House of the Dragon: HBO releases casting call for Daemon Targaryen

“Over the centuries, House Targaryen has produced both great men and monsters. Prince Daemon was both.” House of the Dragon is coming.

Oh my god, it’s happening.

We’ve been hearing lately that HBO is stepping up preproduction for its Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, with rumors flying that it was casting two key roles: Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower. House of the Dragon is about the Dance of the Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that tore the realm apart over a hundred years before Jon Snow or Tyrion Lannister or anyone else we know from the original show was born.

Now, The Illuminerdi reports that HBO has released a casting call for Daemon Targaryen, another key figure from the Dance. Here’s the character description:

"PRINCE DAEMON TARGARYEN (Male, 40-50) – The younger brother to King Viserys, Daemon wasn’t born with “naked ambition” for the throne despite being in line for it. He’s less methodical and more impetuous. Not to mention easily bored…stumbling from one distraction to the next with the subconscious yet singular obsession with earning the love and acceptance of his brother the king. Most of Daemon’s joy is found at sword-point. But even as the most experienced warrior of his time, he vacillates between vile and heroic, making him the true rogue of the series.SERIES LEAD. OPTIONS ESSENTIAL *This role is currently scheduled to film between January – December 2021*"

Daemon Targaryen, known as “the Rogue Prince” has a huge role to play in the Dance of the Dragons. Even before the war started in earnest, he had a colorful reputation. The brother of King Viserys I Targaryen, he wielded the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister and rode the dragon Caraxes. He conquered a string of islands and declared himself King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, crowned by his friend Lord Corlys Velaryon. He created the Gold Cloaks. And he eventually married his niece Rhaenyra Targaryen, one of the main contenders for the Iron Throne during the Dance, and threw all of his support behind her.

Oh, you didn’t think a show about the Targaryens was going to drop the incest angle, did you? If HBO adapts George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood faithfully, that’s one Game of Thrones tradition that will be alive and well.

“Over the centuries, House Targaryen has produced both great men and monsters,” Archmaester Gyldayn writes in Fire & Blood. “Prince Daemon was both. In his day there was not a man so admired, so beloved, and so reviled in all Westeros. He was made of light and darkness in equal parts. To some he was a hero, to others the blackest of villains.”

In short, this sounds like a very juicy role for whoever lands it.

Exciting as this is, it’s possible this is a fake — we’ll work on getting confirmation from HBO. It’s a little odd that the casting call would name Daemon Targaryen up front, given that Game of Thrones usually cloaked their casting notices with pseudonyms. Then again, they didn’t start that until a few seasons in, and House of the Dragon is a new production. Also, people are gonna find out anyway, so I don’t really see the point in being secretive about it.

The casting call says that whoever plays Daemon  House of the Dragon will film sometime between January and December 2021…so the whole year. I’m gonna guess they haven’t quite hammered out the final schedule yet, cause a year-long shoot seems excessive, even for the successor to Game of Thrones.

We’ll keep our ear to the ground for more! In the meantime, what do you make of this?

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