‘Game of Thrones’: Who Is the Mad King, and Why Did Jaime Kill Him?

“I know what my father was, what he did,” Dany said back in Season 5 of “Game of Thrones.” “I know the Mad King earned his name.”

Barristan Selmy was the first to fill in Dany on her grim family history, with Tyrion adding detail later on. In their candor about Dany’s cruel father, King Aerys II, they had hoped to curb her own destructive tendencies. But none of Dany’s advisers revealed to her just how intertwined the Lannisters were with her father’s story, and how much their friendship and falling-out shaped the Mad King’s reign.

In other words, when Jaime stood before her in Sunday’s episode, his life potentially in the balance, he might have done well to fill her in on the details.

Tywin Lannister, a royal page in his youth, became close friends with Aerys Targaryen long before he was crowned king, and he was a natural choice for hand of the king after Aerys’s coronation. (A post he held for nearly 20 years.) But the two men’s friendship also contained elements of rivalry. Aerys lusted after Joanna Lannister — Tywin’s cousin and wife — and his lewd comments soured his relationship with Tywin. Aerys became increasingly paranoid about his difficulty having children with his sister and wife, Queen Rhaella, who had a series of miscarriages and stillbirths. In raging frustration, Aerys confined Rhaella to her quarters, beheaded a wet nurse and tortured his mistress and her family to death.

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At the same time, Tywin was doing a fine job managing the realm, and he began getting public recognition for it — a development that served only to fuel Aerys’s paranoia. Remember the mute executioner Ilyn Payne? Aerys had his tongue torn out for allegedly saying that Tywin was the power behind the throne. Then the angry king began trying to curb his hand’s ambitions and sabotage his endeavors, even if it hurt the realm.