Are Game of Thrones Dragons REALLY Wyverns ❓ What is the difference between a DRAGON and a WYVERN ❓

I hear your argument, that it's georges world, and that he can decide to name whoever he wants however he likes, and i, personally, dont really care either way, but i dont think you can really make this argument. (Btw. just wanna say that you make awesome content).

The thing is, names are not just some random thing. We give things names in order to be able to talk about them, and to do so precisely. I dont want to have to explain to you what it is that i am eating all the time, so i define a word: "bread", and whenever i say that i am eating bread everyone involved knows what i am talking about, i dont have to explain it again. We agreed on a word, and this allows us to transfer a thought/image/whatever from our mind into the mid of another person as precisely as possible.

This can be trivial things as bread, this can be an abstract concept. I can talk to you about love, because when i say "love" a certain idea is transferred to oyu, this includes a set of emotions, thoughts, desires and opinions, wich i can now consolidate to that single word. When i talk about "love" but you in your little private language defined "love" as the thing that i call "pain", then we can no longer communicate with each other, because i say that i love someone, and you are of the opinion that the person is torturing me and you have to safe me.

Language as a whole does not work if anyone just changes the meaning of words whenever he likes, you can do so, but then you can no longer assume that anyone would see any reason to try to communicate with you.

The same is true for more abstract things like fantasy. If i talk about dwarves with you, then i imply that we are tallking about what i see as a dwarf, what is commonly agreed on what a dwarf is. Of course you can say "oh, but in MY fantasy story dwarves are the size of mountains and giants are like waist-height of a human" you are of course free to do so, your story and everything, but you are missing the point of why people invented these names in the first place.

The same applies here. At some point we, as a people, agreed on what we want to call different creatures in fantasy, this allows us to talk about things within those fantasys. I can say that i would like to have a sword made by a dwarf without having to explain that dwarves in my universe are good at making things out of metal, i can say that we should not burn down a forest when there are elves in it without having to explain that elves are very connected to nature and like woods and stuff.

If we just start to randomly reassign words for everything and anything then we can stop trying to talk to each other in the first place, it is of no use. It does not matter if it's your private world and oyu can call things whatever you like, what matters is that we at some point agree how we want to call something, and then stick to that. And if you want a dragon that has 4 extremeties, then go ahead, but call it wyvern, or, if you think that wyvern carries too many other assumptions and you would like to have more freedom, or that it simply sounds borign, then invent something new, that's what fantasy is all aobut, after all. Noone stopping oyu from calling your creatures, drikons and then letting them have 4 limbs, if that is more to your personal liking.

The Naomi Novik series on dragons is pretty good too!

One other thing that is mentioned in heraldry and myth is that wyverns don't breath fire. It's venom only for them. From what I have seen dragons are supposed to have four legs and wings, but on occasions were depicted as the bat like configuration. Also the size difference is substantial. Wyverns being far smaller.

Wyverns Are Dragons Only A Certian Class Here Are Some I Know Dracos Dragos Wyverns Serpenite (and tons more)

there are a lot of references of dragons in an anime called kobayashi's dragon maid…. try watching it and ignore the fanservice 🙂

"they are the unicorns of fantasy" surely unicorns are the unicorns of fantasy ….

Actually Dragons and Wyverns are the Same thing in diffrent Languages. The Term wyverm comes from wyrm which is the Name of firespewing giant snake like creatures that liked to hoard Gold and other treasures and live in Caves but the where seldomly winged. The Word Wyverm stems from Keltic and slavic languages. Dragon in the other Hand is derived from Green and was later introduced into European Culture but was also Giant firespewing Reptiles. The Word Dragon took the Place of the Word wyrm and Lindwurm and wyvern. For example in Beowulf Giant firespewing Reptiles where Draca in the nibelungensaga(one of the oldest and Most known German Legende) there is a Firespewing Giant Reptile called a Lindwurm. The modern Definition with the amount of extremities comes from Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes, it's his world, but, if we want to go down that road, I could call a man with the head of a bull (minotaur, for anyone who knows nothing of Greek mythology) a Centaur and get away with it because "it's my story." I could call a Chimera a Harpy, a dwarf a giant, an Orc and elf, etc., etc., etc. It's one thing when you come up with the concept, but when you are using a mythical creature who's tales predate the English language (let alone your own story), you'd best get the terms and descriptions right. These are Wyverns. Just like limbless fire breathing lizards are Wyrms, those without wings are drakes, and those with six limbs are dragons. This isn't a matter of him saying so, this is what they are by the definitions of the words in question.

Do they have 2 legs? Then they're bloody wyverns

THE point you didnt make is that GRRM's dragons breathe fire and no wyvern ever breathes fire

but wyverns do not breathe fire.

They are both in Body Wyverns and in Soul Dragons also they spie Fire

Lol @ evolution

Don't even put the "wyvern" of the witcher, that thing sucks… I wonder who made that shit model…

Anything can fly if you throw it hard enough

actually that is the second main difference. the actual main difference is that dragons breathe fire and wyverns dont…. also daenerys' creatures have like arms attached to the wings and classic wyverns have at most claw-like thngs at the edge of the wings

To be fair the are examples of Dragons similar to those of Ice & Fire, actual draconic superior mind you the ones from The Elder Scrolls V SKYRIM & The Lord of the Rings The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Hobbit, that like them fly with their arms that make up their wings, some have a bit more fingers similar to Pterodactylus, 2 or 3, with the rest being a part of the membrane that makes up their wings, Wyverns are as intelligent as normal predatory animals, they are wild animals, granted in WarCrarft they are related to both Dragons, Gryphons, Hippogriffs, but that is whole different things, in regular fantasy such as D&D, WarHammer, they very dangerous predatory animals, some even have toxic breath as they known carrion eaters like the Komodo Dragon, even going as far as to develop actual poison glands, like the Gila monster. That being said they lack any of the more higher intelligence that Gryphons and Hippogriffs have.

for those who say unicorns aren't real. takes breath The Narwhale. your welcome. (♡3♡)/ lol

To me the biggest difference is that Dragons breathe fire. Wyverns don't.

1:50 I'm pretty sure Unicorns are the Unicorns of Fantasy, buddy.

Someone send this to Icycaress-

In real terms a Wyvern is a subspecies of dragon so either way they are dragons, in Chinese lore dragons don't have wings at all, like the ones in dragon wars

They look like a mix to me

Certainly no lindworm.

Well 'Dragon' is just a broad term for a shit ton of reptilian creatures from different mythologies, in our world. Chinese Dragons, Wyverns, Western Dragons (which is the one we typically see as four legged dragons that became popular around the middle ages), any reptilian creature from mythology is usually dubbed 'dragon'. So calling the dragons in the Song of Ice and Fire wyverns isn't really wrong, because in our world, they ARE of Wyverns designs. But using G.R.R.M. wording, the broad term dragon, is also right. Neither is wrong, because both terms can be applied to the monstrous-fire-breathing-creatures G.R.R.M. wrote about, speaking about it from OUR world and GENERAL mythology. If you wanna go based on design specifically, wyvern. If you wanma go by Georges classification, call it dragon. But I don't think either can be outright claimed as wrong.

Great shout-out to the age of fire series! AuRon has the best character of any dragon out there imo

Indeed, George is the boss. I'm so excited for his new book on October 10th. I hope he throws a party, I would totally drive out (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)

So then… what's a Drake? 🤔

Pff the number of limbs isnt even a true difference beetwen both, even taking in mind the European myths.

Dragon = 4 legs, 2 wings
Wyvern = 2 legs, 2 wings (walk with both)
Game of Thrones "dragons" are wyverns

maybe im wrong, but in my opinion, if we are willing to call something like a lindworm or a chineese dragon for a dragon, then I can't see why people get so emotionel about wyverns. If a chineese dragon is a dragon then one must accept that a wyvern is a dragon.

Dragons: Four legs, two wings.
Wyverns: Two legs, two wings
Wyrms: Four legs, no wings

Read Marco Polo description of how dragons were hunted, the detailed method that was used and what parts of it were used. Google "marco polo dragon"

Dragons can breathe fire, Wyverns cant. The Wyverns from Sothoryos most likely cant breathe fire.

Legend says that the old bloodmages of Valyria used magic to tame wyverns and turn them intop dragons.
Wyverns exist in the southern continent of Southoryos, that is common knowledge. They can't breath fire nor have any magical properties, but are savage and dangerous predators. And the bloodmages were really good with fire magic, so dragons being modified wyverns is plausible.
If that legend is true than dragons are artificially breed and modified wyverns.

Of fucking stop it with the "Drogon/Smaug/whatever is a WYVERN". A wyvern is a very specific creature that is small, unintelligent, and does not breathe fire – they spit venom. And they always, only have two legs and two wings.
A dragon can look absolutely any way you want it to (see Falcor – he's essentially just a huge dog with white fur and floppy ears, yet everyone still calls him a dragon?), but generally have scales and breathe fire.

They may or may not have wings. They may have wings, but no legs. They may have two, four, six or more legs. No one is jumping on HTTYD's vast array of dragon species, that have all assortments of leg-and-wing-combinations that you can imagine – even multiple heads and non-fire breathing dragons – and no one is saying a Monstrous nightmare, a nadder, a thunderdrum or timberjack "CAN'T BE A DRAGON, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATCH WITH THE WESTERN DRAGON STANDARD THAT WAS MADE UP IN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS".

Dragons in the medieval era were often depicted as snakes with wings, as mammal-like with ears and rat-noses, or with two front (!) legs and wings either like bats or with feathers, some breathed fire, some didn't. The western dragon as we know it today is not some old, medieval creature, it was made up by modern fantasy in the last fifty years.

TL;DR: A dragon can look any fucking way the creator wants. If it's a scaly, fire-breathing monster, it's most definitely a dragon, regardless of how many legs it has, and a wyvern is as different from a dragon as a unicorn from a centaur.

disagree. grrm can call them whatever he wants but it doesn't change what they actually are. it's like if he decided that the knights in his world would be called 'samurai', but made them white dudes who wear plate armor, joust, ride horses and keep a code of chivalry

I loved the Age of Fire series. E.E. Knight is an amazing writer.

good point about martin being the boss. In a Wheel of Time, a dragon is the champion of light in human form, symbolically associated with a "serpent with feet" that no one in the world there recognizes as a "dragon" because for them, The dragon was always a human.

Dragons have 6 limbs, are sentient and intelligent. These have 4 limbs and are animals therefore they are wyverns. Done

I think rather than beeinga dragon OR Wyvern I think Wyvern is a TYPE of dragon (AKA as 4 limbed Dragons) so id say they are both

I was thinking this!!

Dragons are the species name, Wyverns are a sub species of dragon that fits the standard evolution pattern with 4 limbs.
So yeh, um they are both dragons and wyverns.
Um, there are plenty of evil Eastern dragons in the tales.

All wyverns are dragons but not all dragons are wyverns,, if ya get me,,

FYI Wyverns are part of the dragon family, the'res many kinds of dragons and different types. Wyverns are the lower class due to the lacking of limbs and more. A full dragon can use magic, speak, very smart, and so on. Wyverns are smaller than a normal dragon. If you played the witcher 3, the people called them dragons, but they were wyverns. Everyone has their own def for a dragon. But wyverns are classified as sub dragon, not a true dragon.

i mean in most fantasy wyverns can't breath fire so that right there shows these are dragons

if he wanted as realistic as possible that hover maneuver they do sometimes wouldnt be there as only very small animals like humming birds can do that. just pointing that out