World of Game of Thrones – A Song of Ice and Fire
Dragons!
“Dragons are intelligent, more so than men according to some maesters. They have affection for their friends and fury for their enemies.”
Tyrion Lannister
Dragons are enormous flying reptiles capable of breathing fire, possessing a terrifying and devastating power that can destroy armies and turn entire cities to ash. Men who were able to tame and ride dragons as war beasts used them in battle and to forge vast empires across the continents of Essos and Westeros. The greatest of these empires was the Valyrian Freehold, forged by the lords of the Valyrian dragons.
Dragons are reptilian creatures with scales, possessing only two legs and two wings, using their wings as front legs when moving on the ground (George R. R. Martin decided to create them this way because he felt that creatures in the known world typically have four limbs; giving them two wings and four legs would be unnatural). They have sharp teeth and claws, leather wings, long necks and tails, and spiny crests along their backs.
When small, they are the size of a cat, but they can grow to gargantuan dimensions, large enough to swallow a mammoth whole in one bite. The polished skulls of Targaryen dragons gleam like bright onyx, and their teeth are curved daggers of black diamond. Their bones are black due to a high concentration of iron. Dragonbone is a highly sought-after material, as it is as strong as steel, light, much more flexible, and, of course, completely fireproof. Dragonbone bows are greatly prized by the Dothraki. An archer armed with one can shoot arrows further than with any wooden bow.
History
Dragons are native to the continent of Essos, discovered 5,000 years ago by the Valyrians in the Fourteen Flames, a ring of volcanoes on the Valyrian Peninsula. The Valyrians became masters of dragon breeding, using them as weapons in wars to establish a grand empire. After the Doom of Valyria, the only dragons known to have survived belonged to the Targaryens of Dragonstone. House Targaryen used them to conquer and unify the Seven Kingdoms. Over the course of one hundred and fifty years, the Targaryens rode their dragons as symbols of their power.
The Dragonpit was constructed in King’s Landing to breed and house dragons, and they kept at least 19 creatures (number of skulls stored in the cellars of the Red Keep). Over centuries, the Targaryen dragons perished, most of them killed during the Dance of the Dragons, and in subsequent generations, they did not grow as large as their ancestors and eventually became extinct, or so it was believed until the events surrounding Daenerys Targaryen.
Origin
The origin of dragons is shrouded in mystery and superstition. One of the most popular legends is that in the past, there were two moons in the sky, but one of them came too close to the Sun and cracked with the heat, revealing itself to be a giant egg from which hundreds of thousands of dragons emerged. Being close to the Sun, they drank its fire, thus gaining the ability to breathe fire themselves. According to this legend, the remaining moon in the skies of Westeros will one day also come too close to the Sun and crack like its sister, releasing a flood of new dragons that will begin the second age of dragons in the world.
The shadowbinders of Asshai claim that dragons came from the Shadow Lands in the far east, a wild and inhospitable region where hardly any man returns alive. According to them, an ancient people, in a time long forgotten, brought dragons to Valyria and there passed on their knowledge of how to tame the beasts to a new generation.
The Valyrians themselves have their legends that dragon eggs were first found in the Fourteen Flames and that they themselves were descendants of these magnificent creatures, so only those with ancient Valyrian blood could be dragon riders.
Septon Barth
Here enters a very interesting character from George R. R. Martin’s universe, Septon Barth. Barth was described as a person of simple speech, who possessed a brilliant mind and hailed from a plebeian background, the son of a blacksmith. After integrating into the Faith of the Seven, his intelligence was recognized by his order, and he was appointed to oversee the library of the Red Keep, caring for the books and records of the king. King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, who loved to read, met Barth and the two developed a friendship.
The king saw Barth’s value and eventually appointed him Hand of the King. Many lords of ancient lineage and nobility looked down upon the appointment of a blacksmith’s son to such a prestigious position, the second highest in the realm. However, history shows that Barth excelled in the role and served as Hand of the King until his death. The forty years he spent as Hand are generally referenced as synonymous with prosperity, much like the reign of Jaehaerys I.
With Barth’s assistance, Jaehaerys implemented improvements in the realm unlike any king before him. Jaehaerys created unified codes of conduct so that from the North to the Marches of Dorne, the realm shared common laws. Major works were implemented to improve King’s Landing, such as sewers, drains, and wells. Barth believed that fresh water and waste disposal were essential for the city’s health. Barth was sent to Oldtown to forge a lasting agreement between the Iron Throne and the Faith of the Seven. The agreement stripped the Faith of the right to conduct trials, while Jaehaerys promised before the Iron Throne that the crown would always defend the Faith. The great rift between the crown and the faith was resolved because of this agreement. While it was said that Queen Alysanne Targaryen was Jaehaerys’s great love, Barth was his great friend. No man of humble birth had risen as high as this simple-speaking septon with great intelligence.
Barth wrote several books and treatises, but what interests us here is his “collection” on dragons called Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. In this book, he asserts that dragons do not have a defined sex, being able to change according to need, such as laying eggs. But Barth’s most controversial and interesting finding in his studies was that dragons were created by the Valyrian mages through a mixture of Blood Magic and genetic engineering, combining wyrms, serpents, and Valyrian blood.
Fire wyrms are serpentine creatures with an undefined number of limb-like appendages resembling arms; they have the ability to breathe fire but lack wings and live inside mountains, burrowing into the earth for their habitats.
Young fire wyrms are no larger than a child’s arm, while adults can reach enormous sizes. They were found by slaves of the Freehold of Valyria in the mines of the Fourteen Flames where precious metals were mined. According to ancient reports, fire wyrms were in the Fourteen Flames long before dragons. They are highly aggressive and fear no men. Many slaves and overseers were lost to these creatures in Valyrian excavations.
Wyverns are winged lizards from the world of A Song of Ice and Fire that live on the mysterious continent of Sothoryos. They are considered the greatest threats of this land and the main reason why there is no exploration and colonization of men in this location. They are considered cousins of dragons, being very similar in personality, appearance, and power, although smaller. They are said to be even more aggressive and ferocious than dragons, suggesting they may lack high rationality.
According to the scholar, Valyrian Blood Mages captured specimens of these two creatures and performed a ritual where they combined the best characteristics of each (the ability to fly from wyverns and their overall anatomy and the fire-breathing and immense size of fire wyrms) along with Valyrian blood, thus creating the most powerful mount ever to exist. The blood would create a bond with those people so that only they could domesticate these magnificent creatures.
He also claims that these same mages mixed the blood of dragons with Valyrians from the main houses, thus creating a race that could be more resistant to fire and possessed traits seen in the books, such as silver hair and purple eyes. This mixture would explain why Daenerys, Rhaenyra, and Viserys I had stillborn children with draconic characteristics like scales, wings, and claws during the saga books. It would be a genetic mutation caused by the draconic genes they possessed.
The only problem with this theory is that there seem to be reports that dragons existed before the founding of Valyria. But since these reports are very old, it can be said that they are not accurate or that the serpents and wyrms themselves gave rise to these legends and the Valyrian mages drew inspiration from them to create their dragons. In any case, what’s important is that these magnificent creatures have terrorized and fascinated the inhabitants of the world of Ice and Fire for centuries, as well as us admirers of the work of George R. R. Martin.
Dracarys!
If you want to learn more about the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, look at the links below.
- George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set
- Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones (The Targaryen Dynasty: The House of the Dragon)
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
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