Speculation: What do the spoilers about Daenerys mean for Season 7?

Last week, we received our first major filming spoiler for Game of Thrones Season 7, and it was a good one. What does it bode for the coming year? We hit it from a few angles.

Please turn back now if you don’t want to read SPOILERS for Game of Thrones Season 7. You have been warned.

Fansite Watchers on the Wall reported last week that Daenerys Targaryen will visit the Dragonpit in King’s Landing at some point during Season 7. We recently took a close look at the Dragonpit and its history, but the short of it is that the Dragonpit was built by the Targaryens to house their dragons. Basically, it’s a dragon stable. The Dragonpit is one of the largest structures in King’s Landing, along with the Red Keep the (now destroyed) Sept of Baelor. The building was severely damaged during a riot in King’s Landing roughly 150 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and has sat largely unused since. So what might Daenerys be doing there in Season 7?

The Dragonpit. Image: Fantasy Flight Games

Most obviously, this means that Dany will arrive in King’s Landing during Season 7. What does that mean for King’s Landing’s current rulers, Queen Cersei and House Lannister? One possibility: there is a fight, and Dany wins handily. After all, other than the Lannister soldiers and the City Guard, Cersei has few allies, whereas Daenerys seems to be bringing half of Essos, three dragons, Dorne, Highgarden, and a couple Grejoys to the battle. Even if Cersei allies with Euron Greyjoy and his thousand ships, it likely won’t be enough to stop Daenerys’ onslaught.

Furthermore, Cersei seems unwilling to willingly hand over King’s Landing to Dany’s invading army. Knowing her temperament, she seems more likely to try and burn it down like the Mad King before her. Maybe Jaime will do her in like he did in the Mad King years ago. Maybe Arya will sneak into the Red Keep and cross her name off her list. Or it could be something else entirely, but we don’t see Cersei surviving Season 7.

After she’s dead and Daenerys has taken up residence in the capitol, it would make sense for her to visit the Dragonpit. Maybe she’s looking for a new home for Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal, or maybe she sees it as part of a King’s Landing sight-seeing tour. Remember: Dany has never been to King’s Landing—her mother Rhaella fled the city during Robert’s Rebellion and gave birth to Daenerys on Dragonstone. It’ll all be new to her.

Beyond finding a place to store her dragons, might she be looking for somewhere they could breed? The sex of her dragons has never been firmly established, so there’s nothing to stop them from reproducing. If the White Walkers begin their invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, more dragons would come in handy down the road. Sure, they would take years to mature, as Dany’s trio did, but no one knows how long the war with the White Walkers will last. The last time the White Walkers invaded, the conflict lasted a generation. Which is not to say this go round will, but we don’t know how long it will take. Leaving behind an egg or two as insurance would be a good idea.

Now that we’ve run through what seems to be the most likely scenario for Dany’s visit to the Dragonpit, is everyone ready for a deep dive into the crazy pool? What if Dany is at the Dragonpit as a captive and not a conqueror?

As we mentioned before, Dany’s army looks pretty unstoppable. Is there a way she could be defeated? It’s unlikely but not impossible, and it may have something to do with Euron Greyjoy.

How could Euron have any hope of stopping Dany? Well, in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Euron possesses a horn called Dragonbinder. He picked it up while visiting Valyria, and if he can believed, it has the power to control dragons. If he has it on the show, it’s obvious what kind of damage he could do. Imagine the dragons fighting amongst each other, or burning Daenerys’ own fleet. Theoretically, Dragonbinder can make that happen.

In the books, Euron introduces the horn at the Kingsmoot, which was loosely adapted in Season 6’s “The Door.” One of Euron’s henchmen blows it. (He later dies, burned out from the inside.) On the show, Euron doesn’t bring up the horn. Has it been cut, or are Euron and the producers trying to keep his secret weapon a secret? You don’t want to broadcast that you have a magical horn that can control dragons too early, do you?

If Dragonbinder has indeed been cut, Euron could still get the better of Daenerys, either by defeating her at sea with his thousand ships (the dragons, being too big to sleep on ships, may not be able to accompany the fleet over deep water) or kidnapping her covertly. From there, he could deliver her to Cersei. Imprisoning Dany in a building constructed by her ancestors is the kind of cruel irony that would appeal to her. And by neutralizing Daenerys, Euron and Cersei would effectively neutralize her dragons, as well. They may not act out against their mother’s captors for fear of endangering their mother.

Also, defeating Daenerys would give Euron a meaningful purpose within the show’s narrative. Right now, it looks likely that Euron is simply going to lead a suicidal charge right at Daenerys’ fleet. He wouldn’t make much impact. But if he stopped Dany and her dragons? That’s a different story.

If Daenerys and her dragons are held captive in King’s Landing, it would remove them as a weapon against the White Walkers. This could provide a lot of tension during the show’s final two seasons. Were they free, many fans would likely ask why Dany doesn’t just fly straight for the Night King and turn him and his army to ash. But if the dragons are neutralized, the White Walkers could rampage through the Seven Kingdoms unchecked. And who wouldn’t want to see that?

While it still seems likely that Dany will simply steamroll over Cersei and her dwindling list of minions, it’s not beyond the producers to throw us one last curve ball before the series bows out. So what say you? Is Daenerys looking out over the Dragonpit as a conqueror or as a captive in Game of Thrones Season 7?