House Of The Dragon Season 3 Took A Disturbing Game Of Thrones Tradition To A New Level

HBO

Stop shirking major societal taboos if you haven't seen the Season 3 premiere of "House of the Dragon." Spoilers ahead!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Targaryens love kissing their sisters (and brothers, and cousins, and nephews, and aunts, and so on and so forth). This dragon-riding royal family from George R.R. Martin's novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire" loves keeping it in the family, so to speak, and in the Season 3 premiere of the Targaryen-centric HBO series "House of the Dragon," a new couple manifests, sort of. So who's coupling up like it's the Westeros version of "Love Island?" That would be mother and son Aemond Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, played respectively by Ewan Mitchell and Olivia Cooke.

After Alicent's firstborn son Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), who was grievously injured in battle in Season 2 of "House of the Dragon," flees town, Aemond essentially takes over as prince regent, at which point his desperate mother implores him to go to Harrenhal and seek shelter from enemy forces led by Aemond's half-sister Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy). While they discuss their next steps in the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, Alicent suggests that Aemond go to the Riverlands and challenge Rhaenyra's consort Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), which will get him out of King's Landing safely and spare Alicent from losing another son.

So how does Aemond respond? He lays the slowest, weirdest smooch in recorded human history on his mom, who sort of smiles politely and avoids eye contact afterward. Aemond then says he'll host a feast in her honor in Harrenhal with Daemon's head on a spike. Must have been a good kiss, I guess! 

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Remember Queen Rhaenyra and her consort Daemon Targaryen from a second ago? They're also related; Rhaenyra is Daemon's niece, and the pair first explored their, uh, romantic connection in Season 1 when Rhaenyra is just a teenager (played by Milly Alcock). All of this is gross, and it's also a thing in the world of Westeros, the continent that serves as the main setting for both "House of the Dragon" and its small-screen predecessor "Game of Thrones" (adapted from George R.R. Martin's fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire"). I mean, "Game of Thrones" begins its conflict when fraternal twins Cersei and Jaime Lannister (Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) are caught in a compromising position by the young Stark heir Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright). Jaime responds by shoving the poor kid out of a window, and the enmity between the Starks and Lannisters is sealed in stone.

Cersei and Jaime and Rhaenyra and Daemon are one thing; Targaryens, in particular, really love incest. Rhaenyra's descendant Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) might not know that assumed bastard Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is her nephew when they start sleeping together, but she doesn't seem to be all that bothered when she finds that out. Throughout "Fire & Blood," there are near-constant mentions of sister-wives — in fact, Aegon II's wife Helaena, played by Phia Saban on "House of the Dragon," is his own sister! — and it's said that Targaryens do this to preserve their bloodline, which they believe innately allows them to control and ride dragons. This inbreeding leads to a whole lot of lunacy in the Targaryen family, to the point where there's a saying about how they turn out: "Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin."

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Frankly, I don't totally get what is going on with Aemond and Alicent, a son and mother who just crossed a very uncomfortable and very Oedipal line. As far as Aemond is concerned, we've seen him in flagrante before with his mistress at the brothels in King's Landing, Sylvi (Michelle Bonnard), and it's notable that Sylvi is old enough to be his mother. (Aegon, who finds the two naked together, certainly thinks so and endlessly mocks Aemond for his taste in women.) If I offered up an armchair diagnosis of Aemond, I'd say he definitely has mommy issues — probably because he's the second-born son and not the heir to the Iron Throne like Aegon. I also think he's just sort of a garden-variety madman, being a Targaryen and all.

I also think that Aemond and Alicent are power-hungry people who innately understand how to get through to each other, and now that they've kissed each other in a decidedly abnormal way, this mother-son relationship will undoubtedly keep evolving. (Again, I want to stress that Alicent didn't seem super jazzed about the whole thing, so that's also an unknown factor right now.) We'll have to see how this all goes as "House of the Dragon" continues its third and penultimate season, but something tells me that Aemond and Alicent aren't going to ride off into the sunset atop his giant dragon Vhagar together.

"House of the Dragon" airs new episodes every Sunday at 9 P.M. EST.