George R.R. Martin: Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon both get Targaryen heraldry wrong

The most recent episode of House of the Dragon, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," blew away fans everywhere. With that epic dragon-vs-dragon battle at the end, how could it not? Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin agreed. "Has there ever been a dragon battle to match it?" he asked on his Not a Blog. "I don’t think so. Our guys knocked this one out of the castle. I think they took it as a challenge. And the dragons…"

This leads into a long blog post all about dragons, about which Martin has very specific thoughts. "I wanted my dragons to be as real and believable as such a creature could ever be," the author wrote. "I designed my dragons with a lot of care. 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. A lot of fantasy dragons have these itty bitty 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, ditto pteranodons and other flying dinosaurs, etc."

Why is Martin so particular that his dragons have two legs rather than four? Because on Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, both shows based on his work, occasionally you'll see Targaryen sigils and banners bearing illustrations of four-legged dragons, which bothers Martin to no end.

Martin admits that, in real-life medieval heraldry, you would occasionally see depictions of four-legged dragons. Then again, in real life, dragons aren't real, so medieval artists were free to take some liberties. "[M]edieval heralds were not exactly renowned for their grasp of zoology, even for real world animals. Just take a look at what they thought a seahorse looked like," Martin quipped. But dragons are real in Westeros, and none of them have four legs. Ergo, the Targaryen's dragon sigil shouldn't either. "Why would any Westerosi ever put four legs on a dragon, when they could look at the real thing and could [count] their limbs?"

Strangely, for the bulk of its runtime, Game of Thrones did feature the correct, two-legged dragon Targaryen dragon symbol, but switched to four late in its run. "Someone got sloppy, I guess," Martin wrote. "Or someone opened a book on heraldry, and read just enough of it to muck it all up. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

"A couple years on, HOUSE OF THE DRAGON decided the heraldry should be consistent with GAME OF THRONES...but they went with the bad sigil rather than the good one. That sound you heard was me screaming, “no, no, no.” Those damned extra legs have even wormed their way onto the covers of my books, over my strenuous objections."

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor point, and remember that Martin went out of his way to praise the latest episode of House of the Dragon to high heaven. But it clearly annoys him, and no wonder; the creator of these works has been clear about the correct way to depict a dragon sigil for his world and been ignored on both TV and in print.

Maybe House of the Dragon can amend things whenever the third season rolls around. For now, new episodes of season 2 air Sunday nights on HBO and Max.

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