So how big was Balerion the Black Dread really?

[Angmar]

As big as King's Landing.

[Usrnmhsnomning]

Actually you are moving the post a bit. First it was the size of Balerion, now it's Torrhen. You changed your argument.

No, I didn't change my argument, I've had three different posters question me on two separate issues. One is Balerions size, the other issue is why Torrhen knelt. I didn't change my argument; it warranted TWO DIFFERENT questions. I've responded to both without changing the points I've been arguing. If you can't keep up, keep out of it. The rest of your post is completely made up; Balerion 40 feet long? I didn't say that. I didn't say anything you've just rambled on about. It is the most utterly irrelevant drivel I've had the displeasure of reading on this forum.

Keep sticking to your guns man

Keep up the rhetoric because you disagree with my opinion man

[Rheagar Prime]

not as big as Ancalagon the black, he was miles long, towered over mountains, and could plot out the sun from miles away

that thing was gargantuan i remember reading the simarillion and damn i was just trying to picture that thing i don't see how anything less that a mair beat it.

[Gelis]

It is stated that the authors do exaggerate history through out the series. So I highly doubt that. I was about to say that the biggest dragon skull in the dungeons of the Red Keep that Tyrion and Arya found could be of Balerion, but I recall that it wasn't somehow. But I imagine Balerion would be a little bigger than that.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I'm thinking like Yorkshire Terrier size. History exaggerates all things...

[HBOnly]

I too have been lurking the forum and finally decided to sign-up. I saw the opening trailer for the show’s fourth season and decided to learn more about the dragons because it seemed they could get pretty big if the scale of the dragon shadow flying over the model of that city (is it King’s Landing?) has any accuracy to it at all. And by the way, I got into the show before I got into all the lore, haven’t read the books, but whatever I get curious about I web-search first, and I obviously don’t mind spoilers, it strangely gets me amped up to see certain events.

Anyhow, on to the matter of a dragon’s size now, and my take on it, I decided to start using Balerion’s assault on Harrenhal, all by his lonesome, as a frame…so if you know about Harrenhal then skip past the quotes.

“Harrenhal covers three times as much ground as Winterfell and its buildings are so much larger that they can scarcely be compared. Its stables can house a thousand horses, its godswood covers twenty acres, and its kitchens are as large as Winterfell's Great Hall.” (From ASOIAF wiki).

So pretty much the whole description ought to be taken literally? I suspect the descriptions of the stables and godswood would be difficult for the page’s author to misinterpret, so I think it’s reliable. Now on to more:

“However, much of Harrenhal has far gone into decay. The Whents use only the lower thirds of two of the five towers, letting the rest go to ruin, and many places in the castle have not been entered in decades. Bats infest the tops of some of the towers.^”

I don’t think any of this is hyperbole either, do you? Now, lastly:

“Harrenhal is built on a gigantic scale; its colossal curtain walls are sheer and high as mountain cliffs while atop the battlements the wood-and-iron scorpions seem as small as their namesakes when seen from the ground. Harrenhal's gatehouse is as large as Winterfell's great keep, and its stone is discolored and fissured. From outside the gatehouse, only the tops of five immense towers can be seen because the height of the walls obscure the view of them.

Of the castle's five towers, the shortest is half again as high as the tallest one in Winterfell, yet none of the towers are proper, being bent, lumped, and cracked from the melting of the stone by the Targaryen dragons centuries earlier. Their original names were lost with the death of Harren the Black.”

You decide how much of that is hyperbole and how much is intended to be concrete and literal insofar as medieval standard measurement practices are concerned. I think the hyperbole is obvious in this one.

Now how much does any of that really matter? Its silly, IMO, to consider real life reptile physiology, or physics and practicality in general, otherwise the structures like Harrenhal (that are vast but built without magic involved) would be rationalized down to a believable scale (suspension of belief is still a factor in fiction, right?). Dragon's didn't evolve from anything we know of, except maybe the fire worms beneath the Fourteen Fires that Old Valyria's slaves kept running into. But that evolution is so far past and so speculative that it doesn't really apply, but worth a mention here. Balerion's size at the time of the War of Conquest is really the subject, I think, because after that he was pretty much retired. And to take down Harrenhal as a "youngster," so to speak, he was at least 100ft wingspan then, or had a fire breath range/scope drastically out of proportion with his own size. Or he spent a whole day and night buzzing around Harrenhal's towers like a hummingbird spitting fire crackers.

And here's some food for thought: If House Targaryen was a minor family in Old Valyrian society, why would they have the resources and opportunities to grow bigger dragons than the top few houses? I think there's nothing wrong with taking Tyrion and Barristan's assessments with a significant degree of accuracy. 100%? Nah, not in Balerion's case. But when it comes to the overall possibilities of dragon sizes, I think the interpretations of the characters are perfectly reasonable and strict scopes.

Honestly, I see Balerion as big as Smaug (Peter Jackson's rendition) from The Hobbit movies. But I'll concede maybe that's TOO big. An ASOIAFanatic can dream, though.

[LordStoneheart]

Hate to mentioned Inheritance Cycle as a reference but apparently the author says this is canon for his dragon Shruikan. I think Balerion would be a little small. (note, if the picture isn't clear enough, on the tiny blue dragon is an average size human...)

[Panos Targaryen]

Here you go, now we know ;)

The first official piece of artwork we have of Balerion the Black Dread. Goddamn, this looks glorious. Just beautiful.

[King Aegon The Conqueror]

Here you go, now we know ;)

The first official piece of artwork we have of Balerion the Black Dread. Goddamn, this looks glorious. Just beautiful.

Thanks for posting a picture of my dragon! :P

[White Ravens]

Here you go, now we know ;)

The first official piece of artwork we have of Balerion the Black Dread. Goddamn, this looks glorious. Just beautiful.

[White Ravens]

Wow! That is awesome!

Thanks for posting the link.

[Panos Targaryen]

Thanks for posting a picture of my dragon! :P

It was my pleasure your Grace ;) Hey, we even look similar

[Talleyrand]

Big

[King Aegon The Conqueror]

It was my pleasure your Grace ;) Hey, we even look similar

haha you sure you aren't one of my fathers bastards? :cool4:

[Free Northman Reborn]

Here you go, now we know ;)

The first official piece of artwork we have of Balerion the Black Dread. Goddamn, this looks glorious. Just beautiful.

Sorry. That's wrong. As I said on the other thread dealing with that picture, that gullet is barely high enough for the man on the dragons' back to walk upright into it. It is nowhere big enough to swallow a mammoth whole.

So firstly, the head needs to be about twice the size it is in that picture.

Secondly, dragons are described as mostly neck, wings and tail. In this picture, the dragon has virtually no neck, with the head seated very close to the shoulders.

The real Balerion would have a neck more similar to that of a giraffe or Brontosaurus. Meaning long and thin. Meaning that the gullet of that long, thin neck must still be twice as big as the gullet on the dragon in this picture, in order to accommodate a whole mammoth.

So all of the above means that the head must be twice the size in this picture,

The neck must be maybe 5 times as long

The body must be twice the diamater and length in this picture, to retain its comparative dimensions to the head, and the tail must balance out the neck, meaning maybe 3 times the length of this picture.

Meaning that the real Balerion would probably have been about twice as high, twice as wide and maybe four times as long as the one in this picture. Giving it about 10 or more times the mass of this dragon.

[Panos Targaryen]

Sorry. That's wrong. As I said on the other thread dealing with that picture, that gullet is barely high enough for the man on the dragons' back to walk upright into it. It is nowhere big enough to swallow a mammoth whole.

So firstly, the head needs to be about twice the size it is in that picture.

Secondly, dragons are described as mostly neck, wings and tail. In this picture, the dragon has virtually no neck, with the head seated very close to the shoulders.

The real Balerion would have a neck more similar to that of a giraffe or Brontosaurus. Meaning long and thin. Meaning that the gullet of that long, thin neck must still be twice as big as the gullet on the dragon in this picture, in order to accommodate a whole mammoth.

So all of the above means that the head must be twice the size in this picture,

The neck must be maybe 5 times as long

The body must be twice the diamater and length in this picture, to retain its comparative dimensions to the head, and the tail must balance out the neck, meaning maybe 3 times the length of this picture.

Meaning that the real Balerion would probably have been about twice as high, twice as wide and maybe four times as long as the one in this picture. Giving it about 10 or more times the mass of this dragon.

That's official artwork from A World of Ice and Fire, written under GRRM's supervision. I suppose GRRM, after seeing Dany's dragons at the TV series changed his mind about the dragons' appearance, and switched for the giant but skinny lizards to the muscular, dinosaur-like ones we see in fantasy more often. And I prefer that.

[Free Northman Reborn]

That's official artwork from A World of Ice and Fire, written under GRRM's supervision. I suppose GRRM, after seeing Dany's dragons at the TV series changed his mind about the dragons' appearance, and switched for the giant but skinny lizards to the muscular, dinosaur-like ones we see in fantasy more often. And I prefer that.

These are artistic impressions. Not detailed schematics. I'm sorry, but that dragon is not mostly neck, wing and tail. It hardly has any neck at all.

It is wrong.

THIS is Balerion, according to how the books describe him.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Balerion

[Panos Targaryen]

These are artistic impressions. Not detailed schematics. I'm sorry, but that dragon is not mostly neck, wing and tail. It hardly has any neck at all.

It is wrong.

THIS is Balerion, according to how the books describe him.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Balerion

I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong. I'm saying it's official artwork, commissioned by GRRM. Take that as you want. And yeah, I'm aware of how the dragons are described in the books. The Fantasy Flight picture is more in-line with the books.

[Panos Targaryen]

These are artistic impressions. Not detailed schematics. I'm sorry, but that dragon is not mostly neck, wing and tail. It hardly has any neck at all.

It is wrong.

THIS is Balerion, according to how the books describe him.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Balerion

I know it's been a while, but I just got an idea. Is it possible to ask Ran himself whether this image is "canon" or not? He co-wrote AWOIAF with GRRM, so he's the highest authority here. How accessible is he? Cos this thing has been bothering me too, different images by different artists tend to depict the dragons differently.

[Free Northman Reborn]

I know it's been a while, but I just got an idea. Is it possible to ask Ran himself whether this image is "canon" or not? He co-wrote AWOIAF with GRRM, so he's the highest authority here. How accessible is he? Cos this thing has been bothering me too, different images by different artists tend to depict the dragons differently.

I already did. On the other thread. I'll find the answer and paste it here for you.