Jocelyn Baratheon

Jocelyn Baratheon was the daughter of Rogar Baratheon and Alyssa Targaryen, born at a moment of loss and brought up at the royal court. Her marriage to Aemon Targaryen joined the Baratheon and Targaryen families; their daughter, Rhaenys Targaryen, later stood at the center of a dispute over the Iron Throne. Jocelyn’s place in the history is therefore both familial and political: she appears as a mother whose bereavements were personal, but whose daughter’s claim made her kinship consequential to the realm’s succession.

Birth and Early Life

Jocelyn was born after a perilous delivery in which her mother, Queen Alyssa, died. The newborn was so small and weak that those attending her doubted she would live. Rogar Baratheon named her Jocelyn only days later, once he had recovered enough from Alyssa’s death to consider the child’s future. Her beginning was thus marked by both vulnerability and the absence of a mother who could raise her.

In 61 AC, Rogar brought Jocelyn and two young cousins to King’s Landing. His brother’s family had died during the Shivers, and Jocelyn had never known a mother; the women who had cared for her had also been responsible for their own children. Rogar asked Jaehaerys Targaryen and Alysanne Targaryen to take the girls as wards and raise them alongside their own children. Alysanne accepted Jocelyn as family, describing her as a sister whose blood the royal household had not forgotten. The arrangement gave Jocelyn a place at court among the king and queen’s children, rather than leaving her in the care of relatives at Storm’s End.

Marriage to Aemon Targaryen

Jocelyn’s court upbringing brought her into the company of Aemon, Prince of Dragonstone. At the feast celebrating his investiture as heir, Alysanne seated Jocelyn beside him. The two were observed talking and laughing together through the evening, apart from the other guests. In 68 AC, when Aemon was Prince of Dragonstone, the king and queen announced their betrothal.

The match had been considered alongside another possible pairing: Aemon might have married his sister Alyssa. Alysanne rejected that arrangement, holding that Alyssa was intended for Baelon Targaryen, to whom she had been close since childhood. Jocelyn’s betrothal to Aemon therefore formed part of the royal family’s deliberate choices about marriage and succession, even as the account also records the young couple’s evident ease in one another’s company.

They married in 70 AC, in a ceremony whose splendor rivaled that of the Golden Wedding. Jocelyn was sixteen and Aemon fifteen. She was tall, with straight black hair, and the two made a striking pair; despite Jocelyn’s height, Aemon stood several inches taller. Their marriage produced a daughter, Rhaenys, born in 74 AC. Jocelyn’s significance within the royal family consequently extended beyond her own marriage: through Rhaenys, her line would acquire a claim that became contested after Aemon’s death.

Widowhood and the Succession Dispute

Aemon was killed on Tarth in 92 AC when a Myrish crossbow bolt intended for the Evenstar struck him. He died at thirty-seven, leaving Jocelyn a widow and Rhaenys without her father. The account registers Jocelyn’s grief through the image of her empty bed and bitter tears, placing her bereavement among the losses felt across the royal family. Baelon Targaryen avenged Aemon by attacking the Myrish forces, but retaliation could not restore Jocelyn’s husband or return Rhaenys’s father.

After Aemon’s death, Jaehaerys named Baelon heir to the Iron Throne. The choice followed established practice and was supported by the king’s councillors, who regarded Baelon as a seasoned adult with sons of his own. But Aemon had left a child: Rhaenys, now a young woman, was married to Corlys Velaryon and was pregnant when her father died. Naming Baelon passed over both Rhaenys and, potentially, the child she carried. Jocelyn and her brother Boremund Baratheon were among those angered by the decision. Their opposition placed Jocelyn not only within the circle of those mourning Aemon but also within the family challenge to the king’s handling of succession.

The unborn child proved to be a girl, Laena Velaryon; Rhaenys later had a son, Laenor Velaryon. Baelon remained firmly established as heir, yet House Velaryon and House Baratheon continued to regard Laenor as having a stronger claim, with some also arguing for Rhaenys and Laena. The account does not describe Jocelyn’s later actions in that continuing dispute. It does show how her marriage, motherhood, and Baratheon kinship converged in a controversy that outlasted Aemon himself.

Narrative Role and Significance

Jocelyn’s story is told through a sequence of family arrangements and losses: a birth shadowed by her mother’s death, wardship at court, a royal marriage, widowhood, and a daughter’s contested inheritance. The narrative gives her few recorded words or independent actions, but does establish her as more than a link between houses. Her presence among those who opposed the succession decision makes the consequences of that decision visible within the family it affected.

Her position also reveals the layered character of Targaryen kinship. Alysanne received Jocelyn as a sister and as blood; Jocelyn then married Alysanne’s son Aemon, and their daughter Rhaenys became a possible successor to the throne. These relationships joined intimate family life to public claims. When the king passed over Rhaenys and her unborn child, the dispute was not an abstract question of inheritance for Jocelyn: it concerned the future of her daughter’s line, while also deepening the loss left by Aemon’s death.