House Of The Dragon Season 1 Finale Has Fans All Buzzing About Aemond's Sapphire Eye

Warning: This article contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" Season 1 Episode 10.

HBO's "House of the Dragon" just wrapped up its first season in true "Game of Thrones" fashion. 

The climactic finale saw Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and Daemon (Matt Smith) return to Dragonstone. Soon after, Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best) arrives and informs the two of King Viserys's death, Alicent's (Olivia Cooke) subsequent usurpation of the thrown, and the crowning of Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) as King. Both Targaryens are rightfully angry, with Daemon calling for an all-out war against the Greens, but Rhaenyra keeps a cool head. Instead of jumping straight to battle, which could see many innocents die, she sends envoys to secure alliances with House Tully, Stark, and Baratheon. 

Her eldest son, Jacaerys (Harry Collett), will travel to House Tully before heading north to confirm House Stark's allegiance. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra's younger son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), travels to Storm's End to secure an alliance with House Baratheon — and it's there where the finale dialed it up. 

Luke arrives at Storm's End only to see the dragon Vhagar already there. As he enters the Baratheon hall, he's greeted by his uncle, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) who seems to have already secured a Baratheon alliance through a marriage pact. Before leaving, Aemond demands Luke cut out his eye as retribution for him losing his own eye years ago. Aemond then removes his eyepatch, revealing the sapphire he has in place of the eye he lost to Luke when they were kids. 

While "House of the Dragon" has plenty of differences from its source material, "Fire & Blood," fans were pleased that Aemond's sapphire eye made it to the show. The reveal left many viewers surprised, and their reactions on social media tell you all you need to know.

It turns out that fans of "House of the Dragon" are all in on Aemond's fantastical replacement for his lost eye. While the idea is very on-par with George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, "Game of Thrones" tended to dull down many of the more eccentric appearances of characters from the books, so the reveal left many viewers surprised.

After the finale, Twitter blew up with fans talking about Aemond, his eye, and his questionable actions that perfectly set up Season 2. @HOTDsource posted a picture of the reveal, saying, "Aemond's sapphire eye reveal was so sick." Some fans had very simple responses to the sapphire, like @terez_michalova, who replied to a tweet about Aemond with, "I love it!!!!!!," with a diamond and eye emojis. Others focused on his despicable actions in the finale, like @Raccoonmum, who said "AEMOND YOU WILL LOSE A LOT MORE THAN AN EYE FOR THIS."

The discussion around Aemond's sapphire eye also made its way over to Reddit on a "House of the Dragon" thread. U/BrickCake brought up the topic with the very blunt statement, "I gotta say, Aemond's sapphire eye looks sick as f***," and other Redditors quickly echoed his sentiment, wondering why the character hid such an awesome feature. U/chancethedirewolf agreed, saying, "Yes! I immediately said to my husband why doesn't he stop wearing the eyepatch that thing looks badass."

Others took the opportunity to praise Ewan Mitchell for his portrayal of Aemond, like u/novacolumbia, who simply stated, "The actor is perfect for the role." Others, like u/BettyX, commented how they wanted to hate Aemond, but adding a cool sapphire eye to Mitchell's already excellent performance left them captivated by the character instead.

As mentioned previously, "House of the Dragon" has many differences from its book counterpart, "Fire & Blood," but it really nailed Aemond's character.

In the book, Aemond went down in Targaryen history for riding the legendary dragon Vhagar, sporting a sapphire in place of his missing right eye, and playing a significant role in The Dance of the Dragons.

Like in the show, "Fire & Blood" introduces Aemond as the third-born child of King Viserys Targaryen and Alicent Hightower. His early childhood is represented accurately in "House of the Dragon," including being the last child to bond with a dragon. While he grows up thinking that gaining Vhagar made up for him losing an eye, he still resents Rhaenyra's children for taking the Iron Throne from him and his brother, Aegon II.

According to "Fire & Blood," the events at Storm's End more or less played out accurately in "House of the Dragon." Some small details that the show left out included Aemond being taunted by one of Borros Baratheon's daughters after Lucerys ignored his uncle's threatening words, further inciting Aemond's actions against his nephew. In the book, while Borros doesn't allow violence within his walls, he tells Aemond that he has no say in what happens outside of Storm's End. 

One larger change from the source material is that Aemond purposefully kills Lucerys and his dragon Arrax, whereas in "House of the Dragon," Vhagar disobeys Aemond, making Lucerys' death more or less an accident. Though, as showrunner Ryan Condal pointed out to Vanity Fair, no one could have known what was actually going in Aemond's head when the maesters were writing the history of the war in "Fire & Blood."

While "House of the Dragon" used most of Season 1 to set up the Dance of the Dragons, Aemond will play a massive role in the war-filled Season 2. Without going into too many spoilers, know there will be severe retaliations for Aemond's actions.