Dragons are truly magical creatures, and House of the Dragon reminds us of that with each episode. In “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” for example, a dragon simply disappears! And not just any dragon, but Vhagar, the Queen of All Dragons. Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) performs the trick by making his old lady dragon vanish and, seconds later, spring from below at Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) and Meleys out of thin air. Aemond has been perfecting this trick for a while, as it’s the second time he has done it. What’s your secret, my prince?

Vhagar Vanishes for the Second Time ‘House of the Dragon’

In the Season 1 finale of House of the Dragon, “The Black Queen,” Aemond displayed his magic chops for the first time when he viciously chased Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) and Arrax through a storm. It was hard to see anything, and riding a dragon isn’t easy. It’s like an airplane that spits fire, just slightly more flexible. The younger the dragon, the more eager to prove themselves. Luke’s dragon, Arrax, provokes Vhagar, in what can only be compared to a single-engine airplane going up against an Antonov — both in size and age, with all due respect to our favorite elderly lady dragon.

The thing is, making an airplane vanish isn’t easy, either. David Copperfield himself had to go above and beyond to do it. In House of the Dragon, Aemond surprises us by going below and beyond, though. As Luke flies Arrax past the cloud cover to get a breather, Vhagar comes fast at them from below, devouring both the young prince and his dragon with a single snap of her jaws. Achieving such climbing speeds with a huge dragon can’t be easy, but we can understand. There was cloud cover, and Vhagar was angry. Why do you think magicians use dry ice in their performances? To hide their sleight-of hand, of course — or a sleight-of-dragon, in this case. The atmosphere was all in Aemond’s favor.

Making Vhagar Vanish at Rook’s Rest Was More Difficult the Second Time Around

Getting Luke and Arrax was easy, and even David Copperfield could do it with cloud cover. The second time, though, Aemond goes even lower — in clear sight, by the way! Rhaenys and her dragon, Meleys, hold their own against him and Vhagar and assist in defeating his brother, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), rather easily (the king’s not as fierce as he thinks he is, we can all agree). As Rhaenys is flying over Rook’s Rest, Vhagar materializes out of thin air below Meleys, bites Meleys’ neck, and drags her even further upward.

That’s just impossible. Rhaenys shouldn’t be flying so low, granted, but Vhagar? First, how and when did she vanish? Just moments before, she came flying from the woods, super noisy just from flapping her wings. She is battle-experienced, yes, but to the point of developing her own stealth mode? We understand that dragons all must have GPS to easily find the locations of a small castle in the Crownlands, but, seriously… At that moment, the Seven must have rolled a D20 dice when playing the Dance of the Dragons campaign in their A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, with Aemond rolling a nat 20 on stealth, and Rhaenys getting a 1 on perception.

What’s more, the physics of it are all over the place. Vhagar clings to the cliff behind the castle at Rook’s Rest and springs up out of nowhere, gaining climbing speed while at it with pretty much no propulsion, since there was just the sea below her. And she keeps flying upwards with Meleys’ added weight — and Meleys would be no single-engine aircraft, mind you. That is quite a trick on Aemond’s part. Only magic can explain it, because the Seven clearly paused physics at that moment.

George R.R. Martin recently wrote about his dragons on his blog, but he didn’t mention any of this. Always avoiding the big questions, that one. Who cares about the difference between a dragon and a wyvern? (Just kidding, we do.) Be that as it may, we have to admit Aemond is quite a magician. He has been pushing the limits of dragon magic in ways not seen since the Doom of Valyria. We know that a good magician never reveals his secrets, but we deserve to know what Aemond’s secret is. Is he feeding Vhagar magical sheep, or did Vhagar level up after eating Arrax, somehow acquiring the smaller dragon’s agility? We want answers. (Unless George wants to finally give us The Winds of Winter, and then we can forget all about it.)

What’s more, the physics of it are all over the place. Vhagar clings to the cliff behind the castle at Rook’s Rest and springs up out of nowhere, gaining climbing speed while at it with pretty much no propulsion, since there was just the sea below her. And she keeps flying upwards with Meleys’ added weight — and Meleys would be no single-engine aircraft, mind you. That is quite a trick on Aemond’s part. Only magic can explain it, because the Seven clearly paused physics at that moment.

George R.R. Martin recently wrote about his dragons on his blog, but he didn’t mention any of this. Always avoiding the big questions, that one. Who cares about the difference between a dragon and a wyvern? (Just kidding, we do.) Be that as it may, we have to admit Aemond is quite a magician. He has been pushing the limits of dragon magic in ways not seen since the Doom of Valyria. We know that a good magician never reveals his secrets, but we deserve to know what Aemond’s secret is. Is he feeding Vhagar magical sheep, or did Vhagar level up after eating Arrax, somehow acquiring the smaller dragon’s agility? We want answers. (Unless George wants to finally give us The Winds of Winter, and then we can forget all about it.)