Mal Malenkirk Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 The stone beast is the Maester or the Sons of the Harpy conspiracy , normally when something is called a beast it's an unknown animal . If you're a team sport enthusiast, especially those who allow physical contact (ice hockey in my case), ''He's a Beast!'' is something you'd say of someone who physically dominate his peers. Such as Balerion over any other dragon. That's what I meant, with capslock for shouting enthusiastically like a high strung fan and everything. Don't read too much into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Malenkirk Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 That picture of Aegon riding Balerion was incredible. Showed it to my 14 year old son who adores Tolkien and old mythologies. He was not impressed. No idea why. It's because he's fourteen year old boy. Fourteen years old boys are never impressed by anything introduced to them by their mothers. You should have asked one of his friends to show him the picture, he'd have been aghast with excitement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howland Reeds Weed Swamp Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 It's because he's fourteen year old boy. Fourteen years old boys are never impressed by anything introduced to them by their mothers. You should have asked one of his friends to show him the picture, he'd have been aghast with excitement. I'm 14 and I was wowed regardless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blow My Horn Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 A wolf sees a horse as prey and it's not as big. Seeing something as prey doesn't mean you're able to swallow it whole. Tigers have on some rare occasions been known to bring down isolated elephants so... That being said, If I remember the illustration I saw of Dany and Drogon in the Dothraki sea, he was indeed a bit bigger than most horses in the body. LOL A wolf sees a horse as prey because it has a pack behind it. A lone dragon seeing a horse as prey is a testament to its size. Not sure where anyone said something about swallowing a horse whole. Predatory animals only view another as prey when it makes sense for their eating habit, size and killing ability. Drogon is not the size of a horse. I'd be interested to see the circumstances surrounding a tiger taking down an elephant. That elephant wouldn't be alone for no reason and starving animals will go to extremes. Drogon was not starving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis's Lawyer Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Just so you know, Asian bull elephants are solitary creatures. Females and calves aren't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salafi Stannis Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Makes me wonder where the early Targ kings put their dragons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis's Lawyer Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Makes me wonder where the early Targ kings put their dragons. Balerion would have lived in Dragonstone. Some later dragons lived in the Dragonpit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Malenkirk Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 I'd be interested to see the circumstances surrounding a tiger taking down an elephant. That elephant wouldn't be alone for no reason and starving animals will go to extremes. Drogon was not starving. Elephant is extremely rare, it's more something that has been recorded historically than a part of their diet as most tigers will never eat an elephant in their life. But it has happened. Water Buffalo, on the other hand, are more than twice the size of tigers and are a very common prey for them. More relevant, eagles routinely kill hares, they are in the same ballpark as far as weight is concerned so it's a given a smaller eagle sometime kills a heavier hare. A dragon swooping down at high speed from the sky wouldn't need to be bigger than a horse to kill one. I'm sure a five hundred pound dragon falling from the sky at 70mph would generate more than enough energy to kill a 700 pound horse, especially if it's all focused on a small point of impact on its back, for example. Anyway, the point is not exactly how big drogon is relative to a horse, the point is is still fairly small by Dragon's standard and can't be used in the saem Balerion was during the conquest. He'd likely et shot down very fast if he was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
House Hendrix of Rock Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 What bothered me most was reading Balerion had black flames with red streaks, and on The bottom of The same page they show him with normal flames.. Artwork is impressive but flawed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 If I had to guess, which I am doing, I would say that Drogon is going to be the size of a flying Allosaurs by the time he gets to Westeros. Maybe 30 ft in length, with a 40 ft wingspan. Balerion the Black Dread he may not be, but a flying, fire-spitting jr T-Rex is probably going to be enough to make most of the small folk defecate all over themselves and take to running. They probably are not going to be of a size to replicate the field of fire, but they don't need to be. If Tyrion is with Dany I expect him to advise using the dragons in night raids and fly-by attacks on non-missle troops. Imagine a dragon attack on a moonless night swooping down on an encampment and basically putting it to the torch and causing mass panic and then flying away. Are they WMDs? No. But they are superiority weapons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Blizzardborn Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 It's because he's fourteen year old boy. Fourteen years old boys are never impressed by anything introduced to them by their mothers. You should have asked one of his friends to show him the picture, he'd have been aghast with excitement. Thanks for the tip. I don't think any of his friends are into this stuff though. He's really into Tolkien, British and Welsh mythologies, and things like that so he knows way more about dragon lore in fantasy than I do. He mentioned some dragon or other that he thought was more impressive than Balerion and I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Thanks for the tip. I don't think any of his friends are into this stuff though. He's really into Tolkien, British and Welsh mythologies, and things like that so he knows way more about dragon lore in fantasy than I do. He mentioned some dragon or other that he thought was more impressive than Balerion and I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. Probably Ancalagon the Black. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Holy Goat Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 If I had to guess, which I am doing, I would say that Drogon is going to be the size of a flying Allosaurs by the time he gets to Westeros. Maybe 30 ft in length, with a 40 ft wingspan. Balerion the Black Dread he may not be, but a flying, fire-spitting jr T-Rex is probably going to be enough to make most of the small folk defecate all over themselves and take to running. Drogon will not be near as masive though. Most of him will be neck and tail and wings, the body relatively small, his mass not comparable to a therapod of the same lenght. The Fire rbeathing will probably compensate though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
True.Edged Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 The dragons in there current state obviously can't be used like Aegon used the originals. Divebombing an army in that manner will only result in the death of the dragons, Drogon included. When dragons are young they are vulnerable, at the age of Dany's dragons they are best utilized as scouts, or transport. There bigger advantage is prestige value. Dragons, archers, and wights/others are pretty much rock paper scissors. Dragons beat wights, wights kill archers, archers kill juvenile dragons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Drogon will not be near as masive though. Most of him will be neck and tail and wings, the body relatively small, his mass not comparable to a therapod of the same lenght. The Fire rbeathing will probably compensate though. I agree the mass will not be the same, but the exact proportions of the neck/body/tail are debateable. All we really have to go on is artist renditions and they all differ. You could have a relatively thick, short neck, or a long slender one. You can have a slender body, or a thick one. It makes more sense for dragons to be slender since they are flying beasts, but they're also fantasy beasts. I don't expect everything to comply with physics. The dragons as depicted in Game of Thrones are not overly slender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Blizzardborn Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Probably Ancalagon the Black. I believe you're right. That does sound familiar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acnologia Targaryen Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Well this is no surprise we all know Balerion was an epic creature to swallow a mammoth whole was enough for me to know this thing was epic. I do wonder how aegon manages to feed him though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulthosian Stark Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Well this is no surprise we all know Balerion was an epic creature to swallow a mammoth whole was enough for me to know this thing was epic. I do wonder how aegon manages to feed him though?That's what I was thinking. Maybe instead of beheading it was just balerion snack time? Maybe Balerion would go hunting alone like Drogon and go up north and literally eat mammoths lol? Both?I like to think as the dragons in terms of aircraft, Balerion was like a god damned AC 160 (heavy bomber) on roids, Drogons like a fighter jet.The best way for Dany to utilize the dragons as they are is surprise attacks, 3 dragons at their current size showing up roasting a city would be sufficient, if the city was unprepared. As they are, a legion of archers, crossbowmen, ballistas would handle the issue pretty quickly. So, hopefully, unless some badass dragon armor is made, Dany uses them as such and doesn't get them killed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Malenkirk Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 I do wonder how aegon manages to feed him though? Hopefully when he became that big he also became a bit of a pacha who let himself be fed instead of going hunting and terrorizing entire regions. Some ranchers probably made a living entirely by providing cows for Balerion alone. Also, maybe dragons have a slow metabolism like other reptiles and they expand very little energy when they are just lying around, taking in the sun like a giant lizard, which Balerion might have done a lot of unlike the younger dragons. Though on the other hand if it was the case, they'd be very ill suited to fight in Winter in the North (ill suited as in 'it would kill them!'), so for the sake of the story, maybe not. Unless Martin doesn't care one bit about biology, which is entirely possible. In that case maybe dragons have both the metabolism of a cold blooded snake who only needs to eat a tiny fraction of what a similar sized mammal would AND the ability to keep their body temperature up like mammals and therefore fight in the North. It's Magic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Holy Goat Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I agree the mass will not be the same, but the exact proportions of the neck/body/tail are debateable. All we really have to go on is artist renditions and they all differ. You could have a relatively thick, short neck, or a long slender one. You can have a slender body, or a thick one. It makes more sense for dragons to be slender since they are flying beasts, but they're also fantasy beasts. I don't expect everything to comply with physics. The dragons as depicted in Game of Thrones are not overly slender. The book regularily describes the dragons necks and tails as being long and almost serpentine, and their bodys being mostly tail and neck. There is nothing to suggest that they have short necks and rubust bodies, and everything to suggest they have long, thin (but powerful) frames. Artwork describing them as flying Allosaurs would be way off. If I recall correctly GRRM has even declared once that he deliberately wanted to avoid the idea of dragons shaped as flying bricks, becuase he wanted it to seem more realistic: hence why they are slender and light. Don't go after depictions of A Game of Thrones. Just don't. The Show is not the Books. Just read the wiki article, look on the references: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Dragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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