King Aegon — or Aegon the Conqueror — is a name steeped in legend for Game of Thrones fans and they'll be delighted to hear he could get his own spin-off series.
Showrunner Ryan Condal has taken us back through the history of Westeros in House of the Dragon, which charts how the Targaryen dynasty first began to crumble, and he hopes to take us even further!
King Aegon became the founder and first king of the Targaryen dynasty after leaving Dragonstone and conquering Westeros. He is famous for uniting six of the seven kingdoms — excluding Dorne — with fearsome dragons Vhagar, Meraxes and Balerion, the greatest Targaryen dragon who ever lived and the largest since the fall of Valyria.
Yet while Condal is keen to share his story, he felt it was important to explain how the Targaryen family fell from power first...
"Aegon's is definitely an interesting story, but I didn't feel like it was the first story to tell," says Condal. "Aegon's conquest is really about a man with three dragons conquering a kingdom that has no dragons. So there certainly is an inherent conflict and dramatic story to be told there, but it I think you need to build greater context around it to understand what's at stake."
Set 170 years before the events of Game of Thrones, this year's House of the Dragon tells the story of the Targaryen dynasty and how its fall from power began with a succession crisis during the reign of King Viserys.
"I would love to go back and tell Aegon's story at some point, but the reason we went with House of the Dragon is because the story has great resonance with Game of Thrones," explains Condal. "The reason the Targaryen dynasty fell apart began with with this tale. When you see Daenrys looking across the Narrow Sea and the first episode of the original series, this is the great shining memory that she's thinking of."
House of the Dragon begins on Sunday 21 August on HBO in the US & on Monday 22 August on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
