Why don’t you condemn Aegon The Conqueror like you do Renly Baratheon? After all, they both ultimately based their claim on the strength of their arms, rather than the will of the people or rights of succession. I’m not defending either of them, just wondering what you see as the difference.

I think that’s a misinterpreation of Aegon the Conqueror. As I discuss in my essay on him, far from being based solely through strength of arms, Aegon and his sisters were careful to establish consent from and establish legitimacy with his subjects:

“Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. To his oldest supporters he gave new honors…Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros. When Queen Visenya placed a Valyrian steel circlet, studded with rubies, on her brother’s head and Queen Rhaenys hailed him as, “Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, and Shield of His People,” the dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer … but the smallfolk, the fisherman and field hands and goodwives, shouted loudest of all.”

“the men of the Trident had no love for their ironborn overlords…so now the riverlands rose against him, led by Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun. Summoned to the defense of Harrenhal, Tully declared for House Targaryen instead, raised the dragon banner over his castle, and rode forth with his knights and archers to join his strength to Aegon’s. His defiance gave heart to the other riverlords. One by one, the lords of the Trident renounced Harren and declared for Aegon the Dragon. Blackwoods, Mallisters, Vances,
Brackens, Pipers, Freys, Strongs… summoning their levies, they descended on Harrenhal…The next day, outside the smoking ruins of Harrenhal, King Aegon accepted an oath of fealty from Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, and named him Lord Paramount of the Trident. The other riverlords did homage as well —to Aegon as king and to Edmyn Tully as their liege lord.”

And this went on and on – the homage of the Westermen and the Reachermen ater the Field of Fire, the submission of Highgarden, Torrhen kneeling at the Trident, and Aegon’s anointment and coronation at Oldtown. At every step of the way, Aegon spends as much time establishing the reciprocal bonds of feudal obligation and enacting the symbolism of monarchy as he does fighting. And he continued this policy as King:

“he worked to knit the realm together with his presence—to awe his subjects and (when needed) frighten them…the other half of the year he dedicated to the royal progress. He traveled throughout the realm for the rest of his life,
until his final progress in 33 AC—making a point of paying his respects to the High Septon in the Starry Sept each time he visited Oldtown, guesting beneath the roofs of the lords of the great houses (even Winterfell, on that last progress), and beneath the roofs of many lesser lords, knights, and common innkeepers… In these progresses, the king was accompanied not only by his courtiers but by maesters and septons as well. Six maesters were often in his company to advise him upon the local laws and traditions of the former realms, so that he might rule in judgment at the courts he held. Rather than attempting to unify the realm under one set of laws, he respected the differing customs of each region and sought to judge as their past kings might have.”

Anon Asks:

Timeline question: How old was Aegon when Volantis was defeated during the bleeding years? It seems confusing since Argilic was said to have slain the king of the reach twenty years after it, Aegon would seem to have been only a boy at the time, since he was born less than three decades before he began his conquest of westeros, how do you make sense of this, could he really have participated at such an age or is this a case of the dates being wrong?

Good question! As one might expect, Volantis’ rise and fall in the Century of Blood was a somewhat drawn-out process. So here’s my best guess of how the timeline works out:

We know that the Doom of Valyria provoked “immediate political upheaval,” with revolutions in Tyosh, Lys (and presumably Myr) against the dragonlords. (This is a bit confusing since WOIAF tells us the Free Cities had bought their right to self-government from Valyria, but it’s possible that this right was somewhat honored in the breach, especially in a crisis, or that the Free Cities acted out of fear that their rights would be taken by the dragonlords in said crisis.)
We also know that the Volantenes “quickly laid claim to Valyria’s mantle,” which suggests that the war began pretty quickly after the Doom, so probably within a year or two of 114 BC.
We also know how long the ascendancy of Volantis lasted: “a Volantene fleet took Lys and a Volantene army captured Myr, and for two generations all three cities were ruled from within the Black Walls.” (ADWD) Given that a generation is roughly 30-35 years, that suggests that the Volantenes were successful in their expansionist offensive from around 114 to around 53-44 BC.
Then we learn of a whole bunch of stuff happening in quick succession: Volantis tries to conquer Tyrosh, Pentos joins the war on Tyrosh’s side, Lys and Myr rebel, Braavos finances Lysene resistance, and the Storm King defeats Volantene attempt to retake Myr. This lets us know roughly when Argilac was warring in the Disputed Lands – given his age (Argilac was born roughly 60 BC), and the fact that this campaign is the first campaign after his boyhood that’s mentioned in the text), but also comes after all of the previous events, it probably happened closer to 44 BC. This would place the Battle of Summerfield around 22 BC.
We then get a bunch of details that give us some hints as to when Aegon was involved. We learn for example that Aegon was “still-young,” that his intervention came “near the end” of the Century of the Blood, and that he joined the war at the behest of Pentos and Tyrosh (which places it definitely after their alliance). Now Aegon was definitely born in 27 BC, which means that he really couldn’t have partaken much before 13 BC – but this is only problematic if we get overly finicky about the “Century” part of the “Century of Blood.”
So Aegon gets involved very late in the war, burns “a Volantene fleet that was preparing to invade” Lys in what must have been a very last-ditch counter-offensive, and then Dagger Lake and the Dothraki show up and the elephants overthrow the tigers – which we know happened right around 0 AC, since Aegon VI describes the elephants as having “ruled the city for three hundred years” in the year 300 AC. This suggests that Aegon’s intervention must have happened only a few years before the Conquest, at most around 4 BC, when he was in his early 20s. (Which counts as still-young, I suppose.)
Moreover, we also learn that “shortly after his role in defeating Volantis it is written he lost all interest in the affairs of the east…’[and] turned his gaze west,” which are the last words in WOIAF before the account of the Conquest begins. This is further evidence that Aegon’s involvement must have happened only a few years before the Conquest.

As long as we’re willing to accept that the Century is more of a handy moniker than a precise chronological metric, the problem resolves itself nicely.

I think it’s surprising that Maidenpool is considered part of the riverlands, when given the history of House Mooton it was amongst the first to realise the power of the dragons and swear fealty to Aegon. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Iron Throne to want it in the Crownlands, for their own coffers, to act as a strong northern defence on the border of royal lands, and to act as a counter-weight to Duskendale (re: second port status)?

I don’t find it that surprising. Maidenpool has been part of the Riverlands for thousands and thousands of years before the Targaryens ever arrived in Westeros. And the Mootons only swore fealty after having been beaten on the field and having their lord slain in battle, so it wasn’t painless.

As to why it wasn’t included in the Crownlands…well, Aegon had already considerably extended the Crownlands by incorporating a good chunk of the northern Stormlands, and that had a deleterious long-term effect of weakening the Stormlands vis-a-vis Dorne and other potential threats. Taking Maidenpool from the Riverlands would significantly diminish an already-weak province, leading to greater problems in the future.

Also, he just didn’t need it. Aegon’s policy and that of his successors, was to boost King’s Landing as a port at the expense of Duskendale. Why include another potential competitor port?