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 cultures and locations of the world of Game
of Thrones. If you'd like to check out the book, there's a link to buy it below, which
helps support this channel at no extra cost to you. Thanks to Something Like A Lawyer
and BryndenBFish of Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire for helping out with this video script
– you can find some amazing in-depth Game of Thrones analysis at their blog – there’s
a link below. Thanks also to the Patrons supporting this channel on Patreon, including Barth Tarth,
PsycoticOyster, Erica Campbell, Anna Jarzab, Cam Lewis, mamaQB, Scott Detterman, Bruno
Johnson, ForTheWatch and Ricky. Cheers.
