King Viserys I Targaryen

King Viserys I Targaryen is the fifth king of the Targaryen dynasty to rule the Seven Kingdoms.

Viserys I is the grandson of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, and father of Rhaenyra. He briefly rode Balerion the Black Dread in his youth before the dragon's death of old age.

Biography

Viserys I is the grandson of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen. He immediately succeeded his grandfather as king because Jaehaerys I ruled for so long that his children, Prince Baelon and Princess Alyssa (Viserys's parents), predeceased him. Jaehaerys I was himself the grandson of Aegon the Conqueror, who invaded and united Westeros and forged the Iron Throne.

Viserys inherited the realm after an unprecedented fifty years of peace and prosperity under his grandfather, a golden age that Viserys strives not to disrupt. A full century after the Targaryen Conquest, their dynasty's rule is unchallenged - save for still-independent Dorne, though relations with them have also been calm and stable for decades.

All is not stable within House Targaryen, however, as Viserys's first cousin Rhaenys contested their grandfather's succession. Rhaenys was the only child of Jaehaerys's first son, while Viserys was the eldest son of Jaehaerys's second son, but the relatively young Targaryen dynasty did not have firmly established succession laws. Moreover, if Rhaenys was to be passed over due to being a woman, others (including House Stark) argued that rule should pass to her son Laenor Velaryon. To address the issue, all the lords of Westeros gathered in the Great Council of 101 AC: Viserys won the final vote by a wide margin, and Rhaenys grudgingly accepted the result. Nonetheless, this left a major rift between Viserys's new royal court and House Velaryon, led by Rhaenys's husband Corlys Velaryon, admiral of the royal fleets and the wealthiest man in Westeros.

Adding to these tensions, at the beginning of his reign Viserys had yet to produce a male heir with his beloved wife, Queen Aemma Arryn - despite Viserys's claim to the throne being based on direct succession from male to male. Their only living child is Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, but according to the precedent set by the council at Harrenhal, Viserys's heir should be his closest male relative - his younger brother Daemon Targaryen. Yet the lords of Westeros and even Viserys himself consider Daemon too wild and hot-headed to ever be a suitable heir to the throne.

The question of Viserys's succession leads to factions forming in the realm as ambitious lords compete for his favor, particularly the Velaryons trying to regain the throne they see as rightfully theirs, and House Hightower - the powerful family of Viserys's Hand of the King, Otto Hightower, the rulers of Oldtown who maintain deep ties with the leadership of the Faith of the Seven.

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Viserys I was the grandson of King Jaehaerys I, who was the longest-reigning King of the Seven Kingdoms in history, ruling for 55 years. Jaehaerys I ruled for so long that his son predeceased him, and he was directly succeeded by Viserys I, who then ruled for 26 years. Between the two of them, they presided over an 80 year golden age for the Targaryen dynasty, with entire generations that were born and died knowing only the peace and prosperity brought by the dragon-kings' unification of the continent.

Physically, Viserys I was a plump and pleasant man, amiable to those around him. He grew up in and ruled over a time of plenty, so he was fat and jovial, though he was still an effective monarch. He was loved by both the nobility and the smallfolk. As king, he wore the seven-jeweled crown of his predecessor, Jaehaerys I. Viserys was the last rider of the dragon Balerion the Black Dread. He did not ride him long or extensively, as the beast died of old age in 94 AC, late in the reign of Jaehaerys I and nine years before Viserys I succeeded him as king. Although at the time there were more Targaryen dragons than under the reign of any monarch before or since, Viserys I never bonded with another dragon.

Jaehaerys I and his sister-wife Good Queen Alysanne had nine children who grew to adulthood, of which four had (legitimate) children of their own - though two of them were in a brother-sister marriage. They had four grandchildren, of which two also married each other. Their eldest son Aemon married Jocelyn Baratheon, and produced one daughter named Rhaenys before his untimely death. Their second son Baelon married his own sister Alyssa, and they produced two surviving children: sons Viserys and Daemon. Younger sister Daella married Lord Rodrik Arryn, but died giving birth to Aemma Arryn - who eventually married her first cousin Viserys, and bore his daughter Rhaenyra.

Aemon was killed in a skirmish with pirates in 92 AC, after which Jaehaerys declared that his second son Baelon would replace him as royal heir - even though according to the traditional primogeniture laws followed by the Andals in Westeros, Aemon's child should have inherited instead of his younger brother. Later in 101 AC, Baelon suddenly died of a burst appendix: while under traditional law Baelon's own heir was his eldest son Viserys, the spurned Velaryons used the opportunity to again press their claim that Baelon never should have been considered the royal heir in the first place, and by right of primogeniture inheritance should pass to Rhaenys. Failing that, they insisted that the throne should at least pass to the next male produced from Rhaenys's bloodline, her son Laenor. Viserys and his supporters claimed he should be heir on the principle of male proximity, not primogeniture, as he could claim unbroken male descent from father to son (no major group in Westeros is known to have practiced proximity-based inheritance before, but many did not want to see a woman ascend to the Iron Throne).

To prevent a civil war, Jaehaerys convened the Great Council of 101 AC in which all the great and minor lords of Westeros gathered to debate on the issue. It focused down to a vote between Viserys and Laenor, and Viserys won the final tally in a landslide of about twenty to one. Faced with such opposition, the Velaryons grudgingly accepted the result of the council, though they remained estranged from Viserys's new royal court.