Do you think Alicent and the Greens were as great of villains as Daemon? She subverts the Council, may have murdered Viserys by neglect at least, raised Aemon, commits constant treason, and begins the war with kinslaying and murder of an envoy.
Well, they're as reprehensible as he is. But he's a better villain, because, dragon.
Do you think the Rogue Prince ala Daemon Targayen, would make good villain in a story?
He is a good villain in a story. The Dance of the Dragons didn’t exactly produce heroes, but Daemon stands out as a particularly dark figure in the histories.
Look at his closest parallel in the main story. He’s a charismatic, innovative commander. He causes trouble for his older brother and is exiled, so he goes east to become a pirate. He sexually exploits one relative, grooming Rhaenyra from childhood for a sexual relationship that starts before she comes of age, and sends assassins after another. He’s Euron, just lazier - a dragonrider doesn’t need to chase his dreams to fly.
Viserys I’s unorthodox decisions about succession actually make a lot of sense in context of Daemon’s malevolence. Viserys had refused to recognize Daemon as his heir and make him the prince of Dragonstone. Partly he must have been holding out hope for sons, but he also knew that his brother was bad news. Legally, though, that doesn’t really matter. From his ascension until Aemma’s death, when Viserys didn‘t have a son to succeed him, the Great Council’s precedent means that Daemon was his heir. Even if that were ambiguous, Daemon has military resources and the City Watch, so if he has any argument for a claim, there’s nothing stopping him. Wrangling all the lords in line to explicitly acknowledge Rhaenyra as the crown princess put someone between Daemon and the throne.
But if he never remarries and has a backup heir, she’s the only person between Daemon and the throne. Presumably he wants his daughter to outlive him by more than a couple of hours, so remarriage it is. When Aegon was born, he could have disinherited Rhaenyra for the sake of the Great Council’s precedent, but that defeats the purpose of having a spare, because those rules put an uncle before a daughter. His hands are pretty much tied until he has a second son, and by that point he’s been binding the lords to their oaths for years. Changing his mind would be tantamount to admitting that the whole thing was about his brother being a menace, which is going to strain relations with the lords just as it pokes the bear by pissing off both Daemon and Rhaenyra.
In hindsight, sure, Viserys underestimated the existential attachment the Andals had to patriarchy. To his mind, the Great Council was a one-off thing due to a lack of clarity and he had made himself perfectly clear. But in fairness to him, he was, consciously or unconsciously, acting consistently against the much more immediate threat of his brother on the throne. (IMO his big mistake was marrying into the Hightowers, who were strong enough to pose a real threat on behalf of one of their own. He should have found a second wife abroad or from among their Velaryon cousins.)
