We Were All Pretty Gutted’: House of The Dragon Director Reflects on Paddy Considine’s Awards Snubs zas Viserys Targaryen Two Years Later

In the 2024 TV schedule, House of the Dragon Season 2 is rapidly approaching its conclusion, and as of the penultimate episode’s conclusion, Rhaenyra has strengthened the Blacks with two more dragons. However, Daemon has been haunted by visions over in Harrenhal, which may or may not be related to Alys Rivers. Although not everyone has enjoyed Daemon’s decision to spend the most of Season 2 in Harrenhal, it has made room for the comebacks of performers like Milly Alcock and, more recently, Paddy Considine. During our conversation earlier this season, director Geeta Vasant Patel revealed to me that Considine did not receive any recognition for his most impactful Season 1 episode.

Geeta Vasant Patel directed the eighth episode of Season 1, “The Lord of the Tides,” which included Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen. This was a terrific showcase for Paddy Considine before Patel joined Season 2 to film Episode 3 and the impending season finale. Even though Viserys had never looked worse in the episode that would ultimately result in his demise, I believe Considine had his best performance of the season.

I mentioned to the director of the episode that included Viserys’ heartbreaking final defines of Rhaenyra that I always thought Considine should have received more acclaim for it, to which Patel replied:

I concur! When he, or anyone else, truly didn’t receive a nomination, we were all fairly devastated. I was absolutely perplexed. However, my spouse believes it’s because there were so many other programs airing in their last seasons during that awards season. My spouse is an IT specialist. [Giggles]

If House of the Dragon wasn’t as guaranteed to win accolades as Game of Thrones was during its peak, Paddy Considine ought to have at least received a few nods, right? Furthermore, I’m not just talking about the big award shows like the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

Only Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Milly Alcock, and Rhys Ifans received nominations for the Season 1 awards circuit. Not that any of those four didn’t earn praise, but why wasn’t Considine included on the list?

One of the most iconic and memorable images from the entire first season, in my opinion, is Viserys’ agonizing journey to take the Iron Throne one final time in order to defend Rhaenyra. Composer Ramin Djawadi contributed some appropriately intense music to the scene, which helped make it even more spectacular. It was a surefire prescription for Considine to win a trophy or two, if nothing else. At the very least, recognition from some awards. Geeta Vasant Patel continued her laudatory remarks for the actor:

Paddy performed admirably in numerous aspects. The performers and the writing they were entrusted with were the main reasons I had always wanted to work on the show and had spent seven years trying to be on this show. I wanted to tell a portion of that story, and Paddy is the epitome of a director’s dream job. He gave it everything he had, both mentally and physically, in this specific scenario.

In reality, Viserys’ journey to the Iron Throne was much more potent in the end than it had been in the narrative. There was an on-set mishap that led to Viserys’ crown falling off of him and Daemon having to pick it up and put it back on his head. During the rehearsal process, the director and actors realized they had discovered something exceptional almost by coincidence when Paddy Considine’s crown slipped off and was scooped up by Matt Smith. It was also a wonderful moment between the brothers, who had rarely been on the same side of an argument in the entire program up to that point, especially because Viserys died shortly after.

Overall, considering the first season was supposed to be his only as a series regular, I do still wish Paddy Considine had received some recognition from the industry. Unfortunately, I don’t think his brief appearances in the final few episodes of Season 2 will be sufficient to nominate him as an Outstanding Guest for any upcoming awards. With a Max subscription, you can access the entire first season as well as the entirety of Season 2 thus far, so it’s not too difficult to rewatch his best moments as King Viserys Targaryen. Whether Considine makes another appearance prior to the closing credits in the 2024 TV schedule is still to be determined.

House Of the Dragon Dropped a Reveal About George R.R. Martin’s Lost Targaryen, And Now I’m Nervous for Season 2 Finale

Because Season 2 of House of the Dragon has two less episodes than Season 1, the show’s 2024 TV schedule has it rapidly reaching its finale. For a large portion of the season, the Blacks have been in disorder due to Daemon’s pouting (and hallucinations) upon his arrival at the eerie Harrenhal, Rhaenys’s death alongside Meleys in combat, and Rhaenyra’s indecision about how to defeat the Greens with the fewest possible casualties among the small people. In “The Red Sowing,” a narrative that unexpectedly revealed details about a Targaryen who abandoned the game of thrones in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood book, she made some very substantial progress on that front.

Or, more precisely, a Fire & Blood Targaryen whose father disinherited her from the Game of Thrones! Now let’s discuss what “The Red Sowing” disclosed regarding King’s Landing’s Hugh and this missing Targaryen. There are some minor Fire & Blood spoilers ahead, but none for the Greens vs. Blacks phase.

Mother of Hugh’s Targaryen

The dragon seeds, also known as the bastard children of various Targaryen’s who spent their nights in low places, have a significant role to play, as was hinted at earlier in Season 2. Rhaenyra came to the conclusion that these bastards might have enough Targaryen blood to claim dragons, but without the Targaryen status, with Mysaria’s assistance.

Hugh and Ulf were among those lured when word got out in King’s Landing that the Blacks were searching for smallfolk with Targaryen ancestry to claim dragons. Hugh surprised his wife by revealing a shocking reason for his wish to travel to Rhaenyra:

My father was someone I never met. That much is accurate. I did, however, know my mother. I apologize for keeping it from you. She was employed for a fun house. Because of who she was, she had more freedom than most. In addition, wealthy men were paid more to fuck women with silver hair. She used to say that me and her brother’s boys were the same. Daemon and Viserys.

I felt ashamed of her, though. I made an effort to move with my hands.

Even though Hugh did not give his mother’s name to any of the women in the Targaryen family tree, unless the House of the Dragon created a different daughter of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, there is no question as to who his mother is. According to canonical information from the show, Hugh is the son of Princess Saera, the younger sister of Baelon and Alyssa, who were the parents of Daemon and Viserys.

Like the majority of Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s thirteen children, Saera’s narrative isn’t a pleasant one in the pages of Fire & Blood. Being the fifth daughter of the king and queen, stubborn and conceited, Alysanne was able to see through Saera more than Jaehaerys. The princess and her two companions spent so much time with these three men that Jaehaerys in Fire & Blood finally made the following demands:

How did you proceed? What have you done, Seven, to save us? Have you offered your maidenhead to one of these boys? Tell the truth to me.

When Jaehaerys retorted that Saera “gave it to all three,” Saera said that she was “no longer my daughter.” After being ordered to stay with Septas in order to make amends, the princess eventually escaped to a “Lysene pleasure garden.” Saera was reported to have become a wealthy and “infamous” woman. Three of her sons via a previous marriage competed for the Iron Throne during the Great Council, which resulted in Viserys’ coronation.

She “had her own kingdom” in Essos, therefore she decided against going back to Westeros to try to establish her own claim to the throne. Overall, even if the show doesn’t say much about Saera, it seems like the program’s portrayal of her is more tragic than the books since George R.R. Martin has Saera gaining fortune on her own.

As has usually been the case with this program, the timeline becomes a little hazy if we attempt to force the unidentified mother of Hugh in House of the Dragon to be the same as Saera in the novel. The fact that the daughter Jaehaerys pronounced dead gave birth to a bastard son who would later claim Jaehaerys’ own dragon is somewhat ironic! In fact, Vermithor burnt a number of previous dragon seeds before him.

After learning from House of the Dragon that one of Fire & Blood’s most significant dragon seeds was born to the missing Targaryen princess Saera, I’m beginning to become anxious about the Season 2 finale.