Margaret Atwood Has One Valid Problem With The Dragons On HBO's Game Of Thrones

I bet you didn't think Margaret Atwood, the Canadian author of "The Handmaid's Tale," "The Testaments," and the underrated "Alias Grace" (which also got a TV adaptation), had opinions on the dragons from "Game of Thrones." Well, guess what? She does! Well, she did, at least, as of 2015, when she wrote a short piece in The Guardian about the hit HBO series.

So what are Atwood's specific thoughts? As she notes, dragons are pretty familiar to fans of fantasy fare. "The past thousand-and-a-half years has given us a range of dragons, from the lucky dragons of China, to the tussling red and white dragons of Welsh lore, to the dragon of St. George fame, substitute for Satan, to the Zen-ish, wise, riddling dragons of [Ursula K.] Le Guin's Earthsea, to the hoarding, miserly dragons of 'Beowulf' and 'The Hobbit,'" Atwood said.

That's when she turned her attention to the dragons depicted in "Game of Thrones," who, at the time, were controlled by the so-called Mother of Dragons Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). As Atwood put it, "George RR Martin's dragons are more like superweapon bazookas. They're aesthetically attractive — more so in the books than in the series, where they have less delicate pink tracery and more scaly pterodactyl beakiness – but, so far, they don't talk."

The dragons in the "Game of Thrones" universe never started talking, to be clear ... but Atwood definitely had more to say. In fact, I think — based on this Guardian piece — that she has a pretty obvious favorite character.

The dragons in "Game of Thrones," according to Margaret Atwood, are controlled by a benevolent and smart leader who certainly won't betray everything that she stands for. (I'll circle back to that. Don't worry.) Here's what Atwood had to say about Daenerys Targaryen, the apparent last remaining member of the once-royal House Targaryen who travels throughout "Game of Thrones" to reclaim the Iron Throne she thinks is rightfully hers:

"Luckily [the dragons] are in the hands of a character we can actually approve of, more or less. Daenerys Targaryen surely has the blood of [legendary Arthurian hero] Uther Pendragon flowing in her veins, and we expect she will live up to it. The hairstyle is a bit High Elven, but why carp? There are only so many high fantasy hairstyles to go around, and, unlike Cate Blanchett in the Tolkien films, she doesn't have pointed ears."

A lot of this is just fantasy nerd inside baseball, which is fine — but I think we can safely say that Atwood felt a connection to the Mother of Dragons back in 2015. On a base level, this makes perfect sense. Atwood, throughout her work, has crafted so many unforgettable, strong, and complex female protagonists, from June Osborne in "The Handmaid's Tale" (a role reprised by Elisabeth Moss in the spin-off series "The Testaments") to Grace Marks in "Alias Grace" to June's daughter Agnes in "The Testaments" (played on the Atwood-approved series by "One Battle After Another" starlet Chase Infiniti). So did Atwood have any predictions about Daenerys' fate on "Game of Thrones?" She sure did!

At the very end of her piece in The Guardian, Margaret Atwood soundly praised Daenerys Targaryen, wishing her well and hoping that she'll take down the "Snow King" (she means, I guess, the Night King), thanks to the fire at [her] command. That's when she makes a decently wild prognostication about Daenerys and Peter Dinklage's "half-man" Tyrion Lannister (sort of). 

"Unlike Elizabeth I, you may even get married and have some little Pendragons, though we hesitate to place bets on the identity of the groom. Odds on it won't be Tyrion Lannister, though he does have a touch of nobility, as his Tyrian purple name suggests," Atwood wrote, referencing a shade of purple called both "Tyrian" and "Imperial" (making it potentially appropriate). "We do hope he survives the bloodbath, or baths. After all he's been through, we'd be sad to see his neck with a donkey's head sewn on to it. Or something equally Shakespearean."

Ironically, Tyrion survives multiple bloodbaths, and Daenerys does not. As anyone who watched the much-maligned series finale of "Game of Thrones" back in 2019 knows, Daenerys impulsively commits mass murder from Drogon's back and wipes out most of the Westerosi capital of King's Landing. After that happens, Tyrion quits as Daenerys' Hand of the Queen and, while imprisoned, suggests to her nephew-lover Jon Snow (Kit Harington) that he be the one to kill her. Jon does just that, Tyrion inexplicably gets to pick the next king, and all is well ... with apologies to Margaret Atwood.

You can stream "Game of Thrones" on HBO Max, and hopefully, Atwood is enjoying the Targaryen-centric spin-off "House of the Dragon," which returns for Season 3 on June 21.