#but gina has dragged me feet first back into 'early gen targaryens' sadness hell

[navree]

You briefly talked about this one time - what are your thoughts on Maegor and Aenys? Do you think Maegor actually cared about his brother? You would think that that care would carry down to his neices and nephews but once Aenys was dead, he was wiping them all out. What made Aenys different that Maegor actually accepted him instead of trying to immediately remove him from the throne like Visenya wanted him too?

My thoughts on Maegor and Aenys can honestly be boiled down to a crowd in the Coliseum of my mind chanting "sons of the dragon! sons of the dragon! sons of the dragon!" on repeat but I will endeavor to go into more depth.

I actually have gone more in depth on Maegor and Aenys's relationship here and elaborated far more on it here, but my view on them is that it's the quintessential tragedy, it was doomed to fail. Maegor and Aenys's relationship was always going to be tainted by forces outside their control, even from before they were born. Aenys was the son of the favored wife while Maegor was the son of the one Aegon couldn't even stand by the time he was born; Aenys's mental breakdown was always going to stunt his interpersonal relationships other than the one with his father and the one with Quicksilver as he recovered; five years isn't an insurmountable age difference but it's significant in that early childhood development phase. All of this, the circumstances under which Maegor was born and the relationships their parents had with each other and the conflagration of situations that was the First Dornish War and how it affected the family, all of it basically doomed the relationship from the getgo. My view of it was that they were never going to be truly brotherly, not in the way that we see from the modern Starks or Orys and Aegon. But, as I mentioned in those prior responses, I don't think it was all bad. Aenys put a lot of trust and value in Maegor, and Maegor seemed to respect that and respected Aenys's kingship and wanted it to go well. I also find it incredibly important that Maegor accepted his banishment, because we know what happens when Quicksilver and Balerion go head to head. He would have made easy work of his brother and he probably knew that, but instead he accepted Aenys's word as law, left and stayed away until he was recalled by his mother only after Aenys died. That, to me, does speak to the fact that Maegor cared about him. Some of it might be transference, with Aenys as Aegon's clear favorite and Aegon having gone without giving Maegor any of what he might have craved from him (the throne, his approval, his affection, I theorized a lot more on Aegon and Maegor's fractured relationship in that first ask about humanizing him) Maegor might have turned to his older brother in hopes of getting some taste of what he wanted from his father with the only version of his father he has. It's also possible that, once Maegor was a bit older, three to four, Aenys had recovered enough from his ordeals to try and interact with him and be a good brother, in spite of not being raised in the same location. Aenys seems like the type to have wanted to try and do right by his kid brother, if the olive branches he extended to Maegor during his reign when they were both adults is any indication. So even if they weren't close in childhood, Maegor's memories of Aenys when he was a child might have been of someone earnestly trying with him, trying to be good and supportive to someone who doesn't seem to have had much of a support system in the family beyond his mother.

And it should be interesting to note, Maegor does seem to have extended some care towards his nieces and nephews initially. While he did usurp Aegon the Uncrowned, he didn't immediately go after him, he actually let him live unmolested for up to a year, considering that he took the throne in 42 AC and the Battle Beneath God's Eye occured in 43 AC. It was Aegon attempting to muster armies and take back his crown that led to his death, not Maegor taking the throne, for all we know, though it's unlikely, if Aegon had gone into exile the way that Maegor himself had, he might never have died. And while Alyssa and Viserys and Jaehaerys and Alysanne were absolutely hostages, there's no record that they were ever treated badly, not even Viserys who was residing in King's Landing. While I'm sure being a political hostage with the uncle who killed your brother and was slowly becoming more and more mentally unhinged wasn't a picnic, there's no evidence that Maegor ever did anything to Viserys or had anything done to him, and that Viserys didn't live any life other than a comfortable one as a blood relative to the crown. And by the time Visenya died and Alyssa fled with Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Maegor's mental state was already dangerous (this was post coma/Tyana magic interference that may or may not have helped exacerbate him into a crazy person) and that's probably why he responded as badly as he did and had the poor kid tortured to death. Maegor's cruelty to his family can be directly linked to how badly he was doing from a mental perspective, so it's entirely possible that he started out without any intentions to hurt Aenys's kids, because they were Aenys's kids, but as he descended into tyranny and madness, that was one of the core elements of him that was stripped away until only The Cruel remained.

I think a huge part of what made Aenys different, to Maegor at least, really is just that familial connection. Visenya didn't have any connection to Aenys beyond the fact that he was Rhaenys and Aegon's child, and that doesn't do much for her (even though I do think she loved them both, especially Rhaenys, it's just that the whole Dornish War thing and the rift probably turned any potential affection for her nephew into pure apathy. Not to get into Visenya conjectures and whatnot, but that Downton Abbey quote after Matthew dies where Mary says "with Matthew's death, all the softness he found in me seems to have dried up" is soooooo Visenya/Rhaenys coded, that's exactly how I imagined Visenya eventually went after Hellholt. Leave me here to die.) so she was more willing to be harsh and critical of him, especially when compared to the child of her own body and her own direct lineage. But for Maegor, that's his brother. A connection to his father, and someone he had a relationship with in his own right. He seems to have cared enough about that, perhaps even loved Aenys enough, that it really meant something to him, and that he didn't want to directly steal his own brother's birthright in spite of how bad he felt Aenys was at it or not. He could have felt grateful, moved even, by the trust Aenys was putting in him as a brother by giving him Blackfyre and making him Hand and trusting him to secure his reign, and wanted to live up to that trust, prove worthy of it. Their relationship wasn't ever fully reconcilable, in my mind, due to the circumstances it came about it that were entirely out of their control, but it feels like they really tried, on both sides, to bridge that gap as much as they were emotionally able.

TL;DR I think that it was doomed from minute one, but neither of them entirely let it just go into that good night and they probably did have best intentions with each other, even Maegor, considering that he accepted Aenys's rule and helped him and he does seem to have tried to be good to Aenys's kids before he went completely doolally. Probably best summed up as "there was some kind of love there, but love isn't always enough".