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gwenllian-in-the-abbey · 2 months

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Hey Gwen! Can I ask you something? What do you think of this post? https://www.tumblr.com/philhelaena/757011234089566208/thinking-about-how-hotd-introduced-adult-aegon-as?source=share

I don't really agree with it since Dyana is still present in this season and even in the previous season he was the punching bag and scapegoat of the family, but I can't find the words to explain how I disagree. What do you think?

Hi anon. With no disrespect intended to the OP of this post,. I've seen this take floating around for awhile now, that Aegon is somehow completely different from his S1 character and that it's somehow of fandom pandering, and I disagree.

First of all, the idea that half the fandom decided to ignore the fight pits and the sexual assault and focus on Aegon being drunk and funny is just flat out incorrect. At the end of S1 it was hard to write a single sympathetic word about Aegon without someone accusing you of being a rape apologist, and even now, while the casual audiences are more sympathetic towards Aegon, people can hardly say they've been enjoying his character without issuing a disclaimer, "he's a terrible person but ...". Team green has always been in a minority (I think in the polls HBO puts out team green is consistently under 15%), and even among people who enjoy team green, until recently it wasn't uncommon for people to say they loved all the greens except Aegon. On AO3 were more Lucemond fics than there were fics featuring all of the Aegon ships combined. So the idea that the showrunners were somehow listening to the 10 people who admitted to enjoying Aegon back when they were writing the S2 scripts and changing his characterization accordingly is pretty silly.

That said, I do think the show toned down Aegon's awfulness a bit. I think TGC himself probably had as much to do with this as any of the fans. That man is relentlessly advocating for his character, stating again and again that he not simply a villain, that that he is capable of empathy and love, that he is someone who feels too deeply rather than the opposite. The way he talks about Aegon and his children makes it pretty clear that he has a vision for this character and has advocated for certain character choices, and good for him! He cares a lot about Aegon and takes his job seriously and it shows because he has gotten heaps of praise for bringing depth to a character who could easily veer into cartoon villainy, and is winning over the sympathies of people who 2 years ago wouldn't have pissed on Aegon if he were on fire. In fact, recent poll on the main HotD subreddit of all places placed Aegon as the best written character so far and it wasn't even close.

And this is good! Considering what happens to Aegon in S2, as well as the endgame of the whole entire story, it's pretty important that the audience be able to connect with him on some level and feel some level of sympathy for him.

And to be honest, I'd challenge the idea that Aegon had some huge personality switchup between S1 and S2. People have to remember, we had a grand total in S1 of about 8-10 minutes with Aegon. He was not, at that point, a fully realized character. Some people envisioned a much darker character than the show ended up settling on, but those headcanons are as much headcanons as the silly goofy drunk Aegon was, as "good loyal brother" Aemond was. And I have to stress, people can interpret characters however they like, and they can certainly disagree with the direction the writers go with a character, but a character who has 8 minutes of screentime ending up having more facets to him once he appears in a primary role in S2 is not the same thing as a character assassination. And perhaps, just perhaps, the child fight pits were the OOC part and Condal etc. pulled back on that characterization because it was incongruous with the guy who was genuinely baffled when Aemond threw him under the bus for the bastard remarks, the guy dying of embarrassment when his sister roasted him at dinner, crying over a slap from his mother, trying to run away rather than take the crown, and asking Alicent "do you love me?" before crying his way through his own coronation. Aegon was a depressive alcoholic in S1 and remained a depressive alcoholic in S2. Was there a chaotic element to him? Certainly! He's got massive substance abuse problems which completely skews his judgment and inhibitions, making him self destructively impulsive. Is there a darkness in him? Of course! If nothing else, he's a Targaryen prince, someone who has grown up with the power of life and death at his fingertips. And we see this! The show has not allowed us to forget about the ratcatchers (and as you mentioned OP, Dyana is still there too)!

Finally, I will say that people who think Aegon is being shown to be a pure buffoon this season haven't been paying attention. Aegon was gaslit by his family members for four episodes straight because they wanted to keep him weak, and the way to do that was to undercut his confidence and trash his self worth. He was correct about nearly single issue he raised -- Harrenhal, the blockade, the smallfolk, needing to be informed about the battle plans Cole and Aemond were making. Hell, even the assassination attempt is something that Otto himself was planning, and Otto himself ordered landed gentry executed for refusing to bend the knee before Aegon was even crowned, a much bigger deal than executing a few ratcatchers! Aegon has a class clown demeanor a lot of the time, but he's not stupid. The thing is, Aegon could have been spouting the most eloquently worded arguments and they were still going to resist him because they whole entire point was to discourage him so that he would lose interest, Alicent even says it point blank to Otto. The thing is, Aegon has good instincts but lacks the confidence to not second guess those instincts because he knows he doesn't have the experience or the training necessary to be an effective king on his own. Aegon's ability to listen is one of his better qualities as a king in fact (I'm sure the council is missing it now that they have Aemond), but he is too concerned with winning the approval of not just his subjects, but the people he cares for, including Alicent and Aemond. Aegon is remarkably perceptive, and he does have a good sense about people, but this is his weakness and unfortunately his family has zero problem exploiting it. Now, will that continue going forward? Unlikely! Aegon is still evolving! In the span of a few months he's been crowned king, lost a child, been undermined and diminished, and has become permanently disabled due to the betrayal of his own brother. Certainly, he is going to change, for better or worse.

#asks #i know there is a contingent here unhappy with aegon's writing and that's fine #and anyone who has read my blog knows i have major issues with the show but this is not one of them #S1 Aegon is just not that drastically different from S2 Aegon #and the ways that aegon been completely correct about a number of things is way too on the nose to be accidental #aegon ii targaryen #hotd critical

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