SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major plot points that some readers may prefer not to know.
House of the Dragon is taking a leaf out of its predecessor’s book, featuring a particularly disturbing new incest storyline in its season three premiere.
The Game of Thrones spin-off shocked viewers and critics with a bizarre scene between Aemond Targaryen, played by Ewan Mitchell, and his mother, Alicent, played by Olivia Cooke.
In the first episode of the new season, Aemond kisses Alicent on the lips. She doesn’t push him away but looks disturbed. Afterward, she stares at him wide-eyed and wordlessly in response.
The unexpected kiss has left the internet in uproar.
Esquire writes that “everyone is likely to lose their minds following a particularly Oedipal scene,” while Forbes asks its readers, “Raise your hand if you’re a little bit tired of the whole Targaryen incest stuff!”
Mitchell broke his silence on the scene, telling People that the moment “kind of makes you want to throw up in your mouth a little bit.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of shocking,” Mitchell said. “But then also, I just recognized a tremendous challenge and an opportunity to show Aemond in a new light.”
“It’s quite a difficult pill to swallow, isn’t it? Kissing your mom on the lips, especially in that way,” the actor continued, unpacking his character’s development. “I mean, Aemond, growing up, he never felt like he was loved enough by his mom and his family around him, and a kid needs that unconditional love to develop a balanced view of themselves. And Aemond, because he never had that, he’s got a very skewed perception and a very strange way of showing love.
“I think what you see in that scene in episode 1 is that skewed love,” he said.
Speaking with Mashable, Mitchell described his character’s kiss as “singularly just one of the creepiest actions that he’s done.”
Cooke weighed in, saying that filming the scene was “odd” for the co-stars. “There has been this Oedipal undercurrent, unbeknownst to Alicent. And I think it’s shocking,” she told People, describing the kiss as “really dangerous, because he’s a very dangerous person.”
Touching upon Alicent’s lack of reaction, Cooke said, “She knows that one wrong facial expression, one perceived rejection, will cost her her life. So she’s trying to tread very, very carefully. But I do think she’s sort of stupefied in that moment.”
Incest is not new to the show, which is a prequel to HBO’s Game of Thrones set 100 years earlier. The Targaryen family, in particular, has a history of incestuous relationships and marriages. For instance, Alicent’s two children—and Aemond’s siblings—are married to one another and have children together. Even more central to the plot is the union between Aemond’s half-sister, Rhaenyra (played by Emma D’Arcy), and her uncle (Matt Smith), who are married.
House of the Dragon airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
