'Game Of Thrones' Season 7 Will Feature Dragons ''the Size Of 747s''

At the end of the first season of Game of Thrones, three tiny dragons were born and they're so cute and you just wanted to hold them and hug them. Then the dragons grow up a bit and became dog-sized and they were still so cute and you still just wanted to hold them and hug them. Then they grew up to be about the size of automobiles and...well, they were still so cute and you still just wanted to hold them and hug them.

Well, pretty soon, our dreams of holding and hugging Daenerys' three dragon companions will soon be coming to an end because they'll be as big as jet airliners in Game of Thrones season 7.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, season 7 director Matt Shankman revealed that "The dragons this year are the size of 747s." And yes, the leader of the pack, named after Daenerys' late husband, is still top dog: "Drogon is the biggest of the bunch — his flame is 30-feet in diameter!"

As The Wrap helpfully points out, a Boeing 747 commercial jet airliner is about 230 feet long and has a 210 foot wingspan. It would probably lose to a dragon in a fight, partially because nothing from our realm can withstand fire made flesh, but also because...well, because it's a plane.

This is something that longtime A Song of Ice and Fire fans have been waiting to see. In the backstory of George R.R. Martin's novels, the conquest of Westeros by House Targaryen was possible because Aegon Targaryen and his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys, led the invasion riding three enormous dragons that were large enough to overpower just about any army. While Daenerys' dragons have certainly been intimidating, they have been just small enough to be vulnerable. It seems like that could change soon.

And from the sound of things, this could be one of the reasons why Game of Thrones season 7 will be seven episodes instead of the usual ten. While the show is handsomely produced, it's made on a television schedule and budget and some of the CGI can look a little rough every now and then (one of my friends described a key dragon scene as looking like "something from a bank commercial," a phrase that still makes me chuckle). Speaking with The Huffington Post, series star Kit Harington explained that these fewer episodes will have more money poured into them:

They spent an increasing amount of money on less episodes, so it's gonna be much bigger in scale, the CGI ... We're trying new things, experimenting with new camera techniques. I think we're trying to break boundaries and push past boundaries in these final two seasons.

So: more money, fewer episodes, bigger dragons? I was already a member of this particular church, but that certainly sounds like enough to keep me coming on Sundays. This could even be the silver lining to season 8 being only six episodes.

Game of Thrones season 7 premieres on July 16, 2017.