The sacred art of hating has been lost. Now whenever you express dislike for a character you're met with "UM ACTUALLY THEYRE SUPER COMPLEX U JUST DONT UNDERSTAND THEM" no I understand them perfectly. I just fucking hate them.
Yandere Book and Show Aegon fighting over Reader would look something like this...
Book Aegon: "You are mine! Choose me. I could easily rip this weaklings head off and put it on a spike for you. I would even stop fucking painted whores if I were to have your hand in marriage. I only fuck the ones that look like you anyhow."
Show Aegon: "Mommy... 🥺"
Reader: "..."
Book Aegon: "You cannot seriously be considering this right now."
saw a post about Ryan Condal's take on Aegon's relationship with his son and I want to vent because I really don't think the man has even bothered re-watching s1 to recall what he made.
Quote:
This is the thing that Viserys never did for Aegon. And Aegon did not study at the feet of his father. His father had his male heir and then essentially said, “Well, that box is ticked,” he was ill. I think he enjoyed having a son but didn’t put in the work the way he did with Rhaenyra when he was a younger man. And I think Aegon resents that and feels that part of the reason that he’s not seen as being suited for the crown or the throne is because he didn’t get that training from his father. So now he’s going to make up for that tenfold with Jaehaerys.
Let's start with Viserys' parenting, shall we?
"Viserys never did for Aegon"
In ep2 we saw a then healthy Viserys parading baby Aegon with pride and joy. It has been the only "good" scene we had between them because it's also the only time we see Aegon as a child. It's safe to assume that he continued to dote on his son during his toddler years and only stopped when Viserys became too sick or when Aegon started developing a personality.
Viserys had no reason to bring Aegon to council meetings, had no reason to groom Aegon as heir because he wasn't. That's the entire point. We also never saw him putting any work on Rhaenyra besides her serving as a cupbearer in ep2.
"He enjoyed having a son but didn’t put in the work the way he did with Rhaenyra."
What kinda of work did he put exactly with Rhaenyra? Rhaenyra already felt inadequate in the first episode because her father desperately wanted a son, when he murdered his wife and his newborn died, he named her heir. In ep2 when Rhaenyra makes a suggestion about how to handle the situation with Daemon Viserys dismisses her and it's Corlys who supports and backs her up.
In ep3 when celebrating Aegon's birthday, it's established Rhaenyra has been once more isolated at court. Viserys never cared about the gap he created between her and alicent when he decided to take his daughter's friend for a bride and unlike Alicent, he didn't even reach out when she was lonely.
In fact, in the same episode we see he's in a hurry to marry Rhaenyra off and he publically berates, scolds and humiliates her in front of people at court. In private, he still doesn't understand her nor does he try to.
The only time viserys was "good" to Rhaenyra was a) in driftmark during the fight between the kids and b) when he spoke in favor for her against Vaemond.
And those scenes aren't even in character for show Viserys if we're gonna be honest. They only happen because they must. The plot couldn't move forward otherwise.
"He [....] didn’t put in the work the way he did with Rhaenyra [...] And I think Aegon resents that."
Except he doesn't.
Aegon doesn't resent that because the show has never established any feelings of rivalry or jealousy between Aegon & Rhaenyra and that's because we didn't have a single scene between the two.
In ep6, a very sick Viserys is seen watching fondly both Aemond & Aegon training with Jacaerys & Lucerys.
It's conveniently forgotten that in the context Viserys enjoys watching all boys together. And he takes their "fighting" as something boyish and playful. He visibly gets upset when Harwin and Criston throw punches at one another.
The only time Viserys is shown to be taking a side between his children is in the Driftmark episode when Aemond loses his eyes. And while in that context he's protecting his grandsons and to an extention Rhaenyra herself. There are more reasons to feel disdain towards Viserys; like how he particularly talks to alicent in that episode, how he's rough with Aegon himself etc. Viserys is incapable of handling the situation. Even when his daughter who is also his heir gets injured, his solution is for everyone to go to bed and for tomorrow to depart.
It makes sense that Aegon would become resentful of Viserys as he grew older but that resentment has to do more about how his father treated his side of the family rather than how he treated Rhaenyra (who he has history of treating like garbage as well btw)
"So now he’s going to make up for that tenfold with Jaehaerys."
Y'know... I gotta love how people rant about the show making both sides neutral in order to 'show depth' and then you get their interviews and you see that depth is merely fans headcanoning.
Let me explain. At first glance Aegon looks nice with Jaehaerys. it's the first time we (viewers) see the kid and it's the first time we see Aegon fully happy. it's nice. Out of context.
Now let's take the context, a joyful Aegon walks into the chamber, he asks where his son is, he goes to check the blond one that sits few feet apart from her mother because Aegon can't tell the twins apart. He quickly realizes that's his daughter so he asks again. Helaena informs him their son is at their library, doing his custom and gently reminds him Jaehaerys shouldn't be disturbed. Aegon ignores that. He tells her the reason he wants him is because he wants to take him in the council meeting and "start his training", Helaena poses a question; what if Jaehaerys doesn't even want to be king - like Aegon himself hadn't wanted to - Aegon acts as if he didn't hear and he still seeks the boy out, forcing his son to attend the meeting upon finding him.
In the council meeting, Aegon's attention is mostly on Jaehaerys who seems to be annoying Tyland. Aegon encourages that behavior and seems to take joy from it. To the point where he (rather stupidity) almost humiliates Lord Lannister by making him act as a pony for his son to ride.
This is not Aegon being affectionate to Jaehaerys. This is Aegon acting the way he probably wished Viserys had acted with him; encouraging of his rebellious/misbehaving attitude, dismissing his council and putting down important people in favor of his son.
He's not breaking the circle of neglect; he continued it in a similiar pattern. Jaehaerys is incredibly young and easy to entertain. The exactly way baby Aegon was in ep2. Aegon already ignored the possibility his heir might not be interested in his so called duties in the exact way his own mother had ignored and kept pressuring him to take a role she was molding him for.
So, similiar to Viserys, Aegon might have adopted a different attitude with his son as soon as he'd develop a persona of his own. The seeds were already there.
Saying that Aegon was simply trying to be a good dad because Viserys was shit and he was only good to Rhaenyra and Aegon felt jealous of that ignores every single time of Viserys was a walking human garbage to everyone.
Condal had to whitewash Aemond's entire character, give him traits from others, and make Aegon look cartoonishly incompetent and pathetic so he could live out his childhood dreams in his self insert. Like i am not even tg but the way Ryan keep justifying Aemond's bad deeds nonstop like he made luke nothing but a big bad bully and made his death an accident all to whitewash & justify Aemond, and now he tried the same with Aegon being murdered... Ohh poor meowmond was bullied by his mustache-twriling villain of a brother so this is why he has the right to try to kill him🥹 what now? Would he portrays the riverlanders as cartoonish villains who bullied Sadmond to hell and back so this is why it's okay for Aemond to commit genocide against them?
if you think about it, aemond is for Ryan what Daemon was for George; a favorite. Which is ultra ironic because from what I've seen in interviews I don't think Ryan even likes daemon? But anyways, I've been saving my long analysis for after the season is over but it'd be rude to ignore you, so let's go.
First things first, I think Aegon being "incompetent" at most things isn't necessarily bad, if we consider book canon where we're told he's lazy. It makes sense why for example his valyrian are probably not the best, why he struggles keeping up with the council etc
On the other hand however, you may say "Well, they've ignored 80% of the book. Aemond and Alicent get sympathy. Even Helaena gets more of a room to breathe." which in this case, yes, you're actually right.
Since the showrunners are determined to be making both sides gray that would mean show both sympathy and bad traits to a character right?
The thing is Aegon suffers a similiar fate Alicent aka the writers don't know what to do with him. In the first season they attempted to give him some sympathy by showing how he was mistreated by alicent and Otto, and show how he became awful by having Dyana and the fighting pits as an example of it.
In the second season, he should have gotten more spotlight. He should have been riding high on power, being arrogant af, celebrating his small "victories" but he doesn't get any of that. Instead he's naive with making decisions (which makes sense but instead of backing out of his decisions he should persist), he can't keep up with his own council (in the book at least he was nagging Otto about always writing letters instead of taking action), and even when b&c happens we don't see him taking revenge. We saw him destroying viserys' Lego collection instead of the man who beheaded his son. And I'm asking, why? Why not show his cruel side, why not have him torture his prisoner, taking joy of his pain. Hell, most audience wouldn't even be against him for it.
As for the Aegon x Aemond dynamic, the bullying never really made sense to me, but I'd argue the entire dynamic of the green family is very clumsily written. These people aren't loyal to one another but the care is still meant to be there, y'know?
Like, Alicent in the book is a hypocrite and completely obsessed with Rhaenyra. She still defended and believed in her children despite most of them being monsters.
Aegon had no reason to bully Aegon (aside the fact that alicent would have probably never allowed it), Aemond is the only brother Aegon gets to grow up with. He's his closest companion if you think about it.
When Jace is born, Daeron is born. So Aegon never had interest in his nephews because he was too old by then. He probably still felt envious his father was giving attention to them - which is a feeling he shared with Aemond only (given Helaena had a batter relationship with their dad)
So again, why the bullying? Not to mention Aemond is fierce child. bit of a psycho if you will. The idea that he'd just accept being humiliated by Aegon is laughable at best.
The difficulty with adapting the book is that arguably, Aemond is a very difficult character to sympathize. He's not meant to be likable. He's chaotic and an idiot with the oldest dragon and that makes him dangerous - which in turn, can make him entertaining to a certain audience.
Have you noticed how he never name calls Rhaenyra in the show? Aegon insults her. Criston insults her. But not him. Meanwhile Aemond had this weird psychosexual thing with Rhaenyra and obsession with Daemon in the book. But they only kept the latter part because it'd be harder to root for him if they had kept the first.
book Aemond is a raging misogynistic, arrogant prince, impulsive and fixated with the idea of proving he's better than others. It's why he waits for a dragon to claim when his own egg doesn't hatch. it's why he persists after his accident.
if they wanted to draw sympathy they could have actually focused on his disability. While I don't blame the Velaryon boys for what happened to him, Aemond still had to deal with permanent consequences; relearning everything; how to eat, how to read, how to swordfight. You could have a bit of disability representation there for kudos and actually dig into an unexplored aspect of his character. But nope, they only had him mad after years and even the action of murdering his nephew because of it was made into an accident. so I guess he wasn't that mad over the eye thing lol
Aaand because I feel I've been defending Aegon a bit much let me clear the air, I'm not some Aegon girly who thinks he's uwu a poor bb who talked over and never did anything wrong.
He's a rapist; both in the show and the book. In the show he enjoys watching kids killing each other, in the book he wants to murder his elder sister from the start. He's still however a pawn. Just an unaware one for the most part so sympathy is drawn there for a bit.
And there's an added irony and tragedy of Aegon arrogantly believing he and aemond were on the same side, to be celebrating his victories to the point of building him a freaking statue. One can say there's something narcissistic about it, as if Aegon views aemond and daeron as extentions to himself, making their victories his own.
Meanwhile Aemond grew up resentful of Aegon in the similiar sense he is of Rhaenyra. except Aegon is a man and a firstborn son so his laziness rubs him wrong extra hard. His mother and grandfather focused on installing Aegon to the throne when Aegon had never done anything for it. In his mind, Aemond is the one who trained, who endured after his accident, who is ambitious about power. So yeah Aegon being crowned never sat well with him.
Rook's nest remain goofy in the show and gives tb another horribly adapted death but I can't be mad about it 'cause I couldn't even stand show!rhaenys lol.
While Aemond was always going to go against Aegon he probably would have done it after the war with Rhaenyra was over. A "let them kill each other and I can deal with whoever remains" kind of a plan. And since Aegon had gotten so badly injured by the end he wouldn't even have to kill him if he didn't feel like it, just talk to him into abdicating.
But yeah, Aemond in the show is "whitewashed" as you mentioned and they made his "got bullied" storyline a core aspect of his persona so there's no saving him.
I do wonder how they'll do the burning of Riverlands and the massacre of House Strong 🤔 In showverse, going after Aegon was expected especially after the brothel scene (+the childhood we know they had.) and I can't imagine many people not rooting for him given how Aegon treated him.
So, Aegon was the "bad" guy in this case so Aemond's actions are once again lifted from him. I'm definitely curious how they'll do the other two. I can't imagine a way to twist it into him being "forced" but eh he's Ryan's fav, never underestimate the man.
