'House of the Dragon' Season 1 Is Setting the Stage for the Dance of Dragons — Who Wins?

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 1.

HBO’s House of the Dragon has been leading up to a civil war between two factions of the Targaryen family called the Dance of Dragons.

Since the first episode, some time has passed — 30 years to be exact, according to the official Game of Thrones podcast — and the conflict has yet to be mentioned.

However, in Episode 8 of House of the Dragon, viewers got a glimpse of the growing tension between Alicent Hightower's son Aemond Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen, setting the stage for the battle of the Greens and the Blacks, respectively.

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's book Fire and Blood, which was published in 2018.

Of course, the narrative format of Fire and Blood is more compendium than novel, serving the same function as the appendixes of Lord of the Rings in establishing the world and its lore.

Following the death of King Viserys, there is a battle of succession between Aegon II and Rhaenyra Targaryen, and if the source material is anything to go by, the winner of the civil war will be Aegon II, who promptly removes Rhaenyra from the record books.

However, some argue that there is no true winner since Aegon II dies shortly after taking the throne and is succeeded by Daemon and Rhaenyra's son, Aegon III.

To make matters worse, the civil war leads to the death and extinction of House Targaryen's dragons, until Daenerys Targaryen comes onto the scene almost 300 years later.

If visual clues are anything to go by, Aemond's eye patch is perhaps too much of a giveaway that he's a bad guy, especially after egging on his nephews in the eighth episode.

So, it is no surprise that he will be facing off against Daemon in the Battle Above the Gods Eye. According to the origin story, Daemon and Aemond, with their dragons Vhagar and Caraxes, battle it out and Daemon jumps from his dragon and stabs his nephew's empty eye socket.

Both riders and their dragons end up in Gods Eye lake, never to be seen again. Fans are already preparing for the epic battle scene to take place on the HBO series.

"The Battle Above the Gods Eye is going to be the most epic battle in TV history," one fan tweeted before another added, "I'm just here to witness the Dance of the Dragons, the Battle Above the Gods Eye, and the arrival of the real MVP of the Targaryens' civil war; that is the Lord of Winterfell and the Warden of the North, Cregan motherf--king Stark."

A third chimed in, "Battle Above the Gods Eye might be one of the most beautiful dragon fight scenes ever."

However, fans will have to wait a bit to watch the showdown, as the author of the series recently revealed the show will run for four seasons.

"It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish,” he wrote on his personal blog. "But right now, Ryan Condal’s focus is on HOTD Season 2, and mine is on THE WINDS OF WINTER."

Watch House of the Dragon Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on HBO.