MOVIE NEWS – House of the Dragon has undoubtedly stepped out from the huge shadow of Game of Thrones, but a humorous critique from the original creator highlights a small but significant detail carried over from the original series.

House of the Dragon has enjoyed immense success, proving to be a worthy successor to Game of Thrones, which itself is arguably one of the most successful shows of its kind. Both series are based on George R.R. Martin’s writings, with House of the Dragon adapting the 2018 novel Fire and Blood. The newer series has managed to carve out its unique identity in several ways. Notably, House of the Dragon has the creative license to alter details from the source material, giving it a unique role in the Ice and Fire universe.

Despite receiving Martin’s approval, much like Game of Thrones, neither adaptation is flawless, and Martin recently pointed out another issue with both shows. On his Not A Blog, Martin shared his dissatisfaction with the depiction of House Targaryen’s sigils as seen in the successful adaptations. Martin revealed that he designed the dragons with great care, envisioning them with anatomically accurate two legs and two wings, as opposed to the four-legged versions seen in the shows. “Dragons DO exist in the world of Westeros,” Martin emphasized. “So my own heralds did not have that excuse. Ergo, in my books, the Targaryen sigil has two legs, as it should. Why would any Westerosi ever put four legs on a dragon when they could look at the real thing and count their limbs?”

“I designed my dragons meticulously. They fly and breathe fire, yes, those traits seemed essential to me. They have two legs (not four, never four) and two wings. LARGE wings. Many fantasy dragons have tiny wings that would never get such a creature off the ground. And only two legs; the wings are the forelegs. Four-legged dragons exist only in heraldry. No animal that has ever lived on Earth has six limbs. Birds have two legs and two wings, bats the same, likewise pteranodons and other flying dinosaurs.”

Martin also pointed out that this wasn’t how the shows initially started, revealing a decline in accuracy at some point. “For what it’s worth, the shows got it half right (both of them). GAME OF THRONES gave us the correct two-legged sigils for the first four seasons and most of the fifth, but when Dany’s fleet appeared, all the sails showed four-legged dragons. Someone got sloppy, I guess. Or someone opened a book on heraldry and read just enough to mess it all up. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” He also briefly lamented the choice by the House of the Dragon showrunners and others to adopt the six-limbed version for consistency with the original show, noting that even some print covers of his works feature this erroneous version. This is just the latest in a series of insightful posts on his blog, where he recently commented on the Elden Ring adaptation rumors.

For many fans, this might seem like a perplexing complaint, but it might also confuse fantasy enthusiasts who might otherwise share Martin’s disapproval. Dragons often have four legs and a set of wings in fantasy, whereas two-legged dragons are referred to as wyverns, a distinction Martin makes differently in his work. In reality, neither dragons nor wyverns exist, and the distinctions between them were arbitrarily decided upon in heraldry. In Martin’s universe, wyverns indeed exist alongside dragons, but are smaller and more aggressive, and native to parts of the map much further south than Westeros. This kind of varied storytelling is typical for someone as talented as Martin, a trait reflected in Elden Ring and the stellar reviews that followed its release.

While fans of the shows probably won’t mind this inaccuracy, this sort of detail is why Martin has been so successful as a fantasy writer, and deservedly so. Fans of his written work will certainly appreciate that he still has that eye for detail when his next project finally reaches the shelves. Martin says he is making ‘steady progress’ on The Winds of Winter, so hopefully that happy day comes soon.

House of the Dragon is available to stream on Max and on linear TV on HBO.

Source: Gamerant