A naturalist explains why the ecology of Westeros is impossible

Applying real-world science to a work of fantasy fiction is a tricky business — we all know that dragons aren’t real, so why talk about it? But people do it anyway, sometimes with very interesting results. After all, just because dragons and blood magic don’t exist doesn’t mean the world of Game of Thrones isn’t bound by the laws of physics…or ecology.

Enter Naturalish, a blog that examines the natural history of sci-fi, fantasy and myth in the hope of better understanding wildlife in our own world. According to a recent article, Westeros features a great variety of apex predators, or predators on which no other animal preys. In Westeros, you’ve got wolves, direwolves, bears, shadowcats, lions and lizard-lions (aka alligators). Basically, Naturalish’s argument is not all of these animals could coexist in the same relatively small space without one eating the other’s food and driving it to extinction.

"Think about it this way: each of these predators would be “good” at hunting and eating prey—that’s a given. But one would eventually be better, right? It’s the reason animals go extinct — some other creature (potentially human) comes along and uses up resources better than existing species. It happens all the time."

Granted: Westeros is a big place. But it’s not that big. The size has been calculated before, and Naturalish doesn’t think it’s big enough for all of these animals to have their own space.

"The landmass is tall and narrow, but from the Wall to the lower tip of Dorne the estimates all converge around 3000 miles, and for context that’s approximately the distance from coast-to-coast in the USA. This is a nice “goldilocks” zone for land size: big enough that we should expect species diversity, but small enough that this diversity (in theory) would lead to competitive exclusion."

Naturalish also doesn’t think that the various “disturbances” throughout the continent — mountains, rivers, swamps — are enough to keep the animals out of each others’ personal space. The biggest geographic disturbance is the Wall, and Naturalish has a fun theory about how the common wolf may have evolved from the direwolf after it was cut off from its bigger brethren. But “in the case of Westeros, species are squished too closely together for them to exist in a stable equilibrium.”

Head over to Naturalish to read the rest of the article, which also includes an interesting discussion of the various ways in which different kinds of animals show up in the same place (evolution, migration, and invasion).

Think any of this holds water? Even Naturalish admits it’s not a fool-proof theory.