#yapping session on da new blog yeah

[crowseye]

I’m really looking forward to Aemond’s deteriorating relationship with his mother next season. Since claiming Vhagar and losing his eye. Aemond’s sort of molded himself into this perfect son and prince who Should be his mother’s favorite child but despite this, it’s the Problem Child, Aegon who Alicent frets over the most. Sometimes it’s the child who causes the most grief that winds up being the most loved, even if they’re not the most liked as a person.

Despite resenting his brother, Aemond has had to cede to him as his elder and the son his mother will always be the most concerned with for his entire life. Though it hurts, this pill has been made easier to swallow with the knowledge that he and his brother and mother form a faction against the truly inferior side of the family— Rhaenyra and her children. Aemond can accept being less important than Aegon so long as he and his mother have a common enemy. This is strongly affirmed for him in the landmark moment of his childhood where Alicent viciously defends him at Driftmark.

Now, after Lucerys’ death, Alicent sees her younger son in a light she had never seen him in before. She is horrified by him and cannot forgive him for how he has harmed Rhaenyra and endangered their entire family by triggering a war. Moreover, Alicent’s talk of making peace with Rhaenyra even after B&C comes as a complete betrayal to Aemond. The assurance he had that his mother would always choose him other the Enemy has been shattered. His entire naive worldview has been upheaved and he will build his new one around being a murderer without mercy and without need for his mother’s support. I don’t think Alicent, in her grief for Rhaenyra, Aegon, and Helaena, will have the emotional capacity to see through Aemond’s fragile projected image, and this will only distance the mother and son further.

This decision by the show is, I think, going to explain many of Aemond’s rather ummmm idiotic decisions in the book, such as not returning to KL to rescue his mother despite seemingly having every reason to.