Aemond's Nude Scene in House of the Dragon S2E3 Has a Secret Meaning, Director Says

Summary

• Aemond's nude scene in Episode 3 was one of the most explicit in the entire GoT franchise.
• Aemond Targaryen is a complex character with many layers.
• The episode's director says the scene helped viewers better understand who Aemond is.

Every Game of Thrones fan is used to nudity and sex on screen. Frankly, this level of titillation must be one of the factors behind the show's popularity. Of course, GoT's spin-off House of the Dragon is no different. But as much as the explicit depiction of sex and nudity is common in the context of these shows, the latest episode of the prequel shocked even the most seasoned viewers.

Episode 3 of House of the Dragon's second season showed King Aegon II carousing with his Kingsguard buddies in the taverns and brothels of Flea Bottom. During their visit to a brothel, they and the viewers witnessed many explicit sexual scenes and encountered the king's younger brother, Aemond, cuddling with his longtime mistress.

This led to Aegon mocking his sibling in front of the Kingsguard, and Aemond cold-heartedly leaving the scene, unashamed of his full frontal nudity. And as shocking as that scene was, it had a secret meaning in that it helped flesh out Aemond's character.

Invisible Armor

Aemond Targaryen is perhaps one of the most complex characters on House of the Dragon. The third child of King Viserys and Queen Alicent didn't have a very happy childhood. Bullied by his brother Aegon and nephews Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon, Aemond had no friends and received little love from either his mother or father. To make matters worse, Aemond didn't have a dragon as a child, which made him feel very insecure.

In a way, to protect himself, Aemond grew a layer of coldness and indifference, a kind of invisible armor he put on to shield himself, his vulnerable inner child craving love from the hostility and cruelty of people and the world. And this is exactly what we see in the brothel scene. Vulnerable with his mistress, Aemond immediately puts on indifference to protect himself from his brother's mockery.

'It's one of the few times you see the young child in him and you see the pain in him. Slowly he starts putting on his armor and when he stands up, the fact that he doesn't care that you see his penis is such a strong visceral shift,' Geeta Vasant Patel, the director of Episode 3, recently said in an interview.

According to Patel, it was Ewan Mitchell's conscious decision to do the full frontal nudity scene as it was in keeping with who Aemond is and helped to show the complexity of his character. Mitchell's Aemond is certainly one of the most compelling characters on HotD, and he has a lot of fascinating things ahead of him. So let's continue to follow him in the fourth episode, which premieres on July 7.

Source: Variety.