Have you caught the latest episode of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON? “The Red Dragon and the Gold” (season 2, episode 4) delivered the dragon action many fans were eagerly anticipating, showcasing a spectacular aerial battle at Rook’s Rest. When dragon clashed with dragon in the skies above Westeros, it sparked a debate: has there ever been a dragon battle in cinematic history to rival it? While REIGN OF FIRE might boast sheer numbers with scenes of a dozen dragons filling the sky, the intensity and impact of the Rook’s Rest confrontation in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON feels unparalleled. The creators seem to have taken dragon battles as a personal challenge, pushing the boundaries of on-screen dragon warfare.
GRR Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, reflecting on the enduring appeal of dragons in fantasy literature.
Dragons, creatures of myth and legend, capture our imaginations across cultures. In our real world, these magnificent beasts remain firmly in the realm of fantasy. Yet, echoes of dragons resonate in legends worldwide. Some theories suggest that the discovery of dinosaur bones may have ignited these ancient tales, sparking visions of colossal, reptilian monsters in the minds of our ancestors. Regardless of their precise origins, dragons have become a cornerstone of the fantasy genre for centuries, holding a special place in the hearts of readers and writers alike, including this author, George R.R. Martin.
Interestingly, George R.R. Martin himself carries a name steeped in dragon lore – St. George, the legendary dragonslayer. Even amidst revisions to sainthood in recent decades, St. George remains a figure of veneration, perhaps suggesting a subtle, if ironic, papal approval of dragons within our cultural consciousness. Martin’s fascination with dragons predates his epic A SONG OF ICE & FIRE saga. Earlier works like “The Ice Dragon” and “The Way of Cross and Dragon” already explored his thematic interests in these mythical creatures.
Dragon mythology is richly diverse across cultures. Consider Chinese dragons, often depicted without wings and associated with good fortune rather than fiery destruction. Western dragon traditions, conversely, frequently portray dragons as fire-breathing agents of chaos and death. Modern fantasy literature has embraced this spectrum, reimagining dragons in countless ways. The dragons in Christopher Paolini’s ERAGON series and the endearing Toothless from HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON offer distinctly different interpretations compared to the more traditional, fearsome dragons of myth – and indeed, to the dragons within GRR Martin’s own universe of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Toothless
J.R.R. Tolkien, a towering figure in fantasy, consistently portrayed dragons as malevolent forces, servants of darkness embodied by Morgoth and Sauron. Tolkien’s dragons shared kinship with his orcs and trolls, firmly rooted on the side of evil. Friendly dragons were absent from Tolkien’s Middle-earth. However, Tolkien’s dragons possessed notable intelligence. Smaug, the iconic dragon from The Hobbit, is a prime example – capable of speech and cunning dialogue. Smaug also embodies the classic dragon trait of hoarding vast treasures, famously slumbering upon his mountain of gold for years on end.
Smaug the Dragon
Before Peter Jackson’s cinematic rendition of Smaug, many dragon enthusiasts considered Vermithrax Pejorative from the film DRAGONSLAYER to be the pinnacle of on-screen dragon depiction. Vermithrax embodied a primal, dangerous dragon: two legs and two wings, fire-breathing, purely bestial and non-verbal, and devoid of any treasure hoarding tendencies. Vermithrax served as a significant inspiration for dragon lovers seeking a more grounded, less anthropomorphized portrayal.
Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer
Contrasting sharply with Vermithrax is the dragon from DRAGONHEART (voiced by Sean Connery). This dragon is characterized as fat, four-legged, articulate, and benevolent, befriending the hero in the story. While offering a different spin on dragon narratives, many consider the DRAGONHEART dragon to be a less compelling and ultimately inferior portrayal within a weaker film overall.
In crafting A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, GRR Martin aimed to fuse the enchanting wonder of epic fantasy with the gritty realism found in historical fiction. Magic exists in Westeros, but it is deliberately less prevalent and overt than in many other fantasy worlds. Martin acknowledges Tolkien’s Middle-earth as a touchstone for this approach to “low magic” fantasy. His intention was to imbue Westeros with a sense of historical authenticity, drawing inspiration from periods like the Crusades, the Hundred Years’ War, and the Wars of the Roses, alongside the fantastical elements reminiscent of Tolkien’s hobbits and magical rings.
Dragons were essential to Martin’s vision, partly inspired by his friendship with the late Phyllis Eisenstein, a respected fantasy and science fiction author. However, Martin was determined to ground his dragons in a sense of biological plausibility, making them as believable as fantastical creatures could be. He meticulously designed his dragons, emphasizing key features. Flight and fire-breathing were non-negotiable dragon traits. Crucially, he opted for two legs (categorically rejecting four legs) and two wings – large, powerful wings capable of supporting their immense size. Martin critiques many fantasy dragons for featuring disproportionately small wings that defy principles of flight. He stresses that in his dragons, the wings are the forelegs, a biologically consistent design. Four-legged dragons, he asserts, are purely a construct of heraldry, lacking any basis in real-world zoology. No terrestrial animal has ever naturally evolved six limbs. Birds, bats, and pterodactyls all adhere to a four-limb structure, with wings evolving from forelimbs.
The confusion surrounding dragon leg count, Martin suggests, stems largely from medieval heraldry. Initially, both two-legged and four-legged dragon depictions appeared in heraldic symbols. However, as heraldry became codified, a distinction emerged: heralds designated four-legged creatures as “dragons” and two-legged versions as “wyverns.” This distinction, Martin points out, is inherently arbitrary, given that neither creature existed outside of legend, and medieval heralds were not renowned for zoological accuracy, even when depicting real animals like the notoriously inaccurate heraldic seahorse.
In the world of Westeros, dragons are demonstrably real (wyverns too, inhabiting Sothoryos). Therefore, Westerosi heraldry has no excuse for anatomical inaccuracies. Consequently, the Targaryen sigil in Martin’s books correctly features a two-legged dragon. Martin poses a rhetorical question: why would anyone in Westeros depict a four-legged dragon when they could observe the real creature and count its limbs? His wyverns also adhere to the two-legged design, differing from dragons primarily in size, coloration, and the inability to breathe fire. He clarifies that while the Targaryen sigil correctly depicts a two-legged dragon, it is not entirely anatomically precise – the wings are undersized relative to the body, and the three heads are purely symbolic, representing Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters.
Martin notes with wry exasperation that the GAME OF THRONES and HOUSE OF THE DRAGON shows have had a mixed record on dragon leg accuracy. GAME OF THRONES initially maintained the correct two-legged sigil for the first five seasons, but inconsistencies crept in later, with four-legged dragons appearing on Daenerys’s ships. HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, aiming for consistency with GAME OF THRONES, unfortunately adopted the inaccurate four-legged sigil. Martin humorously describes his reaction to this as a silent scream of “no, no, no.” These erroneous extra legs have even infiltrated book covers, much to his chagrin.
RIGHT
Two-legged Targaryen Sigil
WRONG
Four-legged Targaryen Sigil
Valyrian dragons in A Song of Ice and Fire also diverge from dragons like Smaug, Toothless, and Vermithrax in other significant ways. Crucially, Martin’s dragons do not talk. While possessing a degree of intelligence, they remain fundamentally beasts. They form bonds with humans – certain individuals – and the intricacies of this bonding process will be explored further in upcoming books like THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING, with hints already present in FIRE & BLOOD (Septon Barth’s writings provide some insights). Like wolves, bears, and lions, dragons can be trained to a degree but never fully tamed. They retain an inherent wildness and potential for danger. Individual dragons exhibit distinct personalities, often mirroring the traits of their riders due to their unique bond. Unlike stereotypical fantasy dragons, they are indifferent to gold and jewels, possessing no inherent greed for treasure, unless perhaps influenced by a rider obsessed with material wealth.
Dragons are living creatures with biological needs. They require sustenance, primarily meat, which they prefer cooked by fire. They also need water, though they lack gills and cannot breathe underwater. While capable of snatching fish from the ocean surface, prolonged submersion would lead to drowning, just like any other land-dwelling animal. Unlike Smaug, who supposedly slumbered for sixty years, Valyrian dragons cannot enter such extended dormancy. As creatures of fire, they require oxygen for their internal flames to burn.
Martin’s dragons are apex predators, carnivores by nature, capable of hunting their own prey. They are also intensely territorial, establishing lairs, typically in elevated locations like mountaintops, with a particular affinity for volcanic mountains, reflecting their fiery nature. The cold, damp caves often depicted as dragon lairs in other fantasy settings are unsuitable for Martin’s dragons. Man-made structures like the Dragonmont stables on Dragonstone, the towers of Valyrian Freehold cities, and the Dragonpit of King’s Landing are acceptable alternatives, often offering the convenience of human-provided food. Young dragons, lacking such accommodations, will seek out and fiercely defend their own lairs in the wild.
Dragons are creatures of the sky, capable of long-distance flight across vast terrains. However, they are not inherently nomadic. During Valyria’s zenith, forty dragon-riding families controlled hundreds of dragons, yet these dragons largely remained within the vicinity of the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer. Occasional visits to Valyrian colonies occurred, but permanent relocation was rare. Martin emphasizes that if dragons were naturally nomadic, they would have overrun Essos, and the Doom of Valyria would have eliminated only a fraction of their population. Similarly, the dragons of Westeros seldom stray far from Dragonstone. Otherwise, after three centuries, dragons would be ubiquitous across the realm, with every noble house possessing their own. The three wild dragons mentioned in FIRE & BLOOD are localized to Dragonstone. The rest reside in the Dragonpit of King’s Landing or within caverns beneath the Dragonmont. While characters like Luke and Jace ride dragons to distant locations like Storm’s End and Winterfell, the dragons would not undertake such journeys independently, except under exceptional circumstances. You won’t encounter wild dragons freely roaming the riverlands, the Reach, the Vale, the North, or Dorne.
Martin concludes by underscoring the importance of grounding fantasy narratives in internal consistency and logical rules. Fantasy is not a free pass to disregard established world-building principles. While Smaug and Toothless are both dragons, they represent fundamentally different interpretations of dragon lore and should never be conflated. Ignoring established canon, Martin warns, risks undermining the believability and integrity of the created world, causing it to unravel like tissue paper.
Current Mood: thoughtful
Tags: a song of ice and fire, canon, dragons, fire & blood
