Spoiler alert: Warning, spoilers for the season premiere of “Westworld” follow.
Drogon, the largest of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons on “Game of Thrones,” survived the end of the show even when his mom didn’t. So it’s a shocker that he now meets his demise on a different HBO show: “Westworld.”
Again, spoilers below for the second episode of “Westworld” Season 3.
Sunday’s “Westworld” episode “The Winter Line” features a cameo from “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, as well as Drogon the dragon.
Here’s what happens. Season 3 is set in 2058 and follows the robot Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) as she leaves the luxury theme park of Delos and infiltrates the human world. But some characters are still in the park. Around 39 minutes into the episode, Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) — who are both robots — are wandering around the lab part of the park, searching for Maeve (Thandie Newton). Bernard is surprised to see activity in the lab, with human lab techs bustling around behind glass walls, along with some robot “hosts” and robot animals
“I thought the parks were shut down?” Bernard asks. It’s a fair question, since Season 2 ended with massacre and bloodshed. That put a small damper on the parks as a vacation hot spot.
“They are,” Stubbs explains. “These techs are just waiting to see if they get laid off.”
The camera cuts to two lab techs behind a glass wall: “Game of Thrones” creator David Benioff, sitting in a chair, and D.B. Weiss, standing. They’re both wearing the gloves and aprons of a typical “Westworld” lab tech, and they’re talking about possibly taking another job. “…It’s a startup in Costa Rica,” says Weiss.
He then picks up a saw-like object, turns it on while muttering something about “chopping it up,” and walks towards Drogon, who is lying in the room with them, implying that Drogon is a robot. (At the end of “Game of Thrones,” Drogon was last seen flying off with Daenerys’s body after Jon Snow kills her).
That’s right, after surviving all the wars and bloodshed of “Game of Thrones,” and after melting the Iron Throne itself by breathing fire on it, Drogon gets “chopped up” by creator D.B. Weiss on “Westworld.”
Depending on how you feel about them, Benioff and Weiss’s cameo is either amusing or annoying, but it’s also mind-boggling.
Whether or not you agree, it’s accurate to say that they’re among the most widely hated creators on earth. They backed out of a Comic Con appearance in the wake of the Season 8 finale, which aired in May 2019. (Although they didn’t cite an exact reason, they certainly wouldn’t have faced friendly questions from fans). A fan petition to remake the panned season with “competent writers” garnered nearly 2 million signatures. At one point, they even topped the Google search result for “bad writers.”
In general, public sentiment towards the duo is not warm and fuzzy. So the smart thing to do for both HBO’s brand and “Westworld” is to not associate themselves with Benioff and Weiss. Sure, all men must die — but nerd rage lives forever. Fans have not forgotten their ire at them yet, nearly a year after Season 8 ended.
Benioff and Weiss are currently making shows for Netflix as part of a $200 million deal, after exiting their planned “Star Wars” movies. “Westworld” is currently airing Sunday nights at 9 p.m.
