Vhagar and Aemond vs. Arrax and Luke

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for "House Of The Dragon" season one: read at your own caution.

About

Vhagar and Aemond vs. Arrax and Luke refers to a series of memes regarding a scene in the final episode of season one of House Of The Dragon created by HBO and George R.R. Martin, in which the character Aemond Targaryen kills Lucerys Velaryon. Memes started being posted on TikTok and Twitter, showing the scene's impact on viewers and recalling other brutal deaths on the original show Game Of Thrones.

Origin

On October 23rd, 2022, the final episode of the first season of House Of The Dragon aired on HBO, adapting the long-awaited scene of Aemond Targaryen^[1] killing Lucerys Velaryon^[2], which fans describe as the pivotal start of the civil war, the “Dance of the Dragons.”^[3] The scene below, posted by @BABY YOODA^[3] on October 24th, 2022, shows Aemond riding his dragon Vhagar in pursuit to murder Lucerys and his dragon Arrax. The video accumulated 800,000 views in less than 24 hours and spurred a lot of memes by fans of the show.

Memes of the brutal scene began to appear on social media as soon as the episode was airing, like this early tweet by @oochotd,^[11] showing the size difference between the dragons. Posted on October 23rd, 2022, the meme received 56,600 likes and 6,000 retweets in two days.

This was literally Aemond and Lucerys wth 💀 #HouseOfTheDragon pic.twitter.com/tTJaa0E2l7

— out of context house of the dragon (@oochotd) October 24, 2022

Spread

Fans were also sharing how sad they felt watching one of their favorite characters being killed, like in this Twitter^[5] post by @nayeli_tweets on October 23rd, 2022, which received 3,000 likes and 467 retweets in two days.

lucerys deserved the world. JUSTICE FOR THAT SWEET BOY#HouseoftheDragon pic.twitter.com/ck294cKD26

— Nayeli Mendoza (@nayeli_tweets) October 24, 2022

On TikTok,^[6] people are also sharing their thoughts about the show's final scenes and @thatbicatlady decided to read some of the best memes of House Of The Dragon's 10th episode. The video has 14,000 views and 1,000 likes in one day.

A series of image macros memes have been created using clips of the dragons' fight scene. The image below, uploaded to Reddit^[7] on October 24th, 2022 by adambarker9524 shows Vhragar with airpods and the caption "Oh gods, of fuck! Vhagar has AirPods in! She can’t hear Aemond!"

Other memes focused on the Dragon's age as a joke, like this post on 9GAG^[8] by chuchiha on October 24th, 2022, in which Aemond tries to talk to Vhragar, but the dragon has the hearing of a 180-year-old grandma.

This clip, posted on Twitter^[9] by @catalystvomitz, on October 23rd, 2022, uses the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme memes to show how Aemond regretted killing Luke. The tweet has garnered 153,000 views and 2,640 likes in three days.

house of the dragon aemond targaryen lucerys velaryon vhagar arrax THAT SCENE curb your enthusiasm pic.twitter.com/f4xBQCvBqW

— cat 📁 (@catalystvomitz) October 24, 2022

Fan edits

The scene of Aemond's dragon devouring Lucerys has been reposted as fan edits with sad songs on TikTok,^[10] like this clip uploaded by @fanvidss showing Lucerys and his mother Rhaenyra Targaryen with ABBA's song "Slipping Through My Fingers" as the soundtrack. The video had 362,000 views and 109,000 likes in less than 24 hours since it was uploaded.

Search Interest

Various Examples

External References