Maegor Targaryen took the crown from his own brother's line by force in 42 AC, after King Aenys I's sudden and conveniently timed death, and ruled the Seven Kingdoms for six years with a brutality the Citadel does not soften in the retelling: executions without trial, a Faith Militant crushed with a thoroughness that cost the realm decades of resentment, and — by the more sensational accounts, which the Citadel repeats without fully endorsing — the builders and masons who raised the Red Keep's secret passages killed to keep those secrets his alone. He took wife after wife, some six in all by the more generous counts, in defiance of both law and custom, and treated the ones who displeased him with a cruelty that gave his epithet no real competition.
Maegor I Targaryen
the Cruel
- Life
- 12 AC
- House
- Targaryen
- Titles
- King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men · Lord of the Seven Kingdoms
- Allegiance
- House Targaryen
- Seat
- King's Landing (the Red Keep)
- Culture
- Valyrian (Targaryen)
- Religion
- The Faith of the Seven — his reign's chief adversary rather than his own devotion
- Weapon
- Blackfyre (Valyrian steel, the ancestral sword of House Targaryen)
- Notable for
- A six-year reign of executions and forced marriages, remembered as the cruelest in Targaryen history
A king remembered for a reign of open cruelty — the chronicle keeps how it ended veiled for readers not yet there.
Key events
- 12 ACBorn into House Targaryen, son of Aegon the Conqueror.
- 42 ACTakes the crown from his brother Aenys I's line by force, after Aenys's sudden and conveniently timed death.
- 42-48 ACRules the Seven Kingdoms for six years through executions without trial and the brutal crushing of the Faith Militant.
- 42-48 ACTakes six wives in all by the more generous counts, in open defiance of both law and custom.
- 48 ACFaces open rebellion, raised in his nephew Jaehaerys's name by lords no longer willing to tolerate his cruelty.
- 48 ACFound dead on the Iron Throne itself, his wrists cut on the throne's own blades, before the rebel army ever reaches him.
Reading the character
Maegor I is the Targaryen dynasty's cautionary tale about what naked force can and can't sustain. His six-year reign is remembered, without much dissent even from chroniclers otherwise inclined to defend the family, as the cruelest of any Targaryen king's — a rule built almost entirely on fear, with none of the institution-building or coalition-tending that keeps his successor Jaehaerys's much longer reign so fondly remembered by comparison.
His death is one of Fire & Blood's genuine unsolved mysteries, and the ambiguity feels almost thematically apt: a king who ruled through absolute, unaccountable power dies alone, with no one able to say for certain whether it was his own hand, his enemies', or the throne he'd terrorized the realm from that finally turned on him.
The arc of Maegor I Targaryen
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
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.
Explore further
House
Who is Maegor I Targaryen?
A Targaryen king remembered for a brutal six-year reign of executions, forced marriages, and open war against the Faith Militant.
Is Maegor I Targaryen alive?
No — the chronicle need only say that his cruel reign ended in circumstances the histories never fully agreed on; the particulars are treated in his veiled record.