Both of HBO’s fantasy epics,Game of ThronesandHouse of the Dragon,heavily feature dragons. They’re weapons of mass destruction, fearsome beasts that can turn the tide of a battle. It’s an awe-inspiring moment, and also a terrifying one, when you see the enormous shape of a dragon soaring through the air, looming toward a battlefield. Their fire is said to be magical and more intense than normal flames. Dragons can torch an entire battlefield from the skies, reducing men into ash within seconds. It’s also believed that dragons have no fixed gender and can reproduce as needed.
House of the Dragon
Taking place about 172 years before the events ofGame of Thrones,House of the Dragontells the tale of the rise of the Targaryens, the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria. The popular HBO spinoff show first starred Milly Alcock and Emily Carey as Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower before they were replaced by Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, who play the older versions of the characters. Also starring in the series is Matt Smith (Prince Daemon Targaryen) and Paddy Considine as Rhaenyra’s father, King Viserys Targaryen.
Game Of Thrones
Despite their wild nature, the dragons of George R. R. Martin’s world can be ridden and even tamed. They bear a magical connection to the Targaryen family. Dragons bond with a Targaryen, usually at a young age, and become their mounts for life.
InHouse of the Dragon,Westeros is crawling with these magical creatures. But by the timeGame of Thronesstarts, dragons are already extinct, gone from the world. What happens to them in between these two shows? And how long do dragons live anyway? We’ll have to turn to George R. R. Martin’s in-depth history to find out.
There Were Even More Dragons Before House of the Dragon
The origin of dragons is a mystery. As told to us inGame of Thrones,there’s a tale in Qarth that says dragons came from a second moon, which released a million dragons after the sun scorched the moon and cracked it open.
Meanwhile, ancient tales from Asshai claim that dragons came from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and were brought to Valyria. But the most commonly held belief is that dragons were born in the Fourteen Flames, a ring of volcanoes on the Valyrian peninsula. This theory would make the most sense, as dragons were mostly centralized in Valyria, though their remains have been found all over George R. R. Martin’s fictional world.
The Valyrians learned to tame and master these magical creatures. Using the power of dragons,the Valyrians established a massive and dominant civilization, the Valyrian Freehold, a thriving and advanced society that’s been described as the peak of civilization. There were a ton of dragons at this time – until the Doom of Valyria took them all away.
The Doom of Valyria Killed off Many Dragons
The Doom of Valyria is another intriguing mystery in Martin’s lore. Although nobody knows what caused it, historians agree that the Doom was a catastrophic event that caused earthquakes, explosions, and eruptions all throughout Valyria, destroying the entire civilization. Everyone was killed, even the dragons. Much of Valyria’s magic, craft, and history became lost in the Doom. Only a local family of dragon lords, the Targaryens, survived.
Twelve years before the Doom, Daenys the Dreamer, the daughter of Lord Aenar Targaryen, had a powerful prophetic dream that foresaw the destruction of Valyria. Believing his daughter’s visions, Aenar moved his family to Dragonstone, taking all their wealth and their five dragons with them. The other Valyrian lords called them cowards. But in the end, it was the Targaryens who had the last laugh, as they watched the Doom consume Valyria safely from Dragonstone.
Dragons Are Repopulated – and Shrunken – in Westeros
Although the Targaryens brought five dragons with them to Dragonstone, only one of them survived. Care to guess which one? It was Balerion the Black Dread, the gigantic and fearsome mount of Aegon the Conqueror himself.
Two eggs were also left behind, which eventually hatched Meraxes and Vhagar, the latter of whom we’ve seen and learned to fear inHouse of the Dragon.For a while, these were the only three dragons left in the world (sound familiar?). But after Aegon and his sisters conquered the Seven Kingdoms and established King’s Landing, many more dragon eggs were created – and thus, many more dragons were born.
For nearly 300 years, King’s Landing became the new breeding ground for dragons, giving life tomany of the fire-breathing beasts we’ve seen inHouse of the Dragon.
Unfortunately, the events of the show will claim many of their lives and bring dragons to near extinction. Also, unlike Valyria, Westeros and its future Targaryens didn’t know how to properly raise dragons. They were mostly kept in lairs, which limited their size and caused them to get smaller and smaller over time. And also sickly. The last few dragons were ill, tiny things that didn’t live very long. And when the very last one perished, so did the dragon species.
How Long Do Dragons Live?
But wait, how long do dragons live for anyway? Well, the answer varies. At their peak and in the proper conditions, dragons can live much, much,muchlonger than humans, often outliving their original riders and bonding with new ones.
Let’s use Balerion, the oldest Targaryen dragon, as a benchmark. Balerion was at least two hundred years old, far outliving Aegon the Conqueror, when he died – not from a battle like most dragons, but from actual old age. Vhagar, the only surviving dragon from Aegon’s Conquest, is 180 years old by the timeHouse of the Dragonbegins.
200 years seems to be the answer to this question. However, as time went on and the dragons shrunk and became more sickly, they would live for only a short time.
The Future of Dragons
At the start ofGame of Thrones,dragons are already extinct, their flames and existence snuffed out from the world. That is, until the last surviving member of House Targaryen, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), miraculously brings them back.She steps into a burning funeral pyrewith three long-dormant dragon eggs. And she emerges from the ashes, unburnt, with three baby dragons: Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal.
We watch these babies grow into three adult dragons over the course of the show. And by its polarizing finale, only Drogon remains alive. He flies off into the distance, carrying Dany’s corpse, after melting the Iron Throne with dragon fire.
Where did he fly off to? How long will he live? And will Drogon continue to grow larger? These answers are unknown. But it’s a relief to know that dragons still exist in Martin’s world – and because of their reproductive nature, there might one day be more of them.
