The third season of House of the Dragon is filming as we speak. In between takes, star Tom Glynn-Carney chatted with Awards Buzz about his character King Aegon II Targaryen, who had a very eventful season 2. Aegon started the season off sitting the Iron Throne as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, but he wasn't great at it. His young son is brutally murdered early on in the season. Halfway through, he rode his dragon into battle and was brutally burned by his own brother, and is now fleeing the city lest Aemond come back to finish the job.
Personally, Aegon was my favorite character in season 2; there's a bit of a battle going on inside him, and it made him very dynamic to watch. "I like a lot of things about him. I have to, because I lot of people dislike a lot of things about him, so there's gotta be someone who likes him," Glynn-Carney quipped. "I like his impulsivity...I like how volatile he is, and I'm learning to love his vulnerability as well, and his curiosity...I think he's brave as well. I think he's stupid but I think he's brave."
Glynn-Carney couldn't reveal anything specific about season 3, but when Awards Watch asked him whether Aegon was going to die brutally anytime soon, he at least left a trail of bread crumbs for fans to follow: "Well, here's the thing: I've read the book, so that probably answers your question if you have also read the books. Say no more."
House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood. Although the show has made a lot of changes to the source material, I expect them to stick to the broad outline of the story, and in the broad outline, Aegon still has a lot to do. In fact, if they can continue to build on the momentum they built in season 2, he has the potential to once again steal the show in season 3.
"I think what we start to see in Aegon as we go through this story is this quest for an understanding of who he is, and why he is the way he is," Glynn-Carney said. "And answering a lot of questions for himself that later might lend themselves to him kinda leveling up as a human being and taking responsibility and casting light on those areas that were otherwise very shadowed and hidden in dusty corners within himself. So it's a big journey of self-discovery...That's how his arc seems to be coming together as the tapestry keeps being woven."
In season 2, Aegon was a bit of a layabout slacker who found himself on the Iron Throne after his father died unexpectedly, but other people around him, including his grandfather Otto Hightower and mother Alicent Hightower, clearly thought they were the ones who should actually be running things. The only person who seemed to believe in Aegon was Larys Strong, the hobbled spymaster. Now that he and Aegon are on the run, Aegon has a chance to find himself a bit.
"I'm in a very different situation now as Aegon, with the burns and the different wig and all that jazz," Glynn-Carney said. "That in itself is a different character now. I feel like that's Aegon version two...On a very physical level it changes the way he moves, it changes the way he speaks. But also it changes the way he thinks and feels and sees the world. I feel there's a coldness to him now, where originally he had this kind of puppy dog energy, a high energy level. This version of him feels driven, colder, blinkers on, eyes on the prize here."
Let's hope that results in another crackling character arc when House of the Dragon returns for its third season. No release date has been set, but we expect new episodes to air on HBO and HBO Max sometime in the back half of 2026, meaning a full two years will pass between the second and third season of the show. That's rough, but at least HBO will give fans something to tide them over in the meanwhile: a new Game of Thrones prequel series called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will air early next year.
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