Game of Thrones cracked its biggest dragon question twice in five years

If you've spent any time trawling the dense lore of Game of Thrones or its prequel juggernaut, House of the Dragon, you'll know dragons are basically the flashy showstoppers of George R.R. Martin's whole high-fantasy circus. The man didn't invent dragons, obviously. But you ask anyone about these series, and they'll tell you it's the Targaryens and their fire-breathing lizards that set the whole thing apart. Especially now, post-2022, after House of the Dragon made it absolutely clear you can't have a royal dynasty war without a bit of dragon spectacle. But the question of who exactly’s allowed to actually ride these beasts? That's a bit messier than the Targaryens (or frankly, the HBO writers) tend to let on.

In 2019, Game of Thrones brought Jon Snow's secret Targaryen heritage to the surface – and used his dragon flight to fuel the theory that only those of the blood can ride.

Who Gets to Ride?

For ages, the commonly spouted party line in Westeros is that only people with Targaryen blood can become proper dragonriders. If you're not part of the white-haired crew, the dragons are supposed to blast you to a crisp the minute you try to claim one for yourself. That's not just HBO nonsense; Martin spells out the same basic rule in his books, especially in Fire & Blood. House of the Dragon leans into this too, but, as is usually the case in this franchise, the reality is slipperier than it first appears. And the two big TV moments that deal with this mystery are separated by five years of increasingly tangled dragon drama.

Jon Snow and the Original Rules

Cast your mind back to the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 8, released in 2019. Jon – who, at that point, still doesn't know he's really called Aegon Targaryen – has no idea he's got any dragonlord blood at all. Dany lets him hop aboard Rhaegal for a joyride anyway, and the dragon has zero issues with Jon clambering on. The dragon doesn't try to roast him; quite the opposite — Rhaegal instantly seems to accept him. It's all a bit of unsubtle foreshadowing, especially since this is the same episode Jon finds out about his parentage. You could read it as proof positive that dragonriding is a closed club for Targaryens only.

Thing is, Daenerys herself wasn't brought up with any manual for handling dragons. They were all extinct, at least until she hatched her trio. So, for her, Jon getting on Rhaegal is more a curiosity than a jaw-dropping shocker. And the show never really pauses for a proper debate over whether Jon's otherworldly blood made the dragon ride possible, or if Rhaegal just trusted anyone Dany pointed at. Frankly, Game of Thrones seems content to keep its own lore a bit murky here — probably so they can have it both ways further down the line.

By the by, if you're a stickler for fantasy taxonomy: Thrones dragons technically fall somewhere between dragons and wyverns (dragons in this world have two back legs, wings double as arms, and they breathe fire, which isn't usually standard issue for wyverns). Make of that what you will.

House of the Dragon Breaks Things Open

If you fast-forward five years, House of the Dragon Season 2 dives much deeper into who can and can't hop on a dragon's back. The episode 'The Red Sowing' is the real gamechanger. Here, Addam (played by Clinton Liberty) is found to have claimed Seasmoke — and, at this point, nobody's publicly tied him to Corlys Velaryon, which would give him noble, dragon-riding lineage. Cue a round of speculation across Westeros: Could dragonriding actually be open to anyone with proper Old Valyrian roots, even if you've got more bastard than blue blood?

With war looming and several dragons up for grabs, Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) tells all would-be dragonriders — even the dodgy ones with only vague Targaryen or Velaryon claims — to try their luck. This turns into a scene where a motley crew of lowborn hopefuls (the so-called dragonseeds) put their family legends quite literally to the test. Outcome? Most end up as charred reminders that dragons don't make forgiving pets, no matter how many Valyrian bedtime stories your nan told you. The result only muddies the theory further: Is it all about the bloodline, or is there more going on under the scales?

Of the handful who do end up riding, we get a grab-bag of confirmed and highly questionable ancestry. Ulf White (Tom Bennett) has always blustered about being an illegitimate Targaryen bastard, but even he doesn't look convinced when it's time to step up. That he actually manages to bond with Silverwing might prove he was telling the truth, or maybe the dragon just fancied a change. The way the scene plays out, it looks like every dragon has its own vibe for picking riders — and the Targaryens have been so dominant for so long, nobody's dared run the experiment properly until now.

So, Is There a Real Answer?

The honest answer? It's a bit of everything and nothing at once. Sure, there's clearly a strong historical link between Targaryens and dragons, but the series never comes down solidly on the side of this being magical DNA. The idea of dragons as mobile genealogy tests is a bit too sci-fi for Martin's taste: they're supposed to be unpredictable, not clever bloodhounds. The franchise leans on the folklore precisely because — thanks to the Targaryens owning all the dragons for generations — nobody else could realistically try and prove everyone else wrong. Enough time passes, the family believes its own hype, and the myth becomes unbreakable in-universe. Plus, not every Targaryen ever managed to claim a dragon, so even the theory they cling to doesn't really hold water.

• House of the Dragon is set 172 years before Game of Thrones, charting the Targaryen heyday.
• Young Rhaenyra and Alicent were played by Milly Alcock and Emily Carey; their older versions by Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke.
• The top-tier cast also includes Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) and Paddy Considine (King Viserys Targaryen, Rhaenyra's dad).