What were the Targs thinking with their dragon-raising?

[Jon Mark Selmy]

Was it a "decline in magic" that caused the dragons to die out, or vice versa?

To me this is the most important sentence in your whole post. And I feel very strongly that it was the magic decline that weakened the dragons and not the other way around. It just seems more logical to me. Why would one species decline compromise all magic? Also, wasn't there magic before dragons came to Westeros? To me it's just that the dragons are intrinsecally magic creatures and thus die out along with magic and are reborn along with it, too.

[Natalie_S]

We also know that the Wall is supposed to shield the realm from magic, so perhaps being South of the Wall was bad for dragons (they didn't have contact with any source of magic and this "dried them up"?).

Surely inbreeding didn't help either.

I agree with the fact that Dragonpit wasn't a good solution to improve dragon health and physical growth... but then again, Dany feels she has no choice and doesn't know how to train or deal with a big dragon- imagine with a full size one.

So perhaps also the previous Targs didn't know how to control them.

[Naathi Prince]

I think a part of the issue was the Dance of Dragons. Apparently a lot of the Targaryen Dragons were killed off in this war. I also expect Aegon Dragonsbane stopped doing whatever it was that hatched the eggs, because he didn't like dragons. The Dragonpit is likely an result of maester's advice on how better to acclimate themselves to Westeros (In Valyria, it was ok to let your dragon roam, but in westeros men will curse you)

[pitakon]

If your country is capable of making nuke WMD. Then you have to make one. You know it probably will kill you, but you also know that it will make other people think twice before coming after you.

[Rheagar Prime]

I honestly think many things contributed to it and yes the targs were to blame too even though i am a big targ fan. I believe that the dance of dragons caused the stronger dragons to vanish so breeding became harder (big ass targ stupidity right here), lack of a strong targ figure aegon died trying to complete the building of his kingdom i think more building was to be done other than KL, the kingsroad and others. Jeahaerys I these were strong leaders after them and that civil war happened the maester pretty much gained an advantage over weaker targs like aegon III and used his fears of the creatures. Baelor the blessed lord have mercy we see how he saw dragons as monster and ordered the scrolls on them burned so there goes a whole heap of info targs had.

I honestly always used martin as an explanation for this, since it was relevant for the plot for dragons to be extinct and when they reappeared. Going deeper i can see why others say the doom and the climate of westeros made the dragons die out. Since magic was practically fading after the doom and westeros was built like valyria or advanced. They didn't have the sky roofs or ready made knowledge of dragon study and the religion was apart of this problem, we all know the targs had to convert so they had to adapt to please the new subject who were terrified of dragons. So they locked them up instead of them flying over like it was nothing, which is what happened in valyria.

[Martin Lasarte]

Now that we have The Princess and the Queen, I think we can be certain that most of the adult dragons were killed in the Dance. Only 2 or 3 survived, and they seem to have gone feral. As for the newly hatched dragons being weak and deformed, that might be the maesters' fault. They saw an opportunity to rid the world from dragons and they took it.

[Guest]

It is really odd that a family that so strongly identifies itself with dragons appears to be so incredibly ignorant about them. You'd think that because they refer to themselves as "dragons" they would be more empathetic towards dragons, too. They are like people who say they love dogs or horses or whatever, but then when they get those animals they basically just ignore them and then wonder why their animal is so savage or disobedient. The Targs seem to love the cache that comes with being 'dragons' and owning dragons, but they don't want to go to the bother of actually looking after them or even learn anything about them. It seems Dany comes from a long line of dragon-wannabes who actually don't care at all about real dragons. Hey Targs! Dragons are for life, not just for Christmas!

Yeah, when Dany locked up her dragons I cringed. It seems obvious to me that taking two animals that have become a little wild and locking them in a tiny dark dank cell is only going to make them wild AND vicious. She didn't make any effort to improve their behavior or reign them in without locking them in a hole and abandoning her role as their mother.

[Acnologia Targaryen]

Due to the plot they just had to die out for the story.

Still seems many factors could have taken place: 1 i know is the maesters killing them since they saw oh devastating they were and the fact their was a king with dragon phobia adds to that. 2. Climate change i doubt there were any winters in old Valyria and the targ dragons got exposed to that type of weather after the conquest for over a century so mabybe that weakened them after a while (even princess Rhaenys said that dragons thrive better on Dragon stone in tpatq).

[Gendrys Forge]

Here's a semi related idea I had a while back... I think Dany could hatch more dragons now if she had more eggs... Think about it, Dragons weren't always under the control of people, they obviously can hatch eggs on their own or they would have died out. Now that there are actually living dragons again, why couldn't they hatch more eggs? I know the Dany thing was a one time magical event, but perhaps all it originally took was a blast of true dragons breath to hatch an egg, or something like that.

[Gibzit]

It could also be aegon converting to fot7, remember how the big dillema was to either keep control of the dragons or the lords, the dragons might have needed worship to survive :dunno:

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Several characters mention the fact that magic has come back to the world, Thoros and Mel both bring it up, right? It seems clear from the text that magic goes through long seasons just like the Winter. The White Walkers have come back in strength, Direwolves are seen again, Dragons were born again, all of a sudden, after being extinct for so long. Thoros is able to start using his life-kiss, which he was not able to do before. It is something bigger than the Targaryens. Nothing from the texts suggest it was their fault that all the dragons died out. LOL, which is fairly obvious given that there were wild dragons (which did not live in KL) and they also all died out, not to mention every person we have seen who speaks of dragons agree that there have been none seen on the planet for 150 years, and there were other dragons besides just the Targaryen ones, especially in Essos..... yet they all obviously perished and died out as well, having nothing at all to do with the Targaryens. There is the dragon skeleton next to Vaes Toloro, which was obviously not a Targaryen Dragon that fled the doom. Plus we saw in TPATQ and TRP that dragons were housed and it did nothing to affect their growth or lifespan. Only when the magic 'season' was over did the magical creatures become scarce.

Same thing with the direwolves; Chapter 1, Game of Thrones

"Direwolves loose in the realm after so many years," muttered Hullen, the master of horse. "I like it not."

--Clearly the direwolves have also not been seen in many years as well, but miraculously they come back around the same time the red priests power returns, the white walkers return and the dragons return. Not very likely that all of that is a coincidence. That would be like saying that the Starks were too stupid to keep the direwolves alive and abundant, but no one would ever say that.