I find myself confused by Maekar. On the one hand, he’s a proto-Stannis; overlooked middle child, bitter man saddled with resentments, a competent warrior overshadowed by his flashier older brother, guilt from kinslaying, etc.
On the other hand, he probably got the most retconned of anyone from his generation by the WOIAF. He goes from despising and resenting Bloodraven (where do you think Egg got his anti-bastard prejudices from?) in Sworn Sword and Mystery Knight to the point where people expect him and Bloodraven to go to war the moment Aerys I dies and Bloodraven subtly tries to make Egg a hostage for his good behavior, such that pre-WOIAF it was Maekar who put Bloodraven in the Black Cells, to having Bloodraven as his Hand.
On the other hand, the WOIAF does make mention that Maekar won a lot of plaudits for his actions in the Third Rebellion, so we get the sense of why he was accepted as King in ways that Aerys I wasn’t.
There’s maturation and then there’s character derailment because of the insertion of Aenys (HAR!) Blackfyre into the Great Council of 236 AC requiring Bloodraven to be Hand and not a prisoner of the state.
Ultimately, I feel that Maekar was a deeply unlucky man – a warrior-king who ruled in times of peace without accomplishing much, who died from a freak accident in a totally unmemorable local uprising, and whose children brought on yet another succession crisis rather than any semblance of peace.
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