House of the Dragon: the tournament and how the Targaryen line of succession works

Viserys runs to his wife and there he discovers that the baby is in the wrong position, so the doctors propose a barbaric technique to save him, sacrificing the life of the mother, to whom they do not even explain what is going to happen (and this It has to do with the line of succession).

In the end, the tournament is celebrated and Christopher Cole he becomes the victor, but this is overshadowed by the grief facing the family, and the dilemma of what this means for Viserys I and his would-be heir.

How does the Targaryen line of succession work in House of the Dragon?

Here the line of succession of the Targaryens It works like in real monarchies, the crown is passed from father to son, but there are some interesting things.

First of all, Aegon gains the crown by force, through battle and conquest (which is also somewhat realistic), but because the Targaryens have dragons, no one dares to confront or challenge them.

Each king is expected to have at least one son (male) who will become his heir, but they also have the ability to choose who will follow them. Jaeharerys Targaryensfor example, decides to choose his second son, Viserys, before choosing as his successor the daughter of his first son (who died before him), named rhaenys (or The queen that never was).

Viserys has Rhaenyrabut, by that point, no woman had sat on the throne, so the heir, at least until before the birth of Aemma’s baby, was Daemon, and that changes when the baby is revealed to be a boy.

When the baby dies Demon he is the heir again, but he angers his brother by making fun of his dead son, so he is “banished” and Rhaenyra becomes the heiress, she is even officially named.

What is the problem? Well, as king, Viserys has the obligation to marry again, and that means he can have more children, and if one of them is a boy, his father’s decision does not necessarily mean that she is going to sit on the throne, which is what finally brings us to the Dance of the Dragons (with a little help from Alicent Hightower).