Game Of Thrones Was Right To Cut The Books’ Biggest Targaryen Twist, And A Huge Spinoff Trend Confirms It

Game of Thrones Cut A Song of Ice and Fire‘s biggest Targaryen twist (so far) when it didn’t include Young Griff, aka Aegon Targaryen, but it was the right choice for the series. George RR Martin’s books are full of characters and plot lines that didn’t figure into the HBO TV show and, of course, his novels were infamously overtaken en route to Game of Thrones‘Finally. All of these deviations have a ripple effect, including the choice not to include Aegon.

In the books, it is revealed that Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar, is still alive when Tyrion sails on a ship with him in A dance with dragons. in Game of ThronesThe story doesn’t happen and Aegon/Young Griff is never introducedAnd the whole storyline is pretty much cut. This may have been a disappointment to some book readers however, as the show was headed (and what the upcoming Game of Thrones spinoffs are doing), I think it was a smart choice.

A Song of Ice and Fire’s Aegon Targaryen twist explained

Rhaegar Targaryen’s first son is still alive (maybe)

Both Game of Thrones And A Song of Ice and Fire Tell the same initial story about Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and his first wife, Elia Martell. At the end of Robert’s Rebellion, after Jaime Lannister slaying the Mad King, Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane entered King’s Landing and killed Aegon, his sister Rhaenys, and their mother. That’s where Thrones Things end, however A dance with dragons Adds a new twist to the story.

When Tyrion sails for Volantis alongside young Griff and his supposed father, Griff, it is revealed that they are actually Aegon Targaryen and Jon Connington (a close friend of Rhaegar, one-time Hand of the King to Aerys II, and an exile from Westeros) . The story goes that Varys paid for an infant from a King’s Landing tanner in exchange for wine, and swapped the babies before Gregor got his hands on Aegon. After the death, Varys smuggled the real Aegon across the Narrow SeaWhere he was raised by Illyrio Mopatis and then Jon Connington.

Heading in The winds of winter, Aegon has his eyes on the Iron Throne. He landed in Westeros, and had the sellword group the Golden Company at his back. He was raised to be the perfect prince, and hopes to become the perfect King of Targaryen. However, there are doubts about whether Young Griff is really Aegon Targaryen, and theories that he is perhaps a Blackfire Pretender (a thought-extinct house that was a branch of House Targaryen). Real or fake, he will be an important part of the story, but it is not needed for Game of Thrones.

Why Game Of Thrones Was Right To Cut Aegon Targaryen/Young Griff

Young Griff would have been too great a distraction

The fact that Aegon may be fake (dubbed Faegon as the theories go) shows why Game of Thrones It was right to cut him. It is not impossible, George RR Martin himself already revealed this to the showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, when they provided the future to them, which may have influenced their decision to cut him. Even if that didn’t happen, uncertainty about his true identity would make it difficult to include him in the show And do it justice, because it can feel like a waste of time over a few hours of television, rather than hundreds of book pages.

Even in the books, Young grip feels like a bit of a distraction. He’s a relatively late-in-the-day plot twist, coming in the fifth of Martin’s planned seven novels, and while there will be a serious impact from him, he’s unlikely to be around by the end of the show. This is good for the books and something that Martin can do very well, but also reflects how, even at this point, the books were constantly expanding. for Game of ThronesIt would have been difficult to successfully do this twist, for various reasons:

• It relies on ensuring viewers are familiar with Aegon and Jon Connington enough to understand the twist in the first place and then care about the story after it, which itself isn’t straightforward when there’s so much going on.

• If Aegon is indeed a fraud, it might only be possible to trick viewers for a carpet-pull later, all for a character introduced in season 5. Alternatively, it would need to be up front about it from the beginning, which then feels like An unnecessary distraction and reduces the need to care about it.

• Fake or real, it introduces a battle over Targaryen succession with Daenerys that then removes the same conflict from the Jon Snow story, and requires major changes to other storylines (such as Cersei Lannister’s, because she takes the Iron Throne, and that risks changing or cutting short one of the show’s best character arcs and performances).

• It is a great expansion of Game of Thrones‘ cast, crew and locations at a point when the show is already incredibly vast, production-wise, and there are already a lot of characters for viewers to keep track of and storylines for the writers to juggle.

• It would add several seasons to the show. Game of Thrones Had problems putting everything in its eight seasons as it was, so even if it stretched to, say, season 9 or 10 with young Griff, the problems were not removed. Instead, it looks more like 10 seasons, which seems impossible for a show of its weight.

It’s a surprise reveal that a character is still alive, and while it’s not technically someone coming back from the dead, This could reduce the impact of something like Jon Snow’s resurrection. If not, it would certainly risk damaging the impact of Jon Snow’s Targaryen parents, since the discovery of him being called Aegon Targaryen and being the secret son of Rhaegar Targaryen would not be as unique if it had already been another one Aegon Targaryen who is the secretly still alive son of Rhaegar Targaryen in the story (which adds more fuel to the idea that Young Griff is a fraud).

Ultimately, while I’m interested in where Martin takes the Aegon/Young Griff story, I just don’t see a way it realistically works on a TV show. It is much easier in a book where there is no real limit to pages, letters or imagination, and where we can get into the heads of characters to understand things much better.. There are parts of the story that I also love – Arianne Martell is one of my favorite book characters missing from the show, and is about to get wrapped up in it – but I think including it would have hurt the show more than cutting it did.

Game of Thrones’ spinoffs include a lot of Aegon Targaryens

It risks making young grip even more confusing

Warning: This section contains mild spoilers for The Tales of Dunk & Egg, the books on which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based.Young Griff, or Aegon Targaryen, in Game of Thrones Would cause confusion anyway, but he would also make looking at the broader franchise more difficult as well. It’s an old complaint that too many characters have the same or similar names, and nothing exemplifies that like Aegon. Although Game of Thrones‘ Jon Snow spinoff isn’t happening – meaning there’s one less Aegon Targaryen in the mix – the franchise’s future is still full of characters carrying the name to an almost absurd degree. Based on what HBO has planned, there will be at least four Aeons with important roles going forward.

Two of these we have already met: King Aegon II Targaryen, and his cousin, Aegon the Younger (son of Rhaenyra and Daemon). Aegon II is well-established in House of the DragonBut will continue to have a major role going forward. The other, meanwhile, should take on greater prominence as things progress, meaning more potential for confusion.

Before House of the Dragon Again, there will be another Aegon, appearing in A knight of the seven kingdoms. Based on George RR Martin S The Tales of Dunk and Ai series, it follows a hedge knight, Sir Duncan the Tall (aka Dunk), and his squire, i. Except… Ai is actually the boy who will become King Aegon V Targaryen. Because of the show’s timeline and place in history, it will likely also need to make viewers familiar with King Aegon IV Targaryen, as his decisions have consequences that last to the story, even though he won’t appear on screen.

If all that wasn’t enough, HBO is also developing an Aegon the Conqueror spinoff with The Batman Co-writer Mattson Tomlin, though it hasn’t been ordered to series (yet). Your favorite Aegon’s favorite Aegon, he’s the one who started all this in the first placeAfter which multiple subsequent Targaryen kings have been named, and this could be a major show for the network.

Add in Game of Thrones Revealing Jon Snow is also named Aegon Targaryen, and I feel like there’s certainly not enough room for young Griff to take part. It’s hard enough to get audiences to distinguish between Rhaenyra, Rhaena and Rhaenis (another of them will be introduced in the Conquest show), let alone 5-6 characters with the exact same name, most of them kings, some of them have the same crown and/or sword, in the span of three or four shows. It’s a lot, and only makes me more convinced that cutting Young Griff was the right call.

Key background

• The first eight episodes dramatize and expand on a single chapter in the source novel “Fire and Blood,” specifically “Heirs of the Dragon: A Question of Succession.”

• With almost 10 million viewers, House of the Dragon (2022)The pilot “The Heirs of the Dragon (2022)” was the most watched series premiere in HBO’s history.

• In Season 1 of game of thrones (2011)George RR Martin wanted his prop head on a pike, but budget issues prevented it. Recently, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan J. Condal promised to make it happen.