House of the Dragon is finally giving George R.R. Martin‘s Fire & Blood fans the Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) and Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) moments we’ve long been waiting for — only, they’re weirdly…wholesome?
Anyone who has read know that at some point the one-eyed dragon lord and the mysterious “witch” fall in love. The expectation has long been that their romance would be weird and dark and kinky.
So imagine my surprise when their first moments together are strangely…wholesome?
**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 5, now streaming on HBO Max**
One of the most fun threads running through the “Dance of the Dragons” chapters of George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood is, well, whatever the heck is going on between Aemond and Alys. The allure of this coupling is obvious: he’s a goth psychopath with the biggest dragon in Westeros and she may or may not be an ageless sorceress with the power to explode heads. You want to imagine that their interactions are going to be full hilt metal; their connection fueled by lust and magic.
What do we get in House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 5, though? Straight up soft, forced proximity romance stuff! And what’s even more wild? Stars Ewan Mitchell and Gayle Rankin warned me!
“God, just like expect the unexpected,” Mitchell said, when I asked him to tease where this storyline would go after Episode 2. “You really don’t know what’s going to happen around every corner this season.”
“Because I think everybody thinks they know how this is going to go,” Rankin said. “And I think that’s what’s so wonderful about the season is that every turn the show tells you, ‘No, you don’t, no, you don’t.’ Which is really cool.”
Aemond and Alys first met all the way back in House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2 when he arrived at Harrenhal ready to murder everyone in his path and wound up stabbed in the back in the process. Tripping on his own blood, he crawled to Alys — whom he was just about to kill — and begged for her help.
Alys has kept the vicious prince hidden for the last few episodes, but now we get to see her calm him down after his nightmares of Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) on fire and comforting him, almost like a mother, when he realizes Vhagar has fled.
Later, when sellswords determined to kill Aemond to seize Harrenhal as a prize arrive and attempt to sexually assault Alys, Aemond leaps into action, becoming her noble protector. When the melee is done and all four mercenaries lay dead, Alys quips, almost like a classic romantasy heroine, that it seems like Aemond’s better.
Yes, there’s been bloodshed and some weird mom stuff — hey, this is the world of Game of Thrones, folks — but so far, Aemond and Alys haven’t done anything that feels as edgy as their reputation in the books would have us believe. There’s no plotting or love potions, crazy sex or blood magic. The “magic” Alys shows off in the episode is simply tossing a stone to wake up a hoard of bats. The embrace they share is a nurse comforting her delirious patient. These are two people at the brink who are forced to show each other sides of themselves they usually keep to themselves: their vulnerabilities.
Am I hoping that Aemond and Alys will eventually become the dark magic power couple they are in the book? Yes. That would be cool. Am I strangely touched that their earliest moments of connection make them feel more human? Absolutely.
House of the Dragon returns Sunday, July 26 on HBO and HBO Max.
