George R.R. Martin Has Some Very Specific Ideas About Dragon Anatomy

In a caller blog post, Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin registers his disappointment with the House Targaryen emblem connected House of the Dragon. Namely, that its three-headed dragon has four legs, alternatively of his preferred two-legged depiction.

In the post, Martin argues a dragon’s wings would person apt evolved from its forelegs, stating “four-legged dragons beryllium lone successful heraldry.  No carnal that has ever lived connected Earth has six limbs. Birds person 2 legs and 2 wings, bats the same, ditto pteranodons and different flying dinosaurs, etc. ” He past then presents the close two-legged mentation of the emblem adjacent to its incorrect four-legged version, adding, “why would immoderate Westerosi ever enactment 4 legs connected a dragon, erstwhile they could look astatine the existent happening and could [see] their limbs?” The station concludes with the HBO-damning statement, “Fantasy needs to beryllium grounded.  It is not simply a licence to bash thing you like.”

Of course, the evident counter-argument present is that nary carnal that ever lived connected Earth has had three heads, either, but Martin catches himself, stating, “of people nary dragon has 3 heads. That spot is purely symbolic, meant to bespeak Aegon the Conqueror and his 2 sisters.”

Forgetting for a infinitesimal that a three-headed dragon likely would request the other legs to enactment itself (or astatine least King Ghidorah’s dummy thicc thighs), Martin presents an absorbing argument—though I’m not definite its needfully the close one. Must a dragon ever beryllium reptilian?

Many insects, of course, are six-legged animals with further wings, which caller probe suggests whitethorn person evolved from gills. Notably, implicit 5,000 taxon of thing called a “dragonfly” which besides matches the carnal statement of its namesake. Hell, determination there’s adjacent a “flying” lizard called a Draco with an extendable membrane that allows it to glide distances of implicit 200 feet astatine once. Martin is besides adamant his dragons are “creatures of the sky” that indispensable “breathe fire,” yet there’s vanishingly small oxygen the higher 1 goes. As larger animals request much of it for elemental cellular respiration, it besides strains credulity they’d unrecorded contemporaneous to humans. Hatzegopteryx, the largest known flying carnal to person ever lived, did truthful astatine a clip erstwhile determination was 50% much oxygen than our existent atmosphere. In this case, would it beryllium truthful hard to judge a dragon could beryllium a “living fossil” descendent of an undiscovered six-limbed ancestor?

Maybe arguing astir however galore legs a three-headed dragon would person is simply a speech amended near until after helium finishes The Winds of Winter—and not a infinitesimal before.

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