My theory is that after Alyssa his mother died, his dad Baelon essentially gave up on parenting and pawned the kids off to Jaehaerys and Alysanne. Baelon copes by training daemon to be a warrior given that daemon was mom’s favorite. Daemon being the favorite of both parents made him a desperate people pleaser

Viserys was a failure as a parent. He ignores the tension that was in the family and ignores Rhaenyra and Laenor's lack of duty. I do think Viserys should've at least confronted Rhaenyra and Laenor about why they didn't have children together. It was messed up to ignore his children by Alicent, you can tell there was no close relationship with them because Aegon, Aemond nor Helaena sobbed about his death.

It absolutely blows my mind that both Viserys and Rhaenyra just ignored the fact that her children were obvious bastards. It was a huge catalyst to the start of the war. Viserys could have legitimized them, as kings have the right to do for bastards. Instead they both just pretended like the problem didn’t exist, which shows either a serious lack of minimal foresight or overconfidence in their ability to resolve this monster at a later date. Both are not good qualities in a leader. I feel like the way he treated rhaenyra as heir stemmed purely from the guilt he felt towards Aemma, not necessarily from his love of or faith in the abilities of his only surviving child from her. It’s a powerful and touching scene when he enters the throne room for the last time for her, but the only thing I could think was how sad it was that Rhaenyra wasn’t equipped to find the solution herself, so her half decomposed father dragged himself from his deathbed to defend her. A lot of that comes from Viserys not preparing her properly, but I have to put part of the blame on Rhaenyra herself. Like you said, she makes a lot of really dumb decisions. Chief among them, marrying Daemon and moving her family to dragonstone. Those two were the worst possible things she could have done, and they were 100% on her. Great analysis!!! I love character breakdown videos like this!!

I love when Grrm says that everyone believes the trope that "A good man makes a good ruler" being a good man doesn't ensure being good at ruling more required in order to be a good ruler. It's why I always said Jon Snow wouldn't be a good King.

He did have lots of mistakes but I would say that the dance was inevitable the moment rhaenrya’s firstborn child came out both a strong and a boy. Even if rhaenrya’s children were velaryons and not strongs, the firstborn being a boy would mean that Rhaenyra’s firstborn cannot marry Aegon and unify the claims. Another way to prevent the dance was when jaehaerys could have betrothed him and rhaenys the day he was born.

Even monarchies cannot function without a basic framework of laws & not just by “it was duh kang’s word”. Otherwise, if a king as influential as Jaehaerys' word meant nothing soon as he died, then why should Viserys' word mean anything after his death? The Great Council was clearly a legal body, in style of the Zemsky Sobor that chose the Russian Tsar, meant to set precedent for all future successions. Here's why : the Small Council advises the king. It does not officially vote a ruling into existence. But Jaehaerys didn't say "the Great Council simply advised me and I chose the king", he deferred to the Great Council's vote entirely. The king wasn't chosen by the Great Council's "advise", it was chosen by the Council's "vote". Which means it was defacto a law making body. And more importantly, I believe Viserys cannot overturn a precedent that made him king in the first place, without illegitimating his own reign. Just take a second to think how hypocritical that was for Viserys. Rhaenys WAS the rightful heir as Aemon's daughter, but the Great Council chose Viserys because he was a man. They exercised male primogeniture, therefore setting it as a precedent. Westeros is not male exclusive but with rare exceptions the inheritance has always passed to the male son first. A precedent which Rhaenyra Targaryen and her sons happily affirmed when she had multiple opportunities to press Baela's claim, or that of the elder daughters of Rosby, Stokeworth etc, and bypassed them for male heirs. Even when she was winning the war. Ask Viserys II how he felt about Daena's claim to the throne!! I guess the OG Viserys would've done well to remember what Jace said in the show, "a king should honor the traditions of his forebears". This whole thing about the king's "wish". It is an illusion and completely dependent on what he can and cannot enforce. Power resides where men believe it resides. The kings who succeeded, like Jaehaerys or Daeron II, all understood the necessity of compromise along with force. Viserys had no ability to enforce his decision. Therefore the blame lies on him for going forward with it. Unless you consider Viserys a mythical god, then there was no reason for the Greens to abide by his pie in the sky delusions. If everyone else wanted Rhaenyra there would've been no civil war and the Hightowers would've been crushed. But instead the 3 richest kingdoms supported Aegon.

This video is facts. Viserys was a likeable guy but probably one of the worst kings to ever sit the throne

Viserys is one of the most relatable characters. He's not a bad father, but this goes to show how hard life can be. Being a father, it's so hard to do the right thing all the time. Sometimes, you may something that you think is not a big deal, but your child holds on to it for years. Sometimes, instead of teaching, you are too distracted and choose the easy way and send your child away. Perfect depiction of how hard it is to be a parent, and how you may have good intentions, but life doesn't go smooth and the stress and business can cloud your judgment.

Viserys was also dumbto rehire Otto back as his Hand after Lyonel Strong died he should've hired Coryls, Rhaenys or Rhaenyra as his Hand. I remember he didn't have Rhaenyra as his Hand because of the tension between Alicent and Rhaenyra.

Viserys did have a dragon though it was balerion the black dread he died just before the start of hotd I'm pretty sure. It was one of the reasons they picked him as king cause he rode the greatest dragon Westeros ever saw. His real mistake was not getting another dragon cause of some naive promise he made when balerion died to never ride any other dragon 🤦

What everyone seems to have forgotten, is that Viserys is a widower, and he never wanted to re-marry. He was forced to due to his station. Not for any true love for Alicent. Viserys loved Emma. She was his soulmate, and he lost everything when he lost her, along with their son, Baelon, the following day. From the end of episode 1 and on, Viserys was a broken man, only trying to do right by his family, and his kingdom. Even at the cost of his own happiness. Which happened to die with Emma n episode 1. Viserys was a great King, husband, and father. Even to his second family. The hardships his second family endured emotionally due to Viserys, does suck, and it really wasn't there fault. He just had no more joy, or zest for life anymore. It really wasn't the disease that killed him. The disease was just a physical analogy of what truly killed him. That being a broken heart. Hence, at the moment of his death, we saw him give his first honest smile since the tournament n honor of the birth of his new child, which he knew was a boy child, and his heir, the day his true love, Emma, perished. Aside from he and Daemon's reconciliation, we never saw Viserys truly happy again. Not until he took his dying breath, with that sincere, honest, happy smile, as he uttered his last word. Emma. I thought it was beautiful, and relatable. Paddy Considine deserves and damn sure ought to win the Emmy for best actor this year. I mean, gat dayum, it was nearly literally his dying word. "Emmy... (smiling with wood🍆😲🤣)", and then he croaks. 😔 Award winning shit, right there. So, great video, even though I wholeheartedly disagree. U narrated it very well, and u clearly put much thought and reflection into it. That makes for good, memorable story telling, and I am impressed, and grateful for your efforts. Don't give up. You're very good at this, and the subscriptions will pile up soon enough. So don't get discouraged. Keep up the good work. I'm glad to have found your channel early on, and I love to watch these grow. Hey, I was among MrBallen's first 300 subs. He's only been around little more than a couple years. He's just recently gone over 7 million. It's impressive, and quite fulfilling to witness. I mean, he got there honestly, because frankly, he is the very best at what he does. No shit, the single greatest story teller I've ever seen. He almost comes across as a real life buddy u go camping with. That's the feeling u get. I was like subscriber 247 or something. Over 7 million today. U can do that, too. U have what it takes to know success on KZfaq. It's a lot harder than people might know, but, I can clearly see that u got what it takes. Just stick to it. Thank You for all of your time and efforts. I am truly grateful. Keep up the good work. Have a great conclusion to your week, and weekend ahead. 👍💯✌ Oh! Almost forgot. When u do hit 1 million subscriptions, I will b expecting my cookie. Just one big peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie. 2% milk, ice cold. Thanks n advance, now hurry dafuq up, home skillet. I luvs my cookies. I'ma fat fk, too. So patience for said cookie is no virtue of mine. So, I suggest u get busy. 👍😁💯Subscribing now. 💯💯💯✌

"Good man?" Didn't he marry a teenager, raise two poor heirs to the throne, and start a war?

His biggest problem was that he was a good man. He was a good king, not a great king; a decent one. He held the realm together and was relatively peaceful. He didn't make waves. His biggest wave was to name Rhaenyra his heir, at the time she was his only choice. He was charismatic and held true to his decisions. He wanted to please the people and those around him, that was his failure. Otto took advantage of Viserys' weakness. He knew Daemon was his only real hurdle with Aema dead. That's why he constantly pushed Viserys to send Daemon away from his side, even before Aema's death. The quote about Viserys talking about Aegon is kind of out of context. Alicent and Otto constantly pushed Viserys to name Aegon his heir. That's why he said that. In the book, he made Rhaenyra his heir when she was 8. He had already made his decision and was standing by it. Anyone in a management, or in this case a ruling position, knows that you can't waiver on your decisions once you make them. It makes you look twice as weak before your subordinates and your enemies. Otto and Alicent were trying to maneuver THEIR bloodline to get on the Iron Throne, not because it was the "right thing to do", it was because that would put THEIR family in a position of power and favor with the crown. Funny cause it was Otto's idea to make Rhaenyra Viserys' heir, even if that was only to spite Daemon. Rhaenyra was prepared to be Queen. You ignore all the times she displayed good qualities to be Queen. When she first told Viserys that they should send dragon riders to intimidate the Triarchy, Otto shut her down to find a new King's guard, she was right in that statement; she recognized that her Father needed to remarry to help protect their family and would have been fine with it being Laena; she went to Dragonstone to confront Daemon about the stolen egg, something Otto convinced Viserys NOT to do, which Daemon seemed to have wanted Viserys to come in order to prove that his brother isn't as weak as everyone says; years later she tells off Alicent about the reemerging Triarchy and that they should have built a fort and garrisoned it with soldiers when Daemon room the Stepstones, instead they ignored it which allowed the Triarchy to rebuild and threaten them once again. Viserys just allowed Otto to have too much influence. He showed that he had the ability to be an innovative ruler, if he wasn't so easily swayed. His best options would have been: betroth Rhaenyra and Laenor to each other when he named her his heir; remove Otto as Hand years ago and name Princess Rhaenys as his Hand; make a new position of equal importance for Daemon, "the King's fist", in charge of Westeros' armies as a High General of sorts to best utilize his skills, giving him the authority to lead the armies against any who would threaten the realm and to build up a stronger royal army in the Crownlands; when Rhaenyra is old enough, name her Master of Laws, that way she can understand the laws of Westeros to better prepare her for her future rule, and have Lord Lynol be her advisor after the transition to her new position; have Laenor be Viserys&Daemon's squire, he can sit in the small council meetings with them to aid in his education of court politics, in times of crisis and conflict he can accompany Daemon into battle, teaching him both aspects of ruling alongside Rhaenyra.

King viserys was a decent King people was actively disobeying him that's not his fault

Viserys was a terrible father, and the way he treated Aegon, Aemond and Helaena was disgusting. He should have confronted Rhaenyra about her bastard children, and honestly should’ve punished Lucerys, Jacaerys, Baela and Rhaena.

Never sentenced anyone to death???? his wife dawg!!!! first episode!!!

A Targaryen without a dragon 🐉 can't be nothing but weak but real talk there are so many things that make him weak the women in HOTD are stronger 💪 than him

Viserys rode Balerion

Ya'll putting everything on him for some reasons. Almost all of his bad decisions after his wife's death was either because of the snakes in his court or his family being liabilities. As for his parenting, i don't know about the book, but the episodes alone are not enough judge if he was a good parent or not for his other kids because of the timeskip and the fact his sickness prevented him to actively there in for the kids at that age. In episode 6 for example when Alicent complains about the joke made to Aemond by the others Viserys knows Aegon enough to ask Allicent if it wasn't his idea to prank his brother something that will ask to the kid later. And in episode 7, Viserys asked Aemond to tell the entire story and only focused on the insult Rhaenyra brought that up because it was worse. He didn't ignore Aemond here, he decided to protect the kid who was the most in danger and it was Rhanerya.