5. Daemon Targaryen: The Ambitious Rogue
Let’s start with the easiest to dismiss. Prince Daemon’s claim is, legally speaking, tissue-thin. Before the birth of Aegon II, he was the heir presumptive as King Viserys’s younger brother. However, the moment Viserys had children, Daemon was pushed
down the line of succession. His claim is not based on law but on his own self-perception as the most capable and worthy Targaryen to rule. Marrying Rhaenyra bolstered his political position, making him a king consort and father to future heirs, but it did nothing to strengthen his personal claim. He sits behind Rhaenyra, her children, Aegon II, and Aegon's children in any conventional reading of the law. His path to the throne was always through disruption, not inheritance.
4. Jacaerys Velaryon: The Heir with an Asterisk
On paper, Jacaerys’s claim is formidable. As Rhaenyra’s firstborn son, he is her direct heir. Since Rhaenyra was named heir by King Viserys, Jace is next in line according to the king’s explicit will. In a perfect world, this would be an open-and-shut case. But Westeros is far from perfect. The widespread and almost certainly true rumor that he and his brothers were fathered by Ser Harwin Strong, not Laenor Velaryon, makes his claim a glass cannon. While no one dares say it to the queen’s face, this accusation of bastardy legally invalidates his inheritance. A bastard cannot inherit the Iron Throne. His entire claim depends on maintaining a fiction that everyone knows is false, making it legally sound but politically explosive and incredibly vulnerable to challenge.
3. Rhaenys Targaryen: The Queen Who Never Was
Princess Rhaenys’s case is the ghost that haunts the entire succession crisis. By the rules of absolute primogeniture (where the oldest child inherits regardless of gender), she should have been queen. She was the only child of King Jaehaerys’s eldest son, Aemon. When Aemon died, Rhaenys was passed over in favor of her uncle Baelon, and later her cousin Viserys. The Great Council of 101 AC sealed this precedent, voting overwhelmingly to affirm that the Iron Throne could not pass to a woman if a viable male heir existed. While her personal claim was legally extinguished by that council, its existence is the entire foundation for the “Greens’” argument against Rhaenyra. Rhaenys represents the power of precedent over a king’s personal wishes.
2. Aegon II Targaryen: The Power of Precedent
Aegon’s claim is the conservative legal argument, and it’s a powerful one. It rests on two main pillars. First, centuries of Andal tradition favor male heirs over female heirs (male-preference primogeniture). A daughter only inherits if there are no sons. Second, and more importantly, there’s the direct legal precedent of the Great Council of 101 AC. The lords of Westeros gathered and decided that Viserys (a male claimant) should inherit over Rhaenys (a female claimant). The lords who support Aegon—the Greens—argue that this council created a binding law that even a king cannot undo. To them, Viserys naming Rhaenyra his heir was an illegal act that ignored established law. In their view, Aegon, as the king’s eldest trueborn son, is the rightful heir by every custom and law that matters.
1. Rhaenyra Targaryen: The Power of Royal Decree
Rhaenyra’s claim is the progressive legal argument, and it is arguably the strongest. It rests on a single, undeniable principle: the word of the king is law. King Viserys I, in sound mind and body, officially named Rhaenyra the Princess of Dragonstone and his sole heir. He then compelled all the lords of the realm to swear an oath of fealty to her, binding them to uphold her succession. This wasn’t a suggestion; it was a royal decree. The argument for Rhaenyra is that a king’s authority is absolute and he can name his successor as he sees fit, even if it breaks with tradition. The oaths sworn by lords like Otto Hightower were sacred and binding. Her claim pits the absolute power of the monarchy against the weight of tradition, creating a constitutional crisis where both sides have a legitimate, if contradictory, legal argument.
