Spoiler alert! Below are all the details about the attempted fratricide in “House of the Dragon”, episode 4.
Whenever there’s an all-out dragon battle to be fought on HBO’s House of the Dragon, you can bet the eyepatch-wearing Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and his scaled steed Vhagar will be there. The deadly rider-dragon duo ignited the battle between Green and Black by snatching Prince Lucerys and his dragon Syrax from the sky in the Season 1 finale.
Sunday’s episode 4 (now streaming on Max) moves the civil war into a full-scale bloodbath and the series’ biggest dragon conflict at the Battle of Rook’s Rest, a stronghold of the Blacks, who support Queen Rhaenyra.
Greens commander Ser Criston Cole’s (Fabien Frankel) seemingly reckless assault on the walls of Rook’s Rest is a ruse to lure Princess Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best), who flies out to protect the vital castle. The hidden Aemond and Vhagar are about to stage a secret ambush on Rhaenys when, lo and behold, the drunken, glory-seeking Greens king Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) flies his Balerion into the fray.
The hidden Aemond waits quietly for Aegon and Rhaenys to engage in combat before embarking on a double-edged, dastardly rampage. First, he knocks his own brother and king out of the sky (oops!), and then he somehow hides Vhagar behind Rook’s Rest to take out the unsuspecting Rhaenys.
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Nooooo! The Blacks are struck by multiple tragedies as Rhaenys falls as Hans Gruber, dying hard alongside the monstrous Meleys, right on Rook’s Rest—the walls the princess tried so hard to defend. Ironically, the giant dragon-sized breach allows the foot soldiers of The Greens to enter victoriously. Good work, Aemond.
“Aemond and Vhagar are a power couple,” Mitchell tells USA TODAY. “They’re there to shock the audience, it’s in their DNA. Aemond knows what he does in the skies above Rook’s Rest changes things forever.”
Mitchell, 27, is one of 27 actors in the series ‘Dragon’ and talks about the episode.
Q: Can you draw a line from episode 3, when the mocking King Aegon humiliates his warrior brother Aemond while hugging a brothel keeper, until Aemond strikes back in episode 4?
Ewan Mitchell: Aemond is humiliated by his brother in the brothel in episode 3. The moment takes him back to when he was a young boy, neglected, bullied, and tormented relentlessly by his brother. His safe space is violated in the brothel; it’s the most vulnerable place you’ll ever see, Aemond. Weakness is not a word in Aemond’s vocabulary. I love Robert De Niro’s line in “Heat” — “Don’t get too attached to (something) that you’re not willing to walk out of within 30 seconds when you feel the heat around the corner.” Aemond has a very similar code. And that code comes into play, that switch is flipped. Aemond could easily get up and walk away from the madam in that scene.
But Aemond runs away naked, which is more of a show of power than Robert De Niro did in “Heat.” Why that decision?
It was a long conversation with me, director Geeta Patel, and executive producer Ryan Condal. Aemond is a kid who doesn’t care what you think of him. We talked about grabbing a blanket or using his hands to cover himself. But Aemond shows that he can stand there without armor or swing a Valyrian steel sword. He just walks away.
Aemond references the brothel episode in the council meeting of episode 4 by saying that Aegon was too “busy” to learn of his secret war plan with Criston Cole. Aemond completely dominates his brother in the meeting in English before changing the language to High Valyrian. How did you pull that off?
I have trouble rolling my “r’s” in High Valyrian. But that turned out to be interesting, as Aemond doesn’t embellish this beautiful language. He uses it more deadly. The council meeting is a public disgrace, but by switching to High Valyrian, Aegon is able to save face, as only the two brothers understand it. It allows Aegon to recover.
Is the Battle of Rook’s Rest a great opportunity for Aemond to strike?
In the first two episodes of season 2, Aemond operates from the periphery. He has a shadow council with the like-minded Criston Cole. They lie still, waiting for their moment. When Aemond sees Aegon flying over Rook’s Rest, he just sits back for a moment. Maybe Rhaenys will take Aegon out, or Aegon will get lucky and take Rhaenys out. Aemond sees the entire game board before he flies.
Aemond deliberately takes down his brother when he gets the chance.
It’s certainly intentional, although it begs the question of whether Aegon was just getting in the way. But Aemond would never have intended to hurt his brother. Aegon was the variable in the situation. So two dragons with one stone, taking two players off the board for Aemond.
In the final scene, Aemond shows no remorse after seeing his lifeless brother surrounded by a smoldering dead dragon. It’s his fault. Before Cole interrupts, does Aemond go over there and make sure his brother is dead with his sword?
That could definitely be the intention. Or maybe he just sheathes his sword. You don’t know what Aemond’s goal is. Either he’s keeping an eye on his brother or he’s going to finish him off. That ambiguity is super interesting. If I answer the question, people will stop asking questions. What I love about Aemond is that he always keeps you guessing.