‘Game of Thrones’: What’s With the Weird Look Drogon Gave Jon?

In the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere, “Winterfell,” Jon Snow (Kit Harington) fulfilled his destiny. That is, he found out that he was a Targaryen prince — the rightful son and heir of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen — and he learned how to ride a dragon.

Funnily enough though, things didn’t happen in that order. Jon Snow rode a dragon before realizing that it was his birthright as a Targaryen. About halfway through the episode, he and Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) visit the ailing dragons Drogon and Rhaegal and she nudges him to join her on a ride. Various hijinks ensue, but perhaps none got a bigger laugh than the look Drogon gives Jon while he’s making out with Dany.

So what gives? Is Drogon acting like the kid of a single mom who is all skeptical of the new boyfriend? Does he distrust Jon? Does he want to eat him? Ew, is Drogon in love with Daenerys and jealous that he doesn’t get to make out with her?

As it happens, there’s no awkwardness at all. In the official HBO featurette for “Winterfell,” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explain that actually the dragons like Jon.

As it so happens, dragonriders are extraordinarily rare in Westeros, and according to Benioff, only Targaryens can manage it. (So it was kind of a bold move for Daenerys to suggest that Jon could ride Rhaegal.) The scene is supposed to double down on Jon and Daenerys’s romance, while also hinting that Jon has the same potential to be bonded to a dragon that Daenerys does.

“It’s a major thing for her when she sees they have some kind of connection to him. They allow him to be around them. And when he flies up with her and shows her where he used to hunt as a kid, I think she falls even harder in love with him,” David Benioff says.

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D.B. Weiss said, “Seeing Jon and Dany on the dragons together is a Jon and Dany moment, but it also seeds in the idea these creatures will accept Jon Snow as one of their riders.”

So when Rhaegal and Drogon stare at Jon, it’s not anything malicious. It’s pure respect.

That said, the timing of the scene suggests that even if the dragons are cool with Jon, Jon himself is still a little uneasy around them. They are, after all, gigantic flying beasts who devour children and breathe fire.

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