Over the course of House of the Dragon Season 2, Aemond Targaryen, the conniving, much-maligned second son of King Viserys and Queen Alicent, has emerged as the show’s inarguable villain.
“Compassion is weakness in Aemond’s vocabulary,” Ewan Mitchell tells Inverse. “He wants to be seen as someone who is almost like a T-1000 Terminator.”
Like Robert Patrick’s murderous antagonist in James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller T2: Judgment Day, Aemond is cold, calculating, and vicious — a temperament that marks him as a baddie even without the eyepatch he earned after a childhood spat. But in Season 2, this has become even more apparent.
After Aemond evades a botched assassination attempt, we see him slowly and deliberately grasp for power. First, he purposefully burns his older brother with dragonfire at the Battle of Rook’s Rest (“What Aemond did was intentional,” Mitchell says, “but whether or not it was premeditated is another thing”). Then, he seizes the throne as Prince Regent, ousting his increasingly guilt-ridden mother. The final of the House of the Dragon Season 2 sees Aemond raze innocent villagers in anger and bully his sister into joining the war effort. But to Mitchell, these aren’t the actions of an outright villain — just someone willing to do whatever is necessary to win.
“The long hair, the eye patch — it screams villain,” Mitchell says, “but it depends on what side you’re on. He’s the guy who is prepared to do the necessary evil. He wants to be seen as a war hero.”
With Season 2 come and gone and the stage set for the pivotal Battle of the Gullet, Inverse about Aemond’s role in the Season 2 finale, where he stands, what he’s planning, and what he faces ahead in House of the Dragon Season 3.
One thing is clear: He’s got his sapphire eye on the prize.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 8.
How has Aemond changed over Season 2?
For the first four episodes, you see Aemond operating from the peripheries. You see him and Criston Cole during their Shadow Council scenes trying to manipulate the Council table to the way they want to run things. Aemond is waiting for his moment to strike. At the end of Episode 4 — at the Battle of Rook’s Rest — he seizes his opportunity to take two dragons out with one stone.
“What Aemond did was intentional, but whether or not it was premeditated is another thing.”
It’s only until the “Red Sowing” in Episode 7, where Rhaenyra enlists and raises new dragon riders, that Aemond’s power is threatened. You’re going to see a more desperate side to Aemond. And a desperate Aemond is a dangerous one because he might overcompensate. He might be a little more irrational than the composed stoic face that he’s had before.
In Episode 8, he’s outgunned, and he’s outraged. The Blacks have seven dragons; the Greens have three. We have Vhagar, we have Dreamfyre, and we have Daeron’s dragon Tessarion, who’s just taken wing. Aemond very much wants to win the war.
Do you consider Aemond the villain of House of the Dragon?
It’s very easy to make that assumption and judgment just because of the way that he looks. His Targaryen blacks, the long hair, the eye patch — it screams villain, but it depends on what side you’re on. He’s the guy who is prepared to do the necessary evil. He wants to be seen as a war hero.
He knows he can be loved, but he knows he can achieve more if he’s willing to be feared. He’s done a lot of bad stuff to support the theory that he is the villain of the show. That’s one of the most satisfying things for me is decoding his DNA and discovering that he isn’t just that two-dimensional villain.
Can you once and for all set the record straight about the Battle of Rook’s Rest? Were Aemond's actions purposeful? Was that collateral damage or did he just take an opportunity to seize the power?
I think it could be all three of those things. It could be that Aemond did, in fact, see an opportunity to take two dragons off the board with one stone, or was Aegon just in the way? Aegon was never part of the original plan for the battle. But with everything that Aegon did and the ringleader status he inhabited in Aemond’s childhood, there’s an awful lot of evidence to support that. What Aemond did was intentional, but whether or not it was premeditated is another thing.
So when you were acting alongside Aegon in the later episodes when there’s a confrontation at his sick bed, that was with the knowledge of malicious intent?
I think so. Their relationship is so multifaceted. There’s a hatred for his brother, but also a certain love that he always craved from him. Aegon was supposed to be his big brother. He was supposed to look out for him. He just never did.
I thought there was something really fascinating in the fact that Aemond left that marble marker on Aegon’s chest. Maybe he left it there for him in a way to say “The chair’s there for you when the war is finished,” or he might’ve just been pressing the stone marker into his chest to make him hurt that little bit more.
“I think in Aemond’s eye, love is a weakness.”
In Episode 8, we first see Aemond after he razes the entirety of Sharp Point because he’s mad about Rhaenyra’s new dragon forces. What is going through his mind?
It’s a spur-of-the-moment retaliation. He has to overcompensate for this newfound knowledge that Rhaenyra has raised new dragon riders against him and changed the tide of the war. Sharp Point, from what I understand of the geography of Westeros, is actually very closely connected to The Gullet. Aemond feels like it’s justified. He’s destroying a bit of the Gullet and destroying the blockade that Rhaenyra set up at the beginning of Season 2. But ultimately, what he does is atrocious.
We next see him talking about the smallfolk having to sacrifice for the war effort. What is Aemond sacrificing?
It goes back to that moment when Helaena’s by the throne, Aemond’s just gazing up at it, and Helaena says, “Was it worth the price?” Ultimately, what he sacrificed is his humanity. It’s that theme that is so prevalent throughout our series: whether love trumps duty or duty trumps love. In Aemond’s eye, love is a weakness.
We see him confront Alicent in this episode and basically accuse her of having too much compassion. Does Aemond see her as an enemy? Is there any affection remaining?
I think there is. One of the main motivations I’ve played from the beginning of Season 2 was this idea that he wants his mum. In every scene I played with Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent, I always envisioned Aemond and Alicent sitting on a Dornish beach far from war. Aemond won it for them, and they’re just sipping on piña coladas during peacetime.
In Michael Mann’s Heat, [Robert] De Niro’s character has a line where he says, “Never get attached to a character you’re not prepared to walk out on in 30 seconds flat when you feel the heat around the corner.” It goes back to that line from Heat. What if Alicent is actually the kryptonite of that code? He found a surrogate maternal affection in the madam [in the pleasure house]. He found it in some way in Vhagar, this older she-dragon. But is that enough? He’s always craved for his mom’s affection. I think he’s heartbroken when he says “Would you not have us prevail?” and she says, “Not like this.”
That’s not part of Aemond's vision. When he sent Alicent away in Episode 6, he said, “Look, let me deal with the war. You just wait by the margins, and then when I’ve won this war, we can pick up and work on our relationship.” But the fact that she rebukes him at that moment in Episode 8, he’s heartbroken. It’s horrible for Aemond to comprehend that his mom isn’t on his side.
“You’re going to see someone who’s a lot more desperate and a lot more erratic.”
Speaking of women in Aemond’s life, Helaena goes to Aemond and accuses him of burning Aegon purposefully and hints at Aemond’s death. Is he shaken by that?
He’s definitely shaken. In an act of desperation, he goes to his sister and says, “Look, you and me, we need to ride out. We need to go to the Riverlands. We need to take out Daemon and destroy all of the influence that he has with the houses of the Riverlands.” Aemond is ultimately rebuked by both Alicent and Helaena.
He’s always had this very singular vision of how everything was going to go down. But when that starts to get challenged, when he recognizes that Alicent and Helaena aren’t on his side, and then when Helaena comes out with this prophecy, I think a part of him definitely thinks, “Oh no, my sister could be right.”
What can we expect from Aemond in Season 3?
I think you’re going to see someone who’s a lot more desperate and a lot more erratic. Targaryens were always considered closer to gods than men. And what Rhaenyra does at the end of Episode 7 very much challenges and questions the belief that you have to be a legitimate Targaryen to ride a dragon. And although their heritage from what we’ve heard sounds pretty legit, the rest of Westeros doesn’t see that.
As Aemond says at the end of Episode 8 in that confrontation with his mother and his sister, the people of Westeros ultimately see commonfolk made into dragon lords. It very much paints a large target not only on Aemond’s back but also on the back of all the Targaryens. It compromises their godlike status in a sense. And Aemond is definitely going to retaliate.
