Let’s be honest, airing its prequel House of the Dragon from August 2022 is the perfect opportunity for many of us to rewatch the entire Game of Thrones series, from seasons one through eight.
Watching House of the dragons below is rediscovering House Targaryen and everything it stands for, from long silky hair to the worst incestuous crimes. But, also and above all, it is an opportunity to see again on the screen the magnificent dragons that only this family, the ancestors of Daenerys, managed to tame.
The dragons of this fantasy universe especially fascinate Guy Gratton, an aeronautical engineer from Cranfield University. Therefore, the researcher wondered if these creatures could really fly as they do, if they existed in our universe. According to his calculations, transcribed in a study published in The Conversation, it is not impossible, subject to some assumptions.
Read alsoThe strange rumor of the coup against Xi Jinping
The first step in determining whether dragons could fly is estimating their weight. According to Guy Gratton, this is feasible by reference to Daenerys Targaryen, who “appears to be around 1.60 m tall and weigh around 60 kilos”.
Her dragons’ bodies appear to be about four times as long as her, twice as wide, and with a tail the same size as her mistress. Assuming the density of Daenerys and her dragons is the same, they should weigh about 44 times her body weight, or about 2600 kilograms.
Dragons fly, citizens get high
The engineer then assumes that Westeros’ gravitational pull was the same as on Earth, since everyone there seems to move the same way we do.
Two pieces of data are missing…