What ‘Dracarys’ Means On Game Of Thrones And House Of The Dragon

There are a lot of wild and crazy ways to die in the “Game of Thrones” universe. You can be publicly beheaded by a petulant boy-king, which is what happens to Ned Stark (Sean Bean) at the end of the show’s first season. You could be tortured and killed by enemy forces, fed to a pack of your own hungry hounds (which is the fate that befalls Iwan Rheon’s evil Ramsay Bolton in Season 6), or have your eyes gouged out and your head exploded by a super-strong soldier (remember Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martell and his over-the-top death in season 4?) A weirdly common method, though, is immolation by dragon … and this style of execution exclusively happens when a member of the ancient and also insane royal Targaryen family is involved.

The major Targaryen in “Game of Thrones” is Daenerys, one of the great house’s last surviving members who hopes to claim the Iron Throne for herself (and who’s played by Emilia Clarke). We meet a whole bunch of them (and their dragons) in the show’s first major spin-off and prequel, “House of the Dragon,” but when it comes to “Game of Thrones,” Daenerys represents the House — until we learn that her new lover Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is a legitimate Targaryen heir and Daenerys’ nephew to boot. (This show is weird, for the uninitiated.) Anyway, Daenerys and her brethren really, really like setting people on fire with their dragons; in Daenerys’ case, she has three of them to help her in this quest (Rhaegal, Viserion, and the largest steed Drogon).

In order to get a dragon to expel flames in the first place, Targaryens have to utter one command in the ancient language of High Valyrian: “Dracarys.” That’s the cue for the massive fire-breathing beasts to do what they do best and barbecue the person of the dragon rider’s choosing. Frankly, the Targaryens we see on screen use “Dracarys” pretty often (in one of the two shows, anyway).

To be honest, “Dracarys” isn’t uttered as frequently throughout “House of the Dragon,” even though the Targaryens seen on that show certainly do their fair share of setting people on fire. We mostly see and hear “Dracarys” on “Game of Thrones,” and it’s always said by Daenerys.

In Season 1 of “Game of Thrones,” Daenerys is sold to Dothraki horse lord Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) as his bride by her awful brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd), who hopes to use Drogo’s massive Dothraki forces to take the Iron Throne for himself. Viserys runs afoul of Drogo before long — who kills him — leaving Daenerys left as the only Targaryen on the scene, and one with three supposedly dormant dragon eggs to boot. When Drogo dies at the end of that first season, Daenerys enters his funeral pyre with the eggs, and when the dawn breaks, she’s naked with three baby dragons adorning her body.

The first big moment where Daenerys can even use “Dracarys” happens at the end of Season 2 after Daenerys enters the House of the Undying in Qarth to rescue her dragons from a magical captor. Because they’re so tiny, they’re not able to produce much fire, but it’s enough to kill the warlock who captured them, Pyat Pree (Ian Hanmore). The moment everyone remembers best, though, comes in the season 3 episode “And Now His Watch is Ended,” which finds Daenerys in Astapor making a deal with the evil slave master Kraznys mo Nakloz (Dan Hildebrand). Daenerys tricks Kraznys by promising to give him Drogon, her largest dragon, in exchange for his army of loyal Unsullied soldiers. Kraznys, who’s been talking smack in High Valyrian about Daenerys under the assumption that she can’t understand him, is shocked when she tells him the dragon won’t obey him in what she reveals is her mother tongue; after ordering her new Unsullied army to kill any slave masters they see, she wields “Dracarys” against Kraznys, and Drogon burns him to a crisp.

You’re probably seeing a theme here, which is that Daenerys honestly uses “Dracarys” whenever she needs to get out of a bind of some kind. As the show progresses, though, Daenerys’ willingness to flambé her opponents starts to get her into trouble with her allies … and it leads to her downfall.

As “Game of Thrones” draws to a close, Daenerys starts wielding “Dracarys” a little too loosely, to be totally frank. In the fifth episode of Season 7, Daenerys confronts Randyll Tarly (James Faulkner) and his son Dickon Tarly (Tom Hopper) after she defeats traveling forces siding with House Lannister in battle. When both Randyll and Dickon refuse to bend the knee and accept her as their new queen, staying loyal to the Crown and the Lannisters, Daenerys uses Drogon to torch them both; this makes things pretty awkward later on when she meets Jon’s closest friend and confidante Samwell Tarly, who happens to be Randyll’s son and Dickon’s brother.

In the eighth and final season of “Game of Thrones,” Daenerys executes her ally Varys (Conleth Hill), using Drogon’s firepower yet again, after she discovers that he’s been plotting against her; this decision deeply alarms Varys’ longtime friend and other ally Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage). Things really come to a head, though, in the series’ penultimate episode “The Bells.” Facing King’s Landing and its massive forces alone in the skies after both Rhaegal and Viserion were killed by enemies, Daenerys, riding Drogon, hears the bells of surrender ring out and succumbs to her family’s madness, burning large swaths of Westeros’ capital and killing countless innocent civilians in the process. Though she takes down her enemies — including the queen Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) — Daenerys’ remaining allies Tyrion and Jon are incredibly disturbed by her willingness to commit such a massacre, and eventually, Jon kills Daenerys for the good of the realm after realizing she won’t chill out just because she now ostensibly rules the Seven Kingdoms.

So there you have it, kids; “Dracarys” isn’t a tool to be wielded lightly, so don’t use it to get out of simple jams like Daenerys did towards the end of her run on “Game of Thrones.” You can watch the entire series — and “House of the Dragon” — on HBO Max now.