Why House of the Dragon changed the Velaryon sigil

One of the defining features of George R.R. Martin’s world of ice and fire is the colorful heraldry. Lannisters have their lions, Baratheons their stags, Starks their direwolves and on and on. It’s estimated that there are at least over 400 house sigils in Westeros. Needless to say, this is one aspect of Medieval European society that George R.R. Martin loved.

House of the Dragon is leaning into that aspect just as Game of Thrones did, giving us tons of sigils of different houses from across Westeros. One of the most prominent is House Velaryon, whose symbol is a seahorse. Hailing from ancient Valyria, the Velaryons are a proud family of mariners, so having their sigil tied to the ocean makes a lot of sense.

House of the Dragon changed the Velaryon sigil from the books

In a recent interview between House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and Westeros.org co-founder Elio M. Garcia, the two got into the details of how House Velaryon’s sigil was developed for the show, because it’s a little bit different than in Martin’s written works. Garcia has collaborated with Martin on The World of Ice and Fire and The Rise of the Dragon coffee table books, and created some of the first official imagery for many of the author’s house sigils, including House Velaryon’s.

In Garcia’s original image, which George R.R. Martin said was in line with his vision for the Velaryon sigil, the house is represented by an actual seahorse. However, House of the Dragon opted to use a mythic seahorse creature, which is a combination of a horse and a fish that were said to pull the chariot of the Greek god Poseidon.

Since he’s the guy who designed the last Velaryon sigil, Garcia was curious what led to the show’s version, and whether George R.R. Martin had changed his mind about using the animal instead of the mythical creature.

“I definitely showed it to him,” Ryan Condal answered. “We have a a person in the graphics department—which is a sub layer of the art department, which is sub layer of Jim Clay’s production design group, which is massive—who kind of designs all of that stuff [Editor: HBO provided the name of the artist: Alicia Martin, credited as Lead Graphics Designer]. And Jim’s feeling was that at this time, it would have been a half horse, half fish. And the thing they designed is beautiful. I obviously knew the book version and I was sort of weighing things up. And I was kind of going, well, would these people without scuba technology even have seen them? I guess they can be closer to the surface things you can drag up in a fishing net, they’ve certainly been to opposite ends of the world. But I don’t know, I just think it’s a more powerful image that feels like something you would ride behind.”

The question of whether humans living in the type of medieval milieu would even know about seahorses is an interesting one. The editors of Westeros.org note that while information about the animals is recorded as far back as Roman times, many of the actual discoveries about the way they live have only come about due to the scientific advances of the past few decades.

How many legs does a dragon have?

As we previously reported, the Targaryen sigil on House of the Dragon has stirred up bit of conversation. The most common sigil we see shows a dragon with four legs. However, dragons in Westeros only have two legs. Game of Thrones featured both a two-legged and four-legged version at various points in the series. What’s a prequel show to do?

Garcia noted that while the four-legged dragon has been the standard on House of the Dragon, there was at least one moment where a soldier in the background had the two-legged version as well. Was this just a mistake, something that slipped into the production? For as much attention to detail as the show has, that’s Condal’s stance:

"I think that’s exactly what happened. We did our very best to streamline the show across the art department and the costume department to have key heraldry. But a lot of people—armor in particular went into prep very early because it takes so long to originate and make. It was always my intent to honor the banner that Daenerys raises at the end of the series, because again, show canon versus what we’ve seen in the books, and because from my perspective the fact that George himself never actually drew his Targaryen heraldry that that just became the accepted heraldry in this thing, this idea that yes, it has two legs because our dragons have two legs, but then again the dragon has three heads. So it’s a symbolic representation.But very simply, the idea that Daenerys raised the banner at the end. Of course, I know that that’s different than the sigil that you see on the books and in other places. And for people that are curious, or questioning or damning me for it, I would simply say that we know from the history that the Targaryen sigil goes through evolutions as a result of internal conflicts within the house, so bear with us."

Bear with them we shall. House of the Dragon premieres new episodes Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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