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Thursday, August 10, 2017

Dragons and scorpions.

Now that I've written my disclaimers, I can continue with my thoughts on Drogon.

Before I proceed though... SPOILER WARNING for Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4.

This is what got me the "you're not very clever, are you?" comment on some YouTube video.

You see, in the aforementioned episode of Game of Thrones, Drogon was hit by a giant arrow from the weapon Qyburn made.  They called the weapon Scorpion.

Now, I, being not as clever, it seems, as the person who replied to me, just thought of scorpions, the arachnids that sting.

I didn't know (and didn't know that I should know) that scorpio or scorpion or triggerfish is also a military weapon from Ancient Rome which is basically an early crossbow or "catapult with bolts" just like the one used in the show.  I must be stupid, yeah?  I mean, if I want to watch a TV show, I better make sure I'm familiar with Ancient Roman weaponry.  It is a must, I tell you.

So anyway, since I thought the name just referred to the venomous scorpion, I thought perhaps the weapon was poisoned.  After all, it was made by Qyburn, and I wouldn't put it past him (or Cersei) to put poison on weapons.

Of course, some argue that we don't even know if poisons can affect dragons.  Melisandre was poisoned before but was not affected because the fire in her burned it away.  So would not the fire in a dragon also burn any poison away?  Maybe.  If all poisons are the same.  But if Qyburn was able to find a way to treat Gregor Clegane when he was poisoned, is it not possible that he can also come up with a poison that can withstand fire/heat?  We don't know.  I guess we'll know soon enough.  If Drogon remains okay in the next episodes, then I guess there was no poison in the weapon.

Also, there is the argument that putting poison on the arrows is very dangerous for the handler.  Bronn, for instance, who manned the weapon in this episode, could have been accidentally poisoned.  But that's assuming the poison is placed on the surface of the arrow.  What if the poison was placed inside?  What if they designed the arrowhead to contain the poison and release it only when the arrow has hit its target?  Or maybe, the poison will be released only when someone tries to remove the arrow, as when Dany was trying to pull it out from Drogon's shoulder?  Again, we'll know in the next episodes, I guess.

I just find it interesting, as I mentioned in my episode post, that the person Drogon was named after, Khal Drogo, died from a shoulder wound that turned septic, and now Drogon has been hit on the shoulder by this arrow.  He might have been hurt by the arrow and fell through the sky, but he recovered enough to still be able to hover for a while with the shoulder wound.  But does that mean that he's out of the woods?  Or will that wound still turn out to be serious like Khal Drogo's?




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