House of the Dragon’s King Aegon: Much More Than Just a Joffrey 2.0

Austen Goslin
( he/him) is an enjoyment editor. He discusses the current television programs and flicks, and especially likes all points scary.

The Game of Thrones television world has actually had its reasonable share of childlike, petulant, fair-haired kings. And in the beginning, House of the Dragon season 2 s enhancement to that schedule, Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), felt like he might wind up simply a somewhat much less bad rehash of Joffrey, like the collection taking its foot off the gas and playing the hits. But in the very first 2 episodes of the period, Aegon has actually currently shown that there’s lots to divide him from Game of Thrones‘ biggest bad guy.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2. It also contains spoilers for Game of Thrones, if that’s somehow a concern for you.]

Joffrey is, by need, a rather straightforward personality. In season 2 of Game of Thrones, when he initially actually enters power, the program is presenting six brand-new intrigues and two times as lots of personalities. Joffrey’s premature, terrible, fierce, spontaneous, and usually senseless in a lot of his activities. That isn’t to state his personality misbehaves since it’s straightforward, simply that he completes a really required duty. The period is an uproar of ethically grey personalities with Joffrey in the facility to offer the target market a support, like a measuring indicate evaluate the relative wickedness of every various other king; when every person else is ethically complicated, it assists to have a bad guy to orient ourselves about.

But like most of the characters in House of the Dragon, Aegon is much more nuanced than his closest Game of Thrones equivalent.

In his earliest minutes this period, Aegon obtains a comparable arrangement. We see him at a tiny council conference, acting like a brash child, promoting battle in an immediate, angry that any person would certainlyquestion his claim to the throne But his mankind does not take lengthy to arise. During his time attending the worries of his lowborn topics, it ends up being clear that Aegon intends to be an excellent king. He attempts to loosen up the animals tax obligation on farmers, just to be informed that it would certainly paralyze his dragons, and he plainly intends to offer the smiths the cash they ask for. Neither of these, as Otto mentions, are especially excellent choices. But they’re compassionate and easy to understand just the same, in such a way that Joffrey never ever might be.

In this way, Aegon is a lot more influenced by misfortune than Joffrey ever before was. In the 2nd episode of the period, after the death of his son and heir, Aegon is barged in an extra nuanced means than Game of Thrones personalities ever before have actually been, a minimum of on display. We see him impulsively ask for battle and Rhaenyra’s head; we see him eliminate the previous Goldcloak that was captured trying to shuttle his child’s go out of King’s Landing; and we see him sob alone in his space in among the saddest tv scenes in current memory, made a lot more emotional by the reality that Alicent merely leaves of the space when she sees this, also unfortunate herself to also challenge her child.

It’s all the impetuous uneasyness that we saw from Aegon throughout the very first episode’s little council conferences, yet materializing itself though pain as opposed to dullness. Aegon’s ruined life ranges him from misfortune yet does not vaccinate him to it. So when it comes for him, also, he has no concept what to do with those sensations. It’s deeply, inevitably, and devastatingly human, done in manner ins which Joffrey never ever required to be. And that’s specifically what House of the Dragon requires, with its twisted internet of domestic problems, misconceptions, and backhanded power grabs.

Unsurprisingly, the most effective recap for the sort of king Aegon II Targaryen is, and just how various he is from Joffrey, originates from Game of Thrones itself. In the initial collection’ 2nd period, Tyrion informs Joffrey that Westeros has actually had savage kings and moron kings, yet that Joffrey could be its very first savage moron king. In Tyrion’s parlance, Aegon is a moron king. Not the disparaging sort of moron that Tyrion meant, yet a heartbreaking sort of moron. In afterward, Aegon might have had a great sufficient regime, which reality alone develops an enormous gulf in between him and Joffrey, and makes Aegon an also sadder personality at the same time.

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Source: Polygon

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