The dance of dragons a true telling by grand maester munkun being a history of the war of
targaryen succession between the princess Rhaenyra and aegon second of his name that
nearly destroyed the realm the dance of the dragons a stupid name for a targaryen civil
war where my ancestors danced away my birthright before the war house targaryen counted 18 dragons
by the end we had two and nearly as few targaryens we would never be as powerful or as feared again
the dance began as many dances do with an old man and a young girl the queen had failed to
produce a son for her king so he anointed his daughter the princess rhaenyra as his heir
but years later the king remarried and his new wife queen alicent of house hightower
gave him a son one night a servant found the old king had died in his sleep and ran to inform
queen alicent at the hour of the owl the lord commander of the kingsguard sir christian cole
summoned the small council to inform them of the king's death sir otto hightower the hand of the
king and father to queen alicent demanded that the succession be settled immediately
but sir kristen cole rightly pointed out that a son comes before a daughter the council argued
until dawn when the master of coin finally stood up and declared he would have no part of treason
sir christian cole wisely opened his throat with a dagger ending the debate aegon relented
he was crowned in the dragon pit and his wife and sister helena became queen his brother aymond flew
off to win over the few great lords who support aegon didn't already have the banner of the gold
dragon flew over king's landing and the red key as aegon second of his name ascended the iron throne
he would not sit it long when ravens carried the news of aegon's coronation to dragonstone
princess rhaenyra summoned her own black council with her was her uncle and husband damon targaryen
considered by many to be the most dangerous man in westeros few lords supported her but the greatest
of these was corliss valerian who controlled the largest fleet in the realm and his targaryen
wife rhaenys the old king's sister combined they couldn't match the power of house hightower alone
but rhaenyra had dragons
Welcome back everyone it's Charlie this is going to be my new game of thrones house of the dragon prequel series video there's a bit of a teaser here for the dance of
the dragons because that's the events that they'll cover on the prequel series and they
just cast their first big main lead actor king viserys the first so i'll explain what's going
on with him and why he's so important but if you're new to the channel of course i'll
be doing videos for house of the dragon when it does premiere in 2022 they're targeting a spring
2022 premiere date they're going to be filming next year i'll explain that during the video too
i'll number these as we go along just to stay organized but obviously first big thing the
dance of the dragons teaser trailer is narrated by harry lloyd who played daenerys brother viserys on
game of thrones the main series this is obviously relevant because the first main cast member that
they cast for the dance of the dragons tv show house of the dragon is viserys the first targaryen
patty considine from hot fuzz the outsider also an hbo show a bunch of other stuff most of you
will probably recognize him from somewhere hello my name is paddy considine and this is eshet.net
do it right daenerys's older brother viserys was actually viserys iii named after his ancestors
both of the previous targaryens in their family to bear the name viserys were key
people in the targaryen civil war the dance of the dragons viserys himself had a very contentious
relationship with his sister daenerys towards the end of his life so you can call it careful
foreshadowing from george r martin in the way that he gives similar characters from history the same
names repeating certain events or making it seem like events are repeating themselves the really
important things about viserys the first talking in a larger context to a history of a song of ice
and fire in the history of westeros is that he was the last targaryen king to ride valerian the
black dread we didn't really get a lot of valerian the black dread till the very ending once drogon
had grown to his size and they wanted to draw a parallel between him and the classic baler and the
black dread dragon valerian himself lived to be over 200 years old he just kept growing bigger and
bigger and bigger that's the way the dragons work within the world of a song of ice and fire game of
thrones is they keep eating they'll just continue to grow so if daenerys's dragons survive like if
drogon continues to survive after her death he'll just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger
viserys the first reign for about 26 years he didn't really die of old age so to speak
depending on how you look at it he was only about 49 when he died but the way they portray his death
preceding the dance of the dragon's actual civil war breaking out is that he died in his sleep
of seemingly natural causes so it wasn't quite as contentious to say like ned stark's death or a lot
of the other deaths in game of thrones but it's written that viserys the first reigned over the
most prosperous era in the history of the seven kingdoms but seating within it the disastrous
decline of his house the targaryen family in the death of the last dragons it's not like all those
things happened right after he died because of the dance of the dragons it's just that that
was basically the beginning of the end of the targaryen family the beginning of their decline
this is the official character description that hbo gave when they announced that they cast him
for the show so it says king viserys targaryen is chosen by the lords of westeros to succeed the old
king jeharis targaryen at the great council at harren hall a warm kind and decent man viserys
only wishes to carry forward his grandfather's legacy but good men do not necessarily make for
great kings so even if you haven't read the books you all remember what happened to people like ned
stark during the main show on game of thrones good people do not end well in the world of game of
thrones you could also apply that description the character description to robert baratheon as well
great man not a great king so what this means is that when the show picks up in season one they've
already had the great council to determine who's going to succeed king jaharis the first
he's the grandson of aegon the conqueror when they first announced that they were doing this house of
the dragon game of thrones prequel they were very vague about where would take place in the timeline
so there was a lot of confusion as to whether or not they would be doing aegon's conquest or
they'd be doing the dance of the dragons but the reason why they needed to call a great council to
determine who would be the next king was because he had so many heirs at the time of his death one
of his wives gave him 13 different children and most of them wound up being women at this time
in history they still favored male primogenitor so if a king's next true heir by age is woman
in the direct line of succession the succession would jump over her and favor the next closest
oldest male heir and before the great council had been called jaehaerys's son prince eamonn
of dragonstone was the heir he died but he only had a daughter princess rhaenys so what jiharis
did is that his next oldest son prince balon was appointed the next official heir pissing off
reinis in setting this precedent that would help precipitate some of the events of the dance of the
dragons later on after prince baylon became the heir he died within a year after complaining of
stomach problems during a hunting trip that should give you flashbacks to robert baratheon watch out
for that wine that you're drinking but here's the thing balon himself had a son so natural line of
succession passes to him that is viserys the first so the person they just cast then within a couple
years of that jaehaerys the first dies of extreme old age and viserys takes the throne he's around
his mid-20s when he takes the throne but because the actor that they cast patty considine is in his
40s it sounds like maybe they'll have some sort of time compression or time jumps or some sort of
flashbacks to explain all this stuff just based on his age alone even if they are aging the character
up it's assumed that he's been on the throne for a good long while hbo hasn't fully revealed how
many seasons of this new show that they plan on doing hopefully they make it to 10 seasons that'd
be wonderful there's more than enough material to take them to 10 seasons but the main part of
the official dance of the dragons conflict itself only took place over the period of about two years
so it sounds like they're either going to stretch that out a lot or we'll get a lot of the events
before the actual civil war then in the middle seasons the actual civil war itself will break
out and cover the remaining seasons of the show however many future seasons it goes to so early
prediction they're going to use viserys the first as one of their ned stark-like characters someone
who's just too good for this world too good to be a king but unless they really want to pull
the taffy on the timeline of the actual dance of the dragons conflict they'll probably wait till
maybe like the second or third season to wind up killing him remember season 3 episode 9 of
game of thrones was the red wedding so you have to think about the way they plot out the most
possible moments from the dance of the dragons conflict between the seasons the actual dance of
the dragons started because of a gradual falling out between viserys the first only surviving heir
from his first wife princess Rhaenyra and her main rival her mother-in-law viserys the first second
wife queen allison hightower if you want to read the story they actually cover a lot of it during
the short stories during the fire and blood book that george r martin released a little while ago
chronicling the history of the targaryen family during this period there were many many dragon
riders many dragons in westeros the targaryen family was almost at the height of its power in
westeros so that's why there were so many dragons around but the reason why the different factions
were called the blacks and the greens even though there were many different colors of dragons
is because several years after viserys the first took the throne he held a great tourney at king's
landing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his marriage to his second wife alison hightower
during the opening feast queen allison wore a green gown while princess rhaenyra his daughter
from his first wife wore a black gown so the nobles of the court just wanted to drum up a
bunch of tension just started referring to them that way the blacks and the greens the houses of
westeros that favored princess rhaenyra and the houses of westeros that favored queen alicent
even though the queen and the princess became bitter rivals and erupted into this big civil
war in westeros they didn't always hate each other what happened is that allison came to court when
she was about 15 years old eventually Rhaenyra was born so they grew up knowing each other everything
was fine but things started to deteriorate once queen allison had her first son by king
viserys so that basically meant that the line of succession would eventually jump over rhaenyra
to her son by viserys the reason why princess rainier was so pissed off about this situation
is because her entire life from the time before viserys became king and even after he became king
until his first wife died he had been grooming rhaenyra he had formally named her his heir so
the realm was recognizing her as the true heir to the throne but then he gets remarried and has
another son with his second wife and so because of earlier precedents that had been set the line of
succession jumped to that new sun things get even more salacious too because that sun that queen
allison winds up having who becomes the new heir they name him aegon ii after aegon the conqueror
like oh he's going to become this great leader now rhaenyra who's really pissed off about this
situation winds up getting remarried after her first husband dies the person that she remarries
is actually king viserys's younger brother prince damon so she winds up remarrying to her uncle
they have a child and also name him aegon so now you have two potential heirs in contention
with half the realm favoring one air over the other the situation spirals out of control in
the best possible way and blows up in all the characters faces so there's way less material
for them to adapt but george r martin himself is actually helping them adapt the series so
it sounds like he's actually much more involved in the making of the series than he was during
the original game of thrones series so that should make everybody feel a little bit better
and the people that are actually responsible for making this series are basically some of the best
people from the original series so dan and dave don't have anything to do with this don't worry
about that it's not like they're coming to do this next series it's mostly coming from miguel
sapochnick george rr martin in ryan condal so miguel sapochnick you obviously will know directed
most of the best episodes of game of thrones the biggest best episodes but like i said it doesn't
sound like it's going to premiere till spring 2022 they will be doing 10 episodes per season
it does sound like the episodes will be longer like the later seasons of game of thrones but
also i think they do hope to correct some of the mistakes from the original series especially in
the later seasons with the way they plotted things out but if you have any big questions or any big
requests for house of the dragon game of thrones videos just leave them in the comments below
while you wait for everything click here for all my game of thrones deleted scene videos there's
a whole bunch of stuff here and click here for that brand new trailer for the boys season 2
episode 8 finale thank you so much for watching everyone stay safe i'll see you guys tonight!