Quick answer: This Aerion Targaryen family tree covers the second son of Prince Maekar, whose death by wildfire cleared the path for his younger brother Egg to inherit the throne of House Targaryen.
Quick answer: Aerion Targaryen — “Brightflame” to himself, “Aerion the Monstrous” to everyone else — was the second son of Prince Maekar, the older brother of Aegon V (“Egg”), and the villain of the first Dunk and Egg story. His family tree matters for one delicious reason: his death by wildfire is the entire reason Egg — the hedge knight’s squire — ever became king. Find him on the full Targaryen family tree; he’s the branch that self-immolated.
| Born | Between 191–194 AC |
| Died | 232 AC — drank a cup of wildfire believing it would turn him into a dragon |
| Parents | Prince Maekar (later King Maekar I) & Dyanna Dayne |
| Siblings | Daeron, Aemon (yes, Maester Aemon), Daella, Aegon V (“Egg”), Rhae |
| Married | His cousin Daenora Targaryen |
| Children | One son: Maegor (born 232 AC — the year daddy flambé’d himself) |
Who Was Aerion Brightflame?
Imagine being handed every advantage the world can offer — Valyrian looks, royal blood, a famous father, a seat at the top of the food chain — and concluding that the obvious next step is becoming an actual dragon. Not metaphorically. Literally.
That’s Aerion. By the time we meet him in The Hedge Knight, he’s a young prince at the Tourney at Ashford Meadow with the charm of a wet week and the moral compass of a cat. He threw his wine at servants, tormented his little brother Aegon (including a threatened bit of amateur surgery to “make him a girl” — this man was Egg’s brother, and somehow Egg turned out to be one of the best kings Westeros ever had), and generally behaved like Joffrey with a century-long head start on the family madness.
Fans who’ve met him in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms show sometimes ask if the series exaggerates him. It does not. If anything, the books make him worse.
The Ashford Tourney: The Puppet Show Incident (209 AC)
The event that put Aerion in the history books — and on Ser Duncan’s family tree page — began with, of all things, a puppet show.
A Dornish puppeteer named Tanselle was performing a show in which a knight slays a dragon. Aerion took this as treasonous slander against House Targaryen (dragons, you see, do not lose — even wooden ones). He broke Tanselle’s fingers and would have done worse when a seven-foot hedge knight named Duncan the Tall intervened and beat the prince bloody in front of the crowd.
Bad idea. Wonderful, righteous, extremely bad idea.
Aerion demanded a trial — not a normal trial by combat, mind you, but a trial of seven, an ancient Andal rite where each side fields seven champions. He wanted numbers on his side because he knew he couldn’t take Dunk alone. What he didn’t count on was his own uncle, Baelor Breakspear — the heir to the Iron Throne — choosing to fight for the hedge knight.
The seven-vs-seven melee was brutal, and it ended with the single most tragic accident in the dynasty’s history: Baelor took a blow to the head — almost certainly from his own brother Maekar’s mace — removed his helm after the fight, and half his skull came off with it. The best man in the realm, dead, because Aerion Targaryen couldn’t let a puppet show go.
Aerion’s punishment? His father shipped him off to the Free Cities, where he spent his exile riding with the Second Sons and learning absolutely nothing.
A Dangerous Obsession
Here’s the thing about Aerion: he didn’t just admire dragons. He believed he was one — a dragon in human form, waiting to hatch. This was decades after the last dragon had died, remember. The dragons were gone. The family kept the skulls in the Red Keep like trophies of a greatness nobody alive had seen, and some Targaryens coped with that loss better than others.
Aerion coped by setting things on fire. He was fascinated by wildfire — the alchemical napalm that would later make his distant relative Aerys II infamous — and the obsession ran in a straight, grim line from the Ashford bully to the man on the bier. Fans of the main series will recognize the family resemblance: the same grandfather-gene that produced “burn them all” produced “drink it all.”
Death and Consequence (232 AC)
In 232 AC, Aerion Targaryen drank a cup of wildfire, believing it would transform him into a dragon.
It did not. He died screaming, and honestly? The realm barely mourned. What it did instead was hold a Great Council — because Aerion left behind an infant son, Maegor, and suddenly the succession was a mess. Maekar was dead (killed at Starpike the following year — a story for his own page’s neighborhood), and the lords of Westeros had to choose between Aerion’s baby boy, a simple-minded princess, a maester who refused the job, and a hedge knight’s former squire.
They chose the squire. Aegon V — Egg — became king in 233 AC.
Sit with that for a second: if Aerion Brightflame doesn’t drink wildfire in 232, his son Maegor likely grows up as heir, Egg never wears the crown, Aegon V never fathers Jaehaerys II, and the entire line that runs through the Mad King to Rhaegar, Daenerys, and Jon Snow doesn’t happen. The worst Targaryen of his generation accidentally set up the next three centuries of the family tree. History’s full of these jokes.
Aerion’s Place in the Family Tree
Maekar I ═ Dyanna Dayne
│
┌────────┬───────┼─────────┬─────────┐
Daeron Aerion Aemon Daella Aegon V
│ (Maester) ("Egg")
═ Daenora │
│ Jaehaerys II → Aerys II
Maegor (b. 232) → Rhaegar, Daenerys...One generation. One cup of wildfire. Completely different dynasty. Trace the whole chain on the interactive Targaryen family tree.
FAQ
Is Aerion Brightflame related to the Mad King?
Yes — Aerion was the Mad King Aerys II’s great-uncle. The wildfire obsession ran in the family; Aerion drank it, Aerys tried to burn King’s Landing with it. Different methods, same gene pool.
How is Aerion related to Egg (Aegon V)?
He was Egg’s older brother — the second son of Maekar I, while Egg was the fourth. Aerion tormented Egg throughout their childhood, which makes Egg growing into one of Westeros’s best kings one of history’s nicer ironies.
How did Aerion Targaryen die?
He drank wildfire in 232 AC, believing it would transform him into a dragon. It killed him instead. He was roughly forty.
Did Aerion Targaryen have children?
One son, Maegor, born 232 AC with his cousin-wife Daenora. After Aerion and King Maekar died, the Great Council of 233 AC passed the infant Maegor over and gave the crown to Aegon V.
Is Aerion in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?
Yes — he’s the primary antagonist of the first story, The Hedge Knight, and his Ashford behavior is what sets Duncan and Egg’s whole story in motion.
Why did Aerion attack the puppeteer?
Her puppet show depicted a knight slaying a dragon, which he read as anti-Targaryen propaganda. He broke her fingers — and that’s when Dunk stepped in, starting the chain that ended in the trial of seven and Baelor Breakspear’s death.