Daemon is too complicated to just be House of the Dragon’s ‘villain’

polygon.com:

At first glance, Daemon Targaryen seems positioned as one of the heroes of House of the Dragon, though that impression doesn’t last for long. He is played by Matt Smith, arguably the most well-known actor in the initial cast, and he’s slotted into the role of “character who snarkily deconstructs the things in which everyone around him is invested,” making him the closest thing the series has to a character like Game of Thrones’ fan favorite Tyrion Lannister. Subsequent events have since made it clear that the Rogue Prince is more rogue than prince, with Daemon repeatedly exiled by his brother, pushing boundaries with his niece, and generally running afoul of everyone else.

But if he’s not the hero of House of the Dragon, Daemon has never been its villain, either. That’s not to say he hasn’t done some terrible things in the course of the series. Ultimately, he falls somewhere between “morally ambiguous” at best and “morally reprehensible” at worst. But while plenty of Daemon’s actions could be counted as “villainous” on the surface, the series has been very careful to maintain a certain level of ambiguity, to pull away and prevent the full depiction of Daemon’s actions from being shown to the audience. In doing so, a distance is created between his villainy and the audience, the better to protect his esteem in our eyes. We hear about Daemon doing bad things, but rarely do we see him doing those things. And even when he does perform an act of villainy on screen, it’s usually presented in a sympathetic way, the better to keep him from tilting into a full-on villain in our minds.

For example, at the end of “Heirs of the Dragon,” the series’ premiere episode, Daemon appears to be the series central villain: following