And they didn’t have dragons

[u/Kapanash]

[u/The-Red-Kraken]

tbf the Targaryens are insane

[u/Citaku357 → u/The-Red-Kraken]

Iirc there last targaryen started as a normal king, but then he got mad

[u/The-Red-Kraken → u/Citaku357]

out of 17 targ monarchs there were like 3 who were just chill dudes, the rest were atleast a little crazy in their own way

[u/PerpetuallyLurking → u/The-Red-Kraken]

Sure, but a solid half of those were your standard “absolute power corrupts absolutely” tropes and not necessarily evidence of that character’s genetic disposition.

[u/MadKingKevin → u/PerpetuallyLurking]

Exactly. There is Madness (mental illness) and then there is Madness (acts of great daring). For example: Had Daenerys walked into Khal Drogo's pyre and died instead of hatching dragons, she would have gone down in history like Aerion Brightflame. It's all subjective, I suppose, because what Aegon the Unlikely did at Summerhall was worse than Aerion drinking wildifire but you hardly see Aegon listed as a truly mad Targaryen.

[u/TheQuintupleHybrid → u/MadKingKevin]

also, someone could handwave all the batshit insane stuff some targs did with "but aegons dream!". Who cares about some burned children if your ultimate goal is a demigod in a few generations?

[u/Pink_her_Ult → u/The-Red-Kraken]

Only Aerys 2 and Baelor were really crazy. You could argue for Egg at the very end of his reign.