Did The Game Of Thrones Episode 5 Promo Tease A Dragon Twist?

We were promised multiple deaths during season 8 of Game of Thrones, and so far the show has delivered, killing off many of our most favourite and believed characters so far. Following the Battle of Winterfell, it certainly seemed like there were no more major deaths on the horizon just yet. Then episode 4 came along and ripped someone else from us who we weren't ready to say goodbye to yet: Rhaegal, one of Daenerys Targaryen’s last remaining dragons. Now she’s dwindled from three, to two, to one. But is Rhaegal actually dead? The promo for Game of Thrones episode 5 teased a little something that might have fans hoping for a resurrection.

To recap what got us to this point, here's where we left off: Thinking that they had outsmarted Cersei and the Golden Company, Dany and her army traveled down to King’s Landing to put a blockade around the city — if ships with food can’t get through for the city, Cersei would have to surrender. If King’s Landing tried to attack Dany’s fleet out in the water, she’s got to dragons to blow them away with fire. It certainly sounded like a solid plan, but no sooner have they dropped anchor that Euron Greyjoy, Cersei’s pirate lover, attacks their fleet.

Even worse, Euron has the giant crossbow that Qyburn has been building for the past few seasons, and out of nowhere, he fires it at Rhaegal. And not once, but multiple times, as we see arrow after arrow pierce Rhaegar until he’s spitting blood, not fire. The dragon sadly crashes into the sea and apparently sinks down to the ocean floor.

With this dramatic fall, it certainly looks like Rhaegal is dead. He's got an arrow through the chest and the neck. However, this is not the first time we have seen a dragon shot out of the sky only to be revived later and used against Dany. Viserion was killed close to the end of season 7, only to have the Night King turn him into an Ice Dragon which was both cool to watch and also terrifying. Then again, the Night King isn't coming back any time soon.

There's also the fact that Cersei asks Euron if he’s “certain” about the Dragon’s death, and he tells her that he saw it sink beneath the waves. The series used a few of its precious lines of dialog to declare this death, without anyone actually checking that Rhaegal’s body is still where they left it. And with no body, there's still a chance. With two episodes to go, Game of Thrones can still throw a handful of different surprises our way.

And the preview for episode 5, though incredibly short, manages to pack in some dragon imagery (Dany is at Dragonstone, after all), and also includes a shot of Euron looking up into the sky, apparently amazed. He’s more than likely looking at Drogon, but he does look somewhat shocked — could it be at all possible that what he's seeing is a gravely injured, but still flying, Rhaegal? There’s a chance Qyburn’s crossbow doesn’t work as well as they all think. If you think back to the the loot train attack near Highgarden, Dany was able to actually pull the arrows out of Drogon.

There is one reason the promo clue might be a total misdirect, though. In the After The Episode clip for Game of Thrones, co-showrunner Dan Weiss says definitively that Dany has lost this second dragon and it’s going to greatly affect her going into the last two episodes (along with the death of Missandei). This certainly sounds like a 100 percent fact that Rhegal is dead, but the Game of Thrones showrunners haven’t exactly been super forthcoming over the last eight seasons when it comes to the truth (uh, Jon Snow is not coming back, anyone?), so they might be continuing that tradition up until the very end. This might not be the last we see of Dany’s last two dragons fighting for the Dragon Queen — that, or Euron is just really excited by flying things.