GRRM Watch

Winds of Winter may solve a massive dragon mystery from Game of Thrones

Where did Drogon go in Game of Thrones Season 4?

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Ahead of Game of Thrones Season 8, it seemed possible Daenerys Targaryen might welcome a few new fire-breathing dragon babies to her scaly brood. Speculation escalated when the Season 8 opening sequence included an astrolabe adorned with a large dragon surrounded by three smaller ones, which seemed to suggest more of the massive creatures would show up before the series finale. For better or worse, Daenerys wasn’t destined to become the Grandmother of Dragons on the HBO series. Drogon, the last of the three creatures she had left, didn’t produce any heirs.

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and the Targaryen history Fire and Blood contain extensive discussions on the unsettled topic of whether dragons mated or somehow reproduced on their own. The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the series, may finally reveal the truth and bring in a few dragon babies that Game of Thrones never found room for.

Drogon's very aggressive, as you can tell.

HBO

After Drogon killed a young girl and burned several goats to a crisp at the end of Season 4, Daenerys locked Viserion and Rhaegal in the catacombs of Mereen’s pyramid as punishment. After all, she wanted to maintain the trust of the Mereneese people and the dragons were rather ruthless and threatening. However, Drogon disappeared before he could be locked up too, flying off to an unknown location.

In early Season 5, Daenerys still had no clue where Drogon went. Later on, the majestic dragon returns rescue Dany from the Sons of Harpy, wealthy slavers who attempted to take back the city. Still, we never learned what Drogon was up to during that time.

Could Drogon have made Dany a grandma?

HBO

Naturally, the foregone conclusion fans kept returning to over and over was that Drogon left to lay dragon eggs and stayed away until they hatched. Martin's books also wrestle with whether male dragons can lay eggs.

In A Dance with Dragons, Maester Aemon says dragons’ gender was fluid and “as changeable as flame.” Meanwhile, yet another maester named Barth corroborated Aemon’s line of thinking, believing that dragons could indeed change their sex. In Fire & Blood, the dragon Caraxes is even referred to using both male and female pronouns. Why would Martin even raise the question if it wasn't possible?

There's definitely a chance that Drogon could make dragon babies. By the end of A Dance with Dragons, Drogon has already disappeared and come back to Daenerys, leaving him plenty of time to have laid eggs. Winds of Winter sees Dany on the brink of conflict in Mereen — what better way to bring forth the dragon babies than to assist Drogon and Dany in this fight? Their arrival could make Dany all the more powerful before heading to King's Landing.

The Winds of Winter does not yet have a scheduled release date.

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