Wait-- who is Aegon's true father?
I’m one of many who think that Aegon’s true father is Illyrio, that his mother was Serra, and that the latter was a Blackfyre, making Aegon the scion of the black dragon, not the red. The most commonly cited evidence is the noteworthy presence of the Golden Company, Illyrio’s seemingly personal motives (called out by Tyrion), Aegon’s presence in the “slayer of lies” prophecy as the “mummer’s dragon,” Illyrio’s pointed comment that the “male line” of House Blackfyre has been extinguished, the strong hint in an earlier draft of (I think?) Tyrion III ADWD that Illyrio was sending the sword Blackfyre to Aegon, and a vivid kernel of imagery from Brienne VII AFFC…
“Is the dragon sign still there?” asked Podrick.
“No,” said Septon Meribald. “When the smith’s son was an old man, a bastard son of the fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon’s heads washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust.”
…which is perfectly descriptive of the Blackfyres returning to Westeros under the guise of a Targaryen restoration.
My personal favorite bit of circumstantial evidence that Aegon isn’t who he thinks he is comes from Jon Connington’s memories:
His silvery hair was blowing in the wind, and his eyes were a deep purple, darker than this boy’s.
At some level, JonCon knows he’s being conned–as a confidant of Prince Rhaegar’s, he grants legitimacy to Aegon’s purported identity. But he represses it, because in his mind, it’s his last chance to do something worthwhile and honor his “silver prince,” especially urgent given the greyscale. This is going to lead him to some terrible places in TWOW (pity the “young griffins,” while you can), and it’s going to be a devastating climax to his arc should GRRM ever let him consciously realize that Aegon isn’t Rhaegar’s son, and so he leapt into the abyss for a lie.
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