Why House of the Dragon‘s Premiere Kept Referencing King Maegor Targaryen

House of the Dragon begins with the Great Council of 101, nearly 180 years before Game of Thrones. And yet, the figure whose presence most loomed over the premiere died long before that gathering at Harrenhal. The first episode of HBO’s spinoff series featured two references to Maegor the Cruel, the third Targaryen king. His bloody reign ended almost 70 years before Viserys named Rhaenyra his successor. But it’s no surprise Maegor was still on the mind of so many long after his death. Despite most of the prequel show’s characters never having lived under Maegor’s rule, they’re all destined to suffer because of it. The civil war that is coming to House Targaryen started the day Maegor stole the Iron Throne for himself.

King Jaehaerys I ruled for 55 prosperous and peaceful years, but he outlived most of his children and had no obvious heir. And he had good reason to fear what might happen if he did not have an unquestioned succession to follow him. House Targaryen knew firsthand what kind of violence that could result in.

When Aegon the Conqueror died, his eldest son, Aenys, ascended to the Iron Throne. That was both the custom and expectation as stipulated by Westeros’s laws of inheritance. But when Aenys died just five years later, his own son Aegon did not become king. Instead Aenys’s half-brother Maegor claimed the Iron Throne for himself.

Maegor, one of the Realm’s most intimidating and fearsome warriors ever, who claimed his father’s dragon as his own, did not become king without question. He simply answered those questions with blood. He murdered anyone who challenged him, including Grand Maesters, and used force to supplant his claim as king. And when his nephew Aegon came for his crown—supported by some powerful houses, with more rumored to be joining him—Maegor killed him in battle, earning the accursed name of kinslayer.

The rest of Maegor’s six-year reign was just as bloody and violent. He waged war with the Faith Militant and any lords who angered him. He took numerous wives simultaneously and killed many of them when they didn’t deliver him a son. He burned keeps and lands on the back of Balerion, the largest dragon ever in Westeros. And he not only tortured enemies, he killed their families. If anything, his ignoble moniker of “The Cruel” is too kind. He was a butcher and a monster, loved by few. By the time of his mysterious death (impaled while sitting on the Iron Throne) most of the Realm had turned on him. That included his Queen (also his niece), his family, and even some of his Kingsguard. They supported the rightful heir by law: Aenys’s grandson Jaehaerys.