House of the Dragon’s season finale ended with a brutal fight between Lucerys Velaryon and his uncle, Aemond Targaryen. In some ways, it had been a long time coming. You’ll recall that Lucerys Valeryon whipped his uncle’s left eye out after Aemond pinched a dragon for himself, and we’ve not seen what might be hiding under there since the time jump halfway through the season. One of the key reveals from the tenth episode, then, was what was lying beneath Aemond’s eyepatch.

The opening titles to the penultimate episode of House of the Dragon gave us a big pointer to where the finale would go and how Aemond intended to make his mark. That new intro showed a map of the Targaryen family tree. Look closely, and there’s something else there: a blue gemstone sigil. That represents Aemond (his brother Aegon and sister Helaena have the figure of a woman and a spider respectively).

Only towards the end of the finale, when Lucerys heads to Storm’s End do we truly understand the importance of that sigil. As Aemond taunts Lucerys and demands an eye in return, he takes off his eyepatch to reveal the sapphire underneath. As George RR Martin explains in Fire and Blood, the book which House of the Dragon draws on, Aemond reveals the scars that remain from his maiming along with the fact that he’s replaced his old, crap, human eyeball with a sapphire.

Aside from looking very sick indeed, that big reveal is essentially the starting cannon of the big Targaryen circular firing squad. The Dance of the Dragons, or the civil war which leaves the family as a charred stump, is about to go off.

Because it’s Aemond who lights the powder keg, chasing after Lucerys, and causing the young prince’s demise. The eyepatch reveal is a signal that he’s ready to take his revenge on Lucerys, and kick off the broader spiral of violence and war. It’s also a defiant, ‘look in my big jewelled eye and say that, mate’ statement from a man who’s bided his time for vengeance. So basically: it’s all about to kick off. Strap in. It’s about to get extra spicy in Season 2.