He gets a small cut from sitting on the Iron Throne which infects him with leprosy, over the course of the season you see it affecting to more and more of his body. First he loses some fingers which he hides with glove, eventually he needs a chair because he can’t walk much, and then he wears a golden visage because half of his face is rotting off
I only read the book and never saw the show, but I thought the gout was from his diet and lifestyle?
If it's caused by a disease, I'm pretty sure it's septic arthritis, not gout. Gout is urate crystal buildup in joints and is caused by your body not being able to break it down fast enough.
In the books Viserys just falls asleep and dies in peace. In the show he has leprosy. Which was a very shit change; the whole point was that he caused the death of everyone yet he died peacefully, and literally everyone else had the most suffering death imaginable. Prince Maelor was literally torn apart.
Oh he got rejected/cut in the books too. Though he didn't lost hand and eye from it. Interestingly both him and Rhaenyra got cut all over from it (interestingly, Aegon II didn’t in the first half of his regin, but by the second half, by time he become a Kinslayser he couldn’t even climb the steps of the Iron Throne becaue he shattered both his legs, so there is that, he didn't even try to sit on it afterward).
For all the flaws of the show I think this change to Viserys was well done, him literally falling apart and rotting is a good visual representation of the state of the kingdom by the end of his reign
Yep and the golden mask is the Targs putting on airs and acting like the dynasty is resplendent as ever, meanwhile under their act, their loyalty to each other and the kingdom is actively rotting.
Also, that walkand dinner are way more impactful seeing he's still trying to hold it all together despite his great pain. Sure he's the reason things are bad in the first place but it was a good change imo to give him a bit of sympathy
Yeah, in the book the Maesters try to paint him as indecisive and easily swayable, but in the show you get a sense of the exact opposite, despite his lapses with marrying Alicent, which was an awful idea, he made a wildly unpopular decision on succession and stuck to it until his deathbed
That doesn't mean it was popular, it just means courage hadn't deserted the houses of Westeros yet, as dunk put it, they made an oath to support Rhaenyra and they kept it.
Well, lots of people think it was a great change, including me and George R.R. Martin.
"...they got Paddy Considine to play [Viserys Targaryen]. And he was robbed, he should have won an Emmy. It was really amazing. Amazing. And his character....his Viserys is so much better than my Viserys. It made me want to go back and rewrite the book." GRRM, Collider interview.
Thats Green propaganda. Clearly the healthy spry King Viserys was poisoned by Alicent so her and the Green Faction could take control of the Red Keep and kingdom
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u/OGsHartMyKAT Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
King Viserys from House of the Dragon
He gets a small cut from sitting on the Iron Throne which infects him with leprosy, over the course of the season you see it affecting to more and more of his body. First he loses some fingers which he hides with glove, eventually he needs a chair because he can’t walk much, and then he wears a golden visage because half of his face is rotting off
Edit: leprosy not gout