing. But will Daenerys
be so merciful? She’s been pretty burny lately , more fire and blood than peace and
diplomacy . In the show she talks about “breaking the wheel”, destroying the great houses
of Westeros rather than winning them to her side. “Aegon the Conqueror brought fire
and blood to Westeros, but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice”. Will
Dany do the same? Or will she bring only “death and ruin”? We’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks for watching! A lot of these beautiful illustrations, and most of the information
are from The World of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's book about the history and
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