House Targaryen

Aenys I Targaryen

Life: 7 AC
House: Targaryen

A gentle king tested by rebellion from his first year on the throne — the chronicle keeps the ending of his reign veiled for readers not yet there.

Aenys Targaryen was Aegon the Conqueror's first son by Queen Rhaenys, born small, sickly, and slow to thrive in a family that measured its children largely by how soon they could sit a dragon — a test Aenys reportedly failed until a hatchling of his own, gifted young, finally gave the frail boy something to grow into. He succeeded his father in 37 AC already carrying a reputation for gentleness the Seven Kingdoms did not, in that raw and recently conquered decade, much reward in a king; where Aegon had ruled through the plain fact of three dragons and an army no one could match, Aenys inherited neither his father's menace nor, apparently, much of his father's political instinct.

The arc of Aenys I Targaryen

This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.

Aenys's reign was rebellion almost from the start: four separate uprisings in his first year alone, the worst of them fed by the Faith Militant's outrage at Targaryen incest and excess, tested a young kingdom that had never had to survive a weak king before. He never fully regained control of the realm his father had conquered, and died in 42 AC amid suspicion that his own aunt Visenya — never his ally, and openly contemptuous of his fitness to rule — had a hand in ending a reign she had long considered an embarrassment to the line. His death opened the throne to his brother Maegor, whose rule the realm would come to remember far less fondly than Aenys's own gentler, weaker one.

Where the books leave Aenys I Targaryen: died in 42 AC after five turbulent years on the throne, suddenly enough that some at court suspected poison — his aunt Visenya was named in the whispers, though the Citadel records no proof beyond the whispering itself

These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.

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Who is Aenys I Targaryen?

The second Targaryen king, son of Aegon the Conqueror, whose gentle and indecisive reign was consumed by rebellions the realm had not faced under his father.

Is Aenys I Targaryen alive?

No — the chronicle need only say that his five turbulent years on the throne ended suddenly; the particulars are treated in his veiled record.