See the "House of the Dragon" Characters Before and After the Time Jumps

From the beginning, King Viserys I is an "OK" king. He's interested in the welfare of his people and his family, but he's also heir-obsessed enough to give the go-ahead to a brutal operation that kills his first wife, Aemma, in the futile hope of saving the life of the child she is struggling to birth. After Aemma's death, he names his daughter, Rhaenyra, as heir, but the scheming going on around him tugs him in many directions — and even the Iron Throne itself seems to reject him.