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- Riots In King’s Landing
- The Shepherd In The Dance Of The Dragons
- What Is the Storming Of The Dragonpit?
- The Five Dragons That Are Killed In The Storming Of The Dragonpit
The death toll will increase in the upcoming Dance of the Dragons, which is the focal point of HBO’s House of the Dragons. The split in the realm is the fulcrum of the war between Queen Rhaenyra and her half-brother, Aegon II Targaryen. This is compounded by the fact that the opposing sides are willing to annihilate each other by dragonfire.
As seen in the Official Green and Official Black trailers, Dragonriders atop dragons will wreak havoc in Rhaenyra and Aegon II’s name. Since the smallfolk suffer disproportionately, the toll of war will be a catalyst for the violent upheaval known as the Storming of the Dragonpit. The event will most likely make it to House of the Dragon‘s future, but the question remains of which dragons will die in the Dragonpit.
Riots In King’s Landing
From Game of Thrones And House of the Dragon’s Perspectives
The Dance of the Dragons is a period of political tension between the Greens and the Blacks, and their respective allies. The Targaryen parallel administration (seated at King’s Landing and Dragonstone) is irresponsible, and it will have people questioning Aegon II and Rhaenyra’s rule. With the opposing sides launching offensives and counter-offensives, forming alliances and counter-alliances, the patience of the commoners of King’s Landing wears thin, and culminates in the Storming of the Dragonpit.
King’s Landing is no stranger to civil unrest. HBO’s original series, Game of Thrones, is home to the infamous riot that takes place during the War of the Five Kings. It erupts after the Lannisters ship Princess Myrcella Baratheon off to Dorne. In Game of Thrones season 2, episode 6 “The Old Gods and the New,” after bidding Myrcella goodbye, the Lannisters along with their entourage are attacked by a crowd of hungry common-born. Joffrey flies into rage and riots break out in which the High Septon is lynched. The Lannisters run for cover, and Tyrion is quick to remind Joffrey that the riots occurred because of the war he started.
The Shepherd In The Dance Of The Dragons
Game of Thrones begins approximately 167 years after the Dance of the Dragons ends. In other words, way before the events of the War of the Five Kings, the common-born of King’s Landing rioted because of the repercussions of the Dance. An angry mob of dragonslayers breaks into the Dragonpit, situated atop Rhaenys’ Hill, and kills four dragons of House Targaryen. But the Targaryens and their dragons have long fascinated the Westerosi commoners, so how did it come to this?
The Shepherd, whose original name is unlikely to be found in Game of Thrones lore, incites the Storming of the Dragonpit. He serves as a Begging Brother of the Faith of the Seven and calls upon the citizenry of King’s Landing to rebel against Queen Rhaenyra’s rule.
Quite obviously, by the time the Storming took place, Rhaenyra had captured King’s Landing. To be more precise, the Riot of King’s Landing takes place shortly after Queen Helaena dies from suicide. The Shepherd peaches words against the Targaryen dragons to an assembled group in Cobbler’s Square. The war-torn people take him up on it and start to believe that the serpentine beasts are symbolic of demons, doom, and “godless Valyria.”
What Is the Storming Of The Dragonpit?
In 130 AC, the Shepherd leads a mob of dragonslayers, or his “lambs” into the Dragonpit to achieve “salvation.” While he misleads the people by saying killing the dragons is the way to save the city, the Targaryen misrule adds fuel to the fire. The Shepherd’s insurrection rests on the lie that Aegon II’s dragons will bathe the city with dragonfire and his armies will kill its people.
Rhaenyra Targaryen and her sons, Prince Joffrey Velaryon and Prince Aegon Targaryen, are mere spectators to the violence incited by the Shepherd and his army of lambs. The Queen and her band watch the fall of Rhaenys’ Hill from Maegor’s Holdfast. She stops Prince Joffrey (mount Tyraxes) from venturing outside but wants her people to quell the uprising.
The Five Dragons That Are Killed In The Storming Of The Dragonpit
Syrax
Joffrey Velaryon mounts Rhaenyra’s she-dragon, Syrax, who remains in the Red Keep. He flies to the Dragonpit, but his mother’s dragon refuses to accept him as a rider. She shrugs him off midair, and Joffrey plunges to his death. Syrax then flies into the commotion at the Dragonpit and rips people apart using her teeth and claws. Instead of descending upon the crowd with dragonfire, she claws at them. Syrax eventually dies in the aftermath of the Storming of the Dragonpit.
Tyraxes
Prince Joffrey Velaryon’s mount, Tyraxes, is in the Dragonpit when a mob forces itself inside. The dragon blockades the front of his lair with burned carcasses of rioters. The mob then reroutes from the back of Tyraxes’ lair. Game of Thrones lore says Prince Joffrey’s dragon strangulates himself with his chains at the end.
Shrykos
The small she-dragon, Shrykos, was bound to Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen. Chained and helpless in the face of the invasion, she dies in the Dragonpit. Shrykos is killed by an axe-wielding woodsman named Hobb the Hewer, who deals seven blows in the name of the Seven aspects of the Faith of the Seven. The Stranger’s blow to the brain is catastrophic and Shrykos dies there and then.
Shrykos remains riderless throughout her lifetime.
Morghul
Bound to Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, the young Morghul lairs in the Dragonpit during the riots. Chained, the beast burns many rioters, but in the end, a heavily armored man who is dubbed “the Burning Knight” kills Morghul. The armored man repeatedly hits the dragon’s eye with a spear but is roasted on the other end.
Like Shrykos, Morghul too remained riderless.
Dreamfyre
Arguably the most heartbreaking dragon death, Dreamfyre suffers a tragic fate like her rider, Queen Helaena Targaryen. The pale-blue, slender, she-dragon lairs riderless in the Dragonpit after Helaena’s death by suicide. Though Dreamfyre breaks off her chains during the invasion and kills more people than Tyraxes, Morghul, and Shrykos, her eye is injured by a crossbow bolt. Maddened by the rage of the invasion, she crashed into the dome of the pit. Her body and the rioters are buried under the rubble of the Dragonpit.
In the words of Archmaester Gyldayn:
Tyraxes, Shrykos, and Morghul killed scores, there can be little doubt, but Dreamfyre slew more than all three of them combined.
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