Alicent & Motherhood

Ewan Mitchell as Aemond Targaryen - House of the Dragon season 2 trailer

“ but the day was as black as prince aemond's heart [...] ”

"As the power shifts, and Rhaenyra starts to gain more power, it starts to ebb with Alicent. There's always this like, you know, invisible umbilical cord holding them together." - Olivia Cooke for The Hollywood Reporter

"You're going to see Aemond in full throttle. You're either with him or you're against him."

— Ewan Mitchell.

"Her Grace", speaks with two tongues."

AEMOND TARGARYEN in S02E01

so, now that the season is over, can i just vent about how useless and borderline tasteless those aemond/sylvi scenes were? maybe not tasteless, as ewan wasn't filmed naked against his will or coerced like the og GOT actresses were, but i certainly didn't feel whatever it was they were trying to get me to feel by watching those brothel scenes. while i can empathize with the plight of the smallfolk and will always stand up for sex workers, it just didn't work for me in this context. yes, as a big fan of aemond, there was a part of me that wanted to see him express some degree of vulnerability this season, but with his own fucking family and not at the expense of seeing the brothel madame from s1 again! anyone who is in or even on the fringes of the HOTD fandom knows what an issue the conversation surrounding sylvi was back in 1x09, and i feel like this was a move to capitalize on aemond's popularity, set the stage for his preference of older women once he meets alys, or maybe even just filling the nudity quota as per hbo's standards. i mean, damn, if they're going to put aemond in a position of romantic or sexual intimacy, can they just save that shit for his semi-canonical love interest? hell, i would rather he be demanded to bring floris baratheon to court, which would do that job of opening up conversation about whatever is going on in the stormlands and how borros is choosing the handle the war effort on his end! sylvi is not a character we know or care about on the same level of the main cast and i doubt she's going to leave a significant impact on who aemond is going forward, so why shove this glorified extra in our faces and attach them to a character who was/is kinda the dark horse breakout fave of s1? she adds nothing to him or the story beyond another smallfolk pov - which we already have with mysaria and the dragonseeds! what a waste of time. 😒

I agree. The purpose of these scenes was to humiliate the character or make him laughable for having "mommy issues" and literally drinking milk and laying in an older woman's arms. And all that so they could also include Aegon bullying him for it because otherwise he had no motivation to want to kill him all of a sudden. It is extra icky with the implication that this is the first woman Aemond was ever with as a literal child when he was brought to her to "get it wet." I don't think the show handles discussion and portrayal of sex in this show at all. Despite its "sex positive" attitude toward Rhaenyra it seems it shames every other character when it comes to sex: Aegon having his penis exploded, Aemond having mommy issues cuddling his abuser and drinking milk, the voyeuristic sex of Alicole included only for shock value and shaming the characters for being hypocrites, the lack of recognition of Alicent's inability to refuse Viserys and that marital rape scene seemingly just used to contrast with Rhaenyra's sexual liberation... To say this show is weird about sex and mixed with its messaging is saying the least.

“a targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing”

EWAN MITCHELL as AEMOND TARGARYEN in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON SEASON 2 TRAILER

Only good to come of this season are the Aemond visuals 🥰

Aemond Targaryen in the council room - requested by anon <3

The sexual humiliation of the Greens is nauseating. There was no need to have Aegon talk for two minutes about his burned genitals. There was no need to have Aemond stroll naked out of a brothel. There was no need to show Alicent getting dicked down so much.