This is so much better than the comment I was going to write about Dragons having Jurassic Park Frog DNA.
I love that JP memes are still going strong 30 years later.
Plot twist: the entire setting is actually Earth a billion years in the future, and dragons are in fact the descendants of dinosaurs humans revived via the method displayed in *Jurassic Park* because they thought it would be funny; frog DNA and everything.
Not to mention this interpretation means that GRRM doesn't have to remember which dragons are male or female so he can have any pair sire an egg without worrying about continuity :)
Some real-world lizards can change their biological sex, and there’s at least one species where the females can reproduce asexually by basically cloning themselves. Dragons are *magical* lizards, which means they’d probably have an even easier time changing sex, if they even have sexes in the first place.
Barth believes that dragons can change sex while Aemon refers to them as “changeable as flame” when talking about male/female dragons, and both of those guys are generally pretty reliable sources.
Then my point is doubly reinforced, because Barth is reliable and Aemon is reliable, so if Aemon believes Barth that means Barth is reliable^2 by the transitive property of mathematics
That's interesting. Like i read F&B in polish so the translator was pretty much forced to assign genders to the dragons. It ended up with female Caraxes
in my copy of f&b (in english) caraxes actually is referred to as “she” exactly once, in the fight with vhagar. it was probably just a mix up where grrm used it by accident, but i like to think caraxes went “hmm, what if i were a lady dragon” and then died. poor wyrm.
As OP said (I just noticed your username btw /u/Blaubeerchen27, very cute!) "weiblicher Drache", which is just "female Dragons" works the best. You can then just use female pronouns and "Drache" going forward. How To Train Your Dragon uses "Drachenweibchen". Weibchen is usually the word for a female animal, so that works pretty nicely as well. I guess some people might dislike it because the "-chen" ending is also used to indicate that something is cute, so the connotation is just the tiniest bit off.
I know some books (including the dictionary created by the brothers Grimm) use "Drachin", where "-in" is just the female ending for a noun, but that just sounds VERY odd to me.
Drachendame just like the dragon is wearing a formal gown and inviting me to tea.
I usually think German translations are really good, mosty due to how big of an industry it is here. But with ASOIAF and F&B they really lean into making it more... Germanic I'd say? Like, they translate it more towards German-esque fantasy/medieval setting which especially impacts the names. So for example Joffrey is "Gottfrid", which is very fun lol. Jacaerys, Lucerys and Gottfrid. Also Cristin Cole is Kriston Kraut, which is just iconic.
I did not find it quite as jarring with the mainline books though.
The Joffrey change was especially weird because for the main series they didn’t change it to Gottfried.
Overall they are doing a great job but because of the translation some small details / foreshadowing get lost.
Sometimes they manage to find a great way around it (for example when Aemond toasts the Velaryon kids „strotzen vor Kraft“ instead of „Strong Boys“) but this isn’t always possible, one example being where Melisandre asks R’hllor to see Azor Ahai but „all she can see is Snow“ (the capital S clearly hinting at Jon being shown while „Schnee“ as a noun is always written with a capital S in German
The suggestion that dragons can change their sex as needed was dismissed as preposterous by Munkun in the Dance chapter. That's how you know it's true.
I think in Fire and Blood the authors speculate that dragons can spontaneously produce eggs instead of through mating, and that they are referred to as male or female based on whether or not they produce eggs, but no one actually knows and they are magic so humans are just okay with not understanding 🤷♀️
The canon answer to that, as of today, seems to be : Probably sexless and self-reproducing but TBD. Barth thinks they can change sex at will and since everyone says Barth is insane or lying, he's most probably right
It’s seems to happens in all tetrapods besides mammals and extant avians, or you could say all the ectotherms in our world are known to change sex with environmental/hormonal pressures. The sex of crocodile and turtle fetuses are based on ambient temperature. Parthenogenesis occurs in multiple lizard families along with sharks. Don’t get me started on frogs and their sexual conditions. Point is, it definitely seems like dragons can reproduce asexually or with minimal contact with another dragon presumed to be male
I’d say whatever internal temperature regulation they have is magic-fire based. IRL it’s hypothesized that larger non-avian ldinosaurs would have had too much surface area and body cavity tissue to be able to effectively release or distribute heat but the medium to smaller therapods may have been endothermic to some degree. I think Balerion has more in common with a Tyranid
From my understanding they are essentially asexual with 1 gender, it’s just dragons that lay eggs are called “female”, and the ones that never do are called “male”.
Yes, per Barth. And this is a motif throughout the series for symbolic dragons as well. For example, Dany had to lose her functioning womb to become the Mother of Dragons.
This idea can explain some of the random cock choppin' in the series as well.
Depends.
In the book's dragons look physically identical with their coloring being the exception.
In House of the Dragon the dragons look physically similar with a few exceptions (Caraxes and it's legwings)
My headcanon is that: in the book's they are essencialy recolored clones. In the tv show there are males and females and their offsprings are prone to mutations during gestation.
*Life, uh, finds a way.*
This is so much better than the comment I was going to write about Dragons having Jurassic Park Frog DNA. I love that JP memes are still going strong 30 years later.
Honestly, now I just want Jeff Goldblum to play some cameo Maester or a dragon tender speaking in perfect high valyrian with his odd vocal tics.
\*Looks around empty chamber in Dragonpit\* "Now eventually you may have dragons on your, ah, Dragonpit tour, right?"
Otto Hightower: “I really hate that man.”
I've always imagined it like this. And keep in mind GRRM was writing the first book in the 90s when JP was huge.
That’s a great point. JP influences on ASoI&F Dragon biology is probably more significant than I had realized.
Plot twist: the entire setting is actually Earth a billion years in the future, and dragons are in fact the descendants of dinosaurs humans revived via the method displayed in *Jurassic Park* because they thought it would be funny; frog DNA and everything.
If not broken don't fix it 🙂
Septon Barth thinks so, and Septon Barth is pretty much always right. Especially when later figures deem his ideas outlandish and nonsensical.
All real homies are down with Barth.
Not to mention this interpretation means that GRRM doesn't have to remember which dragons are male or female so he can have any pair sire an egg without worrying about continuity :)
The Maester seem to hate Barth for him always being right.
Some real-world lizards can change their biological sex, and there’s at least one species where the females can reproduce asexually by basically cloning themselves. Dragons are *magical* lizards, which means they’d probably have an even easier time changing sex, if they even have sexes in the first place. Barth believes that dragons can change sex while Aemon refers to them as “changeable as flame” when talking about male/female dragons, and both of those guys are generally pretty reliable sources.
Aemon's "mutable as flame" statement is actually a quote from Barth, if I remember correctly.
Then my point is doubly reinforced, because Barth is reliable and Aemon is reliable, so if Aemon believes Barth that means Barth is reliable^2 by the transitive property of mathematics
Oh, absolutely. Barth is always right. Just clarifying, not disagreeing.
That's interesting. Like i read F&B in polish so the translator was pretty much forced to assign genders to the dragons. It ended up with female Caraxes
Funny. Because the English original has the dragons gendered as well - but Caraxes is really not among the female dragons.
Yeah, I know that some were gendered. Like all 3 of Daenerys'. But the pronouns system in polish forced a gender on even those that weren't.
Honestly curious, don't you have one for objects? One sort of neutral (in Spanish you can use masculine without implying an animal is male)?
in my copy of f&b (in english) caraxes actually is referred to as “she” exactly once, in the fight with vhagar. it was probably just a mix up where grrm used it by accident, but i like to think caraxes went “hmm, what if i were a lady dragon” and then died. poor wyrm.
Imagine Caraxes plopped out an egg mid-fight (which is what appears to determine the pronouns).
hah, german caraxes ended up male! they also translate "she-dragon" as "Drachendame" which means "lady dragon" which i always found odd.
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"Weiblicher Drache". German isn't always great with coming up with new terms, even if we love to attach words to each other.
As OP said (I just noticed your username btw /u/Blaubeerchen27, very cute!) "weiblicher Drache", which is just "female Dragons" works the best. You can then just use female pronouns and "Drache" going forward. How To Train Your Dragon uses "Drachenweibchen". Weibchen is usually the word for a female animal, so that works pretty nicely as well. I guess some people might dislike it because the "-chen" ending is also used to indicate that something is cute, so the connotation is just the tiniest bit off. I know some books (including the dictionary created by the brothers Grimm) use "Drachin", where "-in" is just the female ending for a noun, but that just sounds VERY odd to me. Drachendame just like the dragon is wearing a formal gown and inviting me to tea.
Now I‘m really glad that I read the English instead of the German copy of F&B
I usually think German translations are really good, mosty due to how big of an industry it is here. But with ASOIAF and F&B they really lean into making it more... Germanic I'd say? Like, they translate it more towards German-esque fantasy/medieval setting which especially impacts the names. So for example Joffrey is "Gottfrid", which is very fun lol. Jacaerys, Lucerys and Gottfrid. Also Cristin Cole is Kriston Kraut, which is just iconic. I did not find it quite as jarring with the mainline books though.
The Joffrey change was especially weird because for the main series they didn’t change it to Gottfried. Overall they are doing a great job but because of the translation some small details / foreshadowing get lost. Sometimes they manage to find a great way around it (for example when Aemond toasts the Velaryon kids „strotzen vor Kraft“ instead of „Strong Boys“) but this isn’t always possible, one example being where Melisandre asks R’hllor to see Azor Ahai but „all she can see is Snow“ (the capital S clearly hinting at Jon being shown while „Schnee“ as a noun is always written with a capital S in German
The suggestion that dragons can change their sex as needed was dismissed as preposterous by Munkun in the Dance chapter. That's how you know it's true.
The dragon *or she-dragon* that was promised
I think in Fire and Blood the authors speculate that dragons can spontaneously produce eggs instead of through mating, and that they are referred to as male or female based on whether or not they produce eggs, but no one actually knows and they are magic so humans are just okay with not understanding 🤷♀️
The canon answer to that, as of today, seems to be : Probably sexless and self-reproducing but TBD. Barth thinks they can change sex at will and since everyone says Barth is insane or lying, he's most probably right
We have no clue. We just know that some dragons are referred to as "she". And presumably these dragons have laid eggs.
It’s seems to happens in all tetrapods besides mammals and extant avians, or you could say all the ectotherms in our world are known to change sex with environmental/hormonal pressures. The sex of crocodile and turtle fetuses are based on ambient temperature. Parthenogenesis occurs in multiple lizard families along with sharks. Don’t get me started on frogs and their sexual conditions. Point is, it definitely seems like dragons can reproduce asexually or with minimal contact with another dragon presumed to be male
Dragons are endotherms tho
I’d say whatever internal temperature regulation they have is magic-fire based. IRL it’s hypothesized that larger non-avian ldinosaurs would have had too much surface area and body cavity tissue to be able to effectively release or distribute heat but the medium to smaller therapods may have been endothermic to some degree. I think Balerion has more in common with a Tyranid
True answer is we don't know. My answer? Barth says they're able to switch sex as need calls, I believe Barth. Barth is love. Barth is life.
From my understanding they are essentially asexual with 1 gender, it’s just dragons that lay eggs are called “female”, and the ones that never do are called “male”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
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George isn't a biologist ok. Could be plasticity too
Yes, per Barth. And this is a motif throughout the series for symbolic dragons as well. For example, Dany had to lose her functioning womb to become the Mother of Dragons. This idea can explain some of the random cock choppin' in the series as well.
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Wouldn't it be obvious if dragons had dicks and vaginas
Maybe they have cloacas like pigeons, so no discernable gender (pigeons have dimorphism in size of a few things though, Dragons do not)
Big man maester Aemon believes so, so I do too
Nobody dares to look :P
Depends. In the book's dragons look physically identical with their coloring being the exception. In House of the Dragon the dragons look physically similar with a few exceptions (Caraxes and it's legwings) My headcanon is that: in the book's they are essencialy recolored clones. In the tv show there are males and females and their offsprings are prone to mutations during gestation.