Do not mess with her dragons. After waiting seven seasons to introduce Daenerys Targaryen’s (Emilia Clarke) dragons to Westeros, Sunday night’s “Game of Thrones” finally unleashed the fiery fury on everyone’s favorite gold-handed Lannister in “The Loot Train Attack.” A battle so big and so hot it may have topped last season’s epic “Battle of the Bastards.” And that’s with just one dragon — Dany’s got two more waiting in the wings.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

The fourth episode of the seventh season of “Game of Thrones” (officially titled “The Spoils of War”) utilized two of Daenerys’ biggest assets: her dragons and the Dothraki army. And if you remember the words of late King Robert Baratheon, “Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field.”

And that’s exactly how Dany made of the Lannister army look, foolish and on fire.

After the episode, HBO unveiled an elaborate look at the making of its mad battle, which it dubbed “The Loot Train Attack.” Here’s everything we learned from the detailed, behind-the-scenes reveal.

A medieval western

If there was any doubt that this was executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ version of “The Great Train Robbery” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” labeling their big episode moment a “loot train attack” should leave no doubt.

“It’s definitely got a bit of that western feel, but then you throw dragons in on top of that,” said Benioff in the video special.

Sure, it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like titles of previous combat scenes such as “The Battle of Blackwater Bay,” “The Battle of Castle Black,” “Hardhome” or “The Battle of the Bastards.” But when you make a show that has millions of viewers across the globe cheering on a dragon assault, you can call your fight whatever you want, so “The Loot Train Attack” is here to stay.

Dragon facts

Thanks to this breakdown we now have a better idea about the abilities of Dany’s dragons. For example Drogon — the dragon in Sunday’s episode — can fly up to 100 feet in the air (possibly even higher) and breathe fire in a column over 30-feet wide.

That’s a whole lot of computer-generated carnage. “To give an idea, in Season 6 — which was our biggest season up to that point — we had 11 shots that featured Emilia riding the dragon” said visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer. “In ‘Loot Train’ we have over 80.”

In other dragon filming insight, in order to capture the tight shots of Clarke on her scaly steed, the actress was filmed riding a motion base in a stage in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in front of a green screen, while the battle scenes were shot in Cáceres, Spain. Because dragons aren’t real.

A new burning man record

With a fire-breathing dragon on hand, naturally, there were a lot of flames in “The Loot Train Attack.” The crew in the video claims that its scene set fire records, specifically that it set fire to the most stunt crew ever in a single shot and in a single sequence.

U.K. unit production manager Duncan Muggoch claimed, “We have potentially the most burns, full burns ever done in TV history. Which is burning 20 men in one shot.”

The idea of burning 20 men all at once ramped up safety precautions and special effects supervisor Sam Conway broke down the nitty-gritty of such an elaborate burn, specifically calling attention to the stunt members in the middle who would face the brunt of the heat from the fire.

Another interesting fire fact from the “GoT” crew: When the stunt person is actually on fire they have to hold their breath. (Which sounds like asking a lot of a person who is on fire.)

Confirmed: Dany and Jon Snow are starting to fall for each other

And something totally unrelated to the battle (but equally interesting) was the very-much-related twosome of Daenerys and Jon Snow (Kit Harington) clearly starting to get sweet on each other. So if you’ve been awkwardly shipping this in-family connection, you’re not alone. The showrunners have been fueling this flirtation the whole time, and they finally admitted it.

In a separate “after the episode” breakdown, Benioff confirmed the crush. “To make it all even more complicated, they’re starting to be attracted to each other,” he said. “So much of it is not from dialogue or anything we wrote, it’s just the two of them in a small space, standing near each other, and us just watching that and feeling the heat of that.”

So yes, their love is real. But it’s not at Luke and Leia levels of awkwardness yet.

(via latimes)