‘House of the Dragon’: Who is Aegon II Targaryen? Tom Glynn-Carney’s character fights Rhaenyra for Iron Throne
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: There is a lot of excitement amongst fans since in the next two days most eagerly anticipated prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ would be doing its curtain raiser to global viewers on August 21, 2022, on HBO and HBO Max. The much-discussed prequel series is an adventurous and poignant tale that starts from the moment when ruling King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) officially reveals his only daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock/Emma D’Arcy) as the next potential queen and ruler to the throne of Westeros. It chronicles the reign of House Targaryen which ruled on Westeros peacefully for three hundred years. The series narrates the dramatic fall of House Targaryen. It all gets triggered due to a nasty and ugly blood-filled civil war between Targaryens who are competing against each other to gain the power of the Iron Throne. At the core of it, the series tells viewers the journey of Rhaenyra who promises to gain the throne as her father’s real and true heir. She wants to create a new legacy as the queen of Westeros which angers the traditionalist society that fears seeing a woman on the Iron Throne.
Speaking about the characters within the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel, all of them are multifaceted yet intense and have emotionally nuanced backstories. One of the important characters in the show is Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn Carney). Aegon is King Viserys and his second wife Alicent Hightower’s eldest son, who is seen as one of the two main claimants to the Iron Throne in the ‘Dance of the Dragons’ civil war against his oldest half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen.
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Who is Aegon II Targaryen?
According to WinterIsComing.net, talking about the power dynamics between Aegon and his older half-sister Rhaenyra whom he resented a lot, this is a known fact that Rhaenyra was much stronger than Aegon II. Aegon II didn’t have the required grit and strong willpower that Rhaenyra had. He was said to be brooding and pouty, at least in his early life. He also had a controversial reputation for chasing women and is known to have fathered several illegitimate children. For the early part of his reign, there had been a lot of people pulling Aegon’s strings, including his mother Alicent and younger brother Aemond. But he does make some shrewd moves of his own and is very important to the story overall. Aegon II Targaryen is also known as 'Aegon: The Elder'.
According to the official description by HBO, Aegon II Targaryen is described as, the “first-born son of King Viserys.” Not many details have been revealed by the makers yet but Aegon’s character is going to be a key factor and one of the main catalysts participating in ‘Dance of the Dragons’ civil war against his eldest half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen, whom he hates for stealing his birth-right.
According to the lore of Martin’s 'Fire & Blood', After King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) loses his wife Aemma of House Arryn in child-birth, he declares his firstborn and only daughter Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock/Emma D’Arcy) as his real and true successor. Despite remarrying two years later to Rhaenyra’s once best friend Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and having three sons with her, he is still firm on having only Rhaenyra as his successor and next future queen of Westeros, which angers his second wife Alicent. This plan stays in place till King Viserys death when Rhaenyra is 32 and Aegon is 22. It is after the death of her father that things turn ugly as the traditional Westeros society and others dismiss the late King’s decision of having Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) inherit the throne and instead crown prince Aegon II as the King Aegon. It angers Rhaenyra as she was kept deliberately in dark until the coronation and this sparks off the biggest and nastiest civil war known as ‘Dance of the Dragons’ in which Rhaenyra strongly fights tooth and nail with her green team against cunning Aegon II and his black team to gain her real inheritance of ruling Westeros as the queen and ruler. It is during this war that all the Targaryens are pitted against each other with their dragons also fighting it out against the traditional Westeros society that fears seeing a woman on the coveted Iron Throne.
