Prince Maekar Targaryen
The king's fourth son, Prince of Summerhall: hard, proud, and forever in his brother Baelor's shadow. He commanded the second line at Redgrass Field; the realm gave Baelor the glory. His sons are his pride and his grief in equal measure.
A soul of House Targaryen, born at King's Landing.
The fuller tale
Season One
In Ashford Meadow ÔÇö The king's fourth son, hard and proud, with a missing son of his own. The champions take the field: Lord Ashford's two sons, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Tybolt Lannister, and Prince Valarr Targaryen, the Young Prince. In The Lists ÔÇö Finds his missing son at last ÔÇö squiring for the man who beat his other one. In A Trial of Seven ÔÇö Stands with his sons against his son's squire's knight. Blood before justice.
One man short at the horn's blowing ÔÇö until the Prince of Dragonstone takes up a plain shield: 'It seems my helm is dusty.' In The Judgment of the Gods ÔÇö His mace, his brother's helm ÔÇö a blow no one saw land clean. Aerion recants. The trial is won ÔÇö but across the field Prince Maekar's mace has found his brother Baelor's helm, and the Hand of the King is swaying in the saddle. In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ÔÇö Carries his brother's death in his hand for the rest of his days.
The blow that seemed nothing was everything: Baelor Breakspear, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand of the King, dies of a broken skull ÔÇö killed by his brother's mace in a hedge knight's quarrel. Prince Maekar comes to Dunk not with vengeance but a question ÔÇö and an offer: take Aegon as your squire; show him the realm his brothers will never see.
Where they stand. Ashford Meadow.
How it ends for them
The chronicle records no death for this soul ÔÇö they are living when the tale leaves them, or their ending is a page the maesters have yet to turn.
Their chapters, book by book
The Hedge Knight 1 chapter that name them
Where the page and the screen part
Sam SpruellÔÇÖs Maekar is one of the first seasonÔÇÖs more quietly unsettling performances ÔÇö a man whose love for his sons is never in doubt and whose capacity for damage is inseparable from it, which the show renders mostly through restraint rather than volume. The blow that costs Dunk his hearing lands in the adaptation much as it does on the page: sudden, almost incidental to Maekar, and devastating in its casualness. Reviewers noted SpruellÔÇÖs performance as one of the ensembleÔÇÖs standouts precisely because it resists making Maekar simply a villain ÔÇö the tale, and the show, both need him to be recognizably a father first.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.