Within the new Weblog Put up, Recreation of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin expresses his disappointment with the symbol of Home Targaryen on Home of the DragonParticularly, that his three heads The Dragon It has 4 legs, as an alternative of his favourite bipedal picture.
Within the put up, Martin argues that the dragon’s wings most certainly advanced from its entrance legs, stating that “four-legged dragons solely exist in heraldry. No animal that has ever lived on Earth has six limbs. Birds have two legs and two wings, bats have the identical factor, pteranodons and different flying dinosaurs have the identical factor, and so on.” He then presents the proper bipedal model of the symbol subsequent to the inaccurate four-legged model, including, “why would anybody in Westeros ever put 4 legs on a dragon once they might take a look at the actual factor and [see] their limbs?” The put up ends with a damning assertion from HBO: “Fantasy must be grounded. It isn’t only a license to do no matter you need.”
After all, the apparent counterargument right here is that no animal that has ever lived on Earth has had three headsor, however Martin stops himself, stating, “After all, no dragon has three heads. This half is only symbolic, meant to symbolize Aegon the Conqueror and his two sisters.”
Forgetting for a second that the three-headed dragon was most certainly would want additional legs to assist your self (or at the least least King Ghidorah’s Dummy (thick thighs), Martin makes an fascinating argument, although I am undecided it is essentially right. Does a dragon all the time need to be a reptile?
Many bugs, after all, six-legged animals with additional wings that new analysis suggests might have had got here from gills. Remarkably, there are over 5,000 species of one thing referred to as a “dragonfly,” which additionally suits the bodily description of its namesake. Hell, there’s even a “flying” lizard referred to as a Draco, with a retractable membrane that permits it to glide greater than 200 ft at a time. Martin can also be adamant that his dragons are “creatures of the sky” which can be purported to “breathe fireplace,” however there are vanishingly few of them. oxygen than greater. Since bigger animals require extra oxygen for easy mobile respiration, it additionally strains the assumption that they may coexist with people. Hatzegopteryx, the most important identified flying animal to have ever lived, lived at a time when there was 50% extra oxygen than in our fashionable ambiance. In that case, it could be so arduous to imagine {that a} dragon could possibly be a “dwelling fossil” descendant of an undiscovered six-legged ancestor?
Maybe the controversy about what number of legs a three-headed dragon has is greatest delay till later? after he’s ending Winds of Winter— and never a minute earlier.
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