Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

A Dance with Dragons and a Comment on the Western Dragon

George R.R. Martin enlivens the interminable wait for A Dance With Dragons by posting the American and British covers that will be used if he ever finishes the text. (HT: Petit) I am taking the liberty of posting a copy of the American cover, so as to make an observation. (Hopefully that makes it fair use.)

Notice that the artist has used the conventional Western style of dragon, by which I mean a long snake-like body, four legs, and two wings. The trouble with this representation, of course, is that it is biologically unrealistic. Science fiction and fantasy frequently require us to suspend disbelief, but works best when doing so requires minimal diversions from reality as we understand it. This is so because the author wants to make the unbelievable elements as believable as possible, so that the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief long enough to become engaged in the story.

Turning to the question of dragons, consider other winged creatures. Birds have two wings and two legs. Their wings evolved from the arms of their dinosaur ancestors. Bats have two wings and two legs. A cursory glance at any back will tell you that their wings are really specialized arms and hands. Clearly, a realistic dragon would have wings that he evolved from the arms or, less plausibly, the legs of a nonflying ancestor. Hence, as with birds and bats (and flying dinosaurs, for that matter), we would expect dragons to have two wings and two legs.

Other than insects and some other invertebrates, I’m aware of no living or fossil animal with six extremities. Accordingly, from what anatomical feature with the wings of a dragon with four legs have evolved? None comes to mind is an obvious candidate.

In sum, the Western-style dragon is simply too unrealistic to justify suspension of disbelief.