[Peter] Guys, one of the most remembered elements of Game of Thrones, or the A Song of Ice and Fire books are the dragons, those gigantic, terrifying creatures and very connected to magic. You probably remember Daenerys' dragons: Drgon, Rhaegal and Viserion, but first of all, there were a lot of dragons! Before these dragons, there were many others.
And it's exactly these pets that we're going to talk about today! Who are these dragons, who commanded them, what was the power of these dragons, their size, come on. Hey nerd, what's up?
Peter here! Drgons are extremely important creatures within the world of Game of Thrones. It was with them that the Targaryen family, hailing from ancient Valyria, conquered the continent of Westeros and ruled the Seven Kingdoms for 300 years, and even after that, when everyone thought dragons were extinct, they returned to their importance.
Drgons have a very strong connection to the magic of this universe, so much so that it is said that after the last dragon died, summers began to get shorter, winters longer and colder, and magic generally works best when there's a dragon nearby. Their origin is unknown, there are several legends according to the place, which tell where the dragons came from and some are known only from legends. [Legendary Drgons] There are at least two dragons that are part of legends of some peoples.
One of them was called Urrax and he would have lived at the time of the First Men, thousands of years before the Game of Thrones story itself. Not much is known about this particular dragon, other than that he was reportedly killed by a warrior named Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. There was also Nagga, a female dragon that would have been the first water dragon in the world, like a gigantic sea serpent, who would have been killed by the Gray King, an ancient king from the Iron Islands, ancestor of the Greyjoys.
He would have used Nagga's bones to build his hall, and the throne was framed by the dragon's teeth, and even his crown was made with Nagga's teeth. [Conquest of the Targaryens] But when we talk about Drgon in Game of Thrones, of course we can't help but talk about the Targaryens, a family that came from ancient Valyria, an almost legendary land that was destroyed by a lot of natural phenomena. They were the only Valyrians left, for before the destruction they had already established themselves on the eastern shores of Westeros, where Drgonstone is now.
One important thing is that the Targaryens weren't an extremely powerful family in ancient Valyria and not even their dragons were the biggest and most powerful, there were others, that no one ever knew, that were much bigger and more dangerous! One of the few mentioned from this time was a dragon named Terrax, which was ridden by Jaenara Belaerys, a woman of Valyrian origin who was the first to travel across the continent of Sothoryos, south of Essos, and who returned 3 years later to tell the story what it was like there, which is basically a sea of forests. In the beginning, the Targaryens took 5 dragons there to Drgonstone, and of those, only one survived the longest, he was Balerion the Black Drad, who was the largest dragon known in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Reports say he was all black, covered in black scales and even his fire, the flames were black and very, very hot. When the Balerion flew over a city, for example, it was practically dusk, its wings blocked the sunlight, the animal was very, very big! Balerion was ridden by a lord named Aegon Targaryen, who later became known as Aegon the Conqueror.
That's because along with his wives - who were also his sisters - Rhaenys, who rode the dragon Meraxes, and Visenya, who rode Vhagar, they really ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, from the wall down, everything came to be ruled by the Targaryens. Most kingdoms surrendered and proposed alliances just by seeing the dragons, but even so, they caused a lot of destruction, like in the Field of Fire, or in Harrrenhall, and at the end of the Conquest Balerion still melted the swords of Aegon's enemies to forge what would become the Iron Throne, the famous Iron Throne. [Dance of the Drgons] During the first 100, one hundred or so years of the Targaryens' reign, other dragons were born, such as Quicksilver, and some of the older ones died, like Balerion himself, who died of old age, with almost 200 years old.
And it is shortly after the death of Balerion that a civil war begins within the Targaryen family, the war that became known as the Dance of the Drgons and which will be shown in House of the Drgon. When the Dance of Drgons began, there were 20 dragons alive. The largest of all were: Vhagar, who at that time was the largest living dragon and was already nearly the size of the late Balerion; The Vermithor, known as the Brazen Fury, who was the dragon of King Jaehaerys I, one of the greatest dragons too, The Silverwing, or Silverwing, ridden by Queen Alysanne Targaryen; Princess Rhaena's Dramfyre; Meleys, the Red Queen, from Princess Alyssa; Caraxes the Bloody Worm by Prince Aemon; Syrax, from Princess Rhaenyra.
After them came the much younger dragons, a little smaller, but who also actively participated in the war between the two factions of the Targaryen family. They were: The Seasmoke, which was afterwards left free, without a dragon rider to mount it; King Aegon II's Sunfyre the Golden, one of the most respected and remembered dragons by the Targaryens; Tessarion the Blue Queen by Daemon Targaryen; Vermax, by Prince Jacaerys Velaryon; Arrax, by Prince Lucerys Velaryon; Tyraxes from Prince Joffrey Velaryon, no, not THAT Joffrey, thank goodness! And Princess Baela Targaryen's Moondancer, or Bailalua.
There were also Stormcloud (or Storm) dragons, Shrykos and Morghul, which were too young, practically babies, and still could not be ridden. In addition to all these, there were still 3 wild dragons, who lived around there, in Drgon Stone, without anyone having the courage to ride, and look how big they were. They were the Gray Ghost, who was so named because of the color and because he rarely appeared, the Sheep Thief, who was called that for obvious reasons, and the Cannibal, also for obvious reasons, he ate other smaller dragons, and was even the largest of the three wild dragons.
[The Last Drgon] By the end of the Dance of Drgons, which was a real catastrophe for the Targaryens, virtually all of these dragons had already died. In fact, there are only four left: the Sheep Thief and the Cannibal, the two wildlings, Silverwing and Morning, who was a dragon that was born during the war, that is, he was still very young. From then on, the dragons that were born developed little, died young and didn't grow much anymore, they say that the last ones were the size of a dog or a cat, you couldn't even ride anymore.
The last dragon didn't even have a name, lived little and was very sick, a little animal was already on the verge of extinction, and that's what happened when she died, dragons were officially extinct. The Targaryens used the skulls of the great dead dragons of the past to adorn the Iron Throne room in the Red Keep, including that of Balerion, the largest of them all. When there was the revolution against Aerys II, the Mad King, and Robert Baratheon ascended the throne, he kept all those dragon skulls in a basement of the fortress, after all, that was a symbol of the power of the Targaryens, who had been taken from the throne after 300 years of ruling.
[Daenerys Targaryen] Since the death of the last dragon, everyone was sure they were extinct, only there in Essos, exiled, was the Mad King's daughter, Daenerys, who lives together with her brother Viserys. Daenerys was promised in marriage and received a box with three dragon eggs as a wedding gift, and even then, no one thought that dragons could come back, as very old dragon eggs end up turning to stone, it's almost like a fossil, a curiosity. But then, as we've seen, Daenerys managed to hatch the three dragon eggs on Khal Drgo's funeral pyre, where she got that whole title, from The Unburned, Mother of Drgons, and all that.
As you know, Daenerys' dragons were named after the people most important to her: Drgon, the largest of the three dragons, was a tribute to Khal Drgo, her husband. Viserion was for her brother Viserys and Rhaegal was for Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, her older brother, who should have succeeded the Mad King on the throne, but was defeated by Robert Baratheon. This turned out to be a break with tradition, because the first dragons of the Targaryens, such as Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes, were named after ancient Valyrian gods, and that was tradition even for a long time, until Daenerys put an end to it.
The series has already promised at least 17 dragons, in Game of Thrones we only had 3 from Daenerys and it was all chaos at the end, imagine 17 fighting each other many times! Can't go wrong, right? It's what we want to see.
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