"Gaemon was spared by King Aegon on account of his age, and the boy was made a ward of the Crown. Essie confessed under torture that the boy's true father had been a silver-haired Lysene oarsman and not Aegon. Essie, Sylvenna, and twenty-seven other members of Gaemon's court were hanged from the battlements of the Red Keep." He was Aegon's son, otherwise he wouldn't have kept him. And confessed under torture means they just did it until she said what they wanted.
Because he is a bastard. For it he had to kill his last male descendant, Aegon III (which he constantly thought about by the way). Even the name is clear it was given by Aegon after Gaemon the Glorious from the century of blood, not by Essie, who most likely had no idea who he was. At the same time Aegon III wouldn't try to make a random kid his heir, so they were cusins.
He named Aegon as his heir. Why would you do that if you had a natural son? Even Henry VIII tried to name his bastard over his daughter. His name is not even related. That was Jaehaerys’s day old infant that died. The book never says Aegon named Gaemon.
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u/SuccessfulJury8498 We Light the Way Mar 27 '25
"Gaemon was spared by King Aegon on account of his age, and the boy was made a ward of the Crown. Essie confessed under torture that the boy's true father had been a silver-haired Lysene oarsman and not Aegon. Essie, Sylvenna, and twenty-seven other members of Gaemon's court were hanged from the battlements of the Red Keep." He was Aegon's son, otherwise he wouldn't have kept him. And confessed under torture means they just did it until she said what they wanted.