Which dragon is which

During the battle, the Night King fatally wounds Viserion with an ice spear to the neck. Rhaegal swoops after him in a desperate attempt to help, but it's too late; he can only cry in despair as Viserion crashes through the frozen lake and slowly sinks into the waters.

Daenerys brings Rhaegal to the Dragonpit Summit , as a show of power: he circles overhead as she lands on Drogon's back. Bringing Rhaegal proves to be a minor error, however, as Cersei Lannister notices Viserion's absence and correctly concludes that something has happened to him, brushing off Jaime's suggestion that the third dragon is guarding the fleet.

Rhaegal flies with his mother's army to Winterfell. He and Drogon pass over the winter town and the castle, shocking and amazing the northerners. Rhaegal and Drogon are both affected by the North 's cold and are not eating as much as they normally would. When Daenerys prepares to take them for a flight, possibly as a way to give him exercise and shake off the cold, she invites Jon Snow to ride Rhaegal.

Rhaegal takes off with a semi-reluctant Jon. Jon has trouble hanging on and nearly falls a few times, especially as Rhaegal follows Drogon through icy ravines and mountainous sheer drops. Eventually, wanting to land, Rhaegal obeys his command when he turns towards a waterfall. When they do stop, Jon and Daenerys have a little private time by the waterfall to cuddle and kiss. Though, while kissing, both of the dragons stare intently at Daenerys and Jon.

During the Battle of Winterfell , Jon and Daenerys, mounted on Rhaegal and Drogon respectively, provide air support for their ground forces and fight the Night King in the sky above Winterfell.

Rhaegal ferociously attacks his undead brother, biting his neck and tearing chunks of rotting flesh from his belly while trying to stay in the air. Viserion fights back and wounds Rhaegal in the belly as well, but the elder dragon retaliates by biting off part of Viserion's neck and lower jaw, exposing the blue flames in his brother's throat.

When Drogon comes to his aid by dropping on Viserion from above, Rhaegal retreats, wounded and exhausted, crashing into the snow and falling unconscious. Jon is thrown off of Rhaegal in the process and is forced to leave him to rejoin the battle.

Still recovering from the battle, he is visited by his mother in the very den she and Jon came to find them before they rode the two dragons together. Despite the tears in his wings, Rhaegal manages to take to the air, if not gracefully.

Off the coast of Dragonstone, Daenerys mounted on Drogon watches Rhaegal flying nearby, pleased to see him recovering. Suddenly, a colossal scorpion bolt strikes Rhaegal in the chest, followed by another to his wing.

The dragon's screams of agony are silenced when a third bolt pierces his neck, causing massive blood loss. Fatally wounded, Rhaegal plummets from the sky in a torrent of blood, crashing into the sea below and sinking. As Daenerys watches another of her children die, Euron Greyjoy appears, with scorpions mounted on all of his ships.

Consumed by grief over the loss of Rhaegal along with Viserion, Jorah and Missandei, Daenerys gives into her rage and burns the majority of King's Landing. Most of Rhaegal's scales are emerald green, with a few bronze scales on the underside of his neck and tail. His frills and wings are yellow-orange colored, becoming a darker green near the wing-bones. By the time he and his mother reached Westeros, many of the scales on Rhaegal's dorsal side, and most of those along his frills, had turned almost black, while his neck was striped with bright green and black.

Rhaegal is not as aggressive as Drogon , he is a more calm dragon much like Viserion. However, he can show ferocity if needed and will undoubtedly defend his mother from any enemy menacing her.

Daenerys has trained him to respond to vocal commands in her mother tongue of High Valyrian , especially "Dracarys" High Valyrian for dragonfire , to which Rhaegal responds by instantly breathing fire and burning anything in his path.

Rhaegal is also shown to care for Viserion, as he attempts to rescue his fallen brother after he was speared by the Night King. Being a dragon, Rhaegal, has an immense phyisical strength and can spit destructive streams of fire. He can also fly extremly high and at great speeds, more than any other animal. After the battle against a wight Viserion, Rhaegal sustained some serious injuries, notably deep wounds on his belly and his left wing appears to be a bit tattered or has a hole or two in his wing membrane.

In some ways he is essentially the "middle brother" of Daenerys's three dragons: Drogon is larger than both of his brothers and the most aggressive, while Viserion is the best behaved towards other people besides Daenerys. Rhaegal, meanwhile, is not as aggressive as Drogon, but is also not as friendly as Viserion. Like her biological son Rhaego , Daenerys named Rhaegal in memory of her elder brother Rhaegar , the last great champion of House Targaryen.

Rhaegal's name wasn't mentioned on-screen as of the end of Season 4, though it was stated in the Season 4 HBO Viewer's Guide, establishing that his name is the same in the TV continuity. Daenerys refers to her three dragons as "brothers", but as the exact origin of the eggs is never addressed, there is actually no reason to think that their eggs were all laid by the same dragon, or if the three eggs were even found in the same place even if they are all from the Shadow Lands , that region is at least as large as Dorne.

She may call them "brothers" more in the figurative sense that they were raised together. In the third novel, Rhaegal has grown to the size of a small dog, like Viserion, a bit smaller than Drogon.

At one occasion he tries to snatch a piece of meat from Drogon, and Daenerys chides him for his greed. During the fifth novel, Daenerys is so busy ruling Meereen, that she neglects the dragons. Like any wild beast that is left to grow without proper training, all three grow savage and unrestrained; first they prey on sheep and goats, causing significant losses to shepherds.

Only after a little girl is killed by Drogon, Daenerys realizes the dragons pose a great danger to her subjects, and must be kept locked in a makeshift dragon pit, large enough to hold men, inside the Great Pyramid.

Viserion is easily restrained, but Rhaegal is not, perhaps because he hears his brother raging in the pit. The servants have to cover him with a net of heavy iron chain as he basks on the terrace, and he fights so fiercely that it takes three days to carry him down the servants' steps, twisting and snapping. Six men are burned in the struggle. Drogon flies away. As the Yunkai troops and their sellswords draw closer to Meereen, Ben Plumm urges Daenerys to to use Rhaegal and Viserion, but she reluctantly declines for a reason she cannot reveal - that she has lost control over them.

As a result, the Second Sons switch sides. Daenerys has Viserion and Rhaegal fed and visits them occasionally. As time passes, they break their chains and dig holes in the walls, though they still cannot exit the pit.

When Daenerys comes with Quentyn Martell to visit them, she becomes worried that eventually they will break through the walls. The attempt costs his life while attempting to whip Viserion into submission, Quentyn turns his back to Rhaegal and the dragon burns him alive , and the dragons finally become loose.

Viserion and Rhaegal terrorize the city, killing and eating people. They destroy the pyramid of Hazkar, then make the pyramids of Yherizan and Uhlez their lairs. Many of the Meereenese who reside in those pyramids are killed, either by the dragons' fire or crushed under the debris; the survivors find themselves homeless and penniless. Viserion was killed by the Night King and Rhaegal was controversially shot down by Euron Greyjoy, leaving Drogon as the last surviving dragon at the end of the series.

Drogon was last seen furiously melting the Iron Throne into molten steel before flying off with Daenerys' dead body. Showrunners David Benioff and D. Weiss later confirmed that Drogon went to Volantis , a southern coastal city in Essos that was founded by ancient Valyrians. Dragons were once a key part of the balance of power in George R.

Martin's fantasy realm - tied not only to the strength of House Targaryen but also to the existence of magic. It's because of their absence that magic has become so sparse by the time Game of Thrones begins , which is also why the warlock Pyat Pree attempted to imprison Dany and her dragons in the House of the Undying.

With all but one of Daenerys' children dead at the end of the series it seems like dragons are effectively extinct in Game of Thrones. However, it's possible that the mysterious and powerful creatures could return in greater numbers. Game of Thrones never had the time to get into the intricacies of dragon reproduction, and if you're close enough to a dragon to see what's between its legs then you probably have much bigger problems to worry about. Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon are all referred to using male pronouns in the series, but dialogue from the books reveals that dragons are actually gender fluid.

In A Feast For Crows , Maester Aemon tells Samwell Tarly that he believes Daenerys is the prince that was promised, and that the reference to a "prince" in the original prophecy is actually a mistake in translation from Valyrian:. The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years.

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