The House of the Dragon cast members next to their characters

We finally know who’s playing characters like Alicent Hightower, Rhaenyra Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen on House of the Dragon. How well do they fit their roles?

Yesterday, HBO announced three new cast members joining House of the Dragon, its Game of Thrones prequel show. Taking place over 100 years before the main show, House of the Dragon will tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that tore the realm apart. Things really get going when the old king, Viserys I Targaryen, dies, and his children fight over his throne.

Before now, we’d known who was playing Viserys: English actor Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz, Peaky Blinders).

Viserys is a pretty even-tempered king. The people who are fighting over his throne are…less so.

Rhaenyra Targaryen

Let’s start with Rhaenyra Targaryen, Viserys’ eldest child and the only surviving child he had with his first wife, Queen Aemma of House Arryn. Intelligent, beautiful and fierce, Rhaenyra will be played by young actor Emma D’Arcy, who’s appeared in shows like Truth Seekers and Wanderlust but has yet to really break out. This could be the role to do it.

Of the people cast so far, Emma D’Arcy is the one I know the least about. There aren’t a ton of pictures of her out there, so it’s especially hard to imagine what she might look like done up in full Targaryen glamour as Rhaenyra.

There’s also a question of how many years the show will cover. Since it’s cast Viserys, we know it’s not going to jump directly into the Dance of the Dragons, and there’s a quite a lot that happens before his death: enmities are formed, grudges are nursed, romances are started and ended, etc. The show wouldn’t have to show all of it, but I imagine we’ll get at least some. It could mean that D’Arcy will be playing Rhaenyra as she goes from being a young woman in her 20s through her mid-thirties, which is how old she is when the Dance comes to an end.

I’m looking forward to seeing what D’Arcy does with the role, because it’s a juicy one. Hopefully she can summon the fire that Rhaenyra was famous for.

Alicent Hightower

Alicent Hightower is Rhaenyra’s main rival in the Dance of the Dragons. She marries King Viserys after Rhaenyra’s mother dies, and gives him a son: Aegon. When Viserys dies, Alicent wants Aegon on the throne, which puts her in direct conflict with Rhaenyra, who is pretty sure it belongs to her. Her father named her heir, after all, and she’ll be damned if she lets her half-brother sit her seat.

We don’t know who’s playing Aegon yet, but 26-year-old British actor Olivia Cooke will play Alicent:

Cooke looks like she could be a solid Alicent, an expert political maneuverer who looked courtly politics at a young age. Although again, I wonder about the span of years the show will cover, since Alicent is several years older than Rhaenyra.

Daemon Targaryen

Finally, there’s Viserys’ brother Daemon Targaryen, who is as quick-tempered and violent as his brother is cool-headed and mild. Daemon is reckless, charming, amoral, and quick to take offense. To play him, HBO has tapped Matt Smith, best known as the Eleventh Doctor on Doctor Who and Prince Philip in Netflix’s The Crown.

You know, there was a narrative going around earlier that Smith didn’t have the physicality or intensity to play Daemon, but looking at some of these side-by-side images, I might be coming around.

That’s right, Matt Smith: smolder.

Filming on House of the Dragon starts in just a few months! In the meantime, what do you make of these casting choices?

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