Yahoo News Why *REDACTED* didn't kill *REDACTED* in the Game of Thrones finale
Note: contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for Game of Thrones' final episode, 'The Iron Throne'.
Phew, that's that then. It's all over bar the shouting.
And let's be clear, there will be a lot of shouting in the days to come as fans go to war over the brilliance or otherwise of the final episode.
Before all that though, let's clear up at least one of the question marks dangling over the ruins of King's Landing.
Some viewers have queried why Drogon, having discovered proof of the bloodiest kind that his mother, Daenerys, has been murdered by Jon (aka the Cousin of Dragons), doesn't then incinerate the mopey-faced traitor in a bath of fiery dragon-splurge.
what was the reason drogon didn’t kill jon ? what was the reason ?! pic.twitter.com/mDrZsV1JQv
- dila (@aldilaa_s) May 20, 2019
Allow us to answer that. This is just our opinion – we're not claiming to be able to read fictional dragons' minds or anything (WE CAN, WE TOTALLY CAN) – but this is how it seemed to us.
First, the show has never been clear on how intelligent dragons are. They could be as dumb as fenceposts, they could be entirely sentient and secretly doing five-by-five sudokus up in the hills when everyone thinks they're off chewing goats. We just don't know.
When Drogon found Dead Dany, his first reaction was grief. Like with everyone else on this show, that grief immediately turned to rage. Jon obviously thought he was done for and braced himself for a barbecue (so did we – we were expecting another Fireproof Targaryen moment) but at the last moment Drogon turned aside. He melted not his ponytailed cousin but the Iron Throne instead, before tenderly picking up Daenerys' corpse and flying off to sea with it.
Why? Why did he spare Jon? Because he knows he's a Targaryen, and therefore kin of a sort? Because he suspects he's flameproof? We don't think so. Nope, it was because he recognised the true perpetrator – the thing that actually killed Dany – was the throne itself.
It requires that we grant Drogon more perceptiveness and moral reasoning than the show has hitherto indicated but as we said above, we just don't know how smart dragons are.
In the moment, Drogon recognised that power is a disease, and that Daenerys had fallen victim to it. Thrones corrupt all who seek them, and Drogon knew that Jon was less to blame than Daenerys herself for what happened – so he took out his rage on the symbol of what had really driven Dany to her death, and turned the thousand swords of Aegon the Conqueror's enemies into a dribbly puddle of hot metal. In doing so, he did the realm a favour and gifted them a giant metaphor to boot.
Yes, it's a bit like saying that Mount Doom decided to melt the One Ring rather than let Gollum or Frodo have it, but that's the story they're telling, so that's what we're working with.
We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
('You Might Also Like',)
