House of the Dragon: Aemond’s original reaction to Luke’s death was different

The first season of House of the Dragon ended in tragedy. Trying to secure her claim to the Iron Throne, Rhaenrya Targaryen dispatched her son Lucerys Velaryon to the castle of Storm’s End with instructions to remind lord Borros Baratheon of his oaths. But when Luke gets to the castle, he finds his uncle Aemond Targaryen already there. Aemond has come on behalf of his brother Aegon Targaryen, who is trying to secure the Iron Throne for himself.

It’s clear that Lord Borros wants to support Aegon over Rhaenyra, so Luke turns to leave on his dragon Arrax. Aemond, who rides the much bigger dragon Vhagar, pursues his nephew into the stormy skies. Aemond and Lucerys also have a rocky history, since Luke is the one who slashed out Aemond’s eye when they were kids.

Their chase ends with Vhagar chomping both Luke and Arrax to bits. Based on the way Aemond screams “no,” this wasn’t what he wanted to happen; it seems like he just wanted to scare his nephew, but then their dragons acted on their own. The last we see of him, he has major “oh-shit-what-have-I-done” face.

Originally, Aemond Targaryen didn’t regret killing his nephew on House of the Dragon

This is different from how this event is described in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. There, we assume that Aemond pursued Lucerys intending to kill him, and then did. Although to be fair, the narrators of that book don’t know everything, so we can’t be sure what Aemond was thinking.

It looks like House of the Dragon was always planning to turn this incident into more of an accident. However, by the looks of a storyboard found by folks on the House of the Dragon subreddit, Aemond wasn’t quite as regretful after he killed his nephew:

As you can see in the storyboard, for a “brief moment, Aemond becomes a child,” which is more or less what happens in the show. But in the storyboard, we then see his face “harden.” He may not have planned for this to happen, but Aemond is an ambitious, serious-minded Targaryen prince who isn’t afraid to shed blood, so he’s going to own this decision.

Where to watch House of the Dragon

And this may be what we see happen on the second season of House of the Dragon, but it’s interesting that they cut out the foreshadowing at the end of season 1.

Unfortunately, we won’t get to watch any new episodes until 2024. Until then, all 10 episodes of House of the Dragon season 1 are streaming on HBO Max.

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