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In some circles of ASOIAF fandom, it has become a popular statement that the Targaryen dynasty is inherently hereditary madness. As is often the case with "common knowledge," it has nothing to do with facts and thrives on "common knowledge”.
This theory got a new life after the Game of Thrones season 8 release, when both the fans of the finale and its authors began to defend their crappy script with references to the books on all occasions. And, of course, they got into a deep puddle, which surprised no one. Let's find out how much truth there is in the Flipped Coin theory, whether the Targaryens were mad, and what the Summer Castle has to do with it.
Heads: A change coin.
Anyone who has read not only ASOIAF but other works in this universe may find it striking that neither the Tales of Dunk and Egg, nor the stories of the Dance of Dragons, nor Fire and Blood, nor the ASOIAF Campaign Guide, speaks of some kind of hereditary Targaryen madness. Although it would seem that F&B was composed by a wide variety of maesters, and it was dedicated to Robert Baratheon, the Targaryens' sworn enemy. The events of Dunk and Egg take place in the very recent past. In The Princess and the Queen, some Targaryens, like Aemond-One-Eye, have done worse things than the participants of the War of the Five Kings. But neither nobles nor commoners nor maesters, even in private conversation or thought, suspected the royal dynasty of some common mental aberration.
The idea of the Targaryen hereditary madness was first voiced by King Jaehaerys II Targaryen. It was he who said, "When a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin and the whole world waits with bated breath”. Pretty strange words from a member of that very "mad dynasty”. But it may seem so only at first glance, if we don't consider the political situation in Westeros at the time.
As the last of the Blackfyre rebellions died down, a new political crisis began.
King Aegon V the Unlikely intended to strengthen the crown with alliances with the Great Houses, marrying his children to Baratheon, Tyrell, Tully, and Redwyn heirs. The step was quite logical: the Blackfyre rebellions brought the crown and the Great Houses closer together, since Daemon and his heirs' armies consisted mostly of ambitious bannerman lords and knights whose goal, apparently, was not only to change the dynasty on the Iron Throne, but also to redistribute the Old Nobility lands in their favor. Aegon's plan, in theory, would have given the Targaryens an adequate replacement for the dragons, a leverage of military and political pressure that would have avoided new civil wars. The same strategy, albeit with different goals, is later implemented by Jon Arryn, and the Baratheon Rebellion will clearly prove its effectiveness.
The plan, however, failed for personal reasons. The king's eldest son, Duncan the Prince of Dragonflies broke off his engagement to Lord Baratheon's daughter and married a peasant woman instead.
The king's second son Jaehaerys (yes, the author of the “Targaryen coin” meme) went on a rampage and married his own sister, breaking off two engagements at once: to the Tyrells and the Tullys. And to make life even harder, his youngest son, Daeron, broke off his engagement to Olenna Redwyn and, as the Chronicle delicately notes, "preferred her to the company of his squires”.
For the last half-century, the dynasty's power was held by the alliance of two determined and competent politicians: Brynden Rivers and Maekar Targaryen. Despite their personal differences, they successfully suppressed all Blackfyre rebellions and kept the kingdom from falling apart. After Maekar's death in another civil war with House Peake, Brynden made his final move as a public figure: he crowned Maekar's son, Aegon the Unlikely, married to his relative from House Blackwood. Aegon proved himself a visionary and courageous ruler, but he sorely lacked the natural authority of Maekar and the Bloodraven. In that situation, the king needed a kinsman who could take the princes in a fierce grip and force them to act according to plan. Aegon, a gentle and extremely decent man by nature, was incapable of this.
That was the purpose of the “flipped coin” thing.
Jaehaerys didn't take long to accuse his brothers and father of being mad, and that was supposedly why everything had gone wrong. Not because of the stupidity of the Prince of Dragonflies or himself, but because of “special Targaryen blood”. The historical examples from Maegor the Cruel to Aerion the Brightflame were immediately recalled, and a concept of an mad dynasty in which sometimes sane people are born was formed. To the list of sane heirs of House Targaryen, Jaehaerys, of course, included himself.
Later this theory gained a new lease of life because of Aerys II, who sort of confirmed his father's words by his own example. It certainly gained weight in the Kingsguard, where it was shared by Jaime Lannister and Barristan Selmy, though the latter with reservations.
But it did not spread any further. Baratheon's rebels never used the madness argument against the Targaryens as a whole, only against Aerys. As for Rhaegar, for all Robert's hatred of him, no one has ever tried to declare him mad. In the whole Saga the argument of madness in high circles was made exactly once: by Mace Tyrell during the invasion of Aegon the Young Griff and the Golden Swords, and it was a purely political commentary. The fact that Mace fought on the side of Mad King during the Baratheon’s Rebellion adds a special piquancy.
Thus, the “flipped coin” thing never went beyond the narrow circle of the last dragon kings' cronies. Westerosians, commoners and nobles alike, continue to sing of Aegon the Conqueror, Daeron the Young Dragon, Aemon the Dragonknight, Baelor the Breakspear, and the Prince of Dragonflies. In the public mind, many Targaryens have become heroes and legends. For example, one son of Eddard Stark who took an active part in the overthrow of the Targaryens, dreams of becoming like the Dragonknight and another like Daeron I.
Tails: Not all that glitters is gold.
So, the origin of the myth has been solved, all that's left to do is to find out if it has anything to do with reality at all. Of course, among the Targaryens, as among any other people, there were cruel personalities, fanatics, scumbags, and psychopaths. But how many were there among this family to say it was systematic? The simplest fact-checking shows no more than in any other noble family.
There was exactly one patently mad Targaryen - Aerys II. He was the only Targaryen who was considered mad by society. But it is often forgotten that he acquired his paranoid schizophrenia in adulthood rather than suffering from it from birth. Yes, Aerys was an eccentric dreamer even in his youth, prone to spontaneous decisions and rash actions. But, at the same time, he was a charming, charismatic and capable man. Yes, with some oddities, but if you consider someone mad because of oddities, you'd have to put half of Westeros and the medieval European aristocracy in an insane asylum. Aerys II's health - mental as well as physical - was undermined during his captivity in Duskendale. For six months, the king was mocked, taunted, and even physically beaten while his best friend stood under the walls of the fortress and made no attempt to help him, instead intending to proclaim his son king. In fact, the king was no longer considered a figure. Aerys had returned from captivity a different man: suspicious, hardened, prone to outbursts of anger and panicked terror. And he had a point; there were many plots against the crown at his court, but he had neither the wit nor the patience to untangle them, and he darted off in every direction. Nervous exhaustion, distrust of his own friends and relatives (quite justified, by the way), and attempts by his entourage to wrest power from him could have broken a stronger man. After all, Theon Greyjoy, in the final days of the siege of Winterfell, lost touch with reality just as well and some might say that he lost his mind.
Aerys was not born a madman; he was made one. This does not absolve him of his guilt, of course, but it does not give him any reason to believe that his atrocities were hereditary. His son Viserys, too, was degraded by difficult circumstances and a series of endless humiliations. Though not sympathetic, they are still tragic figures, ground up by the mills of history. Daenerys, on the other hand, having been raised in the same environment as her brother and enduring far more personal losses and betrayals than her father, has not broken down, has not succumbed to the darkness, but has grown stronger. And that's all there is to say about "hereditary madness." Blood in ASOIAF can have magical power, but it cannot define a person's character. Martin showed this quite clearly.
But Aerys are not the only one!
Sometimes Maegor the Cruel, Baelor the Blessed, Prince Aemond-One-Eye and Aerion the Brightflame are cited as other "mad" kings, sometimes for some strange reason even Aegon the Unworthy and Daeron the Drunken are included. Discarding the blatant nonsense about the last two, the other four should really be looked at closely. Was Maegor a madman? No. He was a cruel, ruthless ruler who lived in a cruel and ruthless time. A talented general and, before the Civil War, the idol of Westeros knighthood, he was a poor politician and a poor judge of character. Nevertheless, he never lost his clarity of thought or his connection to reality. All his actions, no matter how brutal, had a clear purpose. He remained a tyrant in history, of course, but without him the Targaryens would hardly have remained in power. His contemporaries and descendants did not consider him mad, and some lords felt such loyalty to him that they preferred to die with him. It is unlikely they would have done so for a mad tyrant howling at the moon.
Baelor the Blessed was a victim of religious fanaticism, exacerbated by intoxication. While rescuing his cousin from Dornish captivity, Baelor received many snake bites and never recovered for the rest of his life, which was quite short. He was deeply religious even before the poisoning, but the poison turned that into an obsession. In addition, Baelor simply could not help but view his survival as a sign from above and a mercy from the Gods. But if we put Baelor as a madman, then the Sparrows, Aeron Greyjoy, Melisandre, and all the other religious fanatics of Westeros are mad too.
Aemond and Aerion were definitely psychopaths, but psychopathy does not equal madness. A psychopath is perfectly capable, able to take responsibility for his actions and be aware of them. Lack of empathy and emotional dysfunction is not madness. Otherwise, why isn't anyone talking about the heritage madness of the Boltons, Lannisters and Greyjoys, who have produced more sociopaths and psychopaths in one generation than the Targaryens did in 300 years?
So, what do we see? The Targaryens had exactly one schizophrenic in 300 years, and not from birth. The “coin” seems to have turned out to be counterfeit.
Edge: 30 pieces of silver
So, we have understood in detail the origins of the myth and its factual inconsistency. All that remains is to understand why it still flourishes on the Internet. There are, as usual, two simple reasons for this: stupidity and lies. Stupidity supports lies, and lies support stupidity. As we can easily guess, the theory originally gained popularity among the fanatics who thrive in the ASOIAF fandom.
It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the first fanatics to arm themselves with a “Targaryen coin” thing were the adherents of the "True King Stannis". At one time it was this sect that spawned the systemic Daenerys hate and Targaryen hate, forgetting that their adored "True King" was also a bit Targaryen on his grandmother's side, and that the Baratheons were descended from Aegon the Conqueror's half-brother. But fanaticism rarely involves observation or thinking.
After them, the idea was picked up by other fanats- sectarians: the “All-hail-Bran”ers, the Jonryans, the adherents of Sansa the Great, the Church of the Great Lion Lannister, supporters of dividing Westeros into a dozen Bantustans and others like them. The Greens and the Blackfyres fans are also involved, but it seems ridiculous, considering whose fans they are.
However, the “Targaryen coins” really started pouring into the public space after the disaster of season 8 of GoT. The HBO bosses, who ruined the plot, started looking for excuses for the failure, and quickly began to accuse the Jonerys and other Targaryen stan of not knowing about the Targaryens' hereditary madness, and Daenerys burned KL not because the screenwriter was spiked with opiates in his cocaine, but because all Targaryens are mad. They also made the actors repeat the memorized text.
Today (March, 2022), in the run-up to the release of House of the Dragon, the “coin” theory has become the foundation of all HBO propaganda, part of the protracted war between the channel and its viewers.
Except that the coin is counterfeit, and the hands holding it are dirty.
Original there https://iceandfire.rusff.me/viewtopic.php?id=204,
By Anonymous San.