One House Of The Dragon Character Is Getting Roasted On Twitter & It’s Hilarious
Contains spoilers for “House of the Dragon” Season 2 Episode 4 — “The Red Dragon and the Gold”
It’s not a surprise, at this point in “House of the Dragon,” that King Aegon II Targaryen — played by Tom Glynn-Carney — absolutely sucks. He’s not very good at his job as the King of the Seven Kingdoms, which is probably due to the fact that his domineering and power-hungry mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) installed him on the throne despite his flaws. (More on the two of them shortly). He’s constantly and casually cruel to his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). Whenever he walks into a room, all the maids grow quiet, which doesn’t indicate anything good. Now, audiences also know that he can barely speak High Valyrian, the ancient royal language of the Targaryen family.
During “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” Aegon and Aemond are both sitting at a Small Council meeting when Aemond sees fit to start speaking perfect High Valyrian to have a private conversation with his brother … likely knowing that Aegon can barely get a correct sentence out. Over on X (formerly known as Twitter), fans were absolutely loving this — and roasting the hell out of Aegon. Alongside photos of Aegon’s stilted Valyrian, @gelrdrgz wrote, “not aegon being a fail bilingual child of the diaspora.” @BlackGirlNerds agreed, saying, “Not only is Aegon an incompetent King but he’s also an incompetent Targaryen. The man can’t even speak High Valyrian.” At least @ebonymadame had a suggestion: “Wait wait wait…Aegon can’t speak high Valyrian fluently? He needs Duolingo.”
Fans of House of the Dragon think King Aegon II Targaryen is a total dolt
Ollie Upton/HBO
In general, it felt like fans had just been biding their time until they could roast Aegon on social media, and they really went for it. One user, @moreybnett, even made an unflattering comparison to Aegon’s late nephew Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault), the son of Aegon’s royal rival Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), who was killed in Season 1: “lucerys being a better valyrian speaker than both aegon and aemond combined at only 14 is crazy.” @leylanocontext made yet another negative comparison, this time to Kieran Culkin’s chaos goblin Roman Roy from another hit HBO series “Succession,” saying, “aegon on the throne is kinda like if roman roy had won the succession.”
@PoorQuentyn just thought the whole thing was really funny, writing, “Aegon failing at Valyrian might honestly be the funniest joke in either of these shows” (presumably meaning both “House of the Dragon” and “Game of Thrones”). @nyraslore noticed a small detail that really sells Aegon’s poor Valyrian skills from the Battle at Rook’s Roost that takes place at the episode’s climax, writing, “i really liked the detail of everyone speaking to their dragons in high valyrian except for aegon.” Perhaps it was @ManuclearBomb, though, who provided the sharpest analysis. “What’s especially fun about Aemond’s High Valyrian is not just that Aegon can barely form a cogent response, but check out Aemond’s word choices: “sobriquet”, “imbecilic lickspittle,” probably not commonly taught words, Aemond studied deep in the dictionary to show up his bro,” they wrote.
Even Aegon’s own mother Alicent thinks her son is a mean moron
Ollie Upton/HBO
“House of the Dragon” fans weren’t the only ones publicly roasting Aegon Targaryen this week — his own mother, Alicent Hightower, does a pretty good job of that herself in a scene shortly after the Small Council concludes. Alicent, who has enough to deal with in this episode (including a possible unplanned pregnancy), is starting to worry that what Rhaenyra told her in the season’s third episode was right, and that Rhaenyra and Aegon’s late father King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) never meant to choose Aegon as his heir, but said the name “Aegon” on his deathbed in reference to Aegon the Conqueror’s “song of ice and fire.” (A lot of problems could be avoided in Westeros if half of its people weren’t named Aegon, probably.) Alicent arrives in Aegon’s chambers to find that he’s moved all of his deceased father’s books, at which point he starts whining to Alicent about how nobody listens to his battle plans or takes him seriously.
Alicent — who is actively rolling her eyes at her son and not bothering to hide it — fires back at her son pretty brutally. “Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom?” she coolly asks before saying that she hoped her child would ever be “half the king [his] father was” but is very clearly disappointed by her own expectations. “What would you have me do, Mother?” Aegon asks, throwing his hands in the air when presented with the idea of potentially being a half-decent ruler; Alicent responds definitively. “Do simply what is needed of you: nothing.”
What happens to Aegon at the end of The Red Dragon and the Gold?
Ollie Upton/HBO
Ultimately, during the Battle of Rook’s Roost, Aegon makes it quite clear to everyone that he’s not only an inept king, but functionally useless in the midst of war. The young king takes his dragon Sunfyre — who has never battled before — into the fray against dragons like Rhaenys’ Meleys, and unbeknownst to Aegon and everybody else, Aemond and Vhagar are lying in wait, ready to join the battle at a later point. Whether or not Aegon intended to fatally harm his brother is its own question, but regardless, the king’s younger brother emerges from his hiding spot and attacks both Meleys and Sunfyre; Meleys keeps battling and is eventually defeated, but Aegon and Sunfyre simply crash-land in the woods. When Aemond and Aegon’s Kingsguard commander Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) find Aegon’s wreckage, it seems pretty dire.
In a piece about the battle in Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Ryan Condal was ambiguous about Aegon and Sunfyre (though, as the outlet notes, anyone who’s read George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood” knows what might happen next week). “We come out of [the battle] with Aegon in an unknown condition,” Condal said, before addressing Sunfyre’s fate: “Certainly his dragon is not in good shape.” If Aegon lives, one thing’s for sure: he still can’t speak High Valyrian.
“House of the Dragon” airs new episodes on Sundays at 9 P.M. EST on HBO and Max.