Why are there no dragons in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the first Game of Thrones show to feature absolutely no dragons. In fact, the only dragons you'll see onscreen this season are in puppet form.

This isn't for any VFX budget reasons, in the vein of why we rarely saw Jon Snow's dire wolf Ghost in Game of Thrones. Instead, it's for a historical reason: By this point in the Westeros timeline, all the dragons in the world are dead. The next time we'll see any of these mythical beasts is the Game of Thrones Season 1 finale, when Daenerys Targaryen hatches them.

What's happened to all the dragons in the Seven Kingdoms? It all comes back to House of the Dragon. Get ready for a Westerosi history crash course, but don't worry: We're only including minor spoilers for what's to come in House of the Dragon, without any specifics on who wins the Dance of the Dragons, or which dragons die when.

Most of the world's dragons die during the Dance of the Dragons.

House of the Dragon tells the story of the Targaryen civil war that came to be known as the Dance of the Dragons. But as Archmaester Gyldayn writes in George R.R. Martin's Targaryen history Fire and Blood, calling the war the Dying of the Dragons would be more accurate.

That's because in Fire and Blood, while there were 20 dragons alive by the time King Viserys passed away in 129 AC (After Aegon's Conquest), there were only four alive at the end of the Dance of the Dragons in 131 AC. While their deaths are unrecorded, their disappearance from Westerosi history implies their loss.

House of the Dragon has already shown some of the dragons' deaths: Lucerys Velaryon and his dragon Arrax perished in the Season 1 finale, while Rhaenys Targaryen and her dragon Meleys went out swinging in Season 2's Battle of Rook's Rest. However, there are many, many dragon deaths to go before the Dance is over.

No more dragons means no more eggs, and even the eggs left over after the Dance didn't hatch. According to The Hedge Night, the novella upon which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was based, the last Targaryen dragon was "small and stunted, her wings withered." Ser Duncan "Dunk" the Tall's (Peter Claffey) late master Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb) saw her in King's Landing when he was a young boy, one year before the last dragon's death in 153 AC.

By the time A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms kicks off in 209 AC, it's been over 50 years since the last dragon perished. Since then, the Targaryens have continued to rule, but they've lost the near-mythic status that comes with being dragonriders. Because of this, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms offers up a new perspective on House Targaryen and how they manage to rule the realm without any dragons.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.