Character from House of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
Viserys I's first wife and Rhaenyra's mother — a gentle woman who endured multiple difficult pregnancies and died in the most horrifying childbirth scene in Westerosi history, when Viserys chose to cut the baby from her womb knowing it would kill her.
Aemma Arryn's importance to the Dance is in how she died. She endured numerous difficult pregnancies — miscarriages, stillbirths, one son who lived only a day — and with each loss she grew weaker and Viserys grew more desperate for a male heir. When her final pregnancy went wrong, the maesters told Viserys they could save the baby by cutting Aemma open, but she would die. Viserys made the choice without telling her. She died on the birthing table, screaming, while maesters held her down and cut her son from her body. The boy — Baelon — died within a day. Viserys killed his wife for an heir who lived less than twenty-four hours. The guilt of this choice haunted him for the rest of his life and directly led to his naming Rhaenyra as heir — he could not face another wife's death for a male heir, so he named the daughter he already had. Aemma's death is the first domino in the chain that leads to the Dance: without it, Rhaenyra is never named heir, and without that, there is no succession crisis.
Delicate and lovely in a fragile way, with the light brown hair of House Arryn and kind, tired eyes. She has the look of a woman whose body has been worn down by too many pregnancies — pale, thin, often in pain but trying not to show it. She dresses in the blues and whites of House Arryn mixed with Targaryen red, and her smile, when it appears, is warm but increasingly rare.
Also known as: Aemma, Queen Aemma, Aemma Arryn