Aemond is House of the Dragon’s most tragic character, and best villain

A Song of Ice and Fire is not short of compelling villains. While the most memorable tend to be the cruel and unrepentant monsters like Joffrey Baratheon or Ramsay Bolton, the ones that make the series special are its ambitious and complex schemers — a broad range that makes up everyone from Littlefinger and Cersei, to Tywin Lannister.

House of the Dragon adds great characters to the series’ legacy on both fronts. But its most interesting addition is Aemond Targaryen, whose mix of cleverness, impulsiveness, and a sapphire eye makes the show’s version of him one of A Song of Ice and Fire’s best and most tragic characters.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 10.]

A Song of Ice and Fire rarely indulges in pure evil, even among the most notable cast members. Instead, it gives us self-interested characters who are villainous only insofar as their ambitions toward power outweigh their morality, and when those ambitions often conflict with the story’s main characters. But they’re always well-reasoned and understandable, and outright violence is rarely their prefered method.

The stories of the series’ best schemers, like Littlefinger or Varys, are almost revenge tales, as they grasp for power that they, in their minds, deserve, but from which they’ve been unjustly deprived by the world. Although Tywin and Cersei are Westeros’ most powerful, they long for recognition and the title they deserve.

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The series tends not to show the violence of main characters when they are truly horrible. In that these monstrous characters recognize their power and are able to use it for their own ends, they do not have the ambition to be anything other than cruel. Joffrey and Ramsay only understand their power as being able to resort violence against the weaker than they are. These acts of brutality are rarely retaliatory. They may not even be motivated beyond a desire to show superiority and sadistic desire. To them, the game of thrones has less interest than the sport and sadism.

House of the Dragon’s Aemond Targaryen comes in somewhere in between these two extremes. His ambition is deep, he is highly motivated, smart, and skilled. However, he is also driven by revenge, which is especially evident in episode 10. Similar to House of the Dragon’s other malcontent second-son, Daemon Targaryen, Aemond feels that he is deeply deserving of more than his careless and weak brother — particularly after a childhood that we’ve seen was full of bullying from that same brother and his (possibly) bastard cousins. Daemon found that power in his penchant for violence and the strength of his dragon, and because Aemond seems to have modeled his life after his uncle, that’s where tries to find it too. But like most intergenerational relationships in A Song of Ice and Fire, Aemond’s youthful view of his uncle’s heroics led to an amplified version of Daemon that exists only in Aemond’s mind, and only tells half of Daemon’s story.

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Aemond pulled Daemon’s princely bluster, cleverness, and haughty pride, but he ended up with the also-ran inferiority that drives Daemon’s more destructive impulses. The result is a teenager who’s clever enough to win over a house to his mother’s cause, smart enough to study more than his brother and train harder than him, but also one that’s impulsive enough to grab a rock in a fist fight against his little cousins and threaten to kill them.

But the tragedy of Aemond’s place in the center of the series’ villains means that, like the schemers, he is unable to fully recognize the power he actually wields, but like the monsters, that power is limited to violence. By the time Luke arrives at Storm’s End, Aemond has already won the prize. Aegon will be supported by the Baratheons, and not Rhaenyra. But for Aemond, this is also a chance for revenge — an eye for an eye. It may be violent, but in a strictly biblical sense, it’s also fair.

When Luke rejects his offer to settle the score, Aemond decides that some price must be paid, even if he doesn’t intend for that price to be death. Aemond is the only character in A Song of Ice and Fire who underestimates his capacity to cause damage and how it will affect his life.

“The Black Queen” is very intentional about its portrayal of Luke’s death: Both boys struggle to get their dragons under control, and unfortunately neither understands what it means to bring such a beast to a war. In the moment, Aemond’s cool resolve gives way to desperate cries to get the biggest and oldest dragon to listen to him. Lucerys’ death isn’t a case of spoiled princely sadism like Joffrey, or a coldly calculated move up power’s invisible rungs. It’s a tragic accident at the hands of a teenager who, after a lifetime of being bullied, didn’t understand how the stakes had changed. After a lifetime of feeling inferior — including during the crowning of his own unworthy brother as king — Aemond now wields the power to end lives and start wars. He’s an anime antagonist, even if he was responsible for inspiring World War I. He may have to rely on his worst instincts in order for Westeros to survive, as it is likely that they will all be heading towards war.