Dragon Arms

Like any nerd, I love dragons and probably think about them too much. How dragons fly, are they intelligent or not, do they only breath fire? I have very strong opinions about all these things, but one thing about dragons pisses me off more than anything rationally should. My biggest pet peeve is how no one can get dragon anatomy right anymore.

If you've seen a dragon in a movie or on TV in the last decade or so, then it's likely that its front limbs were also its wings. THIS. IS. WRONG. Dragons are not bats, their wings are not their forelimbs. Dragons have forelegs and wings on their backs. Like this:

But where did this horrid practice of improper dragonry begin? Like many things, we can blame Harry Potter...


The first instance I can remember of incorrect dragon anatomy was in the fourth Harry Potter film The Goblet of Fire. Those of you who've seen it or read the book will remember that the first Triwizard challenge is to fight a dragon, classic task for any fantasy hero, and that Harry had the misfortune of facing the terrible Hungarian Horntail dragon. And when they made the movie, this is how the Horntail looked:

Note the wings in front and lack of front legs. Wrong. While this did annoy me in 2005 when Goblet of Fire was released, I was willing to let it go. It looked like an isolated incident and it was still a pretty kickass dragon. But apparently I didn't account for how influential the Potter series was to the fantasy film genre because soon this single error in the appearance of a fictional creature spread. Soon it was popping up everywhere from Sucker Punch...

to Reign of Fire...

and even Game of Thrones...

But the most egregious example of this has to be last year's Desolation of Smaug. Smaug is one of the greatest dragons of all time. He's got all the classic traits and was one of the first dragons who could talk and was intelligent. That fact alone shocked me as a child. So I had high hopes that Peter Jackson and co. would come through with their vision of Smaug. But no. To understand how awful this was, here is how JRR Tolkien, his creator, depicted Smaug:

While he's a little thin, he's still got the right limbs in the right places. Now here's how Jackson depicted Smaug:

GRRRRR.....

And this was doubly annoying because Benedict Cumberbatch's performance was spectacular. So every time I was almost ready to just let his wonderful dragoni-ness wash over me, I'd look at him and the effect would be ruined.

Thankfully, this trend looks to be reversing thanks to How to Train your Dragon. One thing I love about that series is how they treat dragons as a species with many different breeds, so the changes to the anatomy make sense. And Toothless, the main dragon, is completely spot on. Look at this adorable guy:

Perfect. Right number of legs, wings on the back, long tail. His horns could stand to be bigger, but he's still growing. So remember, dragons have forelegs. They aren't bats. If they don't look like Toothless, they're wrong.

Thus ends my rant on dragons.