Aemond & Alicent’s Disturbing Moment Explained by House of the Dragon Star [Exclusive]

House of the Dragon Season 3 begins with Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) on the Iron Throne, and Episode 1 explores some of the dynamic that now exists between him and his mother, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). Of course, unbeknownst to her son, she has agreed to open the gates of King’s Landing to Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), allowing her to become Queen – and Aemond is part of the sacrifice. The only problem is, for the plan to work he’s supposed to leave the capital and fly to Harrenhal, something he’s not keen to do. Warning: SPOILERS ahead for the Season 3 premiere.

Still, Alicent knows how to work her son, playing up his courage and appealing to his desire to defeat his uncle, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). As part of this back and forth between them, where each attempts to gain the power in the relationship, we get a rather uncomfortable moment: Aemond leans in and plants a kiss on his mother’s lips, which she just has to awkwardly stand and accept, as a rejection would simply provoke him. Admittedly, Targaryen incest isn’t anything new, though it’s rarely between a mother and son (and she isn’t a Targaryen), and when asked by ComicBook whether there was a genuine attraction on Aemond’s part, or if it was wholly a power move, Mitchell said:

“I think maybe a little bit of both, maybe a little bit of an Oedipus complex. I think, you know, Aemond has a very skewered perception of what love is, you know, lacking it when he was growing up. And so he doesn’t particularly know how to show it. And I think Alicent was so young when she had Aemond and seeing her grow up in this male dominated world and, you know, him feeling like he should be there for her to a certain extent as well.

“I always think of like, the eye for an eye scene in Season 1, after Aemond had his eye taken out and everyone else is arguing about where Aemond heard this illegitimate slur from strong from whereas is mum is actually the only one defending him in that moment and being like, look, he’s just been physically maimed. That’s going to, you know, that’s life altering. And I feel like him in that moment. He never forgets going forward that Alicent was the person who stood up for me and all these other people, they they turned a blind eye, for lack of a better word.”

What’s Next For Aemond In House Of The Dragon?

Though she may have had to endure a kiss from her son, Alicent does get what she wants from him: he agrees to go to Harrenhal. Not only that, but he says he will host a feast in her honor, with Daemon’s head looking down on them from a spike. The only problem with that, however, is his uncle won’t actually be at Harrenhal. The castle has been left by the Rogue Prince and his men, though this episode did have Hugh Hammer (KIeran Bew), Ulf White (Tom Bennett), and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) lying in wait with their dragons, Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seamsoke.

Vhagar is the biggest, most powerful dragon in Westeros, but even she wouldn’t have been able to take on all three of those. But by delaying his departure, even though he won’t be facing his uncle, Aemond has at least avoided the trap that was waiting for him. That should mean Harrenhal is relatively defenseless when he arrives, and while Alicent has written to Lord Ormund Hightower to say Aemond will be joining them (while pretending it was sent by Aemond), it doesn’t seem likely that will actually happen. We do know he’ll be sharing scenes with Alys Rivers and there’ll be an interesting relationship to explore there, though, which should form a big part of his Season 3 story.

As for what Aemond wants from all of this, and whether it’s victory, the throne, to be with his mother, or something else, there’s a bit of conflict there: as we saw with him almost killing Aegon at Rook’s Rest, he feels like he is far better suited to ruling than his brother, but he also very much wants to defeat Team Black. When asked what Aemond wants most from Season 3, Mitchell respondedL

“I think he just, I mean, we see him atop the Iron Throne. He looks damn good. I like it. I think it’s definitely a seat that he could get comfortable sitting in. If anybody could get comfortable on that seat at all, it’s Aemond for sure. But I think he ultimately just wants to win the war.

“I think he wants to end up on a Dornish beach with his mother, sipping on Dornish wine. Ultimately, he’s going into this season a little bit desperate, a little bit fearful of, especially during the raising of the dragon seeds. And a desperate Aemond is one that you don’t want to meet because he’s going to be willing to go to extremities that we didn’t realize he could go to before.”

Given what we have seen Aemond do before now, that last part is particularly chilling. It’s also interesting that he supports the idea that Aemond is fearful, as much as the character tries to deny it. That’s something that Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) points out in Episode 1, and it will be fascinating to see how that factors into his decision making as Season 3 progresses.

New episodes of House of the Dragon Season 3 release on Sundays at 9 pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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