Game Of Thrones & House Of The Dragon Have A Targaryen Mistake You Never Noticed

Adaptations can be a tricky business. The question of what to change and what to keep when bringing a story to a different medium is never easy, but amendments are often necessary for the sake of narrative flow or visual flair. At times, however, TV adaptations make tiny changes for seemingly no reason at all, which happened with the sigil of House Targaryen in "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon."

"A Song of Ice and Fire" author George R. R. Martin recently took to his blog to praise the latest episode of "House of the Dragon," "The Red Dragon and the Gold," which features the biggest dragon battle we've seen on the show yet. While Martin was extremely complimentary of the episode, he took the opportunity to complain about one specific Targaryen detail that the series has gotten wrong.

"'Game of Thrones' gave us the correct two-legged sigils for the first four seasons and most of the fifth," the author wrote about the heraldry of House Targaryen. "But when Dany's fleet hove into view, all the sails showed four-legged dragons. Someone got sloppy, I guess." Martin explained that his dragons only ever have two legs, as their wings function as their front legs. "A couple years on, 'House of the Dragon' decided the heraldry should be consistent with 'Game of Thrones' ... but they went with the bad sigil rather than the good one. That sound you heard was me screaming, 'no, no, no.'"

In his recent blog post, titled "Here There Be Dragons," George R. R. Martin went deep in explaining his personal philosophy on dragons and how the ones in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" universe work. While he praised many variations of the legendary creatures in fiction, he emphasized that what's most important is to follow the rules you establish in your own universe: "Ignore canon, and the world you've created comes apart like tissue paper."

The issue of leg count appears to be a particular bugbear for the author. "I designed my dragons with a lot of care," Martin wrote. "They fly and breathe fire, yes, those traits seemed essential to me. They have two legs (not four, never four) and two wings." He emphasized that the wings of his dragons function as front legs when they're walking on the ground, as seen in "House of the Dragon."

It's admittedly strange that the HBO franchise would change the Targaryen sigil in the middle of "Game of Thrones," especially since the first version had the legs right. Many see Seasons 3 and 4 of "Game of Thrones" as the best seasons of the original series, so at least the three-headed dragon on the heraldry looks correct at that point in the show. From a continuity standpoint, though, since "Game of Thrones" takes place after "House of the Dragon," the prequel series should definitely use the version of the sigil seen in the earlier seasons of its predecessor.