House Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen

One-Eye

Life: 110 AC
House: Targaryen
Titles: Prince · Protector of the Realm (regent for Aegon II)
Allegiance: House Targaryen — the Greens
Seat: King's Landing (the Red Keep)
Culture: Valyrian (Targaryen)
Religion: The Faith of the Seven
Notable for: Dragonrider of Vhagar, the largest living dragon in Westeros during his lifetime; one of the Dance of the Dragons' fiercest commanders

Last seen astride Vhagar at the height of the war's fiercest campaign — the chronicle keeps how his story ends veiled for the show-only reader.

Aemond Targaryen was the third of Alicent Hightower's children by Viserys I, born without a dragon of his own at a time when every cousin his age already had one, and the slight shaped him into a boy determined never to be the overlooked Targaryen twice. He solved the problem himself, before his twelfth year, by claiming Vhagar — the largest living dragon in Westeros, orphaned by Laena Velaryon's death — a feat of nerve the family did not entirely forgive him for, since the dragon had been all but promised elsewhere. What Aemond lacked in his siblings' easier charm he made up for in a temper that ran cold rather than hot, and a willingness to use both his blade and his dragon on people the rest of his family still hesitated to call enemies outright.

Key events

110 ACBorn the third child of Viserys I and Alicent Hightower, without a dragon of his own at an age when his cousins already had theirs.
120 ACClaims Vhagar, left riderless by Laena Velaryon's death, before his twelfth year — a dragon the family had all but promised elsewhere.
120 ACLoses an eye to his nephew Lucerys Velaryon's dirk during a brawl at Laena Velaryon's funeral, the same day he claims Vhagar.
129 ACKills Lucerys Velaryon over Shipbreaker Bay with dragonfire, answering the old debt and setting off the retaliation known as Blood and Cheese.
129-130 ACGoverns as Protector of the Realm while his brother King Aegon II recovers from Rook's Rest, waging much of the war's aerial campaign himself.
130 ACDies on the twenty-second day of the fifth month above the Gods Eye, locked in single combat with his uncle Daemon Targaryen — Vhagar and Caraxes falling together into the lake.

Reading the character

Aemond is the Dance of the Dragons' clearest portrait of a resentment turned into a weapon. Everything the record says about his boyhood — the dragon he wasn't given, the cousins who never let him forget it — reads like ordinary sibling friction until he solves it himself by claiming the single most dangerous dragon in Westeros, and from there the pattern only sharpens: a prince who answers every slight, real or perceived, with a decisiveness his brother the king rarely manages to match.

That same quality makes him the war's most feared commander and its most reliable source of escalation in nearly the same breath. Chroniclers writing decades later still can't quite agree on whether Aemond was the Greens' most valuable asset or their most dangerous liability, and the honest answer, on the record Fire & Blood leaves behind, is probably both at once.

The arc of Aemond Targaryen

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

A dispute over Vhagar's rightful rider draws Aemond into a confrontation with his nephew Lucerys Velaryon that costs him an eye by a boy's dirk, a debt he answers years later, and far more permanently, with dragonfire over Shipbreaker Bay. That killing sets in motion the retaliation the smallfolk still call Blood and Cheese, and by the war's height Aemond stands as regent for his crippled brother Aegon II, waging much of the Dance's fire and terror himself. He dies over the Gods Eye locked in single combat with his uncle Daemon, both men and both dragons falling together — a duel neither side of the war was ever fully able to agree had a winner.

Where the books leave Aemond Targaryen: died on the twenty-second day of the fifth month of 130 AC above the Gods Eye, in single combat with his uncle Daemon Targaryen — Vhagar's jaws locked around Caraxes's neck, Dark Sister through Aemond's remaining eye, both riders and both dragons lost together into the lake

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.

Sourcesfire-and-bloodthe-princess-and-the-queentwoiaf

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Who is Aemond Targaryen?

The third child of Viserys I and Alicent Hightower, who claimed the dragon Vhagar as a boy and became one of the Dance of the Dragons' fiercest and most feared commanders.

Is Aemond Targaryen alive?

No — the chronicle need only say that his war in the air came to a reckoning above the Gods Eye; the particulars are treated in his veiled record.