Emilia Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen, shared a new theory about where she thinks her dragon went after the series finale of ‘Game of Thrones.’
A lot has happened since Game of Thrones wrapped and left just about no one happy. The series fell out of the zeitgeist with astonishing speed as general disappointment and a months-long pandemic teamed up to make the end of the series feel like eons ago. But our deep-down muscle memory still makes us perk up at new theories and Game of Thrones news, a holdover from the time when the George R.R. Martin series was basically all of television and most of the internet. So, when Emilia Clarke revealed that she has a theory about where Drogon went after melting the Iron Throne, we can’t help but be a little bit interested.
The actress who played Daenerys Targaryen produced a particularly morbid ending for her character, much bleaker than the fan assumption that her dragon carried her back to her ruined ancestral homeland of Old Valyria. TVLine shared a few tidbits from James Hibberd’s series-chronicling book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series, including Clarke’s seasonally appropriate spooky take on Daenerys and Drogon’s fate.
“I think he flies around with her body until it decomposes. I literally think he keeps flying until he can’t fly anymore,” she said, in one of the revelations from the book. “He just keeps grieving.”
Her latest take echoes one that she shared last November. After joking that he flew off to Hawaii, she said she thinks the motherless dragon is “roaming the seas, crying.” The decomposing Daenerys came later.
Clarke doesn’t seem put off by gore, meaning she likely wasn’t involved in a particularly gruesome scene from the series’ first episode. A dead direwolf and stag are found, foreshadowing the downfall of King Robert Baratheon and House Stark, but the deer on set was far from metaphorical. The show used an actual decomposing animal for the shot, leading many among the cast and crew to lose their lunch.
“I’ve still never smelled anything so terrible, and I wasn’t even anywhere near it,” producer Bryan Cogman shared. “I was across the meadow in a producer’s tent. Just thinking about it, I can smell it right now.”
