Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Game of Thrones season 8 premiere.
Game of Thrones returned for its eighth and final season Sunday night and wasted no time jumping right back in to the action. The premiere was filled with moments that viewers have been waiting on for years, including Jon and Arya’s reunion, TK and, of course, Jon riding a dragon.
Although he hadn’t yet found out that he’s not Ned Stark’s bastard, but rather the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen — a reveal that happened at the end of the episode — Jon hopped on Rhaegal’s back and took a ride through Westeros’ wintry wilderness alongside Daenerys Targaryen and Drogon.
Fans have long speculated that Jon would eventually ride one of Daenerys’ dragons due to his Targaryen heritage. But a moment in the sixth episode of season 7, “Beyond the Wall,” seemed to give even more credence to the theory. When Daenerys flew north to rescue Jon and co. from the army of the dead, Jon was the only member of the party who didn’t make it onto Drogon’s back.
Now, this was ostensibly because Jon was tackled through the ice by two wights right before Daenerys was forced to flee. But there may have also been another reason.
In George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, Daenerys notes that no Targaryen has ever ridden more than one dragon, a detail that was pointed out by Reddit user No_conspicuity after the episode aired.
“All I know of dragons is what my brother told me when I was a girl, and some I read in books,” Dany says in A Dance With Dragons. “But it is said that even Aegon the Conqueror never dared mount Vhagar or Meraxes, nor did his sisters ride Balerion the Black Dread. Dragons live longer than men, some for hundreds of years, so Balerion had other riders after Aegon died … but no rider ever flew two dragons.”
That brings us to a key question: Could Jon have sensed that it wasn’t right for him to mount Drogon when he was destined to ride Rhaegal, the dragon named after his father?
As for how this development will play into the season as a whole, seems like it would be useful to have two people capable of flying dragons into battle if the Night King shows up with undead Viserion.
