Spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 9 can be found in this article.
The Second of His Name, Aegon Targaryen, did not desire to rule. In reality, it’s unclear what he actually wants, other than perhaps the unattainable affection of a distant father. But he plunges right into the midst of throne games and political intrigue. One could even wonder if the boy’s mother Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) would see the irony of another generation wearing a repulsive crown if he weren’t such a repulsive human being.
The main tragedy of the Greens, or the members of the royal family and the court who support Alicent’s children in the line of succession, is that this practice of parents sacrificing their children for their own goals remains.
By starting the story roughly 20 years before Aegon’s accession to the Iron Throne, House of the Dragon highlighted this fact in Dragonfire. When Emily Carey’s character Alicent Hightower first appeared to us,
she was an innocent young woman without any goals or aspirations other than the uncertain sentiments she could have had for Princess Rhaenyra (then Milly Alcock). Alice played the obedient daughter and charmed King Viserys (Paddy Considine) with pleasant words, good literature, and dresses made by her mother in our lesson on how to please a father.
The latter was a condition set forth by her father, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who never saw this child, who bears a striking resemblance to her mother, as anything more than a pawn in the Game of Thrones. also a pawn.
In tonight’s episode of The Green Council, Alicent finally addressed her father’s callousness head-on. She admitted to him that she was never more than a piece in his game and that our hearts were never truly one. Most chilling of all, however, is how Otto doesn’t dispute this, instead just saying, “And I created you a queen.” Alicent and her father’s sycophants were in a position of supreme power and privilege as a result of his prodding, and they were well-positioned to seize the Iron Throne and plunge Westeros into a bloody civil war.
Because of this, it’s odd that she doesn’t realize how history is repeating itself when she tells her father (in the exact same scenario!) that they would put Aegon the Conqueror’s original Valyrian steel crown on her son’s head. It will instill in her kid, a boy she is persuaded is the destined prince, a feeling of tradition and old majesty.
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Of course, anyone who is familiar with her son should realize that this is not a prophesied hero. Aegon, as portrayed by Tom Glynn-Carney as an adult, is a disaster. On his best days, he is only concerned about his liver when he disappears into his cups, albeit as we saw in the eighth episode, Driftmark, frequently infuriates his grandfather.
His libidinous urges turn him into a rapist on the horrifyingly worse ones, probably multiple times over. Alicent is aware of this as she draws her seven-pointed star closer to her chest while concealing the atrocities she learns about with Moon Tea and gold.
She is unaware of all the cretins Aegon is said to have sired along the Silk Road in King’s Landing, though (the red light district). One of Aegon’s many bastards with the silvery hair of a Targaryen banished to the depths of hell is spotted by his Kingsguard in tonight’s episode; the youngster is in a filthy pub where orphans are dehumanized and made to battle to the death.
It’s unclear whether Aegon worries about that or gave any thought to the issue of whether the mother was an unwilling child sent to rouse him from his bed or a willing prostitute. He is unsuitable to be king, he admits to his younger brother Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). Aemond agrees with this statement. The elder would already be halfway to Lys, where a brief but lavish life awaited in the pleasure halls if they both had their way.
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Why therefore does he wear a crown at the conclusion of The Green Council? Because Alicent is actually her father’s daughter, despite her efforts to convince herself that she is a better person and her recent realization of her father’s reptile nature. She desires a crown for Aegon because she is ready to trick herself into thinking that doing so is the proper course of action.
Despite Viserys ignoring Aegon for the boy s entire life, and the king remaining adamant that his daughter will be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Alicent will pretend that on his deathbed and under the influence of Milk of the Poppy, Viserys really wanted her child to be king. Because if he did t, what was all her own suffering as queen consort for?
To whatever credit can be granted Aegon, he understands at least how ill-suited he is to this ascent. He recognizes the crown is a death sentence or at least a prison. He saw how the weight of it decimated his father, who also never wanted to be king. In fact, the only thing old Viserys was clear about was that he wanted Rhaenyra to succeed him. All that power made his father an unhappy man and perhaps played a role in the disease that took his life so early (keep in mind Viserys is only five years older than Prince Daemon!).
But Alicent hears none of these valid points as they’re rushing their carriage to the Dragonpit determined to finalize the treason before word of the king s death can spread past the city walls. Alice has her own reasons, too, for hastiness. Much of The Green Council was about a proxy rivalry between the queen and her father, with two Kingsguard deployed by Ser Otto to find Aegon before Prince Aemond and the queen s own favored White Cloak, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) could.
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The assumption was that whoever spoke to a weak-willed sinner like Aegon first could persuade him to their preferred method of dealing with Rhaenyra, with the Hand favoring cold-blooded murder and the queen hoping Rhaenyra will accept terms of wealthy exile (yeah, right). Through it all, Aegon is just a pawn between them.
Aegon s pitiful grotesqueries are of his own making, with his lascivious nature being one of choice. However, you cannot help but wonder how differently the lad might’ve turned out if instead of being bred and raised as a weapon against Alicent and Otto s worst enemy, he was treated as a beloved son who needed to be educated about how to wield his privilege and treat women.
But much like their mother before them, Aegon and Aemond did not have normal or loving childhoods. Aegon likely received daily whispers to fear his sister and nephews, for they scheme to kill you he was told, and how he must be king; Aemond, meanwhile, heard much the same but was never promised a crown. And after the loss of an eye, the flicker of hate Alicent tended in him became a roaring fire.
Now as young men, one is a self-loathing lush and the other is a cold-blooded weapon whom the Greens only need an excuse to unsheathe. And on the day of Aegon s slapdash coronation, his mother failed to look her eldest son in the eye and say yes when he asks if she loves him.
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So it is that at the end of the ninth episode ofHouse of the Dragon, Aegon II Targaryen is made king with his great-great-great-grandfather s Valyrian steel crown. It s a power Aegon literally ran from a day earlier, but now that it s here, it feels insidiously cozy. Before the corrosive influence of power was seized, Aegon knew himself well enough to understand he should t be given this absolute privilege. Now that he has it though, we imagine he’ll wallow in it much like the rest of his proclivities.
The prince who was promised? Maybe in the Seven Hells.
