{"id":25631,"date":"2026-04-15T12:36:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=25631"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:39:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T20:39:35","slug":"keeping-up-with-the-targaryens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/keeping-up-with-the-targaryens\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping up with the Targaryens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A still of Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg in \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.\u201d | Photo from @gameofthones on Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 15, 2026 | Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about the \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d universe a lot lately. \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d was released in February of this year, I recently finished \u201cA Game of Thrones\u201d for the first time and I\u2019m rewatching \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d in preparation for Season 3\u2019s release this June. Maybe \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking\u201d is an understatement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, the shows have been on my mind a lot as I\u2019ve consumed them in the last few months, and with them being on my mind, there are a lot of considerations I\u2019ve looked at. After all, the shows are all connected in some way or another, aside from being in the same universe. I fear that is the most obvious, but there are more connections beyond that, with the same Houses and same family names stirring up trouble in Westeros.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, one of my favorite connections appears in Season 3 of \u201cA Game of Thrones.\u201d In \u201cAnd Now His Watch Has Ended,\u201d Joffrey Baratheon gives Margaery Tyrell a tour of the Red Keep. As they pass through the Great Sept of Baelor, he casually recounts Rhaenyra Targaryen\u2019s fate \u2014 killed and eaten by Aegon II\u2019s dragon in front of her son.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rhaenyra Targaryen is the main character of \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d and the show follows her fight against Aegon II, her half-brother, to claim the Iron Throne.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the only Targaryen from another series mentioned in the episode, however. Baratheon also tells Tyrell about Aerion Targaryen, also known as Aerion Brightflame, and how he drank wildfire because he thought himself to be a dragon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aerion Targaryen is a minor character in \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,\u201d and is bested in a Trial of Seven by Ser Duncan the Tall. While Season 2 does not release until 2027, fans will likely not see him again. If \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d adheres to its source material, Aerion Targaryen does not reappear. He departs for Dorne while Ser Duncan and Egg travel to other parts of Westeros.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of Ser Duncan, the hedge knight is mentioned twice across the show, once in Season 1 and the second time in Season 4. Both are brief, but they truly show his place as a legend in Westeros. In Season 1\u2019s \u201cLord Snow,\u201d Old Nan offers to tell Bran Stark a story about Ser Duncan, who she says was Stark\u2019s favorite.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Season 4, the allusion to Ser Duncan is much more explicit. Again, it is Baratheon who speaks of the character, using the hedge knight\u2019s long list of deeds in the Book of Brothers to mock his father-uncle, Jaime Lannister. Ser Duncan\u2019s 14-page-long list that Baratheon mentions in the show alludes to the greatness that the character eventually achieves.<\/span><\/p>\n

A third character from \u201cThe Knight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d\u00a0 is also name-dropped, but it\u2019s in the Season 5 episode \u201cThe Gift,\u201d when Maester Aemon shouts out \u201cEgg\u201d on his deathbed. In a previous season, the Maester had revealed that he was a Targaryen, which means that the \u201cEgg\u201d he is calling to is Aegon V, and the second main character of \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Out of the four characters mentioned, three are Targaryens \u2014 Egg, Aerion and Rhaenyra \u2014 which is kind of the point. It begins to become obvious how the entire \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d universe quietly orbits that one family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when the story pretends to be about sprawling politics, rival houses or the fate of the realm, it keeps snapping back to the same gravitational center: the Targaryens. Their bloodline, their dragons, their internal conflicts \u2014 those are the forces that shape history again and again. Egg represents the unlikely, almost hopeful side of that legacy; Aerion Targaryen shows its instability and cruelty; Rhaenyra Targaryen embodies how personal ambition can escalate into civil war. Three very different people, in the same dynasty, with the same underlying volatility.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes the world feel less like a broad ensemble and more like a long, multi-generational tragedy. The rise and fall of kingdoms, the wars, the prophecies \u2014 they\u2019re not random, they\u2019re consequences. And more often than not, they trace back to one family\u2019s ability to conquer a continent and their inability to hold onto it peacefully.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when multiple Targaryens keep popping up in even casual references, it\u2019s not coincidence \u2014 it\u2019s the story revealing what it\u2019s really about.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even the beginning of \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d references Daenerys Targaryen, who is arguably the main character of \u201cA Game of Thrones\u201d \u2014 the show \u2014 and \u201cA Song of Ice and Fire\u201d \u2014 the book series.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now the ninth year of King Viserys I Targaryen\u2019s reign. 172 years before the death of the Mad King, Aerys, and the birth of his daughter, Princess Daenerys Targaryen,\u201d it reads, before words fade out until it just reads \u201c172 years before Daenerys Targaryen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first saw this while watching \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d I got chills, because it sets Daenerys Targaryen as the marker for every point in Westerosi History.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If I were to equate the Targaryens to a modern famous family, they would be the Kardashians. They\u2019re rich, they make questionable decisions, yet somehow people still love them in spite of the horrible things they do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Heck, even I love the Targaryens and defend them, even when they do bad things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daenerys Targaryen burns down King\u2019s Landing because Cersei Lannister killed her best friend? That\u2019s a completely valid crashout.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aemond Targaryen wants revenge on his nephews because they gave him a pig dressed up as a dragon and cut out his eye? I\u2019d want revenge, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At a certain point, it stops being surprising and just becomes the rule: if something goes wrong in Westeros, a Targaryen probably lit the match. Whether it\u2019s revenge, ambition, grief or just pure delusion, their choices ripple outward until entire kingdoms feel the consequences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And maybe that\u2019s why they\u2019re so hard to look away from. They\u2019re not just rulers or legends \u2014 they\u2019re deeply flawed people with far too much power, making very human decisions on an inhuman scale. So as much as the world of \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d pretends to be about everyone, it keeps circling back to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The dragons may be gone or reborn, the throne may change hands, but the story remains the same: sooner or later, it\u2019s always about the Targaryens.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 15, 2026 | Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor I\u2019ve been thinking about the \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d universe a lot lately. \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d was released in February of this year, I recently finished \u201cA Game of Thrones\u201d for the first time and I\u2019m rewatching \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d in preparation for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Keeping up with the Targaryens","_seopress_titles_desc":"In the \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d universe, every problem somehow traces back to dramatic Targaryen family members","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[684,1556,608,39],"class_list":["post-25631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-western","tag-western-oregon","tag-western-oregon-university","tag-wou"],"modified_by":"saragerrick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25636,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25631\/revisions\/25636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}