WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8.
After losing half of the Unsullied, the majority of the Dothraki horde, and her longtime confidant Ser Jorah Mormont to the White Walkers and Army of the Dead during the Battle of Winterfell, Daenerys Targaryen has endured much loss during the first half of the final season of Game of Thrones. While the Night King has been vanquished, Daenerys' bid to take the Iron Throne from Cersei Lannister and seize control of the Seven Kingdoms has continued to exact a heavy toll in the latest episode of Season 8.
As Daenerys leads the Unsullied and several of trusted advisers to regroup at Dragonstone, the ancestral home of the House of Targaryen, before marching to confront Cersei at King's Landing, the forces are quickly ambushed by the Iron Fleet led by Euron Greyjoy. Using a massive Scorpion crossbow, Euron and his men kill Rhaegar, striking the dragon named for Jon Snow's biological father in the chest and throat.
Rhaegal had been seriously injured during the Battle of Winterfell, crash-landing into the forest outside of the castle after fighting its undead brother Viserion, while the zombie dragon was being ridden by the Night King. While the dragon had recovered sufficiently enough to take flight by the start of the episode, its mobility was still compromised by the visible damage to Rhaegal's wings, making him the easier target to Euron's attack before collapsing into the sea mortally wounded.
After successfully bringing the number of remaining dragons in Westeros to one, Euron and his fleet turn their attention to the armada bringing the Unsullied to Dragonstone. The crossbow's bolts make short work of wooden ships, tearing through them like a hot iron through butter. As the survivors recover from the ambush on the shores, Grey Worm, commander of the Unsullied quickly realizes Missandei, Daenerys' adviser and Grey Worm's lover, has been kidnapped by Euron and taken back to King's Landing.
Confronting Cersei at the castle's ramparts to parlay in one last bid to avert the coming war, Daenerys demands Cersei's unconditional surrender and the release of Missandei to keep the conflict from escalating. On Cersei's command, Qyburn demands Daenerys' unconditional surrender or says that they will kill Missandei on the spot. Unyielding, Cersei orders the undead Mountain to behead Missandei with a single sword stroke and let her body tumble to the grounds outside the walls as Daenerys and Grey Worm watch, devastated.
In many ways, the final season of Game of Thrones has been about bringing Daenerys to her lowest point both emotionally and in terms of military strength. The Mother of Dragons started the season with the largest army in the history of Westeros under her command but had to turn her focus to the oncoming Army of the Dead, lest they let all of Westeros fall into an eternal winter.
By immediately going from that fight to turning her victorious army's attention back to King's Landing, Daenerys' forces have been dramatically depleted and are completely exhausted from intense fighting and marching. With the fight against Cersei now taking the greatest personal toll on Daenerys, any restraint she was willing to show the Lannisters has evaporated. But with Cersei now possessing a numerically superior force that's well-equipped to kill Daenerys' remaining dragon, the fight to come will be one of the ugliest, most personal conflicts in the history of Westeros.
Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, Game of Thrones stars Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister, Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister, Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen, Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark, Maisie Williams as Arya Stark and Kit Harington as Jon Snow.