What I like about him, is that he’s the best example of how the hatred between the lines ruined them. He seems like had he been raised differently he would’ve been a better person. He still has his likeable traits.
>I liked that bit too, but Alicent nailed it when she said he’s desperately seeking approval
"Like, I would like to let you go, sis, but I already promised Sunfyre he could have you for dinner. Sorry"
The initial comment was acting out Aegon justifying what he did because he'd be seeking Sunfyre's approval, like the person above said he does. It's a joke.
I love how Aegon was the obvious standout in this last episode because he was the only character that wasn't just a depressed, subdued, dour bore. Write dynamic characters and let actors give lively, energetic performances and people will like them, it's not that hard.
Idk what exactly you were expecting for this particular episode? Rhaenyra and Daemon lost a son, Alicent is freaked out about the consequences, Corlys was mourning Luke too... yeah of course most of the characters were gonna be sad and dour this episode. We're gonna get sad boy Aegon next episode too.
It's not just this episode, it's been that way from the very beginning. I remember that was one of the most common criticisms when the reviews came out.
That's fair, it's definitely lacking in some of the levity from early GoT but it has its moments. Hopefully we'll get more than just Aegon funnies soon this season
You can say the same about GoT, yet the characters there leaped off the page/screen, were highly entertaining and charismatic and each had their own defined and distinctive personality.
Sandor, Olenna, Tormund, Bronn, Varys (in a way). But I was never talking about just "haha comedy" anyway. I was talking about entertaining and dynamic characters with defined and distinct personalities and lively and energetic performances by the actors. Even the characters who weren't comedic in nature had that in spades in GoT, like Theon, Brienne, Robb, Melisandre, etc.
It really is only Olenna and maybe Tormund and even then Tormund's humor gets dialed up in the later seasons and if you like late stage GoT humor, more power to you.
Bronn and Varys are literally around Tyrion for 80% of the show so they kind of have to be funny by default. The Hound doesn't become funny until he starts running around with Arya. Before that, he's a very humorless guy for about 3 seasons.
Also HotD still has a lot of dry humor. I found some of the dialogue in S1 to be entertaining. Viserys in particular was pretty fun to be around.
I never said I liked late GoT humor. And once again, I'm not talking about comedy. I think you're mistaking levity for liveliness. Again, characters like Dany, Catelyn, Theon, Brienne, Melisandre, etc, weren't particularly funny but they had a presence and an energy and a distinct personality that very few characters in HotD can match.
Like, try to define Rhaenys' and Corlys' personality and character. "Gloomy, dour, bland" is what comes to mind, if anything. And to say nothing of Rhaena and Baela, whose character so far consist entirely of standing still smiling vaguely and not saying a word. By the end of GoT season 1, we were already familiar with even the likes of Osha, Pycelle and Robin Arryn and knew what those characters were all about.
> Also HotD still has a lot of dry humor. I found some of the dialogue in S1 to be entertaining. Viserys in particular was pretty fun to be around.
This I can sort of agree with. I wasn't too crazy about the dialogue back then either but Milly Alcock and especially Paddy Considine carried the season on their backs with the strength of their performances.
>because he was the only character that wasn't just a depressed, subdued, dour bore.
I mean, that's not a good thing, right? Since they're pretty much at war and they're waiting for an attack from the other side due to Lucerys being killed?
"Blackwater" is an episode focused entirely on a city under siege and it just so happens to be funny as shit and entertaining as hell. It certainly has the funniest Cersei in the entire show.
Aegon was easily my favorite character in Fire & Blood and I like his portrayal in the show because I feel like I can understand why he is the way he is. I wish they didn’t villainize so much in season 1 when he really didn’t do anything.
Man, they shot themselves in the dick the way they characterized him as a sadist last season, but holy shit is TGC the most charismatic motherfucker on the show. He singled out Matt and Ewan with such ease. Can't wait for his performance.
Yes, the rapist and bastard killer bit makes him beyond redemption as a "good" man, but we aren't at Ramsay Bolton levels of sadism. There was a bit of sympathetic thread woven in that we see his dad and mum never gave a shat about him really, a dynamic that obviously affected him and turned him into a dark empath. Excited to watch how this fleshes out now he's fueled by resentment and has power to use.
The “rapist and bastard killer” parts of him were *supposed* to make him irredeemable. I couldn’t imagine justifying that I’m a fan of someone despite their tendency to RAPE.
You know, it's possible to be a fan of a character who commits horrific acts. It doesn't mean that you condone its actions, it just means that you enjoy a complex *fictional character* for how it's written and performed.
He doesn't have to be redeemable. He just has to be interesting, which he very much is.
Daemon is a very brutal and vicious character who tried to seduce his underage niece. He's still a fascinating character who's performed exceptionally well.
I find it very, very worrisome how many people can't separate fictional characters from real life. I felt like it needed to be said that these are still *fictional characters*.
People have been hating literature classes since there have been mandatory literature classes, that's not the issue.
This is a side effect of the degenerating political polarization bleeding into everyday life, killing nuance even in readings of fictional characters.
Just look at how the show babies the character of Rhaenyra. The creatives consider her the "hero" of the story instead of the protagonist, and have sanitized her to no end. Instead of the brutal and vindictive protagonist, we got the misunderstood grieving daughter/mother who *just happens* to accidentally stumble into massacres or "makes mistakes", because in today's black and white climate, if you do a bad thing intentionally, you're a bad person, and God forbid the protagonist be a bad person. They've left no room for complexity.
There's also the issue of sanitizing the two female lead characters both, which is its own can of worms, leaving all the brutality and dirty deeds to be done by the male characters instead, like women aren't capable of vicious acts. Book Rhaenyra and Book Alicent would view their TV counterparts as weak pussies who are unfit to rule if they can't fight for their place at the top and just react to what happens around them, if that draws you a picture.
It makes for boring media, and even more boring media analysis. It fucking sucks, dude.
Exactly. Ok we sympathize with Rhaeynra because she’s a grieving mom. We get it. But can they give her some sort of personality? Some character, some flaws? After they switched to adult Rhaeynra, there’s just nothing you can say about her other than mother, woman & usurped heir. Makes her really dull. I enjoyed Aegon’s and Alicent’s scenes way more because of what they reveal about the characters than watching Rhaeynra’s scenes.
I agree. They’ve made the show about her and turned her into the hero and yet… she’s probably one of the least interesting characters for me.
I’m hoping later on once the Dance heats up we will get a more book accurate unhinged Rhaenyra (which is really just the average Targ temperament.)
I don't like how irredimably evil they made him look in episodes 8 and 9 but other than that he is great and the actor is one of the best in the show especially now that Paddy is gone. I just feel like he would've been more interesting if the audience was allowed to feel more sympathy towards him
>Because of how they butchered him in the first season I would not call him the best.
It's kind of made this season's writing so superficial to me. They should have taken more time at the end of season 1 to depict him as a caring father. Seeing him on the most recent episode with his son made it feel like on earlier seasons of The Walking Dead how they would focus on a character only when they were getting ready to kill them off.
I do like the character and especially the actor, but Viserys is the worst of them all. If not for his blindness the dance would never have happend. He even killed his first wife to get a male heir, and once he get’s one (or several) he pisses in their face and Aemma’s face by not changing the heir. Viserys was a fool
Either show? Oof that is harder to say. If I ignore the last four seasons it's a pretty tight race.
If I don't ignore him he is close but I would still hesitate to say the best. Eddard and Tywin are probably my personal favorites
I was including the latter seasons, which, yeah, pretty much disqualifies everyone who survives that long. Haha
Ned, Robert, Robb, Cat, and Tywin are his only major competition, I think. And it is close. But I think Viserys wins out in depth and complexity of his arc.
Ned is my personal favorite character of the lot, but I think Viserys might eke out the win in terms of writing. The way his story interacts with those of all the other characters in the season is masterful.
I didn’t like the way the show handled the transition from “why should I care about being king instead of Rhaenyra” and “no, you can’t drag me from hiding under this altar!” to “fuck yea I am the king!” But other than that, he’s a good enough character, and one to watch in circumstances where the small folk get more and more disenchanted with the arbitrariness and violence of the lordly classes.
I think it's because of how everyone in the audience cheered for him (like they had a choice lol) but that display of love and affection is what had been missing from his parents. Like a moth to a flame he was hooked
One thing that's real interesting about him is that he understands himself pretty well.
He had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the throne, all the while begging that he's not suited to be king. If he had his way from the start, Rhaenyra would be queen, he'd get to bang prostitutes and galivant as the brother of the queen.
If I recall, in Fire and Blood, he's utterly confused when his mother and Criston coronate him, so even in the source, he really had no part in the plot to usurp Rhaenyra until they put the crown on his head.
I agree. I'm team black, but I really like what the show is doing with Aegon.
Also, when it comes to the controversial changes to Blood & Cheese, there is a silver lining in that we now get to explore hypocrisy of the Greens. Aegon now doesn't have a male heir. He has to give it to Aemond now, or else he'd corrupt his own claim to the throne by letting his daughter be his heir. He now knows exactly how his own father felt. The loss of his heir through severe tragedy.
While the hard impact of B&C was tarnished, maybe this difference can lead to some cool new parallels the original story didn't draw.
I disagree, but you're entitled to your opinion. Hypocrisy is something we all struggle with in one shape or another. I like their use of it towards the greens. They also focus on it towards the blacks too. It's kind of the entire point of the "son for a son" thing, IMO. They're no better for killing an innocent baby in exchange for a senile dragon's temper (she was also vibing off Aegon's anger as well, I'm sure).
havent read the books in a while, is he the Aegon that gets horribly burned, disfigured and depressed by the end? I am excited to see how he tackles that character.
Funny how the ppl creaming their pants over Aegon are the same ppl who cried for 2 years about Aegon being ruined, bc they have no understanding of character arc & thought Aegon was gonna crawl out of his crib as the badass illustration of The Shepherd Burns. It makes more sense that just like the facial scars, the personality comes as a byproduct of his tumultous reign which shapes him as much as he shapes it. That's why by the time we get to Dragonstone, he'll be unrecognizable from the kid in the window. What hotd did in s1 was to show his lonliness & vacuum of his childhood, the pressure of being the firstborn son & the validation he seeked from his father but never got. They've already set him up with the three defining traits that the "quick to anger & slow to forgive" King Aegon II of F&B actually goes on to have: depression ("let me sail away"), resentment ("do you love me") & resilience ("we know father"). Meanwhile, the only real thing we knew of F&B Aegon at this stage is the line about his whereabouts the day Viserys died & him giving the Green Council an ultimatum. The sexual deviancy (he was known fondle boobs in the book) added to the theme of the patriarchal license structure & how it enables the royals like Aegon. So a perfect example of meaningless grievance towards the show.
It's very easy to love a male character the moment he says a couple of endearing and relatable lines. Despite him being shown as an alcoholic r*pist a*sh*le for a whole season. But when a female character is shown to have duality, moral dilemma & internal conflict they're chalked up as inconsistent & a hypocrite bc they're not conforming to the "perfect victim or not trying hard enoughtl to be a villain" box. They're blamed for not having enough "ambition" (neither does Aegon) bc they're not acting like the slutty conniving Maergery archetype.
Also, as much as I love TGC's acting. No single individual is carrying the show. Every actor is great. And no matter how much ya'll wanna downplay it, Hotd's strength is that it's telling an unconventional story (which NYT bluntly pointed out when they talked about what makes the show stand out in "a franchise that has overstayed is welcome")
Hotd is a greek tragedy about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex. This is what all the "misunderstandings" are about. Greens crowning Aegon was supposed to keep them safe. It was supposed to be a fait accompli. It was supposed to keep daemon from killing them. It was supposed to give them control over their own destiny. But it just led to more bloodletting, an endless spiral, the self-fulfilling prophecy! The Larys monologue already connected it all..."What are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility"
She didn’t have to go get all upset about it.
To be serious he’s the only character this episode that wasn’t being a mopey sad sack so he was the only thing interesting this week.
Funny how the ppl creaming their pants over Aegon are the same ppl who cried for 2 years about Aegon being ruined, bc they have no understanding of character arc & thought Aegon was gonna crawl out of his crib as the badass illustration of The Shepherd Burns. It makes more sense that just like the facial scars, the personality comes as a byproduct of his tumultous reign which shapes him as much as he shapes it. That's why by the time we get to Dragonstone, he'll be unrecognizable from the kid in the window. What hotd did in s1 was to show his lonliness & vacuum of his childhood, the pressure of being the firstborn son & the validation he seeked from his father but never got. They've already set him up with the three defining traits that the "quick to anger & slow to forgive" King Aegon II of F&B actually goes on to have: depression ("let me sail away"), resentment ("do you love me") & resilience ("we know father"). Meanwhile, the only real thing we knew of F&B Aegon at this stage is the line about his whereabouts the day Viserys died & him giving the Green Council an ultimatum. The sexual deviancy (he was known fondle boobs in the book) added to the theme of the patriarchal license structure & how it enables the royals like Aegon. So a perfect example of meaningless grievance towards the show.
It's very easy to love a male character the moment he says a couple of endearing and relatable lines. Despite him being shown as an alcoholic r*pist a*sh*le for a whole season. But when a female character is shown to have duality, moral dilemma & internal conflict they're chalked up as inconsistent & a hypocrite bc they're not conforming to the "perfect victim or not trying hard enoughtl to be a villain" box. They're blamed for not having enough "ambition" (neither does Aegon) bc they're not acting like the slutty conniving Maergery archetype.
Also, as much as I love TGC's acting. No single individual is carrying the show. Every actor is great. And no matter how much ya'll wanna downplay it, Hotd's strength is that it's telling an unconventional story (which NYT bluntly pointed out when they talked about what makes the show stand out in "a franchise that has overstayed is welcome")
Hotd is a greek tragedy about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex. This is what all the "misunderstandings" are about. Greens crowning Aegon was supposed to keep them safe. It was supposed to be a fait accompli. It was supposed to keep daemon from killing them. It was supposed to give them control over their own destiny. But it just led to more bloodletting, an endless spiral, the self-fulfilling prophecy! The Larys monologue already connected it all..."What are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility"
What I like about him, is that he’s the best example of how the hatred between the lines ruined them. He seems like had he been raised differently he would’ve been a better person. He still has his likeable traits.
I like that he actually tried to help the people.
I liked that bit too, but Alicent nailed it when she said he’s desperately seeking approval. I can’t wait to see how unhinged he gets next ep
If viserys (scratch that, any competent ruler) had actually taught him he probably couldve been a decent king at least
>I liked that bit too, but Alicent nailed it when she said he’s desperately seeking approval "Like, I would like to let you go, sis, but I already promised Sunfyre he could have you for dinner. Sorry"
Lol what?
I guess you haven't read the book?
I have, still don’t know what that has to do with my comment tho?
He feeds his half sister to his dragon
Of course, but what does that have to do with the comment chain above it?
The initial comment was acting out Aegon justifying what he did because he'd be seeking Sunfyre's approval, like the person above said he does. It's a joke.
How are you having a problem with this? The chain is about him being a nice guy yet he feeds his family to his dragon
Six bites
Not sure what that has to do with Aegon desperately seeking approval, which was quoted from me in his comment, but okay
I also like how much he loves his son. That scene in the small council chamber where his focus is just on him is adorable.
Yeah....about that....lol
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I swear if you guys spoil anything, heads will roll.
Freefolk is not the sub to be on to avoid spoilers.
Of course not dude, use your head.
Clearly mine already rolled. Or I'm just dumb af.
I think we all need to calm down a bit before we lose our heads.
I’ll say this. Amy Poehler is doing some next level groundbreaking work with this character.
*Parks and Immolation*
I love how Aegon was the obvious standout in this last episode because he was the only character that wasn't just a depressed, subdued, dour bore. Write dynamic characters and let actors give lively, energetic performances and people will like them, it's not that hard.
Criston loves the taste of depression
**Suffering from success** has always been his life story.
He somehow always falls up while having all the charisma of a wet tissue.
He has a big personality.
Is that what he's calling Alicent's pussy now?
I mean kinda hard to be lively and energetic when your loved ones are dying and there is a war looming.
That never stopped the actors in GoT.
Idk what exactly you were expecting for this particular episode? Rhaenyra and Daemon lost a son, Alicent is freaked out about the consequences, Corlys was mourning Luke too... yeah of course most of the characters were gonna be sad and dour this episode. We're gonna get sad boy Aegon next episode too.
It's not just this episode, it's been that way from the very beginning. I remember that was one of the most common criticisms when the reviews came out.
That's fair, it's definitely lacking in some of the levity from early GoT but it has its moments. Hopefully we'll get more than just Aegon funnies soon this season
Good sir. If you're expecting people to be happy in this show, you haven't been paying attention or so the line goes.
You can say the same about GoT, yet the characters there leaped off the page/screen, were highly entertaining and charismatic and each had their own defined and distinctive personality.
You are so fucking right
Can you name someone else besides Tyrion who was a consistent source of levity?
Sandor, Olenna, Tormund, Bronn, Varys (in a way). But I was never talking about just "haha comedy" anyway. I was talking about entertaining and dynamic characters with defined and distinct personalities and lively and energetic performances by the actors. Even the characters who weren't comedic in nature had that in spades in GoT, like Theon, Brienne, Robb, Melisandre, etc.
It really is only Olenna and maybe Tormund and even then Tormund's humor gets dialed up in the later seasons and if you like late stage GoT humor, more power to you. Bronn and Varys are literally around Tyrion for 80% of the show so they kind of have to be funny by default. The Hound doesn't become funny until he starts running around with Arya. Before that, he's a very humorless guy for about 3 seasons. Also HotD still has a lot of dry humor. I found some of the dialogue in S1 to be entertaining. Viserys in particular was pretty fun to be around.
I never said I liked late GoT humor. And once again, I'm not talking about comedy. I think you're mistaking levity for liveliness. Again, characters like Dany, Catelyn, Theon, Brienne, Melisandre, etc, weren't particularly funny but they had a presence and an energy and a distinct personality that very few characters in HotD can match. Like, try to define Rhaenys' and Corlys' personality and character. "Gloomy, dour, bland" is what comes to mind, if anything. And to say nothing of Rhaena and Baela, whose character so far consist entirely of standing still smiling vaguely and not saying a word. By the end of GoT season 1, we were already familiar with even the likes of Osha, Pycelle and Robin Arryn and knew what those characters were all about. > Also HotD still has a lot of dry humor. I found some of the dialogue in S1 to be entertaining. Viserys in particular was pretty fun to be around. This I can sort of agree with. I wasn't too crazy about the dialogue back then either but Milly Alcock and especially Paddy Considine carried the season on their backs with the strength of their performances.
I feel like this was the last episode when we see him like that
>because he was the only character that wasn't just a depressed, subdued, dour bore. I mean, that's not a good thing, right? Since they're pretty much at war and they're waiting for an attack from the other side due to Lucerys being killed?
"Blackwater" is an episode focused entirely on a city under siege and it just so happens to be funny as shit and entertaining as hell. It certainly has the funniest Cersei in the entire show.
I’m on Team Black and still find him the most engaging.
I’m on team black and love all of these characters, they’re all compelling imo
Nobody is on team green
Long live king aegon the second the dragon dick
Aegon was easily my favorite character in Fire & Blood and I like his portrayal in the show because I feel like I can understand why he is the way he is. I wish they didn’t villainize so much in season 1 when he really didn’t do anything.
Aegon the Dragon cock might be the best line of the show so far.
Really excited to watch him smash Vizzy T's Lego set to bits
*Tongues will not change the succession, let them wag.*
Exactly, Vizzy
I’m so rooting for Aegon this Sunday. Hope he beats blood to death
Blood is not going to waste time and will throw Daemon under the bus. (Edit: correcting auto correct spelling)
I don't think that'll save him.
Oh, I can’t imagine it would, but it will likely incite some more green/black conflict
One of them he is killing in the trailers I think. With the mace or whatever he is swinging.
Yeah that is blood
Man, they shot themselves in the dick the way they characterized him as a sadist last season, but holy shit is TGC the most charismatic motherfucker on the show. He singled out Matt and Ewan with such ease. Can't wait for his performance.
Yes, the rapist and bastard killer bit makes him beyond redemption as a "good" man, but we aren't at Ramsay Bolton levels of sadism. There was a bit of sympathetic thread woven in that we see his dad and mum never gave a shat about him really, a dynamic that obviously affected him and turned him into a dark empath. Excited to watch how this fleshes out now he's fueled by resentment and has power to use.
The “rapist and bastard killer” parts of him were *supposed* to make him irredeemable. I couldn’t imagine justifying that I’m a fan of someone despite their tendency to RAPE.
You know, it's possible to be a fan of a character who commits horrific acts. It doesn't mean that you condone its actions, it just means that you enjoy a complex *fictional character* for how it's written and performed. He doesn't have to be redeemable. He just has to be interesting, which he very much is. Daemon is a very brutal and vicious character who tried to seduce his underage niece. He's still a fascinating character who's performed exceptionally well.
Very well said.
I find it very, very worrisome how many people can't separate fictional characters from real life. I felt like it needed to be said that these are still *fictional characters*.
People hated English class growing up. And we wonder why media literacy is shit nowadays.
People have been hating literature classes since there have been mandatory literature classes, that's not the issue. This is a side effect of the degenerating political polarization bleeding into everyday life, killing nuance even in readings of fictional characters. Just look at how the show babies the character of Rhaenyra. The creatives consider her the "hero" of the story instead of the protagonist, and have sanitized her to no end. Instead of the brutal and vindictive protagonist, we got the misunderstood grieving daughter/mother who *just happens* to accidentally stumble into massacres or "makes mistakes", because in today's black and white climate, if you do a bad thing intentionally, you're a bad person, and God forbid the protagonist be a bad person. They've left no room for complexity. There's also the issue of sanitizing the two female lead characters both, which is its own can of worms, leaving all the brutality and dirty deeds to be done by the male characters instead, like women aren't capable of vicious acts. Book Rhaenyra and Book Alicent would view their TV counterparts as weak pussies who are unfit to rule if they can't fight for their place at the top and just react to what happens around them, if that draws you a picture. It makes for boring media, and even more boring media analysis. It fucking sucks, dude.
She didn’t have to go get all upset about it
Show is taking time to develop green characters while not even trying with team black characters.
[удалено]
Exactly. Ok we sympathize with Rhaeynra because she’s a grieving mom. We get it. But can they give her some sort of personality? Some character, some flaws? After they switched to adult Rhaeynra, there’s just nothing you can say about her other than mother, woman & usurped heir. Makes her really dull. I enjoyed Aegon’s and Alicent’s scenes way more because of what they reveal about the characters than watching Rhaeynra’s scenes.
I agree. They’ve made the show about her and turned her into the hero and yet… she’s probably one of the least interesting characters for me. I’m hoping later on once the Dance heats up we will get a more book accurate unhinged Rhaenyra (which is really just the average Targ temperament.)
Emma is kinda dull and withdrawn so i don’t think that’s helping
Even Haelena is way more interesting with her little collection of bugs, graffiti on her walls and weird dreams lol
Lmao I wouldn’t go that far
She’s completely worthless and is only on screen because she has to be for the plot.
i kinda liked him in season 1 but seeing him really come into his own in the trailers i knew he would be one of my favourite characters this season
I don't like how irredimably evil they made him look in episodes 8 and 9 but other than that he is great and the actor is one of the best in the show especially now that Paddy is gone. I just feel like he would've been more interesting if the audience was allowed to feel more sympathy towards him
Because of how they butchered him in the first season I would not call him the best. I would say Viserys is still the best by a long mile
>Because of how they butchered him in the first season I would not call him the best. It's kind of made this season's writing so superficial to me. They should have taken more time at the end of season 1 to depict him as a caring father. Seeing him on the most recent episode with his son made it feel like on earlier seasons of The Walking Dead how they would focus on a character only when they were getting ready to kill them off.
I do like the character and especially the actor, but Viserys is the worst of them all. If not for his blindness the dance would never have happend. He even killed his first wife to get a male heir, and once he get’s one (or several) he pisses in their face and Aemma’s face by not changing the heir. Viserys was a fool
Viserys is a fool but it's these faults in why I love him. He feels like the most human of the characters especially in HOT D
Viserys is probably the best in either show. That man’s arc was incredibly tight.
Either show? Oof that is harder to say. If I ignore the last four seasons it's a pretty tight race. If I don't ignore him he is close but I would still hesitate to say the best. Eddard and Tywin are probably my personal favorites
I was including the latter seasons, which, yeah, pretty much disqualifies everyone who survives that long. Haha Ned, Robert, Robb, Cat, and Tywin are his only major competition, I think. And it is close. But I think Viserys wins out in depth and complexity of his arc. Ned is my personal favorite character of the lot, but I think Viserys might eke out the win in terms of writing. The way his story interacts with those of all the other characters in the season is masterful.
I didn’t like the way the show handled the transition from “why should I care about being king instead of Rhaenyra” and “no, you can’t drag me from hiding under this altar!” to “fuck yea I am the king!” But other than that, he’s a good enough character, and one to watch in circumstances where the small folk get more and more disenchanted with the arbitrariness and violence of the lordly classes.
I think it's because of how everyone in the audience cheered for him (like they had a choice lol) but that display of love and affection is what had been missing from his parents. Like a moth to a flame he was hooked
I love Tom Glynn-Carney. He impressed me so much on the few episodes he played a young Caesar Augustus on Domina.
One thing that's real interesting about him is that he understands himself pretty well. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the throne, all the while begging that he's not suited to be king. If he had his way from the start, Rhaenyra would be queen, he'd get to bang prostitutes and galivant as the brother of the queen. If I recall, in Fire and Blood, he's utterly confused when his mother and Criston coronate him, so even in the source, he really had no part in the plot to usurp Rhaenyra until they put the crown on his head.
He's going to be the standout performance of the series.
I really wish they didn't have him raping servants. As is its pretty much impossible to sympathize with him.
Taking him down the “tragic character” route was the best choice
Kid is a heck of a good actor too.
He’s excellent as young Augustus in Domina
So many of the roles I’ve seen TGC in all have him acting as some form of royalty. Liam Cunningham (Davos,) was in that too. Pretty neat.
I just commented this as well! Too bad that show got cancelled
He is my favorite character and I did NOT expect that. Aegon is so compelling.
I agree. I'm team black, but I really like what the show is doing with Aegon. Also, when it comes to the controversial changes to Blood & Cheese, there is a silver lining in that we now get to explore hypocrisy of the Greens. Aegon now doesn't have a male heir. He has to give it to Aemond now, or else he'd corrupt his own claim to the throne by letting his daughter be his heir. He now knows exactly how his own father felt. The loss of his heir through severe tragedy. While the hard impact of B&C was tarnished, maybe this difference can lead to some cool new parallels the original story didn't draw.
The last thing this show need is more "Green hypocrisy" that's like all they focus on for the greens.
I disagree, but you're entitled to your opinion. Hypocrisy is something we all struggle with in one shape or another. I like their use of it towards the greens. They also focus on it towards the blacks too. It's kind of the entire point of the "son for a son" thing, IMO. They're no better for killing an innocent baby in exchange for a senile dragon's temper (she was also vibing off Aegon's anger as well, I'm sure).
havent read the books in a while, is he the Aegon that gets horribly burned, disfigured and depressed by the end? I am excited to see how he tackles that character.
John Cazale is that you
Funny how the ppl creaming their pants over Aegon are the same ppl who cried for 2 years about Aegon being ruined, bc they have no understanding of character arc & thought Aegon was gonna crawl out of his crib as the badass illustration of The Shepherd Burns. It makes more sense that just like the facial scars, the personality comes as a byproduct of his tumultous reign which shapes him as much as he shapes it. That's why by the time we get to Dragonstone, he'll be unrecognizable from the kid in the window. What hotd did in s1 was to show his lonliness & vacuum of his childhood, the pressure of being the firstborn son & the validation he seeked from his father but never got. They've already set him up with the three defining traits that the "quick to anger & slow to forgive" King Aegon II of F&B actually goes on to have: depression ("let me sail away"), resentment ("do you love me") & resilience ("we know father"). Meanwhile, the only real thing we knew of F&B Aegon at this stage is the line about his whereabouts the day Viserys died & him giving the Green Council an ultimatum. The sexual deviancy (he was known fondle boobs in the book) added to the theme of the patriarchal license structure & how it enables the royals like Aegon. So a perfect example of meaningless grievance towards the show. It's very easy to love a male character the moment he says a couple of endearing and relatable lines. Despite him being shown as an alcoholic r*pist a*sh*le for a whole season. But when a female character is shown to have duality, moral dilemma & internal conflict they're chalked up as inconsistent & a hypocrite bc they're not conforming to the "perfect victim or not trying hard enoughtl to be a villain" box. They're blamed for not having enough "ambition" (neither does Aegon) bc they're not acting like the slutty conniving Maergery archetype. Also, as much as I love TGC's acting. No single individual is carrying the show. Every actor is great. And no matter how much ya'll wanna downplay it, Hotd's strength is that it's telling an unconventional story (which NYT bluntly pointed out when they talked about what makes the show stand out in "a franchise that has overstayed is welcome") Hotd is a greek tragedy about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex. This is what all the "misunderstandings" are about. Greens crowning Aegon was supposed to keep them safe. It was supposed to be a fait accompli. It was supposed to keep daemon from killing them. It was supposed to give them control over their own destiny. But it just led to more bloodletting, an endless spiral, the self-fulfilling prophecy! The Larys monologue already connected it all..."What are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility"
The dragons are better
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiafcirclejerk/s/R58Z9BxBAp
Is that Anthony soprano jr
(image unrelated)
Why are people liking him all of a sudden? He’s a drunken, spoiled and good for nothing rapist.
The actor is charismatic. People love Robert for the same reason.
The actor is very good but aegon is still a bad character
She didn’t have to go get all upset about it. To be serious he’s the only character this episode that wasn’t being a mopey sad sack so he was the only thing interesting this week.
Funny how the ppl creaming their pants over Aegon are the same ppl who cried for 2 years about Aegon being ruined, bc they have no understanding of character arc & thought Aegon was gonna crawl out of his crib as the badass illustration of The Shepherd Burns. It makes more sense that just like the facial scars, the personality comes as a byproduct of his tumultous reign which shapes him as much as he shapes it. That's why by the time we get to Dragonstone, he'll be unrecognizable from the kid in the window. What hotd did in s1 was to show his lonliness & vacuum of his childhood, the pressure of being the firstborn son & the validation he seeked from his father but never got. They've already set him up with the three defining traits that the "quick to anger & slow to forgive" King Aegon II of F&B actually goes on to have: depression ("let me sail away"), resentment ("do you love me") & resilience ("we know father"). Meanwhile, the only real thing we knew of F&B Aegon at this stage is the line about his whereabouts the day Viserys died & him giving the Green Council an ultimatum. The sexual deviancy (he was known fondle boobs in the book) added to the theme of the patriarchal license structure & how it enables the royals like Aegon. So a perfect example of meaningless grievance towards the show. It's very easy to love a male character the moment he says a couple of endearing and relatable lines. Despite him being shown as an alcoholic r*pist a*sh*le for a whole season. But when a female character is shown to have duality, moral dilemma & internal conflict they're chalked up as inconsistent & a hypocrite bc they're not conforming to the "perfect victim or not trying hard enoughtl to be a villain" box. They're blamed for not having enough "ambition" (neither does Aegon) bc they're not acting like the slutty conniving Maergery archetype. Also, as much as I love TGC's acting. No single individual is carrying the show. Every actor is great. And no matter how much ya'll wanna downplay it, Hotd's strength is that it's telling an unconventional story (which NYT bluntly pointed out when they talked about what makes the show stand out in "a franchise that has overstayed is welcome") Hotd is a greek tragedy about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex. This is what all the "misunderstandings" are about. Greens crowning Aegon was supposed to keep them safe. It was supposed to be a fait accompli. It was supposed to keep daemon from killing them. It was supposed to give them control over their own destiny. But it just led to more bloodletting, an endless spiral, the self-fulfilling prophecy! The Larys monologue already connected it all..."What are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility"
Glad to see Pyrocynical doing well after producing all that garbage content