Key Points
Ewan Mitchell unpacks that shocking moment between Aemond and Alicent on House of the Dragon‘s season 3 premiere.
“In Aemond’s head, it’s like he’s assuming control of the family,” the actor explains.
“He’s somebody that was traumatized at an early age,” showrunner Ryan Condal points out.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from the House of the Dragon season 3 premiere.
Just a reminder: Targaryens are incestuous. If you forgot that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) married her uncle (Matt Smith‘s Daemon) or that Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) married his sister (Phia Saban’s Helaena), here comes the House of the Dragon season 3 premiere with another messy entanglement.
Amid the violence and death that came with the episode’s main event, the Battle of the Gullet, one of the more shocking moments came during a closed-door scene between Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) and his mother, Dowager-Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). To pave the way for Rhaenyra’s arrival at King’s Landing, she persuades her one-eyed son to fly with his dragon Vhagar to Harrenhal, join Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel) and face Daemon together.
Things take an unexpected turn when Aemond, mistaking motherly love for romantic love, leans in and kisses Alicent, leaving her shocked and horrified.
“Aemond’s trying to read between the lines, see if there is an ulterior motive there,” Mitchell tells Entertainment Weekly. “When I read it in the script for the first time, I just thought, ‘Oh, that’s something. Quite out there.’ I kind of saw it coming with everything that I’ve explored with Aemond and his relationship with Alicent.”
Olivia Cooke and Ewan Mitchell on ‘House of the Dragon’ season 3
Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO
The Derby-born English actor, also known for Saltburn and Wuthering Heights, says Cooke “really looked after me in that scene” and notes how they tried different variations during filming, in terms of the length of the kiss and what their eyes were doing. The take that made the cut was Aemond’s eyes closed and Alicent’s stunned, watering eyes open.
“In Aemond’s head, it’s like he’s assuming control of the family,” Mitchell says. “I always think of Ray Winstone from Scum [the 1979 British prison drama from director Alan Clarke]. It’s like, ‘I’m the daddy now.’ He’s the new leader. I think it leaves the question of, What is the relationship gonna be with Alicent going forward?“
According to showrunner Ryan Condal, the root of this kiss goes back to season 1.
“He’s somebody that was traumatized at an early age by his brother by taking him to a brothel long before his brain could probably process what was happening,” Condal reflects. “As these things do, that trauma then manifests a certain way in his behavior as an adult. While I don’t think that Aemond is necessarily in love with his mother, I don’t think he’s able to separate the feelings that he has for her from these other male feelings that he experiences.”
Mitchell quotes a familiar African proverb: “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
Ewan Mitchell as Prince Aemond Targaryen on ‘House of the Dragon’ season 3
Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO
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“Growing up, [kids] need that unconditional love from people to develop a balanced view of themselves,” the actor says. “And Aemond’s never really felt like he ever had that love from anyone, really. So he really doesn’t know how to express affection…. Maybe there’s a bit of Oedipus complex in there, as well.”
There are all sorts of other childhood experiences tied up in this, per Condal: He was bullied as a boy for not having a dragon, he lost his eye to secure one of his own, and the whole storyline with him and the madame of the Flea Bottom brothel in season 2.
Plus, there’s the Alicent side of it.
“It’s a further commentary on Alicent and her own equipped-ness to raise children at such a young age,” Condal says. “We all know that Alicent didn’t do a great job as a mom, but who would have in that situation where you got groomed by your father and married off to a much older man at such an early age?”
So, yes, the kiss is a shocking moment, Condal acknowledges, “but it’s really meant to demonstrate how, even though this is a character who seems entirely together and sure of himself at all times, this is a traumatized person that doesn’t have the well-adjusted underpinnings of a modern character who is raised in a society that understands there are things that you can expose children to and there are things that they should not be exposed to until they’re older.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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