Who's sleeping with Aemond Targaryen in House of the Dragon season 2?

The other day, HBO dropped a new trailer for House of the Dragon season 2, which is arriving next month. It had the kind of things you'd expect — dragons fighting dragons, people staring off into the middle distance contemplating the horror of war, etc — but also a few surprises.

For instance, partway through, we get this shot of Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) lying naked on a bed, his eyepatch removed to reveal the scar underneath, his forearm grasped by someone we can't see:

I did not expect a shot like this to be in the trailer. Aemond is not the kind of guy you'd think seeks out erotic intimacy. He seems almost monk-like in his devotion to swordplay, dragon-riding and the great and noble cause of Targaryen supremacy.

But because he's underserving his tender side, he may crave intimacy even as he tries to ignore such worldly desires in his pursuits of lofty, "I shall be a great leader of men"-type goals. That's the feeling I get from this image, that Aemond may drop the tough face he presents to the world in private, around a partner he knows will be discreet.

But who exactly is that partner? As always, fans on the internet seem to have sussed it out.

Aemond will sleep with in House of the Dragon season 2

In the book Fire & Blood, Aemond eventually strikes up a relationship with a woods witch named Alys Rivers, who will be played in season 2 by Gayle Rankin. But Alys lives at Harrenhal, which is where Aemond's uncle/rival Daemon Targaryen will be spending most of his time in season 2. Unless the writers surprise us, I don't think Aemond will make it to Harrenhal this season; he probably won't meet Alys until season 3, when the pieces on the game board move around a bit.

So I don't think the mystery woman in the trailer image is Alys. Some fans have suggested that it could be Aemond's sister Helaena, who is married to his brother King Aegon. While that would provide for some juicy, Springer-esque drama, I don't think that's likely either. It would be too big a break from the source material.

And we have another answer. Although Aemond doesn't seek out intimacy, he's not a virgin; in the first season, he explained to Criston Cole that his brother Aegon took him to a brothel when they were younger. He goes back there looking for Aegon after the future king goes missing, and the brothel keeper, played by Michelle Bonnard, clearly knows him. "How you've grown," she says, while Aemond blushes furiously under a hood.

Here's where the internet detective work comes in. In the picture from the trailer, someone is grasping Aemond's arm, and they have a small scar on their hand. HunterDr on X matched that scar to actor Michelle Bonnard, using a shot from another project she starred in:

House of the Dragon fans never disappoint. Although this isn't irrefutable proof, it looks like Aemond will sleep with the brothel keeper in season 2, taking the chance to show the kind of vulnerability he doesn't feel he can show to his family, particularly after he killed his own nephew Lucerys in the season 1 finale. Aemond will be going through it when House of the Dragon returns to HBO and Max with new episodes starting Sunday, June 16.

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