After thundering across eight seasons of the HBO show, the end of the Dothraki, like so many others, was rather unclear. If you watch carefully when Jon Snow is walking along the quay at King’s Landing you can glimpse a few of them. The Unsullied and Grey Worm are clearly shown onboard many ships and their leader confirms they are heading to the Isle of Naath. The script gives a little more detail: “We can see the remaining Unsullied waiting to board with characteristic orderliness. The remaining Dothraki do the same; they have dismounted their horses and walk up the gangplanks” on the “remaining ships of Dany’s fleet.” But where are they going?
One thing is certain, the Unsullied and Dothraki will have the same final destination. The two fierce armies have nothing in common and nothing to bond them except their loyalty to Daenerys.
Without that, the Unsullied are seeking peace in the lands of Missandei’s people. In the books, Naath is also the home of a species of butterfly which carries a terrible deadly disease which kills anyone exposed to it, except the natives of the island. Whether this awaits the Unsullied in unclear in the show.
The fate of the Dothraki is much more clear.
And it is Daenerys, herself, who guaranteed they must all die.
The Dothraki are an unruly bunch who avoid settling in one place and following the rules of ‘civilised’ societies.
However, they hold one thing above all others. Their honour – bound up in their words, their deeds and their vows – is everything to them. And the Dothraki are bound by honour and vows to do two things now. One rather glorious and one which ends in death.
In the final episode of Season 6, Daenerys told the gathered hordes: “Every Khal who ever lived chose three blood riders to fight beside him and guard his way. But I am not a Khal. I will not choose three blood riders. I will choose you all.”
“I will ask more of you than any khan has ever asked of his khalassar! Will you ride the wooden horses across the black salt sea? Will you kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses? Will you give me the Seven Kingdoms, the gift Khal Drogo promised me before the Mother of Mountains? Are you with me, now and always?”
There are two crucial parts to this. Firstly she made then all her blood riders. Secondly, which is already implied in any such vow, she reconfirmed it was for always.
Being a blood rider is the highest honour for a Dothraki warrior, but it comes at a high price and carries two sacred duties.
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When a khal dies, his three blood riders must bear his body back to Vaes Dothrak. Their task completed, they must join him in death.
We did not see this happen in the books to Khal Drogo’s three blood riders – Qotho, Cohollo, and Haggo – because they were all killed by Dany’s own trusty trio – Rakharo, Kovarro, and Aggo – and Ser Jorah Mormont.
If they are to find any honour, especially with no Westerosi city or lands available to plunder and no women to steal, all the remaining Dothraki must seek out Dany’s body, return it to their city and then take their own lives.
So, even if they survive finding Drogon and where he has taken his ‘mother’, every road for the Dothraki still leads to death.