Jaime Lannister: As the saying goes, “Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin.” They must have dropped the one for King Aerys, for at first, he seemed to have dodged the family madness. But as he grew older, he began to see conspirators everywhere, and where there were none he worked to create them. As one of his Kingsguard, I saw firsthand that a king who couldn’t rule his own mind couldn’t rule Seven Kingdoms.
We endured his reign because we hoped his son Rhaegar would ride the rail when he ascended to the throne. But then Rhaegar proved as mad as his father and snatched Lyanna Stark, daughter of the Warden of the North and betrothed to Robert Baratheon, Lord of the Stormlands. When Lyanna’s father and eldest brother demanded justice, the Mad King obliged, laughing as he dispensed it.
Varys: Unsatisfied with only two murders, the Mad King then ordered Jon Arryn, Lord of the Vale, to execute his two wards, Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark. Instead, Jon Arryn raised the Vale in revolt. Ned Stark slipped past royalist sentries and raised the North and Robert won three battles in a single day to unite the Stormlands behind them, only to be defeated by a royalist army and forced to flee, leaving his home of Storm’s End besieged.
Sansa Stark: The Hand of the King finally cornered Robert in the town of the Stoney Sept and sent his soldiers door-to-door searching for the rebel leader. But the villagers hated the Mad King and loved Robert, and kept him one step ahead of the soldiers. Until only one refuge remained. As the soldiers closed in, all the town bells rang out. Hearing of Robert’s plight, our father and Jon Arryn had rushed to the Riverlands and enlisted our grandfather, Hoster Tully, to help them. Together, they routed the Hand’s army and rescued Robert. To celebrate and cement the Tully alliance, our father wed our mother, Catelyn, and Jon Arryn took our aunt, Lysa. Only a fortnight later, both men rushed back into the field, for the dragon had finally woken.
Viserys: While my father’s servants were losing my father’s kingdoms, my brother Rhaegar had been cooped up with his…Mistress? Whore? Whatever else, I’d call her a distraction. But now Rhaegar came to his senses and returned to King’s Landing. He persuaded our father to summon his estranged friend, Lord Tywin Lannister, the richest and most powerful lord in the realm. Rhaegar himself would lead the royal army against the usurper, Robert.
On the banks of the Trident, my brother fought the man whose wife he had stolen, and who fought to steal his birthright in return. In the end, Robert wanted it more. His hammer shattered my brother’s armor and its rubies fell into the river like raindrops, vanishing in the current.
Varys: With Rhaegar’s defeat, nothing stood between Robert and King’s Landing. Imagine the King’s surprise a fortnight later when he saw not stags, but lions outside his gates. His former Hand, Tywin Lannister, had come to the capital with a force even Robert couldn’t match, claiming to be loyal to the king. Trusting what he wanted to believe, Aerys ordered the gates opened, and the Lannister forces dutifully began to rape, pillage and murder the king’s actual loyal subjects.
When Eddard Stark finally arrived at the capital with Robert’s army, he found Lannister banners hanging over the sackedcity, Targaryen corpses littering its streets and Ser Jaime Lannister sitting on the Iron Throne. Below him, the Mad King Aerys, whom Ser Jaime had sworn to guard, lay in a pool of his own blood from a sword thrust through his back. Lord Eddard might’ve thanked Ser Jaime for doing the realm a favor, but honorable as he was, Lord Eddard condemned Ser Jaime as a “Kingslayer”, a name he would never escape.
Jaime: Unlike Lord Eddard, Robert appreciated my contribution to his glorious victory. He pardoned me for my crime and even kept me on his Kingsguard beside Ser Barristan Selmy, who’d been wounded at the Trident fighting for Rhaegar. True, both of us had failed to protect out Targaryen charges, but perhaps that’s what Robert liked most about us.
When my father presented Robert with the bodies of Rhaegar’s wife and two children, Ned Stark hiked up his skirt and demanded Robert send their killer to Dorne and me to the Wall. But I saw what Ned couldn’t. Robert was ashamed of the bodies and more ashamed of his relief. He knew that Rhaegar’s heirs had to die or his throne would never be safe. But glorious heroes didn’t kill children. They simply didn’t punish their murderers.
Viserys: No doubt I would have suffered a similar fate, but my father had wisely sent me and my pregnant mother to Dragonstone. When the Usurper heroically sent men to kill me and my newborn sister to protect his stolen throne, a loyal knight smuggled us across the Narrow Sea to Essos.
And so the last dragons of Valyria, heirs to the greatest dynasty from the greatest civilization this world has ever known, slept in sewers and foraged for scraps in alleyways, one step ahead of the usurper’s knives and one step behind the whispers of his spymaster Varys. But we won’t run forever. One day I’ll return to my kingdoms with an army, take back my throne and repay all traitors with the only coin my family knows. Fire and blood.
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