The 30 most heartwarming moments on Game of Thrones

25. Drogon returns to save Daenerys (“The Dance of Dragons”)

KATIE: Season 5 isn’t exactly Daenerys’ year. She’s staying put in Meereen, learning what it means to rule after you’ve conquered. Daenerys has freed many a slave during her rise to the top, only for them to fall back into bondage once she continued her journey. Her intentions are more or less good, but she has trouble with execution. She’s butting heads with her people, there’s an underground revolt underway, and her dragons—the creatures to which she owes much of her mystique—are out of her control. She’s locked two of them up, and the third is apparently on a bender for most of the season.   

The appearance of the dragons is always awe-inspiring, and Drogon’s drop into Daznak’s Pit is no exception. But this scene has added significance. Although she has many titles, her defining one is “Mother of Dragons.” But for the bulk of Season 5, the dragons are lost to her. Drogon’s return reaffirms who Daenerys is. Identity is a running theme through many character arcs, and this is Daenerys’ personal moment of self-actualization.

SARAH: Game of Thrones is primarily a show about family, which can mean many things. Sometimes, family can be a pair of twins who desperately need to give the incest a rest. Sometimes, it can be a ragged wildling woman who becomes a surrogate mother to two highborn orphan boys. And sometimes, family is as simple as one woman and three giant, terrifying reptilian monsters.

The attack on Daznak’s Pit was pulling on the heartstrings even before Drogon turned up, thanks to Jorah Mormont and his inspiring (yet kind of desperate) performance. Drogon, meanwhile, had been going through that rebellious teenage phase. You know, when you just want to eat some goats without your mother looking over your shoulder every five minutes. He had taken off to find himself, and she committed the classic parenting faux pas of grounding his siblings for his naughty behavior. Even Daario ‘Dear John’ Naharis, her ever-supportive lover, pointed out that she was no queen without her dragons. Talk about kicking a girl when she’s down—no wonder she dumped him.

But in the end, no amount of freedom (and goats) could compare to Drogon’s love for his mommy. In her moment of greatest need, he sensed his mother was in danger and he came to her. That’s more than magic. That’s the bond between mother and son.