And the three heads of the dragon are…

…Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, and Tyrion Lannister. According to popular opinion, anyway.

CAUTION: THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPECULATION AND SPOILERS

Tyrion: “You’re looking for a third dragon rider? Well, I know this guy…”

This was easily the most speculation-heavy edition of the Small Council we’ve done—the question itself is open to interpretation, and because everything we’re talking about is yet to come, there’s really no way to know anything for sure. Still, in the times between books and TV seasons, speculation is an important part of being a Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fan. And in this case, speculation has it that these three characters will be riding dragons before this tale is done.

[polldaddy poll=9191216]

There are a lot of arguments as to why this particular trio fits the bill. Most people assume that Daenerys will be one of the dragon riders without even needing to explain why. After all, they’re her dragons, and she’s already mounted Drogon, so it’d be a shame to let that experience go to waste.

The arguments for Jon and Tyrion and a little more abstract, although the theories surrounding Jon Snow—that’s he’s secretly the son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and is therefore naturally disposed to become a dragon rider—are so well-developed at this point that proponents have a solid leg to stand on. Tyrion gets the third slot on account of his importance to the story and his documented interest in dragons (a few commenters also brought up his possible Targaryen lineage as well).

All in all, it just makes sense to expect these three to eventually mount up given what we know of their places in the narrative. The Prince That Knew Nothing put it like this:

"It doesn’t make sense to have anyone that’s not a main POV character. It’ll be someone who’s been a main POV since book one…Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion. I think everyone’s got to the point where they don’t believe anything in this series can be simple which I understand but grrm has left some things pretty simple to solve."

Not everyone thought that way, though. After all, Martin does have a history of surprising us. What if he throws up some practical hurdles to this scenario, as JMP suggested?

"JMP: I’ve said this in other post(s), but I just don’t see how Tyrion would be able to stay on a dragon when he can’t ride a horse without a special saddle. And There’s no way a dragon will allow someone to fit it for said saddle."

Athelstan went further, and suggested that George R.R. Martin might truly be yanking our chains when it comes to the whole “the dragon has three heads” prophecy from A Clash of Kings.

"I like all of these theories and they all have merit and one of them may well be correct, but I can’t get over the idea that the three heads of the dragon could be as simple as Rhaegar, Viserys and Daenerys. We all know that GRRM likes to use slight of hand, smoke and mirrors and dislocation of expectation to get us all excited about something that’s not the direction in which he is going to take ASOIAF."

There were also other dragon riding candidates suggested, characters who didn’t appear on our poll like Arya, Euron Greyjoy, and Varys. A couple people also mentioned Hot Pie and Gendry, but I’m going to assume they were joking.

“I’d like to come down now.”

At the end of the day, I have no idea if any of these theories are true, although of course we all have our guesses. Kudos to everyone who participated in the discussion—that was fun to read.

Also, now is as good a time as any to mention that we’ll be taking tomorrow off for Thanksgiving, although there will still be one post on the site, and we think you’ll find it interesting.

Next: Filming on Game of Thrones Season 6 winds as HBO turns the hype up