NEW YORK, July 25 (UPI) — Season 3 of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, lightens up the political intrigue and war-time violence by showing disputed Iron Throne heir Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) on what amounts to a medieval road trip with his Master of Whisperers Larys (Matthew Needham).

“For Larys, it’s about being out of control. He’s used to sort of machinations in court and he’s used to controlling people in, not calm environments, but less hectic than this,” Needham told reporters in a recent virtual round-table interview.

“Suddenly, he’s in the wilderness, with a crazed, sort of rage-fueled person that he has to try to shepherd to safety,” Needham added. “His patience is tested. He’s a patient person, but it’s really stretched to breaking point this season.

“Sorry, mate,” he teased, addressing Glynn-Carney directly.

The pair are forced to disguise themselves and go on the run as the badly injured Aegon’s older half-sister Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) claims the crown and vows to execute him when she finds him.

“Aegon is at a point in his life where everything that he had and had been accustomed to has crumbled away. He’s starting again, almost, with a new physicality and a new way of approaching life,” Glynn-Carney said.

“That is obviously anxiety-inducing and I don’t think anyone deals very well with that and he lashes out and is just a ball of untamable energy, really, with a lot of rage, like Matt said. They’re working out how to navigate each other and essentially get the thing that we both want, which we have common ground on, at least.”

The actors compared their characters’ dynamic to Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, that is, if the lovable hobbits and travel companions were “amoral psychopaths.”

“It’s a sort of very twisted road trip with these very dysfunctional people, who can only actually learn to function with each other,” Needham said.

“It’s so desperate. They are all that they have and I think there’s an antagonism to that at the beginning, but, hopefully, it becomes something later on. It sort of mellows into something different.”

Aegon is a character who might be a good ruler, if he could only put his people before himself, Glynn-Carney said.

“He has sat on the Iron Throne and taken petitions from the small folk in Season 2. That’s such a performance,” the actor recalled.

“He’s his own worst enemy. He really wants people to respect him and to like him. He’s just not very good at achieving that.”

The side quest also shows Aegon trying to function after sustaining awful burns from a deliberate dragon attack at the hands of his jealous younger brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell).

Glynn-Carney called exploring Aegon’s humanity a “very, very satisfying” experience.

“The whole thing that I’ve been trying to carve out with Aegon is to kind of bring to light his fragility and his vulnerability and his childlike nature and not just kind of play the villain,” he explained.

“So, now having the physicality that lends itself to that vulnerability and fragility helps the cause, definitely. When you see someone in a vulnerable state like that, they’re in survival mode.”

At this stage, he’s more or less given up on the family he believes has betrayed him.

“I don’t think he’s supported, put it that way,” Glynn-Carney laughed.

“His mom has basically fed him to the lions. His brother has tried to kill him and his sister is in her own world of existence and got our own things to think about and deal with, and she’s not really present,” Glynn-Carney said.

“He’s a lone wolf this time, which is why the relationship with Larys is so vital for him. It’s such an anchor, a grounding force. Without him, he would either spiral out of control or fade away into nothing, and just be a corpse on a hill somewhere. So, they really do rely on each other.”