Fan Casting

"Power is not won. It must be maintained — in blood and in fire, forever." A realm is not a conquest — it is a living thing that must be governed. This film spans the later years of Aegon's reign and the political fires that no dragon can extinguish. The Faith of the Seven turns against the Targaryens over the matter of incestuous marriage; armed sparrows and warrior-septons fill the streets of King's Landing. Aegon must choose between the sword and diplomacy. Meanwhile, the question of succession tears at the court: his elder son Aenys by Rhaenys is dreamy and weak-chinned; his younger son Maegor by Visenya is cruel and powerful. Visenya, ever her son's champion, works in shadow to secure Maegor's place. Aegon, ageing and increasingly withdrawn since Rhaenys's death, broods atop his castle, knowing that the realm he burned into being may not outlast him. The film's centrepiece is a tense political summit at the Starry Sept where Aegon, using no dragon at all, outmanoeuvres the High Septon entirely through force of personality and strategic concession. The film ends with Aegon's death — a stroke, it is said, brought on by the burden of decades — and a final image of Balerion, alone and immense, circling the Red Keep as though mourning his rider.