Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen is nothing less of a television icon. A dragon-riding, sometimes fireproof woman out for revenge who wants to be the first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, what’s not to like about that? Perhaps, only the ending. Whether you loved the character or hated it, you can’t deny that her death was disgraceful to her character arc. For someone with only one goal in her mind her entire adulthood, it doesn’t make sense for her to self-destruct her plan, which was years in the making.
A majority of the fans have always wished that she would make a comeback somehow. For now, she is alive and well in the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, at least. So there is some semblance of hope for Daenerys fans to have an alternate ending for their queen. With Jon Snow confirmed to be getting his own spinoff and House of Targaryen being a hit, is HBO preparing to make way for Daenerys’ resurrection?
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Drogon and House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon showed us how old Targaryen rituals dictate the body of the deceased must be burned with dragon fire. Daenerys does not get that treatment since there are barely any Targaryen alive. Instead, we see her last dragon fly away with her body. For people thinking Drogon probably ate her, he did not (put some respect on his name). In the new DVD and Blu-ray release for Season 8 of Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss confirmed that Drogon didn’t destroy Daenerys’ body. “Drogon’s not going to eat you – he’s not a cat. Did you see how gently he was nudging you?” Benioff said during the commentary.
So all is not lost for her. During the finale, Samwell Tarly briefly says that Drogon was last seen heading east towards Valyria, the motherland of Targaryens and their dragons. He could also have been flying further east to Volantis, where the Red Priestess Kinvara resides, who has the power to bring Daenerys back to life since we still do not know who Azor Ahai is.
And how did Drogon know that these people would help his rider, you ask? House of the Dragon has shown us time and time again that the bond between a rider and his dragon is anything but simple. Daemon Targaryen barely ever vocally commands Caraxes. This shows that, given time and effort, your dragon will understand you better than one could imagine. In contrast, Vhagar’s actions in the season 1 finale show that dragons have deep and complex emotions as well. This could explain Drogon’s display of intelligence in burning the Iron Throne down into royal goop.
How will the Game of Thrones books end?
The last novel in the epic fantasy series, A Dream of Spring, might not be released in this decade. But there’s no stopping the television spin-off series. George R.R. Martin has promised that the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire series will be very different from the show. This might mean that Daenerys does not die in the end, which will change the lore of his mammoth-sized fantasy world. If there were to be spin-offs set in a world after Game of Thrones’ timeline, writers and producers would need source material to follow. This will prove to be tough if Daenerys is dead in the show but alive in the books because her mere existence will affect Westeros.
Azor Ahai is one of the main plotlines in the book series. The original show never reveals who it might be. House of the Dragon has also featured a prophecy relating to it. If Daenerys is Azor Ahai, there is no way the spin-offs set after her time can ignore a storyline of such great importance in one of the biggest shows of the century. Quaithe once told Daenerys, “To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward, you must go back, and to touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow.” Traditionally, light and darkness represent life and death, respectively.
Here, ‘light’ might also allude to Azor Ahai, who was from Asshai, having to save a world from darkness and bring light back to the human world. And shadow might mean Asshai by the Shadow. Perhaps Quaithe, a shadowbinder from Asshai who also seems to have the power of prophecy, was foreshadowing her resurrection?
What’s in Asshai? More Game of Thrones spin-offs?
In The Nine Voyages, a spin-off in the early stages of conceptualization, Corlys Velaryon might journey to Asshai. Asshai is also known as Shadowlands, or Asshai by the Shadow. The shadowlands are such an expansive and mysterious place that no one really knows what dwells there. It is said to be full of magic and dragons (emphasis on both). Jon Snow might also venture to these lands in his spin-off. Since Drogon was traveling east, he could have landed in Asshai. It lies in the eastern-most corner of the continent of Essos. As one fan theory suggests, Daenerys can be resurrected here, and she can make her return as the Undead Dragon Queen of the Shadowlands. Let me explain further.
Asshai has no known government, and anything goes in those lands. Though the population is small, people are allowed to practice all sorts of magic. Melisandre once compared the power she feels at The Wall is similar to that of Asshai. In the third novel, she comes to the conclusion that this savior must be born on Dragonstone, which is true for Daenerys. Now that Jon Snow has been banished to live beyond The Wall, his spin-off might feature him exploring the frozen beyond. Knowing him, it wouldn’t take him long to gain people’s trust and perhaps form a loyal following of his own (even though he probably doesn’t want it). If Daenerys rises from the dead with a dragon by her side, Jon Snow and Daenerys will perfectly represent the two symbolic elements in A Song of Ice and Fire.
After all, if Jon Snow could be resurrected, why can’t Daenerys?
More: Game Of Thrones Jon Snow Spinoff: 5 Things We Want To See (And 5 Mistakes We Want To See Fixed)
Fan service going too far?
Bringing her back could be one of the grandest moments of fan service ever. But, Game of Thrones is no stranger to it. That’s how they tried to balance the irreversible damage season 8 did to the show. The show went from having 10 episodes in season 1 to almost half of it in the end. Most of the final season included long-lost characters finding their way back to each other. But hey, as long as Jon Snow finally got to ride a dragon, who cares if Daenerys and Jaime Lannister’s entire character arc was destroyed, right?
Making the fans happy only works if they are consistently satisfied with the plot. Daenerys’ spiral into madness could have begun long before she decided to burn down King’s Landing. But we were none the wiser til it happened. If HBO decides to make the character return to our screens, we hope it won’t be a fleeting moment of fan service but to bring justice to her story.
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