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Reading "The World of Ice & Fire; the untold history of Westeros and the Game of Thrones", a pretty good case is made that

Cersei and Jaime may actually be the Mad King's bastards.

This would go a long way to explaining certain qualities that both Cersei and Jaime possess.

Cersei certainly seems to have the whole crazy hostile and insanity thing going down, while Jaime is the best swordsman of his age, much like many earlier Targaryen.

More importantly, this also seems to suggest that the whole deal with incest

might actually be something biologically linked to the Targaryen and not just something cultural. Worth noting is that in the history of the Targaryen, several of them end up falling in love with their siblings despite their parents attempting to prevent that from happening.

Joffrey certainly seems to have the insanity down, but with the earlier spoiler in mind, does Joffrey ever show any incestuous interest in Myrcella?

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    Yuk. Thanks for reminding me why I don't like aSoIaF any more.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Dec 17, 2015 at 20:43
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    imo the kid shows he is insane at least! his sister is really young though, and he himself is quite young in the books, and the sister is sent away before hes doing much of anything in the bedroom
    – Himarm
    Dec 17, 2015 at 22:29

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In the books, none of the royal Baratheon children have any POV chapters, so we have no idea what was inside Joffrey's head. And while we've seen Joffrey interact with many POV characters, his interactions with Myrcella were very limited on page. About the only conversation the two have had on page of any length was this funny episode:

“Mother said," mocked the king. "Don't be childish."

"We're children," Myrcella declared haughtily. "We're supposed to be childish."

The Hound laughed. "She has you there.”

Tommen is the same, though he has at least complained that Joffrey bullies him and physically abuses him in A Feast of Crows, but nothing sexual seems to have been implied.

So the answer, for now at least, seems to be no.

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Just to add one point. Incest breeding might cause physical/mental deformities on the children, which is evident in Joffrey's insanity. But incest itself is not a disease/deformity. Also there is no evidence to show it is a hereditary character.

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    Not in real life perhaps, but it certainly seems to be a hereditary character in the Song of Ice and Fire universe.
    – Theik
    Jan 11, 2016 at 12:27
  • Probably. But as the other answer mentions, there is no evidence that Joffrey has incestuous tendencies.
    – ʀᴇᴅ_ᴅᴇᴠɪʟ226
    Jan 12, 2016 at 4:28
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    @Theik Not quite. I think this is absurd to suggest that incestuous feelings were inherited parent to child in Valyrians. This was just their culture and they grew up thinking of it as normal. If one person is raised up with the belief that incest is okay and actually a good way to keep the bloodline pure, It is hardly surprising that he or she develops such feelings for other siblings. It varies. Take for Example King Aegon V, he detested incest, never fell for attempts from his sisters, wanted all his kids to marry outside the family. His own son Jaehaerys was however more "traditional".
    – Aegon
    Feb 10, 2017 at 9:19
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    And mark you, I think King Aegon IV developed his mindset of not liking incest thanks to his adventures in his boyhood with Ser Duncan the Tall, which allowed him to live away from the court, among the common people and observe that many things that he thought were normal were actually very queer. So TL;DR There is nothing hereditary about incest. Nothing in ASOIAF suggests that. Its just some people struggling to differentiate hereditary traits from cultural values
    – Aegon
    Feb 10, 2017 at 9:24

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