Warning: Spoilers for House of the Dragon. You can check out our full review for Episode 8, too!
Before he took his final breaths in this week’s episode of House of the Dragon, King Viserys I mistook his wife, Queen Alicent, for his daughter and heir, Rhaenyra, and unintentionally provided her with a new motive to go to war for the Iron Throne.
Earlier in the season, Viserys revealed to young Rhaenyra the dream of their ancestor Aegon the Conqueror, a secret knowledge that has been passed down to successive Targaryen monarchs. Calling his dream The Song of Ice and Fire, Aegon prophesied the events depicted in Game of Thrones where a Targaryen ruler must unite all the peoples of Westeros in order to battle the White Walkers and save humanity.
Viserys named Rhaenyra his heir in the first episode, a decision he stuck with despite it breaking tradition and over the objections of some of his nobles. His second wife, Alicent, is a traditionalist who wants their son Aegon II to be king after Viserys and not Rhaenyra. By unintentionally passing on the secret knowledge of Aegon’s dream to Alicent and urging her to do everything she must to make sure her line holds on to the Iron Throne for the good of the realm, Alicent now has a justification, and an additional motive, for the bloody actions she may take in the looming Dance of the Dragons.
Yet just a few scenes earlier, Viserys appeared to have finally achieved the peace between his daughter and his wife he had long sought. It was a rough start, to be sure. What with Prince Daemon beheading Vaemond Velaryon for calling his wife’s children bastards but, hey, things turned around in time for a big family dinner!
At dinner, in what was truly an appetite-killing moment, the long-ailing Viserys removed his face mask to reveal his rotten flesh and missing eye so that his feuding family could see him not as their king but as a sick, old man who just wants his loved ones to make peace before he dies. Rhaenyra then toasted her rival Alicent for the love and devotion she has shown her father all these years. It seemed sincere and heartfelt, as did Alicent’s reaction. Rhaenyra took the high road and showed respect to the Queen.
In turn, Alicent toasted Rhaenyra – once her best friend – and acknowledged that she will make a fine queen. Was Alicent truly and publicly acknowledging that Rhaenyra had won this feud over succession? It seemed that way, especially since Rhaenys Targaryon had backed Rhaenyra earlier. If the Queen Who Never Was can swallow her rage at Rhaenyra – who Rhaenys wrongly believes had her son Laenor Velaryon murdered – then surely Alicent can, too (or at least do the poliitical math and realize that without allies like the Velaryons in her corner success seems unlikely).
As positive as this moment was between Rhaenyra and Alicent, their kids proceeded to insult and squabble with each other. Their feuding may continue after this night but, in that moment, the adults in the room and cooler heads prevailed. Rhaenyra and Alicent were even making plans to hang out again!
But then King Viserys undid his own dream of uniting his family by mistaking Alicent for Rhaenyra and speaking of Aegon’s dream. Alicent accepted the burden of this secret knowledge and what it will require of her to make sure her son Aegon II succeeds his father as king despite Rhaenyra being named heir.
This is an invention of the TV series, as George R.R. Martin’s source material, Fire and Blood, never uses Aegon’s dream as a motivation for either Rhaenyra or Alicent. This creative decision further ties the events of House of the Dragon to its predecessor Game of Thrones, and gives each of its two main protagonists a righteous cause for going to war with one another beyond who has the stronger claim to the Iron Throne.
This allows both Alicent and Rhaenyra to think of themselves as the heroes of their own stories, providing each of them with an ends justifies the means rationale for all the bloodshed to come. And all because a sick old man made a mistake.
The tragedy of Viserys is that his motives are right – to protect his realm and keep his family together so that a Targaryen ruler will be around in time to battle the White Walkers – but his good intentions are nevertheless paving the road to hell. And his leprosy-like sickness offers a stark visual metaphor for the Targaryen family itself, growing more rotten and blind over time and falling apart.
The Iron Throne is literally killing Viserys even as the two most importan women in his life are poised to go to war to possess it. And now, thanks to them both possessing the knowledge of Aegon’s Song of Ice and Fire, they can feel even more justified in doing whatever wicked deeds it takes to win.
