All the secret Targaryen theories from the Game of Thrones books
2. Jaime and Cersei Lannister are secret Targaryens
Since they all share the same mother, all of the Lannister children are candidates for being secret Targaryens. Perhaps instead of conceiving Tyrion, the Mad King actually fathered Jaime and Cersei.
One of the main things the Lannister twins share in common with the Targaryens of past generation is their incestuous relationship, which would ironically not be much of a problem if they were in fact Aerys’ children since the Targaryrens had practiced incest for hundreds of years.
Cersei’s actions in Book 4, A Feast for Crows, suggest that she may be going mad, another hallmark of Targaryens past. Cersei also develops a fondness for wildfire, which Aerys infamously tried to use to burn King’s Landing to the ground. While Cersei hasn’t tried to burn the city, she does burn the Tower of the Hand in Feast. Here’s part of that passage:
"Cersei thought of all the King’s Hands that she had known through the years: Owen Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelstead, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom."
After expressing her desire for everyone in King’s Landing to see the flames and take it as a lesson not to cross her, Jaime even tells Cersei that she sounds like Aerys.
Madness is a trait that runs through the Targaryen line, and Cersei is certainly showing signs. She mistrusts almost everyone and is seething with contempt and paranoia. She stacks the small council with unqualified men whose only qualification is that they are loyal to her. She even tries to make the head pyromancer Hand of the King, which Aerys did right before his death.
She was not always like this, but neither was the Mad King. It was said that Aerys paranoia slowly got worse over the years. In A Storm of Swords, Barristan tells Daenerys, “Your father always had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise… but as the years passed, the lapses grew more frequent, until…”
And if Cersei is a Targaryen, she passed the madness along to her child Joffrey, who was cruel, vicious and generally did not care what happened to anyone.
Tyrion describes Cersei in A Dance with Dragons, directly comparing her to perhaps the three craziest Targaryen kings: “Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for Defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love. Tommen’s rule is bolstered by all of the alliances that my lord father built so carefully, but soon enough she will destroy them, every one.”
While Cersei arguably fits the Mad Targaryen blueprint, Jaime is a different story. He doesn’t much resemble any Targaryen we know, but there are hints that he may not be Tywin’s trueborn son. While talking with his aunt Genna, Jaime is confused as to why she doesn’t think he can be the leader of House Lannister:
"Jaime. Sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna’s breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there’s some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak… but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you. I said so once to your father’s face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years."
Genna was probably speaking metaphorically here, but she lays out why Jaime and Tywin are not very much alike.
Jaime later has a dream that could hint at his Targaryen lineage. The dream takes place in the Sept of Baelor, where Tywin’s dead body is laying in state. He sees a woman dressed as a silent sister garb who he thinks is Cersei, but it is suggested that it is is mother Joanna. She asks if Jaime had forgotten her. “Will you forget your own lord father too? I wonder if you ever knew him, truly. He could never abide being laughed at. That was the one thing he hated most.” This could be a reference to either Tywin or Aerys, as neither enjoyed being made fun of.
Joanna continues: “We all dream of things we cannot have. Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight and his daughter would be queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them.” Jaime points out that he is a knight and that Cersei is queen, but Joanna sheds a tear and turns her back on him as the dream ends.
This dream can be interpreted in many different ways, but it is intriguing that Joanna cries over the idea of her children not being what they think they are. Did Tywin’s children become a knight and a queen, or did Aerys’?