King Aegon is down but not out, and he may rise again having learned some hard lessons. “I think what he loses physically he gains emotionally and mentally.”
The previous episode of House of the Dragon, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” climaxes with King Aegon Targaryen flying into battle on his dragon Sunfyre in a drunken, misguided attempt at heroism. He gets a faceful of dragonfire courtesy of his own brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and ends the episode immobile on the ground.
In this week’s new episode, “Regent,” we learn that Aegon lived, but just barely. He’s badly burned and spends more of his time unconscious. Actor Tom Glynn-Carney has to get into a an elaborate prosthetic for every scene now. “It is really intense, but at the same time, it fully makes me feel like something horrendous has happened,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It really restricts. We spent a long time [on it], which I was very grateful for.”
“There’s a piece down my neck, which is really tight and forces me to move as one unit rather than being able to move my head independently, which is typical of somebody with facial burns and neck burns, where the skin is so tight. It really helped influence the way that Aegon moves now.”
As you may have picked up, this isn’t the end for Aegon, but a new beginning. It’s hard to picture him ever being the same arrogant amateur king again, but I’m excited to see what Glynn-Carney will bring to a humbled, physically weaker (but quite possibly mentally stronger) version of the character. “Aegon has to have changed after this,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re going to find a difference in him and and allow that to continue and [impact] his decisions and have a new approach to life.”
“It feels like we’ve transitioned from Richard II to Richard III, if that makes any sense to you. Almost like a level up — though on paper, obviously, it’s a level down. I think what he loses physically he gains emotionally and mentally. I’m trying to see it like that.”
Glynn-Carney has already mentioned that Aegon’s injuries at the Battle of Rook’s Rest will change the way he moves. The actor has also worked on developing a new voice. “I did a lot of research into how intense heat and burns can affect your vocal folds, and just completely decimate them,” he told Variety. “Obviously I couldn’t do that to myself, so I had to find a way to replicate it. It was something that I had to definitely consider going into this new stage of Aegon. He has to feel changed, like he’s shifted. And I hope that reads eventually.”
House of the Dragon will “speed up” Aegon’s recovery process
In addition to the physical stuff, Aegon has lots of emotional scars. Both actors and directors are being coy about whether Aemond was trying to kill Aegon during the Battle of Rook’s Rest or if the king was collateral damage, but the result is the same: Aegon was shot out of the sky by his own brother, who has now assumed the regency and is sitting the Iron Throne in Aegon’s absence.
In the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, Aemond sits the Iron Throne for quite a while while Aegon recuperates, but Glynn-Carney says the show accelerates things. “Well, no, we couldn’t give Aemond a year or two to enjoy his position. We had to speed up time a little bit.”
While he lies in that bed, we can only imagine that Aegon will be in pain, in more ways than one. “Aegon is a boy in a man’s body and all he’s ever wanted is to be shown love and made to feel seen or not judged,” Glynn-Carney said. “All these things that he’s done in the past that have given him a reputation, I believe he’s felt that any attention is good attention. Unfortunately, he’s made a name for himself now — people kind of want to keep their distance and they see him as a poisoned chalice. At the end of the day, he’s a product of his history. He hasn’t had the emotional intelligence to be able to deal with that in a healthy way and move forward from it. Back then, therapy wasn’t really a thing, was it? He’s been left to his own devices.”
What happened to Aegon’s dragon Sunfyre?
Look, the show is called House of the Dragon, so what about Aegon’s dragon Sunfyre, who went down with his rider during the battle? Characters mentioned a couple of times in the episode that Sunfyre may be dead, but we’re hoping that’s a misdirect, since the creature survives in Fire & Blood.
Glynn-Carney didn’t clear up the mystery, but did say that Aegon feels bad about what happened to his flying best friend. “It’s like taking your dog for a walk and he gets hit by a car. That’s my fault.”
What’s next for Aegon? We won’t spoil it, but we will share what Glynn-Carney hopes is in the cards for his character, assuming he ever gets back on the Iron Throne. “I want it to be, in an ideal world, for there to be an opportunity to prove himself and make decisions that he has made — not somebody else who thinks they know better. To carve out his own path as king. And then just see if he fucks it up as much as people think he might. I’d like to give him the space and the time to work it out. It’s a dangerous request because they could go horribly wrong. I think people underestimate him.”
New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays on HBO and Max.
