Simon Strong

Simon Strong was the elderly castellan of Harrenhal whose surrender to Daemon Targaryen brought the castle and its household into Daemon’s hands, but later cost Simon his life. Aemond Targaryen interpreted the surrender as treachery: Simon’s insistence that he remained loyal to the Crown could not save him, and his death accompanied the destruction of House Strong’s male line at Harrenhal.

Position at Harrenhal

Simon held Harrenhal as castellan while its lord, Larys Strong, was away in King’s Landing. He was the uncle of the late Lord Lyonel Strong and the great-uncle of Larys. Though much of Harren’s great castle lay in ruins, its high curtain walls still made it a formidable stronghold. Its weakness was that it could not withstand a dragon’s attack from above, a vulnerability already demonstrated by Aegon the Dragon; with the castle lightly garrisoned, its defenses offered little protection against Daemon’s arrival.

Surrender to Daemon

When Caraxes landed atop Kingspyre Tower, Simon quickly struck Harrenhal’s banners. The account presents his decision as an effort to avoid the fate of Black Harren, rather than as evidence of a prior conspiracy. Daemon thereby took the castle without a prolonged fight, along with the considerable wealth of House Strong and a dozen valuable hostages, including Simon and his grandsons. The castle’s smallfolk were also captured, among them the wet nurse Alys Rivers.

Aemond’s accusation and death

After Daemon and his followers had left Harrenhal, Aemond arrived and treated Simon’s swift surrender as proof that the castellan was a traitor. Simon protested that he was a loyal servant of the Crown and pointed out that his great-nephew Larys was Lord of Harrenhal and King Aegon’s master of whisperers. Aemond instead extended his suspicion to Larys, reasoning that someone on the small council must have revealed when King’s Landing was vulnerable; he also invoked Larys’s family connection to Harwin Strong and, through him, to Rhaenyra’s sons.

Aemond gave Simon a sword and made his innocence depend on defeating him in a duel. The contest was one-sided, and Aemond killed the elderly castellan before giving his body to Vhagar. Simon’s death was followed by the execution of his grandsons and every other man and boy with Strong blood whom Aemond could find. No trueborn member of House Strong was spared. Alys Rivers, whom Aemond had taken into his household after seizing the castle, was the striking exception to the purge.

Significance

Simon’s brief rule at Harrenhal ended in two sharply contrasting acts of submission and punishment. He surrendered to a dragon rather than invite the destruction associated with Black Harren; later, Aemond recast that practical decision as proof of disloyalty and used it to justify a purge that ended the ancient line of House Strong at the castle. Simon’s death thus marks not simply the fate of one castellan, but the transformation of Harrenhal from a prize captured by Daemon into the setting for Aemond’s reprisal against its household.