House of the Dragon star Tom Glynn-Carney explains why King Aegon isn't like King Joffrey

Aegon Targaryen is a young, inexperienced king with a hair trigger temper and a selfish streak. Played by Tom Glynn-Carney on HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, the character has drawn comparisons to Joffrey Baratheon, the famously impudent boy king from the progenitor show.

Glynn-Carney doesn't truck with those comparisons. “I can understand why people have made those comparisons, but I always thought of them as being very different," he told the Independent. "Joffrey is cold and calculated, while Aegon is frantic, and when he feels, he feels so deeply – which is as dangerous as someone who doesn’t feel at all. He doesn’t have anywhere to put that, which I guess sometimes manifests in violence.”

"He’s a product of his history. He’s complex and multidimensional and riddled with insecurity. He’s an empath!"

Watching Aegon as a new king in the season 2 premiere, "A Son for a Son," I didn't see much of Joffrey. Sure, Aegon doesn't know what he's doing and overshoots, but at least he's trying to fairly hear out the petitions of the smallfolk in the Iron Throne room, whereas Joffrey would probably make them fight to the death for his amusement.

That said, Aegon may have lots of rage to spare after the end of the season premiere, where a pair of mercenaries snuck into the Red Keep and killed his young son Jaehaerys at the behest of Aegon's own uncle Daemon (Matt Smith), who is married to King Aegon's rival for the Iron Throne, Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy).  "Look, when something as tragic as a tragic thing happens, it leaves a stain on a human being to the point of probably no return," Glynn-Carney hinted to PEOPLE. "It's a dangerous thing to happen to a very vulnerable and fragile and volatile human being."

I thought Aegon was among the most fascinating characters in the season premiere, an openly emotional raw nerve on a show where people tend to carefully control their reactions. I can only imagine what he'll do now that his son has been killed, with him on the Iron Throne and everything to prove and lose.

House of the Dragon star thinks Game of Thrones "was too close to oversexualizing women"

Tom Glynn-Carney wasn't originally a fan of Game of Thrones, but blitzed the entire series in a few weeks after he learned he got the role on House of the Dragon. Naturally, the Independent had to ask him about the much-maligned ending to the original show. “Look, whatever I say, I’ll get in trouble here," the actor said. "It felt to me that it was a poisoned chalice for any writer to be able to please everybody. I thought they did a great job, personally.”

He also weighed in on how House of the Dragon is changing up some things from Game of Thrones, including the depiction of sex and nudity. House of the Dragon has a bit less shameless nakedness than the early seasons of Game of Thrones. “I assumed that they...would take a different approach, because it did feel like maybe Game of Thrones was too close to oversexualising women, and that wouldn’t be cool if they did that this time," Glynn-Carney said. "I thought they were suitably delicate and took a better, more sustainable angle.”

I think House of the Dragon is continuing an approach to sex and nudity that was already in effect towards the end of Game of Thrones. The early seasons of that show were famous for their gratuitous nudity, but in the back half they cut down on that; there were still sex scenes, but they served a purpose in the story. House of the Dragon is picking up where Game of Thrones left off.

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sunday nights on HBO and Max. Aegon Targaryen in particular is off to a strong start, and I'm eager to see what he does next.

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