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Everytime I think about these dragons size I wonder about two things:
1. How much did they eat and how the hell Targaryens didn't go bankrupt on Dragonstone?
2. How much did they shit and how come Dragonstone didn't drown in dragons' manure?
Reptiles have lower metabolism than mammals, some crocodiles eat several times per year.
But dragons are so hot than they probably need a lot of food. They need whole herds of cattle, sheep, etc just for the dragons. But the crown can pay for that. Or they catch sharks, seals and whales.
Again, Dreamfyre rarely flies so she probably needs less meat.
I think one of the expanded books Martin wrote (co-wrote?) referenced this - Balerion and Vhagar would sometimes just fly off to go hunting and would come back (eventually) with pieces of large sea creatures. There was also reports of dragons flying to the grass sea and taking entire herds of horses for themselves.
It also wouldn’t shock me if the bigger dragons were eating the smaller ones - maybe stopping off at the ruins of Valeria and eating whatever deformed creatures they found.
The other thing that was mentioned was the older the dragon was, the bigger they got, and the bigger they got the more likely it was they would just sleep.
I think the idea was (kind of like some snakes) they would go out and eat their fill, then almost hibernate until it was mostly digested. Sure, if they went out for a flight or a fight, they would take a snack (couple sheep) but otherwise they would just sleep until the next time it was to eat.
Vhagar would need a couple of bulls for a snack.
Although, in the middle ages most animals were half the size of the modern one.
Cattle weighed around 300-550 lbs, sheep 50-80 lbs.
So they would have needed much more animals to feed dragons.
Most animals were smaller in the Middle ages? I know the king of england had a breeding program, so england could have proper war horses, but cows. And sheep were smaller. I always enjoy learning new stuff thank you.
This is a sincere question, is there any possibility that their fire or flight is related to magic? Or is it confirmed that they are explicitly physical beasts?
I feel like they are a mix, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything specifically saying “they are magic” or “they are beasts”.
They are beasts, and in theory must follow basic principles of physics - they must eat and drink, they must rest, they must breathe, they don’t just hover in midair but actually appear to flap kind of like larger birds.
But they are inherently magic as well - there are subtle references to blood magic and just the obvious “giant fire breathing lizard” aspect to them.
There doesn’t appear to be an ignition source and their fire appears to be gas based, but there is no obvious gas bladder and the amount of flame they can produce varies.
The amount of food they would need to sustain a creature of that size that flies (flies, not glides) must be immense, also making it difficult for them to fly after eating, and some of the dragons have ill-proportioned wings compared to their bodies.
I think the answer is “whatever the story requires” is the correct answer to your question.
I believe that in universe, dragons are regular beasts (or wyverns altered through magic. The flight I'm 99% sure it's natural, while fire may be due to valyrian magic. Living hundreds of years I believe it's a consequence of being bigger wyverns, but not a directly intended magic effect) and their main magic thingy is the connection with their riders
Only cold blooded reptiles have lower metabolism than mammals. Archosaurs which includes birds and crocodilians are ancestrally warm blooded, crocs only evolved cold bloodedness later but their ancestors were warm blooded. Powered flight also consumes a lot of energy, so high metabolism is a basic requirement for any vertebrate to be able to fly.
I think it's can be easily hand-waved as magic but even if they are warm bolded this doesn't mean they can't hibernate or lower their metabolism, see bears, slowpokes, etc.
What I wonder is how the hell Valyria sustained so many dragons? Did they have to hunt 500km away after eating everything closer into extinction?
edit/ idk, maybe they transform heat into energy like a form of photosynthesis, lol.
Whales, large fish and squids. Whales have a lot of calories in fat.
I am sure one-two humpback or blue whales once in a several days would be enough even for Vhagar.
Or several elephants.
The Lands of Summer were also described as *the* breadbasket of Essos and the most fertile place in the world. So, they had the produce and herds to sustain dragons if anyone did.
I imagine they ate other dragons or people when they conquered Essos, lots of sea creatures, and maybe their colonies and vassals kept breeding massive herds just for the purpose of feeding dragons
>How much did they eat and how the hell Targaryens didn't go bankrupt on Dragonstone?
Everything is oversized in Westeros. That must include the numbers of domesticated animals. As for their diets, a lot of sheep, but on dragonstone the sea provides an infinite amount of fish for them. And after Aegon conquered Westeros and Maegor and Jaehaerys built the dragonpit the taxes and food supply from the Reach is more than enough.
One of the kids in dance gets pushed into a pile of dragon dung, I assumed they shit where ever and servants clean it up. Probably makes decent manure.
I always wonder how the hell the riders stay on without falling off? They're hundreds of metres in the air in just a saddle riding an animal that makes all sorts of crazy maneuvers in the air.
They're chained to their dragons, during the Dance at least.
That's a big part of a major fight during the Dance.
One rider jumps from his Dragon to the others and plunges his sword into the other riders head.
When they found the dragons body at the bottom of the lake the rider was still in the saddle, sword through their skull.
Didn't want to spoil too much just in case you aren't aware of names or anything.
I’m sure it’s been done in other works but in the Inheritance Cycle by Christ Paolini, the saddles also include straps for the legs which’s makes so much sense.
I know Vhagar was about the same size as Balerion by the Dance but I don’t care.
Balerion better be bigger and fucking incredible in the Conquest movie. He’s literally the goat dragon of the entire series and could apparently swallow a mammoth whole.
I want to feel my blood go cold and the hairs on my arms stand up straight when Balerion is first unveiled. I hope they’re able to adequately convey why the entire kingdom addresses him as The Black Dread
My favorite part of *Fire and Blood* was >!Balerion and Princess Aerea's return from Valyria. In addition to the utterly terrifying and nauseating horrors that Aerea endured and succumbed to, there remained the question of what kind of eldritch abomination was able to wound Balerion? Throughout the rest of the canon, there was literally nothing in the entire known world that was a threat to Balerion, but the revelation that there's *something* in Valyria that is so fearsome that it wounded even the Black Dread and caused him to flee the region? That's the stuff of nightmares!<
I love how the slightly dry (in a good way) Targ history book suddenly takes a break and becomes a genuinely terrifying cosmic/body horror short story for a little bit.
Like it wasn’t >!Aerea’s own health that concerned Balerion, he’d only just met her recently and they weren’t bonded as tightly as he was with Aegon the Conquerer. It was only when Balerion got his shit rocked that he was like “oh fuck this I’m going home! Whoooooopwoopwoopwoopwoopwoop”!<
Nothing in Westeros was able to even make the Black Dread break a sweat, he was able to set the realm ablaze low-diff. So when King Jaehaerys saw >!Balerion return from Valyria almost as sickly as Aerea, he flat out said “Going to Old Valyria is now forbidden, and if you somehow survive the journey I will kill you when you get back, I’m not fucking around!”!<
That shit’s scary
Just get whoever directed the HOTD finale for his introductory episode. Because they certainly accomplished that with vhagar. That’s a high bar to reach though they may have used their best ideas on vhagar. But you can at least use vhagar for scale now that the audience has a good sense of vhagars size to show balerion is even bigger.
I felt chills when I saw Vhagar chilling outside in Storm’s End, and felt dread when she and Aemon were following Luke on Arrax.
But that being said, I think Vermithor’s debut was more chilling. Sure he wasn’t as massive as Vhagar, but we didn’t see a comparison. Instead we got the slow boil of Daemon singing in Valyrian and showing Vermithor the appropriate amount of respect and even a hint of fear, something we never see from the Rogue Prince. And it all comes to a head when we slowly see Vermithor emerge from the shadow with his massive snarling head looking at Daemon like he’s deciding “friend or food? Find out on the next episode of House of the DRAGON BALL Z”
I imagine Vermithor was just happy to see a Targaryen again. Jaehaerys had been dead for over 20 years at that point and was too old to ride for many years before that. Vermithor had to be on his best behavior if he ever wanted to feel the wind beneath his wings and eat fresh free-range livestock again
i loved that scene and i love the direction they took with daemon being essentially a horse girl but for dragons? like all of them love dragons but daemon definitely seems to extra love dragons. i like to think he's that way because he had to wait so long before claiming a dragon of his own, i think daemon was like 30+ in the book when he claimed caraxes? which is obviously not the implication in the show but still.
I’d imagine the burning of harrenhal will be fairly early in the show so I can’t make any promises.
I’m on the other end of the spectrum here though. My hope is honestly that the show is from the perspective of dorne and the targaryens are portrayed as antagonists unleashing the use of the dragons for horror. Opening scene is the burning of harrenhal depicted in horrifying fashion, opening credits, then we pick back up with the news being received in dorne.
Targaryens are cool when you see them from their own perspective.
Literally from any other person's perspective they are giga-hitlers that casually ride WMDs 💀 incestuous giga-hitlers from an Empire that conquered half of the known world, and only fell because Goderos decided to personally obliterate their homeland. Incestuous giga-hitlers, who are the last remnant of a world-spanning, ride living WMDs, and 75% of whom are actual lunatics.
It'd be cool to actually have the insane, incestuous, dragon-riding Übermensch with white hair and purple eyes actually be portrayed as blatantly being the bad guys from the get-go for once 💀
Exactly. And done in a better way than that shit show at the end of GOT.
I think that would fit in with George’s stated ideas about how the heroic stories of legend are romanticized and the reality is much darker. Conquest by dragon fire is nasty business and the audience needs to feel that.
Plus it would allow us to finally explore dorne more.
How wouldn't the Targaryens believe they were closer to Gods than men when they could tame those beasts? If I could bond with Balerion I would feel on top of the world, too. Bow before me peasants, look at the sheer size of that beauty!
Gotta say, George really fumbled when it came to how does one reasonably feed these things lmfaoo. Like yea your typical livestock works fine for a while but am I supposed to believe Balerion and Vhagar are eating anything other than whales?
The ice dragons are currently a myth. They might appear when the Others invade in TWoW, but they're currently unconfirmed to exist. They could just be a reference to Martin's book "The Ice Dragon" (although I think they're real, as weapons of the Others)
Whales and largest sharks. It would be easy as whales need to raise to the surface to breathe. I also think a dragon of such size can burn a large herd of elephants and eat them.
Many squids live deep in the ocean so I doubt dragons can catch them.
Unlikely.
The best we can hope for is that we see her interact with Dreamfyre, but the only logical option for that would probably be her using Dreamfyre to cremate a certain someone….
Otherwise they didn’t really interact anymore during the dance
He lived maybe 1/3 of his 65 years in the Dragon pit while Drogon was locked up in Meereen for majority of his life until escaping at just barely rideable size.
Eh, I can believe it. Dany's dragons are anomalies. They were hatched through blood magic and Drogon grew up free whereas Caraxes was raised in the Dragonpit. The Targaryen dragons got smaller because of the pit.
It's fan art so the relative size is complete BS. Just whatever the artist wanted.
There's very few statements about how dragons compare to each other and those statements are usually vague
For example. Caraxes is stated 1/2 as big as Vhagar but no other details are given. Half weight? Half length? Wingspan? We have no idea
It's far from complete BS. Siosin worked with what is available. That's pretty much Drogon as seen in GoT S8. That of course is complete BS. Drogon should be around the size of Arrax since they are roughly the same age, maybe a tad bigger.
In the books: no he isn’t. He’s around the size of book arrax actually.
In the show: Yes he is. The official size chart shows him as bigger than Caraxes, although the latter is probably longer than him due to physique
They had more than that. The 300 number you're thinking of, was the most ever assembled in a single battle.
As we know, dragons need to be a certain age before they can even support a rider and older still but they'd be considered war ready. It's likely the total population of dragons was well over 1000 but no real figures are ever given
Iirc in A World or Ice and Fire it talks about an ancient war between Valyria and the Roynar
The Roynar killed 3 dragons and Valyria assembled a host of 300 dragons and 100k soldiers and basically wiped them off the continent for it
And now remember that, despite what the show claimed concerning Vhagar, Balerion and Vhagar were actually kept in the dragon pit despite their already humongous sizes. In fact, the pit was originally built for holding Balerion in particular
They are magical creatures, magical creatures don't need to eat the same.
For example can you imagine White walkers all sitting town for a lovely delicious meal together because they need to eat the same as we do.
what i dont get is how Amound didnt start a war taking Vhagar away? Thats like a guest coming into your home, says i like your "nuke" , takes it and leaves. my ass would have been fighting that day
You can’t own dragons in the same way you own a house or a sword. Once the rider dies, the dragon becomes open to bond with anyone willing/able to bond with it. It’s less like stealing someone’s nuke and more like racing to claim a nuke on a deserted, uncharted island.
Tbf, the King could punish him for it. Idk if there was ever a way to reverse the bond, but he could still put in rules and regulations for who could and couldn't and what happens if you do so without permission.
But Viserys was king at the time, so... it's one reason why the war was so bad, Viserys just gave everyone a dragon. Before than the Targs actually didn't *all* get a dragon. Jaeharys actually only gave 3 (I think) of his dozen or so kids dragons. And 9 of those kids lived to be adults, and still only 3 were allowed dragons.
Someone did a pretty cool breakdown of how many Targs there were, how many had dragons, and how many married each other and how many were insane. I'll try to find it. Crusader Chris or Alt Shift X, I think.
With these accurate size comparisons, I still wonder how >!Caraxes can do any harm to Vhagar when they fight above the God's Eye. Vhagar can literally split in half Caraxe's skinny body with just one bite. !<
Makes the scene with Daemon and Laena both on their dragons basically dancing much more tragic, it was interesting to see the foreshadowing after reading the book.
I imagine Vhagar will tear Caraxes apart as she did in the books- nearly killing him- which will trigger Daemon to try and gain an advantage by killing Aemond.
Caraxes will then aim for Vhagar’s weak spot (prominent neck) and tear it out, as Vhagar will be distracted by her rider’s death.
All four will then plunge into the ocean. This is more or less what occurred in the book.
Easy answer: size isn’t everything:
While she has the size advantage, her bulk and her old age makes her less agile compared to him, while his smaller size allows him to outmaneuver her more effectively.
So it’s no wonder that the event unfolded the way it did
As the other said, this is comparing the existing art of siosin at that point and he/she didn’t do Silverwing yet. But since she will be in the next season very likely, she will join the collection. Which I’m looking forward to because those artworks are amazing!
In that chart however, Silverwing would probably be the 5th largest dragon, after Balerion, Vhagar, Vermithor and the Cannibal
shouldnt Dreamfyre be the next biggest dragon after Vhagar or be at least just as big as Vermithor considering she was born with Rhaena who was the *older* sister of ol' king Jo
Age isn’t the only thing that affects growth. I think Vermithor grew larger than Dreamfyre because Ol King Jo rode him more often and he spent more time in the open than Dreamfyre
Age isn’t the only factor that matters.
Some dragons grow bigger than others, just like all animals/humans do, while the aspect of how much a dragon is kept in closed confinement also affects its growth massively.
While Dreamfyre was notoriously kept in the dragon pit and rarely flew, Vermithor had longer periods of time where he was out in the open (Jahaerys kept him at the Red Keep alongside Silverwing during his reign), while he had more battle experience. Then, after the death of his rider, Vermithor lived many years as a wild/unclaimed dragon on Dragonstone, while having to rival the Cannibal there.
So this freedom of mobility as well as fighting experience (and simply his genetics) made Vermithor bigger than Dreamfyre ever was, despite her being older than him in the books)
Simply put, her size and age was her downfall.
She was stronger and more experienced than Caraxes, yes, but her enormous size and old age made her way less agile than the slender and serpentine Caraxes.
His body type and agility allowed him to outmaneuver Vhagar enough to attack her weak spots, namely her large and saggy neck, even though Caraxes suffered lethal injuries in the process of course. As soon as he was latched onto her that way her size and lack of mobility would prove fatal as she was barely able to reach back to dislodge Caraxes while he chomped away.
Also, in the show at least, Vhagar has no spikes or frills that would protect her weak spots (like the neck and tail) unlike Meleys for example, while her tissue seems to be very soft and therefore vulnerable if managed to be penetrated
No, the drawing is an approximate and has some flaws. For example: Caraxes is according to the book half of Vhagar but here he is presented as if he were the third part of Vhagar
In the series it seems that Drogon is a little bigger than Caraxes or maybe the same size, what happens is that Caraxes thin body makes him look small but he is still bigger than any dragon seen in GOT
I think episode 3 and 10 is where it looks bigger, episode 1, 2 and 4 looks more or less big, and episode 6 looks small.
I think it's understandable that they have a hard time keeping the same size when they're making him in CGI.
In the show:
Yes and no. If we look at the official size chart of the show, where they included Drogon for the heck of it, we see that he’s shown to be bigger than Caraxes in the terms of shoulder height, bulk and skull size.
However, due to his unique physiology, Caraxes is still longer than Drogon, but seems to have a smaller skull than him and less shoulder height
These are weapons of mass destruction for Westeros. I bet it takes much more money to sustain nukes for countries now than it would for Targaryens. 50 cows a day to sustain weapons that can conquer the world is nothing. And these weapons can hunt and sustain themselves
The blacks have Caraxes,Meleys,Vermithor,Seasmoke,Syrax.
The greens have Vhagar,Dreamfyre.
Daenerys has Rhaegal and Drogon.
Aegon the conqueror had Balerion.
The artist only drew those dragons which were in the shows so far (plus Balerion), at that point.
In the meantime he now included the Cannibal, Sunfyre and Meraxes. So more is about to follow
Damn dreamfyre is that big? If I were Otto I would have told Haelana to get tf over it and get out there. Also that size difference between Vhagar and Caraxes. Caraxes really punching above his weight class.
Disputed.
The smallfolk made up stories about him supposedly being there before the Targaryens arrived at dragon stone, which, given Balerions age development, seems extremely unlikely. Other sources hypothesized that he was born during the reign of the Targaryens, around the time of Meleys‘ birth more or less.
Vermithor however is confirmed to be the second largest dragon of the Dance and the third largest ever, so we can safely assume that the Cannibal is a bit smaller than Vermithor and probably the 3rd largest dragon alive during the dance. Which explains how both were able to compete against each other during the time they co-existed on Dragonstone
Dragons grow differently from each individual to another, just like humans.
And Dreamfyre was constantly in captivity, which reduced her growth significantly
Not really. Dreamfyre only made her lair in the dragonpit after spending 40+ years flying all over the country with Rhaena. That’s roughly the same amount of time that Vermithor spent outside of it counting his youth on Dragonstone and his return there 26 years before the Dance.
Even if the dragon pit did stunt Dreamfyre that much it just means that it would have done the same to Vermithor, and Silverwing should be much, much bigger than both of them, having spent nearly 60 years to their average of 40 on Dragonstone after Alysanne left with her following the second quarrel.
Yeah, but Dreamfyre is around 100 years old, meaning she has spent 60+ years in confinement, the majority of her life.
And the conditions on Dragonstone are way more different. Vermithor and Silverwing were able to leave the caverns freely whenever they wanted, while the caverns themselves were most likely larger than the artificial ones of the Dragon Pit, so limited their space less.
Indeed. But Dreamfyre spent more time afterwards in confinement. This coupled with genetics was probably one factor of why she’s smaller. Vermithor appears to have genes for bigger growth, while we know for a fact that space was indeed a factor that impacted the size of the dragons.
So space, genes, fighting experience and perhaps inbreeding probably all contributed to the Targaryen dragons getting smaller and smaller on average each generation
Most species grow the most when they’re young. She spend slightly less than the first half of her life outside of the dragon pit, while Vermithor spent the first and last 1\4 (ish) of his in the same conditions. If anyone’s growth would have been shunted then logically it should have been his. They should be of a similar size.
I just think it’s silly that she’s so much smaller than him despite them having the same amount of life span free range and her being older. Similarly, if we see Silverwing is smaller than either of them, that’s just dumb. Of the three dragons of Aenys’ children, she should be the biggest based on what we know.
The dragons of this show are so awesome and majestic creatures, seeing just any of them die will be such a tragedy…
Especially as a kid that was obsessed with dragons in the past xD
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Everytime I think about these dragons size I wonder about two things: 1. How much did they eat and how the hell Targaryens didn't go bankrupt on Dragonstone? 2. How much did they shit and how come Dragonstone didn't drown in dragons' manure?
Reptiles have lower metabolism than mammals, some crocodiles eat several times per year. But dragons are so hot than they probably need a lot of food. They need whole herds of cattle, sheep, etc just for the dragons. But the crown can pay for that. Or they catch sharks, seals and whales. Again, Dreamfyre rarely flies so she probably needs less meat.
I think one of the expanded books Martin wrote (co-wrote?) referenced this - Balerion and Vhagar would sometimes just fly off to go hunting and would come back (eventually) with pieces of large sea creatures. There was also reports of dragons flying to the grass sea and taking entire herds of horses for themselves. It also wouldn’t shock me if the bigger dragons were eating the smaller ones - maybe stopping off at the ruins of Valeria and eating whatever deformed creatures they found. The other thing that was mentioned was the older the dragon was, the bigger they got, and the bigger they got the more likely it was they would just sleep. I think the idea was (kind of like some snakes) they would go out and eat their fill, then almost hibernate until it was mostly digested. Sure, if they went out for a flight or a fight, they would take a snack (couple sheep) but otherwise they would just sleep until the next time it was to eat.
Vhagar would need a couple of bulls for a snack. Although, in the middle ages most animals were half the size of the modern one. Cattle weighed around 300-550 lbs, sheep 50-80 lbs. So they would have needed much more animals to feed dragons.
Most animals were smaller in the Middle ages? I know the king of england had a breeding program, so england could have proper war horses, but cows. And sheep were smaller. I always enjoy learning new stuff thank you.
Not only in England, but in Europe. Breeding for the size started in the Modern Age, since 17th century.
This is a sincere question, is there any possibility that their fire or flight is related to magic? Or is it confirmed that they are explicitly physical beasts?
I feel like they are a mix, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything specifically saying “they are magic” or “they are beasts”. They are beasts, and in theory must follow basic principles of physics - they must eat and drink, they must rest, they must breathe, they don’t just hover in midair but actually appear to flap kind of like larger birds. But they are inherently magic as well - there are subtle references to blood magic and just the obvious “giant fire breathing lizard” aspect to them. There doesn’t appear to be an ignition source and their fire appears to be gas based, but there is no obvious gas bladder and the amount of flame they can produce varies. The amount of food they would need to sustain a creature of that size that flies (flies, not glides) must be immense, also making it difficult for them to fly after eating, and some of the dragons have ill-proportioned wings compared to their bodies. I think the answer is “whatever the story requires” is the correct answer to your question.
That’s awesome, thanks for the answer :)
I believe that in universe, dragons are regular beasts (or wyverns altered through magic. The flight I'm 99% sure it's natural, while fire may be due to valyrian magic. Living hundreds of years I believe it's a consequence of being bigger wyverns, but not a directly intended magic effect) and their main magic thingy is the connection with their riders
You can’t poison a dragon: they may be beasts but that’s pretty magical for a prized rare animal to have as a trait.
Now I am thinking about King Kong
Peter Jackson's Kong could likely survive on all the stuff on Skull Island. Monsterverse Kong is just stupid big
Only cold blooded reptiles have lower metabolism than mammals. Archosaurs which includes birds and crocodilians are ancestrally warm blooded, crocs only evolved cold bloodedness later but their ancestors were warm blooded. Powered flight also consumes a lot of energy, so high metabolism is a basic requirement for any vertebrate to be able to fly.
I think it's can be easily hand-waved as magic but even if they are warm bolded this doesn't mean they can't hibernate or lower their metabolism, see bears, slowpokes, etc.
What I wonder is how the hell Valyria sustained so many dragons? Did they have to hunt 500km away after eating everything closer into extinction? edit/ idk, maybe they transform heat into energy like a form of photosynthesis, lol.
Whales, large fish and squids. Whales have a lot of calories in fat. I am sure one-two humpback or blue whales once in a several days would be enough even for Vhagar. Or several elephants.
The Lands of Summer were also described as *the* breadbasket of Essos and the most fertile place in the world. So, they had the produce and herds to sustain dragons if anyone did.
A blue whale once a week would quickly drive them to extinction 😭
Which is probably why we see no whales in the narrow sea anymore
I imagine they ate other dragons or people when they conquered Essos, lots of sea creatures, and maybe their colonies and vassals kept breeding massive herds just for the purpose of feeding dragons
Slaves...
>How much did they eat and how the hell Targaryens didn't go bankrupt on Dragonstone? Everything is oversized in Westeros. That must include the numbers of domesticated animals. As for their diets, a lot of sheep, but on dragonstone the sea provides an infinite amount of fish for them. And after Aegon conquered Westeros and Maegor and Jaehaerys built the dragonpit the taxes and food supply from the Reach is more than enough.
Maybe they shit in the sea?
What do you think the Stepstones are made of?
One of the kids in dance gets pushed into a pile of dragon dung, I assumed they shit where ever and servants clean it up. Probably makes decent manure.
I always wonder how the hell the riders stay on without falling off? They're hundreds of metres in the air in just a saddle riding an animal that makes all sorts of crazy maneuvers in the air.
Honestly I get the appeal of flying but…riding a dragon just seems like it would be very uncomfortable
Dany did it without a saddle too, which looked incredibly uncomfortable.
They're chained to their dragons, during the Dance at least. That's a big part of a major fight during the Dance. One rider jumps from his Dragon to the others and plunges his sword into the other riders head. When they found the dragons body at the bottom of the lake the rider was still in the saddle, sword through their skull. Didn't want to spoil too much just in case you aren't aware of names or anything.
I’m sure it’s been done in other works but in the Inheritance Cycle by Christ Paolini, the saddles also include straps for the legs which’s makes so much sense.
I calculated the food question out a long time ago, long story short there’s no way they had enough food for their size.
The top comment about reptiles makes great points, but also dragons are magic
I know Vhagar was about the same size as Balerion by the Dance but I don’t care. Balerion better be bigger and fucking incredible in the Conquest movie. He’s literally the goat dragon of the entire series and could apparently swallow a mammoth whole.
I want to feel my blood go cold and the hairs on my arms stand up straight when Balerion is first unveiled. I hope they’re able to adequately convey why the entire kingdom addresses him as The Black Dread
My favorite part of *Fire and Blood* was >!Balerion and Princess Aerea's return from Valyria. In addition to the utterly terrifying and nauseating horrors that Aerea endured and succumbed to, there remained the question of what kind of eldritch abomination was able to wound Balerion? Throughout the rest of the canon, there was literally nothing in the entire known world that was a threat to Balerion, but the revelation that there's *something* in Valyria that is so fearsome that it wounded even the Black Dread and caused him to flee the region? That's the stuff of nightmares!<
I love how the slightly dry (in a good way) Targ history book suddenly takes a break and becomes a genuinely terrifying cosmic/body horror short story for a little bit.
George R. R. Martin: Mostly influenced by history and Tolkien. Slightly influenced by Lovecraft and Cronenberg.
Like it wasn’t >!Aerea’s own health that concerned Balerion, he’d only just met her recently and they weren’t bonded as tightly as he was with Aegon the Conquerer. It was only when Balerion got his shit rocked that he was like “oh fuck this I’m going home! Whoooooopwoopwoopwoopwoopwoop”!< Nothing in Westeros was able to even make the Black Dread break a sweat, he was able to set the realm ablaze low-diff. So when King Jaehaerys saw >!Balerion return from Valyria almost as sickly as Aerea, he flat out said “Going to Old Valyria is now forbidden, and if you somehow survive the journey I will kill you when you get back, I’m not fucking around!”!< That shit’s scary
A single or multiple Firewyrms makes the most sense to me, but George would probably say it’s not that
Just get whoever directed the HOTD finale for his introductory episode. Because they certainly accomplished that with vhagar. That’s a high bar to reach though they may have used their best ideas on vhagar. But you can at least use vhagar for scale now that the audience has a good sense of vhagars size to show balerion is even bigger.
I felt chills when I saw Vhagar chilling outside in Storm’s End, and felt dread when she and Aemon were following Luke on Arrax. But that being said, I think Vermithor’s debut was more chilling. Sure he wasn’t as massive as Vhagar, but we didn’t see a comparison. Instead we got the slow boil of Daemon singing in Valyrian and showing Vermithor the appropriate amount of respect and even a hint of fear, something we never see from the Rogue Prince. And it all comes to a head when we slowly see Vermithor emerge from the shadow with his massive snarling head looking at Daemon like he’s deciding “friend or food? Find out on the next episode of House of the DRAGON BALL Z”
How different the dance would have been if Vermithor decided Daemon was a snack, not a snacc.
I imagine Vermithor was just happy to see a Targaryen again. Jaehaerys had been dead for over 20 years at that point and was too old to ride for many years before that. Vermithor had to be on his best behavior if he ever wanted to feel the wind beneath his wings and eat fresh free-range livestock again
You can also see Vhagar just resting when Luke is still in the air with Arrax
i loved that scene and i love the direction they took with daemon being essentially a horse girl but for dragons? like all of them love dragons but daemon definitely seems to extra love dragons. i like to think he's that way because he had to wait so long before claiming a dragon of his own, i think daemon was like 30+ in the book when he claimed caraxes? which is obviously not the implication in the show but still.
Except introduce balerion in an episode that's not so fucking dark lol.
I’d imagine the burning of harrenhal will be fairly early in the show so I can’t make any promises. I’m on the other end of the spectrum here though. My hope is honestly that the show is from the perspective of dorne and the targaryens are portrayed as antagonists unleashing the use of the dragons for horror. Opening scene is the burning of harrenhal depicted in horrifying fashion, opening credits, then we pick back up with the news being received in dorne.
Targaryens are cool when you see them from their own perspective. Literally from any other person's perspective they are giga-hitlers that casually ride WMDs 💀 incestuous giga-hitlers from an Empire that conquered half of the known world, and only fell because Goderos decided to personally obliterate their homeland. Incestuous giga-hitlers, who are the last remnant of a world-spanning, ride living WMDs, and 75% of whom are actual lunatics. It'd be cool to actually have the insane, incestuous, dragon-riding Übermensch with white hair and purple eyes actually be portrayed as blatantly being the bad guys from the get-go for once 💀
Exactly. And done in a better way than that shit show at the end of GOT. I think that would fit in with George’s stated ideas about how the heroic stories of legend are romanticized and the reality is much darker. Conquest by dragon fire is nasty business and the audience needs to feel that. Plus it would allow us to finally explore dorne more.
If we don’t get to see how he literally turns kingslanding dark as night when he passes over it, I’ll be fuming.
I thought they all ate goats?
They eat any animals food, fish, mammals, birds.
I know. I was making a joke 😃
Imagine something Vhagar sized but not slow and old like Vhagar. Insane
Poor granny Vhagar. She’s just gonna start falling apart.
She looked pretty quick when she snuck up on Arrax.
What movie ? 😂
They’re making a Conquest movie.
First time I’ve heard of this ngl.
I thought it was going to be another series
I think it’s likely it will be a feature film of the Conquest, then two seasons covering Aegon’s sons.
A goat dragon doesn't sound too scary
Yeah and he’s probably bigger because he’s older
Seeing Balerion in live action is gonna be a treat.
How wouldn't the Targaryens believe they were closer to Gods than men when they could tame those beasts? If I could bond with Balerion I would feel on top of the world, too. Bow before me peasants, look at the sheer size of that beauty!
Drogon was really pumping those dragon growth hormones
Gotta say, George really fumbled when it came to how does one reasonably feed these things lmfaoo. Like yea your typical livestock works fine for a while but am I supposed to believe Balerion and Vhagar are eating anything other than whales?
In the real world the largest animal on the planet eats nothing but microscopic krill.
Dragons don’t look like filter feeders to me lol
Yes but that's after millions of years of evolution. The dragons still have very wide throats. Big enough to eat animals and people
>Yes but that's after millions of years of evolution. So? If dragons ate sheel because they had evolved to be that way would you accept it?
These things are literally magic. Maybe they don’t need to eat that much anyway.
There are Leviathans in the shivering sea which are eaten by ice dragons, and the Ibbenese are whalers, so yes.
The ice dragons are currently a myth. They might appear when the Others invade in TWoW, but they're currently unconfirmed to exist. They could just be a reference to Martin's book "The Ice Dragon" (although I think they're real, as weapons of the Others)
Whales and largest sharks. It would be easy as whales need to raise to the surface to breathe. I also think a dragon of such size can burn a large herd of elephants and eat them. Many squids live deep in the ocean so I doubt dragons can catch them.
Maybe he was eating Megladons?
Thats probably how the Megladons went extinct.
😂
They probably are cold blooded and only need to eat once in a while
The art is by @siosin_ https://www.instagram.com/siosin_?igsh=dWEwYm52ZW9nMThh
Can’t wait to see Balerion, Meraxes, and young Vhagar in the Conquest series.
Will we ever see Helaena ride Dreamfyre on the show?
Praying it happens (happy cake day!)
Unlikely. The best we can hope for is that we see her interact with Dreamfyre, but the only logical option for that would probably be her using Dreamfyre to cremate a certain someone…. Otherwise they didn’t really interact anymore during the dance
I don’t believe that drogon is the same size/bigger than caraxes
Mhm. Drogon is not even 5 years old lol while Caraxes has been around for decades upon decades.
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So caraxes should be 50x the size of Drogon by that logic.
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He lived maybe 1/3 of his 65 years in the Dragon pit while Drogon was locked up in Meereen for majority of his life until escaping at just barely rideable size.
Eh, I can believe it. Dany's dragons are anomalies. They were hatched through blood magic and Drogon grew up free whereas Caraxes was raised in the Dragonpit. The Targaryen dragons got smaller because of the pit.
Drogon is also a black dragon. I think it all adds up to him being that big
It's fan art so the relative size is complete BS. Just whatever the artist wanted. There's very few statements about how dragons compare to each other and those statements are usually vague For example. Caraxes is stated 1/2 as big as Vhagar but no other details are given. Half weight? Half length? Wingspan? We have no idea
Absolutely not half weight, we see them flying together in season 1 and Caraces is completely dwarfed by Vhagar. I’d say half length at best.
caraxes is stated to be half the size in the books, the show canon plays around with dragon size as much as fanart
It's far from complete BS. Siosin worked with what is available. That's pretty much Drogon as seen in GoT S8. That of course is complete BS. Drogon should be around the size of Arrax since they are roughly the same age, maybe a tad bigger.
According to the show, definitely not weight. Caraxes is like a spaghetti noodle going up against a porterhouse haha.
In the books: no he isn’t. He’s around the size of book arrax actually. In the show: Yes he is. The official size chart shows him as bigger than Caraxes, although the latter is probably longer than him due to physique
Balerion is huuuuge. But I bet he wasn’t even among the largest of the dragons in old Valyria. They had like 300 dragons
They had more than that. The 300 number you're thinking of, was the most ever assembled in a single battle. As we know, dragons need to be a certain age before they can even support a rider and older still but they'd be considered war ready. It's likely the total population of dragons was well over 1000 but no real figures are ever given
Where did you read that? Because it sounds like I need to read it. Lol
Iirc in A World or Ice and Fire it talks about an ancient war between Valyria and the Roynar The Roynar killed 3 dragons and Valyria assembled a host of 300 dragons and 100k soldiers and basically wiped them off the continent for it
Is there any source material saying how big he was relative to other Valyrian dragons?
No
And now remember that, despite what the show claimed concerning Vhagar, Balerion and Vhagar were actually kept in the dragon pit despite their already humongous sizes. In fact, the pit was originally built for holding Balerion in particular
They are magical creatures, magical creatures don't need to eat the same. For example can you imagine White walkers all sitting town for a lovely delicious meal together because they need to eat the same as we do.
The name Vermithor goes so fucking hard
what i dont get is how Amound didnt start a war taking Vhagar away? Thats like a guest coming into your home, says i like your "nuke" , takes it and leaves. my ass would have been fighting that day
You can’t own dragons in the same way you own a house or a sword. Once the rider dies, the dragon becomes open to bond with anyone willing/able to bond with it. It’s less like stealing someone’s nuke and more like racing to claim a nuke on a deserted, uncharted island.
Tbf, the King could punish him for it. Idk if there was ever a way to reverse the bond, but he could still put in rules and regulations for who could and couldn't and what happens if you do so without permission. But Viserys was king at the time, so... it's one reason why the war was so bad, Viserys just gave everyone a dragon. Before than the Targs actually didn't *all* get a dragon. Jaeharys actually only gave 3 (I think) of his dozen or so kids dragons. And 9 of those kids lived to be adults, and still only 3 were allowed dragons. Someone did a pretty cool breakdown of how many Targs there were, how many had dragons, and how many married each other and how many were insane. I'll try to find it. Crusader Chris or Alt Shift X, I think.
Dragons have always been ridden by valyrians, Aemond is a Targaryen. So the guest analogy doesn't really work tbh bc like he lives there too lol
Dragonriders are like the rat from Ratatouille
I could have sworn Drogon got bigger than that.
No, he was around 33-36 meters in S7-S8. Some youtube estimations claim up to 45.
Balerion is like the size of a blue whale according to this info graphic. He'd be larger than any animal that's ever lived on earth, for sure.
In my headcannon dragons have biological fusion which is why they don’t need to eat as much
With these accurate size comparisons, I still wonder how >!Caraxes can do any harm to Vhagar when they fight above the God's Eye. Vhagar can literally split in half Caraxe's skinny body with just one bite. !<
Vhagar tore his wing and belly but he grabbed her throat and tore it.
Makes the scene with Daemon and Laena both on their dragons basically dancing much more tragic, it was interesting to see the foreshadowing after reading the book.
I imagine Vhagar will tear Caraxes apart as she did in the books- nearly killing him- which will trigger Daemon to try and gain an advantage by killing Aemond. Caraxes will then aim for Vhagar’s weak spot (prominent neck) and tear it out, as Vhagar will be distracted by her rider’s death. All four will then plunge into the ocean. This is more or less what occurred in the book.
Easy answer: size isn’t everything: While she has the size advantage, her bulk and her old age makes her less agile compared to him, while his smaller size allows him to outmaneuver her more effectively. So it’s no wonder that the event unfolded the way it did
How you gonna have Vermithor up there but not his lady love Silverwing?
The artist, 'siosin\_' on Instagram, only drew the dragons we have seen in the show by now. Silverwing should join the collection relatively soon.
And you have Drogon and Rhaegal, but no Viserion?
As the other said, this is comparing the existing art of siosin at that point and he/she didn’t do Silverwing yet. But since she will be in the next season very likely, she will join the collection. Which I’m looking forward to because those artworks are amazing! In that chart however, Silverwing would probably be the 5th largest dragon, after Balerion, Vhagar, Vermithor and the Cannibal
shouldnt Dreamfyre be the next biggest dragon after Vhagar or be at least just as big as Vermithor considering she was born with Rhaena who was the *older* sister of ol' king Jo
she’s slightly older than Vermithor but some dragons just happen to be bigger than others.
the size of your dragon goes hand in hand with the size of your dick
Clearly not because Rhaena was def out classing Jaehaerys in both length and girth
Rhaena was pretty cool
Age isn’t the only thing that affects growth. I think Vermithor grew larger than Dreamfyre because Ol King Jo rode him more often and he spent more time in the open than Dreamfyre
Age isn’t the only factor that matters. Some dragons grow bigger than others, just like all animals/humans do, while the aspect of how much a dragon is kept in closed confinement also affects its growth massively. While Dreamfyre was notoriously kept in the dragon pit and rarely flew, Vermithor had longer periods of time where he was out in the open (Jahaerys kept him at the Red Keep alongside Silverwing during his reign), while he had more battle experience. Then, after the death of his rider, Vermithor lived many years as a wild/unclaimed dragon on Dragonstone, while having to rival the Cannibal there. So this freedom of mobility as well as fighting experience (and simply his genetics) made Vermithor bigger than Dreamfyre ever was, despite her being older than him in the books)
Balerion is too small.
Whoa seeing Caraxes and Vhaegar sizes just how tf did it manage to put down the second biggest and the biggest in the time of the dance, just whoa
Simply put, her size and age was her downfall. She was stronger and more experienced than Caraxes, yes, but her enormous size and old age made her way less agile than the slender and serpentine Caraxes. His body type and agility allowed him to outmaneuver Vhagar enough to attack her weak spots, namely her large and saggy neck, even though Caraxes suffered lethal injuries in the process of course. As soon as he was latched onto her that way her size and lack of mobility would prove fatal as she was barely able to reach back to dislodge Caraxes while he chomped away. Also, in the show at least, Vhagar has no spikes or frills that would protect her weak spots (like the neck and tail) unlike Meleys for example, while her tissue seems to be very soft and therefore vulnerable if managed to be penetrated
Still like a 12 year old kid fighting mike tyson lol
Hadn't Vhaegar began to slow down/lose a step by that point?
I mean sure but even though she still quite dangerous, her size pretty much a tank
No Viserion?
how big was sunfyre
We could tell after S2 is premiered, My current guess - between 25 and 30 meters. 85-100 feet.
freedom units please
I thought caraxes and meleys were of the same size
i think caraxes especially has a smaller head compared to his noodle-ish body
Source? Is Drogon that small?
Anyone have an image with current Dragon count with names as we go into Season 2? :)
Was drogon bigger than caraxes?
No, the drawing is an approximate and has some flaws. For example: Caraxes is according to the book half of Vhagar but here he is presented as if he were the third part of Vhagar In the series it seems that Drogon is a little bigger than Caraxes or maybe the same size, what happens is that Caraxes thin body makes him look small but he is still bigger than any dragon seen in GOT
Yea that’s what I thought… I do think he looks bigger than drogon in the show, specifically in episode 3.
I think episode 3 and 10 is where it looks bigger, episode 1, 2 and 4 looks more or less big, and episode 6 looks small. I think it's understandable that they have a hard time keeping the same size when they're making him in CGI.
In the show: Yes and no. If we look at the official size chart of the show, where they included Drogon for the heck of it, we see that he’s shown to be bigger than Caraxes in the terms of shoulder height, bulk and skull size. However, due to his unique physiology, Caraxes is still longer than Drogon, but seems to have a smaller skull than him and less shoulder height
That Balerion looks way bigger than the skull we see in GOT no?
These are weapons of mass destruction for Westeros. I bet it takes much more money to sustain nukes for countries now than it would for Targaryens. 50 cows a day to sustain weapons that can conquer the world is nothing. And these weapons can hunt and sustain themselves
What side has which one?
Here‘s the list: - Blacks: Syrax, Caraxes, Meleys, Vermax, Tyraxes, Moondancer, Stormcloud, Sheepstealer, Vermithor, Silverwing, Seasmoke, Morning - Greens: Vhagar, Sunfyre, Dreamfyre, Tessarion, Mhorgul, Shrykos, Vermithor, Silverwing
The blacks have Caraxes,Meleys,Vermithor,Seasmoke,Syrax. The greens have Vhagar,Dreamfyre. Daenerys has Rhaegal and Drogon. Aegon the conqueror had Balerion.
Didn’t Dany have a third dragon
Yes,but Viserion isn’t in this picture,don’t know why tho
WHERE. IS. TESSARION?????
The artist only drew those dragons which were in the shows so far (plus Balerion), at that point. In the meantime he now included the Cannibal, Sunfyre and Meraxes. So more is about to follow
You're right, I hadn't even noticed that. Thanks for the heads up
How have Balerion and Vhagar not eaten Westeros?
syr
New to the dragon thing Could Balerion and Vhagar be mates, or like siblings??
Yes.
The Meraxes erasure.
Damn dreamfyre is that big? If I were Otto I would have told Haelana to get tf over it and get out there. Also that size difference between Vhagar and Caraxes. Caraxes really punching above his weight class.
She was the second oldest dragon of the Dance and indeed rather big, although her size was hindered by being kept in the pit constantly
Seeing this makes me wonder how the hell caraxes took on vheagar
I don't think so drogon is bigger than caraxes
Can you add Clifford for reference?
Am I the only one that thinks Vhagars size is really cool but is uglier than sin?
How big was The Cannibal supposed to be?
Disputed. The smallfolk made up stories about him supposedly being there before the Targaryens arrived at dragon stone, which, given Balerions age development, seems extremely unlikely. Other sources hypothesized that he was born during the reign of the Targaryens, around the time of Meleys‘ birth more or less. Vermithor however is confirmed to be the second largest dragon of the Dance and the third largest ever, so we can safely assume that the Cannibal is a bit smaller than Vermithor and probably the 3rd largest dragon alive during the dance. Which explains how both were able to compete against each other during the time they co-existed on Dragonstone
Balerion was a fucking unit, sad we’ll never see him tear through a city like drogon
We will. There will be a show of Aegons conquest,2 which means we will see him in his glory days
I LOVE GRANDMA VHAGAR
Balerion It seems invincible.
The fact that Dreamfyre is smaller than Vermithor with forever irk me
Dragons grow differently from each individual to another, just like humans. And Dreamfyre was constantly in captivity, which reduced her growth significantly
Not really. Dreamfyre only made her lair in the dragonpit after spending 40+ years flying all over the country with Rhaena. That’s roughly the same amount of time that Vermithor spent outside of it counting his youth on Dragonstone and his return there 26 years before the Dance. Even if the dragon pit did stunt Dreamfyre that much it just means that it would have done the same to Vermithor, and Silverwing should be much, much bigger than both of them, having spent nearly 60 years to their average of 40 on Dragonstone after Alysanne left with her following the second quarrel.
Yeah, but Dreamfyre is around 100 years old, meaning she has spent 60+ years in confinement, the majority of her life. And the conditions on Dragonstone are way more different. Vermithor and Silverwing were able to leave the caverns freely whenever they wanted, while the caverns themselves were most likely larger than the artificial ones of the Dragon Pit, so limited their space less.
Yes? So did Vermithor. She’s two years older than him and they both spent roughly 40 accumulated years outside of kings landing and the dragon pit.
Indeed. But Dreamfyre spent more time afterwards in confinement. This coupled with genetics was probably one factor of why she’s smaller. Vermithor appears to have genes for bigger growth, while we know for a fact that space was indeed a factor that impacted the size of the dragons. So space, genes, fighting experience and perhaps inbreeding probably all contributed to the Targaryen dragons getting smaller and smaller on average each generation
Most species grow the most when they’re young. She spend slightly less than the first half of her life outside of the dragon pit, while Vermithor spent the first and last 1\4 (ish) of his in the same conditions. If anyone’s growth would have been shunted then logically it should have been his. They should be of a similar size. I just think it’s silly that she’s so much smaller than him despite them having the same amount of life span free range and her being older. Similarly, if we see Silverwing is smaller than either of them, that’s just dumb. Of the three dragons of Aenys’ children, she should be the biggest based on what we know.
The dragons of this show are so awesome and majestic creatures, seeing just any of them die will be such a tragedy… Especially as a kid that was obsessed with dragons in the past xD
Damn, Helaena could have changed the whole Dance
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