This Was King Viserys' Biggest Mistake On House Of The Dragon, According To Paddy Considine
This post contains spoilers for the first eight episodes of "House of the Dragon."
Paddy Considine is a wonderful actor, and he has turned a character that, on paper, could be incredibly stupid and dumb into one of the most tragic and nuanced in the entire "Game of Thrones" franchise.
Viserys Targaryen was unlike any ruler we've seen so far in Westeros. He was dutiful like Ned Stark, but far from the paragon of virtue and honor that he was. He was an incompetent king, but nowhere near the drunken buffoon that was Robert "Bobby B" Baratheon. He loved his family, but wasn't the tyrant that was Tywin Lannister. He wasn't an evil ruler, not a cruel one, and yet he will go down in history (or should, at least) as one of the worst kings in the history of Westeros just because of how dumb every single decision he took was.
With Viserys finally meeting the end he should have met a few episodes ago when he still resembled a human being, it is time to look back on his biggest mistakes. And Paddy Considine himself has an idea (or two).
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Considine jumped at the chance to name the biggest mistake Viserys made, and it is not a surprising one. "The only mistake he made was becoming king," he said. "He should have said, 'No, give it to Rhaenys. I don't want it. I'm going to fly some dragons and have a good time with the ladies in nefarious places of town.'"
So many mistakes in so little time
Now, that is a good answer. But is it right?
Sure, everything that has gone wrong in "House of the Dragon" comes from the fact that Viserys was never cut out to be a king, while what little we've seen of Rhaenys is more suited for the task. Viserys was a man tormented between his duty to the crown and his desire to do what was expected of him, and his wish to run away and disregard everything to do with his title. The latter comes to the surface in a few moments, like when he tells Rhaenyra to marry someone she loves if she can, rather than someone that makes political sense. But it's more prominent when he chose to scoff at tradition and name his daughter heir over his brother.
But is that his biggest mistake? Well, probably. The problem is that Viserys just kept escalating things by making it worse at every turn. The reason he named his daughter heir was because he forced a C-section on his dear wife Aemma because he wanted a son with a penis so much, which ended up killing her. As if naming a woman heir and causing strife in the kingdom wasn't enough, he went ahead and married his teenage daughter's best friend. Making things even worse, he got her pregnant with two male kids back to back, putting the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's claim to the throne into question.
You could argue this was Visery's actual worst mistake. By marrying Alicent, Viserys forever damaged both his relationship with his daughter and also Rhaenyra's friendship with Alicent. Then by having male sons, he guaranteed a war would break out the moment he died, as Alicent would (understandably so) be afraid for the lives of her sons who could pose a challenge to Rhaenyra's claim with the rest of Westeros.
Goodbye, you lovable fool
Of course, give it to Considine to actually give a pretty good, nuanced, and sad answer to the question. "I think he neglected to be a good father to his second family," the actor said to THR, instantly breaking my heart. He continued:
"I think he neglected putting any effort into those children. They didn't like him. I was on set one day and one of the actors playing one of my son says, 'You hate us.' And I went, 'What?' What do you mean? That I hate you as people — like Paddy [the actor] hates you?' And he was like, 'No, Viserys hates us, because you hate your children.' I was like, wow, that's amazing. That was so profound for him to say that."
As Considine explains, Viserys doesn't hate his children, but he doesn't care for them like he does Rhaenyra, because he never cared for Alicent like he did Aemma. Therein lies the tragedy of Viserys I, a man who did not want to be king, who was not cut out to be king, who was actually quite a decent human man, but in his pursuit of doing a good job in his responsibility he doomed the whole kingdom. He named Rhaenyra heir to alleviate his own guilt over causing the death of Aemma in his pursuit of a male heir. He married Alicent because he felt that was his duty to the realm. But he failed to see the consequences of his actions, and to see how his actions would make others feel.
Then again, the actual biggest mistake wasn't that. Instead, it was mistaking Alicent for Rhaenyra in his last moments alive, and giving a speech that would make Alicent think he was supporting her son's claim to the throne over Rhaenyra. In the end, the Dance of the Dragons was caused by the mumblings of a dying man who also failed to see how having multiple royals with the same name would cause problems. Rest in piece, you lovable fool.