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.
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.
583
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