HBO Officially Fixes Daenerys' Ending With Game Of Thrones Spinoff

Published Sep 4, 2026, 9:30 PM EDT Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones). Daenerys Targaryen's ending in Game of Thrones is infamous, but HBO's House of the Dragon is doing all it can to make up for it. This spinoff series is set about two centuries before George R.R. Martin's central story, when the Targaryens still have a strong grip on Westeros. It's long before Daenerys became an exile, and longer still before she reclaimed King's Landing through fire and blood. Still, House of the Dragon aims to demonstrate to viewers just how the events of Westeros' past set up Daenerys' future. The spinoff show achieves this through its own protagonist, Rhaenyra Targaryen, who is Daenerys' six-times great-grandmother. There's a long list of ways that these two characters are different, but it's entirely worth it to note the parallels between them. At least in the Game of Thrones screen franchise, both are Targaryen queens who genuinely want to serve their people well. Then, in both cases, the pressures of the position—of the wheel—cause them to lose sight of who they are. Loss, fear, rage, and delusions of grandeur lead Rhaenyra and Daenerys to tyranny and madness. Of course, this transformation is exactly what makes the conclusion of Game of Thrones so unpopular. Daenerys' decision to burn King's Landing and her people with it just to defeat an already defeated Cersei didn't seem to fit with her character. Rhaenyra's House of the Dragon season 3 story is another matter. This time around, we got the steady decline we needed. House Of The Dragon Season 3 Is A Reminder Of What Game Of Thrones Season 8 Should Have Been A whole lot happens in House of the Dragon season 3. The episodes begin with Rhaenyra almost giddy at the prospect of her victory, but this quickly turns sour when Jace dies tragically. Next thing we know, Rhaenyra has taken King's Landing and is doing her best to be the fair ruler her father would have wanted. However, by the finale of season 3, Rhaenyra has transformed into something else entirely. She's paranoid, disconnected, cruel, and maniacal. It's certainly a big shift, but it was handled in a way that felt natural and believable—unlike Game of Thrones. It took only a single season for Daenerys to become the Mad Queen in Game of Thrones as well. The trouble in this case, however, was that she had to share the spotlight of this transformation with far too many other significant events. It made sense that Daenerys' grief would have a similar result as what we see with Rhaenyra, but it happened far too suddenly. Arguments could be made for Daenerys' sudden descent, but it's hard to deny that the story would have benefited from several additional episodes. Game of Thrones might have worked better had season 8 been dedicated to the Night King and Daenerys' gradual shift toward paranoia. Then, season 9 could have taken us through her violent claim to King's Landing and Jon Snow's conflicted reaction. This formula is, essentially, exactly what House of the Dragon is doing. Season 3 pushed Rhaenyra through her decline. Now, season 4 will have plenty of space to show us what that means. How else will Rhaenyra change? How will the people around her react to these changes? Will there be a moment during which she realizes that she is lost? It's just a far better approach. Rhaenyra's Story Retroactively Improves Game Of Thrones' Ending Despite the many calls for a redo of Game of Thrones season 8, there's really no chance that Daenerys will ever get a different ending on screen. It would have been wonderful to have just one more season to flesh out this story fully, but that time has long since passed. Thankfully, House of the Dragon has a fair amount of power here. There are enough parallels between Rhaenyra and Daenerys that we can easily associate the arc of one character with that of the other. It's poignant symbolism—an emphasis on the cautionary tale that is the Game of Thrones franchise. When Rhaenyra took King's Landing, the show went as far as to take similar camera angles to what we saw during Daenerys' siege in Game of Thrones. These were both mourning mothers, yet when Rhaenyra executed her enemy, she did it with tears in her eyes. Unlike Daenerys, she didn't want meaningless revenge, but she did her duty to dispense justice. The contrast is truly delicious, but it's made even more so by the fact that Rhaenyra still ends up in the same place as Daenerys. This is what the crown does. Man, woman, Targaryen, mad, or sane, it doesn't matter. Rule is corruptive. House of the Dragon adds another poignant layer to this central Game of Thrones theme, ultimately making it more profound and more embraceable than the parent series alone. Daenerys' ending was rushed, but House of the Dragon is retroactively adding further context and emphasis to what we saw on screen. It makes a rather disappointing ending just a bit less painful to remember. House of the Dragon 8/10 Release Date August 21, 2022 Network HBO Taking place about 172 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the tale of the rise of the Targaryens, the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria. Game Of Thrones 10/10 Release Date 2011 - 2019-00-00 Showrunner David Benioff, D.B. Weiss Based on George R. R. Martin's ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, Game of Thrones is a fantasy drama set in the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. It follows noble families like the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryen vying for control of the Iron Throne while a rising threat from the undead looms in the North.