HBO
Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for "House of the Dragon" season two, episode three.
"House of the Dragon" star Ewan Mitchell thinks that Aemond Targaryen probably just needs a little more affection from his mother.
Aemond is the second son of Alicent Hightower and Viserys Targaryen, and the younger brother of ruling King Aegon II. Unlike his brother, who quite literally ran away from the throne and has spent much of his time as king threatening to fly out on the battlefield himself, Aemond is cool and calculating.
In episodes two and three of "House of the Dragon" season two, Aemond seeks solace from a woman — the first he ever had sex with — in a brothel, chastely curling up with her and spilling out his worries. Though Aemond is fully naked, it's a raw, non-sexual kind of intimacy — one that suggests a kind of maternal love he's not getting elsewhere.
Those scenes have made people online question whether Aemond has "mommy issues." And there's certainly no lost love between Alicent and Aemond: In the season two premiere, he says that his mother still blames him for starting the war by killing Lucerys, the son of his half-sister Rhaenyra.
Business Insider spoke with Mitchell at the season two New York City premiere about Aemond's relationship with Alicent — and his dragon, Vhagar.
"I don't know so much if he had mommy issues, or rather, he just wanted to be loved by his mom a little bit more," Mitchell told BI.
"He felt despair, so he found a surrogate in Vhagar, so to speak an older lady, and kind of filled that void," he continued. "But is a dragon enough, or is there something else that could maybe help him? He needs help, he's a broken boy."
Despite his own emotional turmoil, Aemond is still one of the most powerful war assets on the show. That's mostly because Vhaghar is very old, very big, and very powerful. Aemond claimed her after Laena Velaryon's death, instantly turning himself from a trod-upon, dragonless child into an immense, credible threat.
Vhagar and Aemond's "power couple" status — Mitchell's words — affords the Targaryen prince a bit of freedom, according to the actor.
"Aemond, he doesn't need to be evil. If he's hostile in a scene, it's not because he needs to be," Mitchell said. "It's because he wants to be, because he has that large dragon whose shadow looms so large. It changes the dynamic of the character, and the choices that you make as a performer."
"House of the Dragon" season two airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and is streaming on Max.
