#like Aegon is low-key the last character you’d expect to transcend the narrative but u know what. it kind of works

[melrosing]

Actually. Not even gonna be quiet about Aegon’s characterisation in HOTD because I feel like, as vile as he is, he almost breaks the fourth wall in that he alone seems to realise that the throne is something to be fucking dreaded. All other characters in ASOIAF/F&B if they’re not obsessed with the thing, are basically either disinterested or dispassionate, or simply regard it with a vague sense of duty at most, but Aegon’s reaction is a new one amongst all the contenders we’ve seen, because it’s not that he wants it or doesn’t want it, it’s simply that it terrifies him

And like his fear for the crown is visceral in this episode, because the second he claims it he knows that he transcends from some petty background villain with no true stakes in this narrative to someone with everything to lose, and he has to be dragged into the role. It’s like a character who knows he’s in a story and desperately doesn’t want to be

And then of course once he sees how the view looks from beneath a crown and sees what everyone else wants so badly but he’s been given… he gives into the role and the wall rises again and he’s claimed his place in the narrative after all. Like needless to say he’s a horrid person and this could’ve happened to better people lmao but this episode honestly gave me the vibes of an animal knowing it’s to be slaughtered whilst everyone else, including its own mother, call it ‘crowned’. It paints the way they drag him there with an inherent violence and it’s pitiful

#aegon ii targaryen #hotd for ts #house of the dragon spoilers #house of the dragon #like Aegon is low-key the last character you’d expect to transcend the narrative but u know what. it kind of works