By AJ Willingham and Scottie Andrew, CNN
(CNN) — Whether you’re gearing up for the newest Westeros-set series, HBO’s “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” waiting desperately for George R.R. Martin to publish the next “A Song of Ice and Fire” installment or rewatching the original series just to feel the pain all over again, you can never know too much about “Game of Thrones.”
Well, maybe you can. A little refresher on the history can’t hurt, though.
The drama, patricide, incest, betrayal, nudity and draconology of the “Game of Thrones” books and TV series spans more than 12,000 years. Don’t think too hard about what “years” are in the fantasy realm of Westeros. Be thankful there’s a point of reference at all, because it’s about to get complex. (HBO shares parent company Warner Bros. Discovery with CNN.)
How the date system works:
“A Song of Ice and Fire” time is split into two eras: BC and AC, or “Before Conquest” and “After Conquest.” The conquest in question here is Aegon’s Conquest, or the moment when the famed Targaryen family, they of the platinum hair and big dragons, become a major player in Westeros, the fictional, Anglo-inspired realm where most of the “Game of Thrones” action takes place.
Pretty much everything that happens in the “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” series takes place in the AC era, so we’ll stick to that. All kinds of important lore happens before this era, and the histories in the show and the books are so thick that there are inevitably some little in-world discrepancies. Just use this timeline as a general guide, okay? There is only so much time one can devote to fantastical history before it becomes madness.
1 AC: Aegon’s Conquest is completed
The Targaryens — the ancestors of Daenerys, Jon Snow and practically everyone on “House of the Dragon” — invade Westeros and become its ruling family, setting up the capital city of King’s Landing. (That’s where the Baratheons and Lannisters ruled from for nearly the whole “Game of Thrones” series.) A word of warning: Targaryens reuse names, so there are some other important Aegons to keep track of. Good luck!
112 AC: ‘House of the Dragon,’ Season 1
- The Targaryens are still in power, still marrying their sisters and cousins and whatnot.
- King Viserys names his daughter Rhaenyra as his heir and then marries Alicent, her closest childhood friend. These are both extremely messy, dramatic decisions that affect the course of the entire show and, indeed, the history of Westeros.
- After all that, King Viserys dies.
- Rhaenyra is crowned queen and gets with her husband/uncle Daemon Targaryen. However, some Targaryens support her half-brother, Aegon II, as the new ruler instead. Alicent’s other son accidentally kills Rhaenyra’s son in an ill-advised reckless dragon riding incident. Cue Season 2!
132 AC: The Dance of the Dragons
This is where “House of the Dragon” Season 1 leaves off. The Dance of the Dragons is the name for a civil war between factions of House Targaryen over who their rightful ruler should be, Rhaenyra or Aegon II. It is a big part of Westerosi history and its first act occupies much of “House of the Dragon” Season 2. No spoilers for the battles that will likely follow in Season 3, but a lot of people die.
~209 AC: ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Season 1
The newest addition to the “Thrones” TV universe adapts Martin’s “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” novellas that are among his only works to follow a common man. The first of these small-scale tales, “The Hedge Knight,” tak