King Viserys is the king for the majority of season 1 of House of the Dragon. He wasn’t a strong king or even a good king, but he was a compromising monarch that managed to live a fairly decent amount of time.

I felt bad for him when his first wife died and especially after the son she died for only lived for a day. The biggest mistake he made was marrying Alicent Hightower. Who was the daughter of his Hand of the King, Otto Hightower.

He was definitely worried about his brother Daemon Targaryen starting a civil war over the throne since he had no sons for a while.

So ironically after trying to prevent Daemon from taking the Iron Throne, he makes the difficult choice to make Rhaenyra Targaryen his one true heir. And tells her about the prophecy that Aegon the Conqueror had about the White Walkers.

The time progression of House of the Dragon’s first season is pretty crazy but eventually the old king starts to literally die piece by piece.

His actor did a really amazing job portraying the role. I was surprised when he was not awarded any accolades for it either

Partially due to his wife misunderstanding him and her own desire for her sons to have the throne, his death did not mean peace but the start of a very violent civil war that we have only begun to see.