#but i'm glad that there is an audience for me and my blabber mouth

[navree]

Why do you think Aegon the Conqueror couldn’t endure Visenya’s presence later in marriage during his reign as king? P.S. love your blog xoxo

Ah thank you, glad you like the varied ramblings <3

Honestly, it's entirely open to speculation as to why they fell out as spectacularly as they did. There is absolutely no documentation on how these two felt about each other at all, and the only mention we get that even approaches on anything touching the subject is the fact that there was an in-universe joke at Aegon's court that the reason why Visenya was put in charge of building the Red Keep was so that Aegon "would not have to endure her presence on Dragonstone". It's why I always say that any theorizing about the Conquerors always veers into straight headcanoning after a little bit, because we know so little that trying to extrapolate interpretations really just depends on how an individual perceives them as people and their relationships.

It could be that they were just never close and never really liked each other much, and as they got older were just less able to put that to the side and decided that the less they saw of each other, the better. If they already had a relationship fueled by enmity and never cared for each other, once they got what they needed from each other (an son in the form of Maegor, a spare to Aenys's heir for Aegon and a foothold in her own power for Visenya), they both agreed that they didn't need to spend any more time together and that it was best to split duties in order not to be in the same place at the same time. After all, when Aegon was an active ruler living in King's Landing with Aenys, Visenya and Maegor were at Dragonstone, and once Aegon decided to spend more time at Dragonstone while passing on most of his kingly duties to his son, he put Visenya in charge of the the Red Keep so that she'd be in King's Landing, still away from him (though Maegor was in residence on Dragonstone while he was there, which is a lot but also a matter for another time).

It could be that Visenya might have done something in those years to get on Aegon's bad side. Common perception in Westeros was that Visenya was the odd one out in her marriage, with the old saying like that "Aegon wed Visenya out of duty and Rhaenys out of desire." and the court noticing that "the king spent ten nights with Rhaenys for every night with Visenya" being very popular talking points not just in historical circles later, but contemporaneously while they were alive. With Rhaenys gone after her death in the First Dornish War, Aegon shooting down any suggestions that he take another wife, and Visenya then providing Aegon with a male child herself to disprove rumors that she was barren, Visenya was in the strongest position as a consort specifically than she had ever been since she got married. And Visenya might have let that get to her head, and since we know she wasn't shy not just about thinking Aenys an unfit king while he was actively reigning, but also about her opinions on Rhaenys herself, given that it was able to be recorded that "Queen Visenya thought her sister frivolous" (though I've discussed that quote and my thoughts surrounding it in detail and I do think it's more complicated than that), Visenya might have said some unkind things about Rhaenys that Aegon overheard. Maybe she mentioned Rhaenys's rumored infidelities (another thing I don't subscribe to personally) or just disparaged her as a person, or the fact that she died, and Aegon, who canonically never entirely got over what happened to his most beloved wife/baby sister, heard it and that led to a falling out that would eventually lead to being unable to endure having her even in the same part of the country as him.

It could also be that their grief over what happened to Rhaenys drove them apart. Grief is a really powerful thing, and it can sometimes create wounds that don't ever fully heal, especially if the grief is caused by an external factor, such as someone being killed by someone else's deliberate actions, for instance. It's why some couples end up divorced after the loss of a child, for example. It could honestly be that Rhaenys's death, already during a precarious time (in the middle of a war that wasn't going the exact way Aegon and Visenya wanted it to go), not to mention the way it created some immediate stressors for Aegon specifically in Aenys's mental breakdown and new worries for the succession, as well as weakening the Targaryens as a dynasty, might have just been too much to overcome, even once the war was over. Neither Aegon nor Visenya seem like people who were inclined to talk their feelings out or even try to vocalize them at all, simply preferring to internalize them, and that this meant they never communicated their needs to each other to try and be able to find peace with what happened to Rhaenys, and it ultimately drove them away from each other rather than bringing them closer together.

I do think, however, that the key thing to remember here is that the common elements that led to Aegon and Visenya being the way they were with each other later in life is that they were cold with each other, and grew more distant. That doesn't speak to them having a sudden argument and immediately hating each other, but a situation that got worse and worse over time. Which leads us into what I personally think went down.

My own personal theory, however, is a bit more complex. I've always viewed Rhaenys as having been the glue that held her family together, due to the fact that Visenya was never bothered by her inclusion in the marriage, Orys and her seemed to be quite friendly, and obviously Aegon adored her. So her unexpected and tragically early demise, especially in the way it happened (literally shot out of the sky and crashing to the ground amidst the death throes of her beloved dragon) affected both siblings deeply, possibly irreparably, like I mentioned above, though I do think it drew them closer together for a time when they were basically carpet bombing Dorne. And when Aegon made the seemingly unilateral choice to end the war with Dorne, in what appears to be direct defiance to Visenya's own desires ("Prince Nymor’s peace proposals encountered strong opposition in King’s Landing. Queen Visenya was hard set against them. “No peace without submission,” she declared, and her friends on the king’s council echoed her words."), I think Visenya was not only angry at the decision, but potentially offended that she wasn't taken into consideration as well as deeply hurt Aegon was willing to put what happened to Rhaenys in the past, considering Visenya was just as involved in the Dragon's Wroth, a direct response to Rhaenys's death motivated by grief and rage for it, as he was. And while I do think that Aegon had his own reasons for it*, I highly doubt that he shared those reasons with Visenya, so to her it looks like she was being treated not as the co-monarch she was, but just as a mere queen consort, which is insulting, and not given any consultation in a decision that involved not just the realm, but family as well, as Rhaenys was her sister too. So you now have two people I don't believe were ever super close, beyond the love that a brother and sister might have for each other, especially when compared to Aegon's relationships with Orys and Rhaenys, neither of whom were the kind of people capable or even equipped to either offer comfort to the other or express how they were feeling, and both heavily feeling a very profound loss that has affected the very fabric of how this family operates, now in a situation where they're drifting further away than they already might have organically due to circumstances that are never going to be addressed or rectified because of who they are as people. And this likely progressively got worse and worse as everything settled in, to the point of literally damaging Aegon's relationship with Maegor, that after a good few years it likely did get to the point of Aegon and Visenya not being able to stand being in the same city. And I do think it eventually became more Aegon based than Visenya based, considering that he was the one dealing with the most pressure and the most profound feelings about it, being a widower and having to take care of a kid who almost died as a result of all of this and living with the weight of his choices and being the primary source of governance for six out of seven kingdoms on an entire continent.

TL;DR There are a lot of reasons that generally depend on how you view the relationship between the two of them, but my own view is that the circumstances of Rhaenys's death in Dorne and Aegon's eventual decision to go for peace over Visenya's wishes exacerbated some already complex dynamics between the two of them into something genuinely unfixable and neither of them were willing or able to try. And thanks for loving the blog, hugs and kisses!!

*My pet theory has always been that Nymor's letter contained the revelation that Rhaenys had managed to survive Meraxes's fall (it's possible, given what we seen with Aegon II and Baela Targaryen later) and had until recently been in the possession of the Ullers, given that she was shot down over Hellholt, but that the Martells had taken custody of her and were sending her to Dragonstone so that Aegon could at least have her remains, if not outright get a chance to say goodbye, as she was likely still fatally injured. It explains why Aegon reacted so strongly to the letter, why he immediately flew to Dragonstone (to verify the truth, possibly say goodbye to Rhaenys if she was still alive when he arrived, and at least give her a proper Targaryen funeral), and why he was so willing to immediately agree to peace with Dorne and be on such good terms with the Martells later in his reign, realizing the kindness they did him with this and Aegon himself having likely already reached the conclusion that the war couldn't carry on. If Visenya found out that this was the reason, and that Aegon hadn't just made a decision without her input on something this massive but had denied her an opportunity for goodbye and closure with someone she loved dearly (as a sister and also in my other pet theory that Visenya was a lesbian and in love with Rhaenys too), then that's an added reason why she and Aegon grew further and further apart.