How did Targaryen madness become such a big meme in and out of the setting?

How did Targaryen madness become such a big meme in and out of the setting?

I mean these are all the examples they can list
awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Targaryen_madness
>Maegor
Who was ruthless not insane.
>Baelor the Blessed
Who was the closest thing Westeros ever had to a saint.
>Rhaegel
He may have been crazy.
>Aerion Targaryen
Who had the crazy idea that he could mess around with fire and not be burned, but as Dany as shown use that's completely insane.
>Aerys the Mad
Who, after getting captured at Duskendale, became paranoid that his subjects were plotting his downfall. Turns out he was right.
>Viserys
Who was completely crazy because he had a temper problem. Why isn't Bobby called the Mad King?

If a 300 hundred year dynasty producing a few individuals who are extreme but generally right about things means that dynasty is insane then why isn't every single House in Westeros considered insane?

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Blame the inbreeding and the Griffith getting plowed by horny old men.

GRIFFITH!!!

Get on the boat, Gatsu.

There's that one quote about the gods flipping a coin when a Targaryen is born which is overused.

However, I would argue that your definition of madness is too narrow. The defining characteristic of the dynasty is obsession with dragons, which manifests itself in many forms - for some, the traditional crazy fire-obsessions (Aerys and Aerion), but for others it is a much less malicious but still powerful influence on them, leading them to act in unwise ways. In this category are Aegon the Unlikely, whose attempt to hatch dragon eggs led to the disaster at Summerhall, and Rhaegar, whose prophetic obsessions caused war and the downfall of his house. The Targaryen 'madness' comes in many forms.

>"Dragons," Aemon whispered. "The grief and glory of my House, they were."

The narrative in Westeros is formed by the noble houses who backed Robert Baratheon’s rebellion. They have every reason to paint the Targaryens as despots and themselves as noble saviors.

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Which is pretty much correct, considering the two they rebelled against.

You mean that mentali ill Stark bitch who forgot to mention to enyone she wasnt kidnaped and went willingly?
Forgeting about bad writhing of (((J.Js))) dosnt make that rebelion any better.

Regardless of whether Lyanna was willing or not, Rhaegar broke the bethrotal she had with Robert, Aerys burned her father and brother when they complained, and very much intended to do the same with Robert, Ned and Jon Arryn. I'm not even opening the can of worms that is Rhaegar's intention regarding Elia and his trueborn children.

The whole point of a noble dynasty is the bloodline. If the bloodline is proven to make people who are insane in the brain, you can't put that back in the box. The lower classes won't forget it, because nobleborn people are supposed to be better than them, not monstrously worse.

I thought a running theme in the books was the lowborn folk don't really care who sits on the Iron Throne and just want the Mountain to stop raping them.

People like Jorah keep saying it, but you can't really deny that a king like Aegon the Unlikely was better for the smallfolk than Joffrey.

In a Davos chapter and a few of Brienne's and Arya's you can see that they care more than you think

>Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin.
>Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

A mixture of inbreeding, excessive power and a little bit of propaganda by their enemies, but since magic and gods are a thing, maybe some gods really did not like the whole incest thing and their sporadic madness was not caused by inbreeding but as punishment.

Also, the books are based on real life royal families that did literally fuck around with incest all the time. Look up Cleopatra family tree, or the family trees of the royal families of Europe and Russia, it's a mindscrew of incest worth of anime.

Aerion Brightflame was more than obsessed with fire, he believed himself to be a dragon in human form and tried to turn himself into one by drinking wildfire. He died screaming.

Robert isn't considered to be a Mad King because he wasn't insane, but instead led an incredibly successful rebellion against a ruling hereditary monarchy and won. And he ruled with peace until his death.

Ok so Im sure you learned this at school but...


When siblings have sex and produce children, the chances of mental and genetic disorders increase dramatically and the targaryens are likely based on the very real Hapsburg family in europe who had so much inbreeding between them that they have a physical malformation named after them (the Hapsburg chin), as well as several examples of Mad Kings such as Carlos II of spain (nicknamed "el Hechizado") who was a fucking lunatic by all accounts or Ferdinand I of Austria, who was so impaired by epilepsy and hydrocephaly that he couldnt really rule his country (his only known quote being "I am the emperor and I WANT DUMPLINGS")

>tfw you will never be this much of a loving father

>You can see the retardation grow with each generation

The regular folk were mistrusting of the Targs from the beginning due to them being foreigners. The Sept encouraged the Targ insanity meme due to the conflict between the two, over the incest issue, and other things. The Maesters also dislike the Targs due to their hatred of magic, for their own hidden reasons. The two most learned factions in Westeros encourage the belief in Targ madness, and the fact that Targ madness is 100% a thing, it is well known through out the world.

>due to them being foreigners
What did the Targs bring to Westeros? What religion? What language? What laws? What technology? What culture? The Targs were silver haired Westerosi, the idea that the peasants would have a problem with them is retarded.

this

Charles II of Spain had an inbreeding coefficient of 25.4%, Dany has one of at least 37.5% and the noble families of Valyria inbred for thousands of years. Charles II had tons of deformities, Dany is physically fine.

This may surprise you but ASoIaF doesn't run on RL logic and trying to use RL examples of something to argue for something in ASoIaF is a mistake.

Well, I'm certainly glad that I've never heard anybody praise the series for its realism!
Nope, not once.

There are two men featured prominantly in there... And I'm trying to figure out their age... They're either 90 or time travelers. No wonder I hated the fuck out of School Days.

>What did the Targs bring to Westeros?
Literally fire and death.

Overall though you're correct. There's plenty of reasons for people from various parts of the realm to dislike the Targs just like there's plenty of reasons to hate everyone else who's ever run the show there. But the Targs' dubious forgeigner status isn't really one of them.

Fire and Death existed before the Targaryens came to Westeros and it's there after they left. No, if the Targs brought one thing to Westeros it's unity, before they came to Westeros there were a number of rival petty kingdoms that had never been united and the Targs took them and forged them into a strong nation.

They kept Westeros united for three hundred years but it only took a couple decades for Westeros to Balkanize again after they left. No Targs No Unity.