6 things we want to see in HBO's Aegon the Conqueror spinoff

Dorne

Speaking of Dorne, that's another place I'd be extremely excited to see in a show about Aegon's Conquest. Dorne is the very last nation that Aegon and his sisters seek to bring into the fold for their newly founded kingdom. It doesn't go very well for them.

So far we've mostly talked about some of the major victories won by Aegon and his sisters during their conquest, but Dorne gives us a valuable counterpoint: they lose there in all the ways that matter. Initially, Rhaenys is charged with capturing Dorne while Aegon and Visenya are off fighting in other parts of Westeros. However, the Dornish refuse to fight her or her army; instead, they disappear into the desert, staying ever one step ahead. This eventually leads Rhaenys to fly directly to Sunspear, where she confronts Princess Meria Martell. Meria refuses to bend the knee, and Rhaenys begrudgingly leaves to rejoin Aegon and Visenya ahead of the Field of Fire.

Several years later after uniting the west, east and north behind his newly forged Iron Throne, Aegon sends Rhaenys and Lord Orys Baratheon back to conquer Dorne while he and Visenya get their new kingdom up and running. This becomes known as the First Dornish War.

While the First Dornish War isn't technically part of Aegon's Conquest, it's still majorly important and I doubt any show about Aegon and his sisters would exclude it. Here, the Dornish do fight back, and so fiercely that it leads to the tragic death of Rhaenys Targaryen and her dragon Meraxes when a scorpion bolt takes the mighty beast through the eye outside the castle of Hellholt.

There's some dispute in Fire & Blood over whether Rhaenys survived the death of her dragon or was killed during its fall from the sky, but however you slice it, she ends up dead and her body is never recovered by Aegon and Visenya. Her death leads to an even more brutal period of fighting as her siblings seek to avenge her and finish conquering Dorne.

The fighting doesn't stop until Princess Meria eventually dies of old age, and her successor, Prince Nymor Martell, finally makes peace. But even that peace is fascinating; Nymor sends Meraxes' skull up to King's Landing along with a letter. We never learn what the contents of that letter are, only that after reading it Aegon signed a peace treaty with Dorne without objection. Perhaps it contained some sort of information regarding Rhaenys' fate? Either way, there's some great drama to be had with the First Dornish War.

Dorne was famously underserved on Game of Thrones, and we don't expect to see a whole lot of it in House of the Dragon since the Dornish largely stay out of the Targaryen civil war. Given the importance of Dorne in Aegon's Conquest, it would be a great chance for a Game of Thrones show to finally do right by one of the most interesting cultures George R.R. Martin developed for his fantasy world.