It wasn't just a simulation. That was Drogon in the Delos Destinations laboratory halfway through the latest episode of Westworld, and those were Game of Thrones creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff playing low-level technicians, threatening to cut our good boy into pieces with a buzzsaw.
However, with that cameo, Weiss and Benioff, and Westworld by extension, might as well have taken a buzzsaw to fans' hearts, not to mention their willingness to suspend disbelief. HBO probably intended the cameos to be a fun Easter egg, but Drogon's appearance in Westworld creates unintended ripple effects to the realities of no less than three major franchises, all of which come out the other side making less sense.
Westworld has been teasing a Game of Thrones connection since the beginning. In Season 1, Logan wears a lapel pin that looks suspiciously like an updated version of the Hand of the King. In Season 2, an astrolabe hangs in the library, nearly identical to the one in Westeros's Citadel (and opening credits). Other connections include the hauntingly beautiful themes for both shows that were both written by composer Ramin Djawadi, and many of the characters follow similar trajectories. But just because two shows share some DNA and a home network doesn't mean they needed to be crammed into the same universe.
If taken literally, Drogon's presence strongly implies that Westeros was just another park and that some if not most of its inhabitants were hosts. This could provide an alternate explanation for Jon Snow's resurrection as he looks like a damaged host body as he's splayed out, mortally wounded, on that table. It could also potentially inform the reanimation of characters like Beric Dondarrion and Gregor Clegane, and the belief throughout Westeros that such acts are possible.
If true, Weiss and Benioff are trolling Game of Thrones fans that the events of the finale season were nothing more than one possible choose-your-own-adventure-style ending to a Delos narrative. Worse, they're undermining the legitimacy of George R.R. Martin's entire book series, even if he doesn't see it that way.
Westworld confused its own reality unnecessarily, too. Moments after Drogon is seen -- crammed nonsensically into a tiny glass room, no less --a band of Medieval minstrels is visible performing for a host king and queen. It's been suggested that Westworld is one of six parks. Fans have seen The Raj (2), Shogun World (3) and one can assume that since the simulation Maeve found herself caged in was a copy, Warworld is on the island, too (4). Do some simple math, and that leaves two parks. If Medieval World and Westeros are separate vacation destinations, that's all parks accounted for. If not, Medieval World is likely park five, with a sixth yet to be revealed. So what was a dragon doing there? Were the employees of Delos merely fans of Game of Thrones who thought it'd be fun to plop a copyrighted dragon into their own off-brand story? That's more worthy of an eye-roll than the first scenario, in that it's less ambitious and even less well thought out.
Weiss and Benioff (credited as Dan and Dave) don't exchange many lines of dialogue about Drogon, but the most ridiculous reference comes during their brief background conversation. They quip, after wondering what one does with a huge, dead robot dragon after your murder park has closed for insurance reasons, that there's a buyer for Drogon near Costa Rica. They mean Isla Nublar, the setting of Jurassic Park. Firstly, Jurassic Park is pretty proud of its mosquitos-in-amber brand of science. Throughout the series, viewers see lab after lab growing (not 3D printing) dinosaurs (not dragons). If Jurassic Park and Jurassic World are just more parks full of artificially intelligent machines, they've been lying to their customers (and to us, the audience) the whole time. Jurassic Park also takes place presumably closer in time to our present, while Westworld in the time of Drogon's cameo takes place in 2059. They'd have to do some serious retconning to get any of that to line up.
As many franchises have found out in recent years, there's a difference between good and bad fan service. In this situation, fans deserved better and much more to the point, as did Drogon. So let's choose to live in the timeline where Westeros is just Westeros, Jurassic Park is just Jurassic Park and Drogon is still out there, flying free.
Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, Westworld stars returning cast members Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Tessa Thompson, Luke Hemsworth, Simon Quarterman and Rodrigo Santoro, joined by series newcomers Aaron Paul, Vincent Cassel, Lena Waithe, Scott Mescudi, Marshawn Lynch, John Gallagher Jr., Michael Ealy and Tommy Flanagan.