#you didn't need to do that man now touch repulsed aegon is canon

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“Haven't touched on everything I could talk about with Aegon; there's some sex stuff I've alluded to in previous posts that I almost included here but this is already long and it's an incredibly niche reading of the character, but if y'all wanna hear it lemme know.”

Yes please 🙏

I also remember reading some tags you wrote about him flinching on that “most pathetic moments” post or something like that.

So, as I said, niche reading of the character, but they appear to have unintentionally written him as someone who has a lot of trouble with physical intimacy. Which I find such a fascinating detail because it appears to have been entirely unintentional on their part and done in an episode that was largely meant to make us think "wow doesn't Aegon suck?" and instead I'm left thinking "I think Aegon has a lot more issues than they even decided on."

I unfortunately can't find the post, but I do remember that tag, and yeah, when Jace touches his shoulder during his toast (after he realizes that Aemond will beat his ass), Aegon very clearly jumps and/or flinches, which isn't a normal reaction one has to the person they're talking to patting them on the shoulder. So it's a general touch thing, for one, especially since the prior two episodes we saw him in saw that Alicent could kinda rough handle him at times. I'll go to my grave fighting the "Alicent is an abusive mother" crowing from people who have the apparent mental capacity of a frog but even still, that stuff happened, even if it makes sense (medieval society with different standards on childrearing and also one of the only two times that happened was when Aemond had literally just lost a whole eye and she was incredibly distressed). So there's already that to make the case that Aegon doesn't seem to be someone who enjoys being touched. And I'll admit that this can be chalked up to acting choices more than writing choices, that TGC likely made choices about Aegon's comfort level with being touched and that how physical Alicent would get with certain scenes would likely be more discussed between Olivia and Ty than in the script.

But here's the thing: they've also clearly and deliberately stated in the writing that Aegon has to be absolutely plastered, completely black out drunk, to have any kind of sexual interaction at all. Helaena says it explicitly, he completely ignores her as it relates to their maritals "unless he's drunk", he was so inebriated during the assault on Dyana that he straight up doesn't remember it, and even on Driftmark he's getting himself tanked before he goes to leer at serving girls (as well as telling Aemond that the way to get through an unpleasant experience like the dinner with the Blacks is to drink a lot). This is someone they've confirmably written as a person who is doing a lot of self medicating before engaging in sexual intimacy. And that's an important detail to mark when Aegon is married to his sister.

One of the reasons why Targaryen inter-marriage doesn't seem to have been that big an issue for most of the Targaryens even in their own thoughts is because it doesn't seem like they were raised to socialize with their siblings as siblings, but rather as potential romantic and sexual partners. I won't get into a whole thing about exactly why incest is bad, that's a long and very complicated topic and we all know that incest is, in fact, bad, but one of the main components into why it's Wrong is because that's a member of your family, which is a very specific kind of relationship (it's why some writers like to use it as a shocking plot twist *coughCassieClarecough*, because of the immediate sense of wrongness that sets in once you realize someone you've engaged with romantically/sexually is related to you). Targaryens don't do that, members of the family are clearly raised to view siblings not as siblings, but as a future wife or future husband, Dany herself says it in the main series when she ruminates on how she'd just naturally expected to marry Viserys, though that was complicated by the fact that Viserys wasn't just her brother but also operating as both parent and guardian and bodyguard all in one as well as being her brother. But Alicent's kids aren't following that mold. They do view each other through a familial lens, and it is reinforced by their mother that they are family, that they are siblings, and they were in all likelihood raised via more traditional sibling socialization, not Targaryen ones.

So Aegon is marrying someone he doesn't want to marry, someone he has spent his life viewing as his actual sister, and we have no reason to believe this didn't happen pretty soon after the betrothal (let's assume it's a year afterwards and Helaena's around thirteen while Aegon is around fourteen, that's normal marriageable ages in Westeros). Not to mention Aegon appears to follow the Faith of the Seven somewhat loyally, he also partakes in prayer at the family dinner and as I've said previously, he literally hides out in a sept under the altar of the Mother in a time of crisis (the symbolism, I cry), and we know the Faith holds incest to be an abomination. So you have all of that baggage, and then you add in all that alcoholism talk AND all those other statements? Then yeah, they've essentially written Aegon as someone who not only might dislike physical contact in general, but specifically needs to be inebriated to the point of passing out in order to stand any sexual contact or intimacy at all. And yet we still know he's done it, he has kids, and wow gosh this kinda reminds me of Alicent isn't that odd?

I don't think it was done on purpose, I think TGC and Olivia and Ty made some acting choices (and TGC especially likes to play up Aegon's poor little meow meow status so I assume a concept of Aegon not liking being touched was something he'd have in his wheelhouse), and the writers really wanted to get across that Aegon is a drunken lech, but the way they did it and the baggage of all the other stuff we've seen in the show, like how these kids were raised, means that, well, yeah. Aegon reads as a character who dislikes being touched, and has a pathological desperation to self-medicate before he sexually performs, especially with his sister to whom he is married.

And it's an interesting area to play around in, not only in his specific relationship to Helaena (that's a whole trove of stuff they can delve into, especially after Blood and Cheese), but also in his relationship to other people, his bond with Sunfyre, his relationship with his kids, how it might be compounded or mutate or otherwise develop after he's injured in the war. Again, I don't think it was intentional, that's just how I see it when I look at it, but if they want to lean into it and add intentionality and do stuff with it, they could, and I think it could be very good character work.