Top 13 couples on House of the Dragon, from most screwed up to least

11. Aegon Targaryen and Helaena Targaryen

Did you know that Aegon Targaryen and Helaena Targaryen, respectively the first and second children of Viserys Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, are married? The show doesn’t spend a lot of time on their relationship, but they are wed! They even have a few children of their own.

Obviously, this relationship is political. It probably says something about their romance that even though they’re man and wife, we couldn’t find a good picture of them together; even above, their younger brother Aemond pulls focus, so little do these two want to spend time with each other. At the family dinner in Episode 8, Helaena makes a toast where she basically calls her husband a layabout who ignores her.

Ah, marital bliss.

10. Viserys Targaryen and Alicent Hightower

Here’s another sucky marriage, and these two are together for much longer. When she’s a girl, Alicent’s father Otto basically gifts her to King Viserys like someone else might gift a friend a new lawnmower or Springsteen tickets. Alicent doesn’t marry Viserys because she loves him; she does it because she was raised to be married off to a powerful man so as to strengthen the position of her house. Being young, she plays her role more or less without complaint, only questioning it later in life.

King Viserys doesn’t seem to love Alicent, either; he marries her mostly because he was expected to wed a new bride after the death of his first wife and Alicent was there. And while her friend Rhaenyra got to sow some wild oats in her youth, Alicent spent her time raising Viserys’ kids, and is at his beck and call whenever he wants to make a new one.

Later in their lives, Alicent and Viserys did seem to develop some level of trust and understanding. They didn’t love each other, but they liked each other. It’s not much to hold onto, but at least neither of them murdered the other with a rock.

We’re setting the bar for romance low here.