Aemond Targaryen: A Hater's Analysis - Part 1

Oedipus complex? School shooter stereotype? Maximising drama at any given moment?

Click here for more on House of the Dragon and GRRM’s work generally.

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Introduction

It’s time once again for me to continue nailing my 95 theses against House of the Dragon to HBO’s door. I dream that one day someone involved in the production will stumble across these articles, and shift uncomfortably on their massive pile of money.

Literally me.

To provide a quick bit of context¹, Aemond is the younger brother of Aegon, who is currently vying with his older sister Rhaenyra for rule of the Seven Kingdoms. As a child in the first season, Aemond was characterised as a studious but unpopular boy (a nerd, if you will) who was at one time bullied by his brother and his nephews, and whose father had little time for him or his siblings.

While still a child, Aemond claimed Vhagar, the oldest and strongest of the dragons, and in the same night lost an eye in a fight with Rhaenyra’s sons. This was a turning point for Aemond: after this incident, he was clearly a threat to the status quo, both because of Vhagar and because of his unresolved grievance over the loss of his eye. Not only was Rhaenyra’s son Luke not punished, but Aemond himself was threatened with torture for calling Rhaenyra’s children bastards. He and Aegon also appeared to present a united front after this incident, rather than fighting amongst themselves.

As a young man, Aemond is a contentious figure, who was motivated to train as a swordsman by his grudge against his nephews, and provokes a family row at a feast by calling them ‘three strong boys’². He was also instrumental in starting (/escalating) the war between Aegon and Rhaenyra, as he killed Luke while chasing him on Vhagar’s back.

Unfortunately, as of Season 2 Aemond’s character has taken a turn, going from a resentful but still somewhat understandable antivillain, to an impulsive, malicious thug. This is closely tied to the show’s tendency to pathologise Aemond as a) sexually abnormal, and b) an unpopular nerd with school shooter overtones.

Aemond and the ghost of Sigmund Freud

As of Season 2, Aemond Targaryen is perhaps the number one victim of Freudian characterisation³, which House of the Dragon has a penchant for. As a bullied child who was comforted by his mother (Alicent), the adult Aemond is now attached to a brunette, older prostitute (Sylvi), clearly a proxy for Alicent, because it's HotD and we're edgy like that. It's not subtle, and it's not pleasant either.

Aemond being weird.

As elsewhere, the showrunners are using Freudian tropes here not to inform, but rather to stereotype and even demonise their characters⁴. You see, Aemond isn't just evil because he’s violent or power hungry: no, he's evil because he's icky and a self-pitying nerd to boot. This is another example of HotD having a low opinion of its audience, presenting characters according to a) pop psychology⁵, and b) schoolyard stereotypes. The Blacks are the popular kids, the Greens are the losers and weirdos.

(Note that of the Greens, Helaena is autistic, Larys is both physically disabled and sexually deviant⁶, Alicent is frigid and closeted, and Criston Cole is an incel (or framed as such). There's a definite pattern here, and school shooter Aemond is part of it.)

Aemond’s weird mother issue is apparently supposed to liken him to his future nemesis Daemon⁷, who is also insinuated to have a weird mother issue in Season 2, and even less explicably - Daemon was a toddler when his mother died. I don’t see the point of this, other than to shock and/or titillate the audience (or at least the MILF Manor crowd). It’s very likely that the writers were inspired by Homelander in The Boys, except that Homelander’s issue was a) more explicable and b) actually carried a bit of weight in terms of the pathetic/comic juxtaposition between his heroic media image and his wretched true self behind the scenes. So, House of the Dragon is actually in a sense more gratuitous than The Boys, the show that prides itself on being gratuitous, in that its paraphilias are just kind of shoehorned in.

If we look at HBO’s own history with this kind of material, we can also see HotD’s relative weakness. Game of Thrones’ most notorious incestuous pairing, Jaime and Cersei, had a dramatic point beyond just shock value - it was linked to their shared narcissism, and it served a narrative purpose when Jaime was separated from his sister and we began to see a different side to him. Cersei’s subsequent rejection of her brother when he was no longer ‘perfect’ was also meaningful in the context of Jaime’s loss of identity in light of his acquired disability. HBO also did the maternal incest bit long ago in Boardwalk Empire with Jimmy and Gillian Darmody, but again, this felt more explicable in terms of those specific characters, who had an abnormal relationship due to their particular traumatic circumstances.

Meanwhile, we have Daemon, who never knew his mother, and Aemond, who appears to have had a relatively normal relationship with his mother⁸, yet both are insinuated to be obsessed with their mothers. Why?

In any case, shortly after being mocked over his weirdo behaviour by his brother Aegon, Aemond attempts to kill his own brother and king, burning Aegon with dragon fire and killing his dragon in the process. He is only stopped from finishing Aegon off by Criston Cole's arrival in the nick of time⁹.

A gloating Aemond with his brother’s heirloom dagger.

The inconsistency of Aemond

This betrayal doesn’t come out of nowhere, yet it is not entirely consistent with the direction of Aemond's character either. Yes, he may look like some kind of vampire anime villain, and yes he resented and envied his brother, and thought himself better suited to the throne than Aegon¹⁰. However, the framing of his previous killing of Luke, which sparked off the war, was very different - it was made clear to the audience that Aemond had only meant to scare Luke, and the game went too far (because Vhagar didn’t get the memo that they were only playing). He even expresses remorse over it to Sylvi, and we have no reason to believe he’s being insincere.

As such, there is no logical escalation of violent behaviour leading to the attack on Aegon. Aemond goes from a guy who killed his nephew by accident and regretted it, to a guy who tried to kill his brother on purpose and gloated over it, with very little in between Point A and Point B.

Moreover, the prior relationship between Aegon and Aemond was not always antagonistic, especially as adults. Aegon joined his brother in mocking Rhaenyra's sons in the 'three Strong boys' scene and the ensuing scuffle. Crucially, Aegon also supported his brother earlier in the 'eye for an eye' scene, even though Aemond had thrown him under the bus - rather than throwing the blame back at Aemond, he generalises it, preventing the full weight from falling on anyone's head¹¹.

In other words, the brothers rallied together against Rhaenyra at least twice before, when the stakes were far lower. This trend continues at the beginning of the war, when Aegon invites his brother to join his council, despite their mother's objections, praises him for his swordsmanship, and doesn't blame him for killing Luke. Aemond is also tactful in dissuading his older brother from recklessly setting out on his dragon, calling it 'a noble thought,’ and this approach was clearly more effective than Alicent’s, so we have the sense that Aemond knows his brother well and understands him. Even the anecdote about Aegon taking a very young Aemond to a brothel, while clearly a weird behaviour and likely somewhat traumatic to Aemond, was probably a misguided attempt by Aegon to be a supportive older brother, in the context of Aegon’s own hypersexuality and the norms for men in his family and society.

So, there are many indications that the ‘eye for an eye’ scene was a turning point in their relationship, and that the brothers had grown closer in the years since.

Unfortunately, the Greens simply aren't allowed to have a single positive familial relationship. Aemond can't be a volatile yet loyal younger brother, and nor can Aegon be an irresponsible yet affectionate older brother¹². The writers won't let them. Aemond certainly expresses frustration at his brother on a number of occasions, seeing him as an unworthy heir, and envying his position, but there is no complicated back and forth, as there was with Viserys and Daemon, and little possibility of reconciliation.

Instead, their entire relationship implodes in a very final and permanent way, simply because Aegon doesn't understand the meaning of a closed door in a brothel, and because Aemond is too stunted to make allowances for the fact that Aegon was not at his best (lest we forget, his 4-year old son was murdered the same week, in retaliation for something Aemond did…).

Summarising

For me, it is difficult to believe that Aemond at the same time

• would feel remorse over the accidental death of Luke, who bullied him, maimed him, stood by Rhaenyra while she called for him to be tortured, was never chastised or asked to make amends, never even apologised (as far as we know), and laughed in his face about it years later¹³.

• yet would also try to murder his own brother, who stood by him when push came to shove, who joined him in brawling with Rhaenyra’s sons at the banquet, and who appointed him to his council despite their mother’s opposition, simply because Aegon made fun of him the same week that his son was murdered (and he was jealous of Aegon).

For me, there is simply not enough development between A and B for this to make sense.

Granted, Aemond had the throne to gain, but as we will see in Part 2, this isn’t actually a great justification for his actions, since he can’t keep the throne without Aegon’s dragon, and would be easily dismantled by the Blacks’ seven dragons if not for various contrivances in his favour¹⁴.

The fact that Aemond not only tries to kill Aegon in an impulsive and opportunistic moment, but even sadistically gloats over his maimed brother in his sickbed, seems like the final nail in the coffin of his characterisation. He is now just a monster, and he’s not likely to surprise us in the future.

With all of that said, the betrayal still almost works, largely because it’s between two very good actors, and is preceded by the outstanding scene in which Aemond humiliates his brother in council. But it feels very undercooked - probably, if the show had spent more time on the brothers, and less time on Mysaria slowly telling Rhaenyra (and the audience) things we already know¹⁵, it would have been better.

To be continued…

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1. I assume most readers are familiar, but just in case -

2. Their real father was Harwin Strong. Basically everyone knows this but no-one’s allowed to say it.

3. Sorry to keep bringing Freud up. I literally cannot get away from him.

4. Usually men, but not always. They also pathologise Alicent as a sexually repressed woman, which in the show’s framework makes her a bad person, because if medieval people don’t have 21st century mores then they’re bad.

5. Admittedly pop psychology circa 1910, but the concept of the Oedipus complex still has a surprising amount of currency on TV (Boardwalk Empire in the 2010s, The Boys more recently, now HotD, and probably many other examples I’ve forgotten).

6. And the show directly links his disability to his perversion in the crudest possible way, going beyond tastelessness and deep into ableism.

7. The only Black who is framed as abnormal/pathological.

8. He looks less neglected than both Aegon and Helaena; Alicent is constantly angry at Aegon, and Helaena can’t stand being around her mother, which may be evident of abuse: Helaena is markedly less uncomfortable with the family generally than she is when she’s alone with Alicent. Alicent’s also an enforcer of social norms, particularly female social norms, so we can pretty easily infer why she might have been abusive to the autistic female Helaena. Aemond’s pretty much the only one of her children Alicent had a positive interaction with in Season 1.

9. A rare instance of Cole's presence not making a situation worse.

10. On the basis that he had studied and trained for it, whereas Aegon seems to have spent the best part of the last decade in brothels.

11. This is, incidentally, a very rare example of the writers letting Aegon do something smart: he protects his mother, his brother and himself, and forces his father to face the reality that Rhaenyra’s indiscretions are obvious to everyone on Planetos. (Unfortunately, Viserys just continued to double down, and ignored the obvious claim-wrecking problem, but it’s not Aegon’s fault that his dad was stupid).

12. This would have been a great dynamic for them; a version of it already carried Season 1, with the relationship between Viserys and Daemon.

13. The show makes Aemond’s grievance look pathetic by casting a much younger actor as Luke. Canonically, there are only three years between the characters.

14. Mainly, the defection of the Dragonseeds, which in show canon is 100% due to Rhaenyra’s mistreatment of them. Also, her inability to coordinate her side’s numerous dragons.

15. See also: Corlys moping about on the same dock having the same conversation every episode; Rhaena whining about not having a dragon; Alys telling Daemon he’s a Chud. I am so annoyed by this show, it has so many characters whose sole purpose is to waste time because the actor was contracted.