Home of the Dragon’s King Aegon is a brand new sort of king for the collection

The Sport of Thrones TV universe has had its justifiable share of infantile, petulant, fair-haired kings. And at first, Home of the Dragon season 2’s addition to that lineup, Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), appeared like he might find yourself only a barely much less evil rehash of Joffrey, just like the collection taking its foot off the gasoline and enjoying the hits. However within the first two episodes of the season, Aegon has already confirmed that there’s a lot to separate him from Sport of Thrones’ biggest villain.

[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 necessity, a fairly easy character. In season 2 of Sport of Thrones, when he first actually steps into energy, the present is introducing half a dozen new factions and twice as many characters. Joffrey’s immature, merciless, violent, impulsive, and customarily inconsiderate in most of his actions. That isn’t to say his character is dangerous as a result of it’s easy, simply that he fills in a really essential position. The season is a maelstrom of morally grey characters with Joffrey within the heart to provide the viewers an anchor, like a measuring level to guage the comparative evil of each different king; when everybody else is morally complicated, it helps to have a villain to orient ourselves round.

However like a lot of the characters in Home of the Dragon, Aegon is way extra nuanced than his closest Sport of Thrones counterpart.

Picture: HBO

In his earliest moments this season, Aegon will get an analogous setup. We see him at a small council assembly, appearing like a brash baby, pushing for warfare instantly, livid that anybody would query his declare to the throne. However his humanity doesn’t take lengthy to emerge. Throughout his time seeing to the considerations of his lowborn topics, it turns into clear that Aegon needs to be an excellent king. He tries to loosen the livestock tax on farmers, solely to be instructed that it might cripple his dragons, and he clearly needs to provide the smiths the cash they request. Neither of those, as Otto factors out, are significantly good choices. However they’re empathetic and comprehensible all the identical, in a means that Joffrey by no means might be.

In that means, Aegon is extra affected by tragedy than Joffrey ever was. Within the second episode of the season, after the loss of life of his son and inheritor, Aegon is damaged in a extra nuanced means than Sport of Thrones characters ever have been, a minimum of on display. We see him impulsively name for warfare and Rhaenyra’s head; we see him kill the previous Goldcloak that was caught trying to ferry his son’s head out of King’s Touchdown; and we see him cry alone in his room in one of many saddest tv scenes in current reminiscence, made much more poignant by the truth that Alicent merely walks out of the room when she sees this, too unhappy herself to even confront her son.

Photograph: Ollie Upton/HBO

It’s all of the impetuous restlessness that we noticed from Aegon throughout the first episode’s small council conferences, however manifesting itself although grief as an alternative of boredom. Aegon’s spoiled life distances him from tragedy however doesn’t immunize him to it. So when it comes for him, too, he has no concept what to do with these emotions. It’s deeply, inescapably, and devastatingly human, all in ways in which Joffrey by no means wanted to be. And that’s precisely what Home of the Dragon wants, with its tangled internet of familial conflicts, misunderstandings, and backhanded energy grabs.

Unsurprisingly, one of the best abstract for the sort of king Aegon II Targaryen is, and the way totally different he’s from Joffrey, comes from Sport of Thrones itself. Within the authentic collection’ second season, Tyrion tells Joffrey that Westeros has had vicious kings and fool kings, however that Joffrey is likely to be its first vicious fool king. In Tyrion’s parlance, Aegon is an fool king. Not the insulting sort of fool that Tyrion meant, however a tragic sort of fool. In one other time, Aegon might have had a positive sufficient reign, and that truth alone creates an enormous gulf between him and Joffrey, and makes Aegon a good sadder character within the course of.