In my first video essay on House of the Dragon, I discuss that fatal chase scene between Aemond and Lucerys and break down what makes Targaryens so damn self-defeating.
How do you feel about the adaptational changes in House of the Dragon so far? Tell us below.
Normally I don’t watch video essays, but I did make an exception for yours.
Very well made. I also wonder how it’s going to play out in the next season. How Aemond is going to tell what he did and how he will handle Vhagar.
I do think you can tame dragons if you have established a good bond with it, but he didn’t have Vhagar very long at the time and only to make pleasure flights.
I’ve always been very open to adaptational changes when it comes to adapting novels to screen… after all, if I wanted exactly the same story, I would go read the book. In case of Aemond, I can honestly say I really liked this change of bullying Luke but not actually wanting to kill him. I remember reading some displeased comment somewhere that HotD totally missed an opportunity with Aemond to have a pure evil character in the story but I’m honestly of opinion that a story like HoTD and GoT before it doesn’t need pure evil characters, especially not in a story where all characters are supposed to be layered and complex with shades of grey.
The antagonists I always loved the most are those who have complex personality and some reason behind their villainous motivation. So making Aemond more complex instead of just one-note evil is something I really like. It even matches with what he said as kid… that it doesn’t matter that he lost an eye as long as he got Vhagar. Saying that, I kind of don’t see TV Aemond just wanting to outright kill Lucerys over an eye and also not being so outright reckless to start the war with such act. While I don’t really know what kind of personality will he have in S2, I think this benefits his character to make him more layered.