Dragons Aren't Nukes: ASOIAF Analysis 

I really like the concept of dragons having chemically distinct "fuel sources" and that explaining the different colors of their flames, I always wondered if there was a reason for the different flame colors beyond it looking cool but this actually makes sense.

That was both facinating AND makes dragons scarier in my opinion. i understand nukes are like...... possibly the greatest sin humanity has ever created. but something about Napalm has always given me shivers in ways nothing else does. so the convincing argument "this things a giant napalm monster" really gets me

An additional point is that dragons are like an air force in that they can't control fixed positions. You still need infantry to hold ground and occupy territory. Dorne is one of the most difficult places to capture and hold because of those mountains. Great video as always, old man.

Good vidoe, though I think we can all agree Martin was only comparing dragons to nuclear weapons as a provocative eye catching pitch to watch aGoT and read his books. Tactically they're more akin to an A-10 Thunderbolt "Warthog" then anything else.

I think the reason the dragon fire was so concussive when Drogon flambéd King’s Landing was because originally those explosions were green wildfire that Cersei had planted everywhere. Then Dumb and Dumber changed their minds and just had the FX artists change the color of the flames from green to orange. Dumb and Dumber thinking they were smarter than the audience incorrectly assumed we wouldn’t notice it. Watch the whole KL destruction sequence again and visualize it being wildfire explosions. They obviously decided this in post because of the absence of Danny in any of the shots. All of this was done in post where they could just change the flame color and paste dragon animation in. They didn’t have time to bring back Emilia Clarke to do reshoots and the idiots figured “Eh, good enough.” I hate them so much.

This thumbnail is incredible

I always was bewildered of how the Valyrians managed NOT to steamroll everyone Intresting points

This is the best video on any topic in this brainspace. I love the maximum payload take. It reminds me of How To Train Your Dragon. The maximum flame output and recharge time is a major plotpoint.

I always thought about how cool it would be if dragons actually were more like nuclear weapons. In that they would leave the lands they burnt irradiated and being near one when it's deployed in battle (ie. Dragon riders) would likely result in severe mutation/radiation sickness and death. It would ironically make them less effective, more like a last resort "no one wins if I lose" weapon. Much like nuclear weapons and MAD.

After listening to this, I kind of wish they had made that Old Valyria TV show. The idea of a World War style fantasy show just sounds like TOO MUCH fun!

I would also go with the idea that they worked on the process of the German Zeppelin for flight. Hydrogen can be used to give lift for the dragon. As for the excess hydrogen, it is expelled through the mouth as fire / napalm. Through simple chemical processes water can be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen - it would take a lot of calories to do it, so there are going to be a LOT of sheep needed to feed a dragon. Then through a different chemical process Hydrogen can be sublimated into a gel called hydrogen peroxide that can work like napalm when ignited. Hydrogen peroxide was also briefly used as rocket fuel -> so when you are being hit by a dragon's fire, you are like being hit by something that would burn hot enough to launch a V-2 Rocket from Greater-Germany to London.

It might also be worth looking into the Rhoynar's interaction with the Valyrians, and the tactics they used given that there's a lot more linking Dorne to the Rhoynar than to Old Ghis. The Rhoynar had several "wars" against the Valyrians, but only one seems to have been what you would call a "real" war, that being the final of the "Rhoynish wars", the Second Spice war, as the only other named war that has any details in it (First Turtle War) seems more an isolated border skirmish. (Note this seems to imply that the Valyrians might have overhyped the Ghiscari wars in the histories to make themselves look good, if they were willing to call a skirmish between frontier cities a "war") During the Second Spice war, Rhoynish Archers took down two whole dragons (potentially with some water magic aid), which prompted the sending of 300 dragons to snuff out all the Rhoynish River cities. (And even boil the great River itself). I think it might also be worth looking into the fact that a "dragon-killing weapon from Lys*" would be referencing one of the former Valyrian territories, and during the Century of Blood several territories independently killed a couple other isolated surviving Dragonlords that weren't Targaryen, so it might have been not so much even tied to a long-dead Ghis, but by conquered territories that figured out that actually archery is good against the riders (see the Myrish archers pushing back Daemon on Caraxes in House of the Dragon) or just that larger arrows are good against the wings/eyes. This matches the fact that the Rhoynar were known to have taken down dragons with archers. The only reason that the Targaryens have such an easy time in Westeros is the bafflingly weak presence of Westerosi archers, they just seem to all love swords and heavy cavalry. That is really weird to me given the heavy inspiration of English history for A Song of Ice and Fire and the fact that Welsh and English longbows were kinda front and center to a lot of British Isles medieval warfare.

I love this channel overanalyzing things that grrm probably never thought about is the asoiaf content I like

That's a lot of words to say "The dragon man lied to us about the symbolism".

I feel like the napalm idea really helps explain how Quentyn died cause he sees his own flesh on fire something that makes way more sense when there is a 'liquid' on it making it burn. I also love the idea of it running out (not sure if there's much proof/examples of this but still the idea of Drogon running out of flames as Dany attacks the Others and they just get annihilated is very cool). All in all this basically feels like obvious explanations of how stuff works and barely a theory, just cannon. Nice one !

the fuel source thing actually explains very well the tactics used by Aegon during the wars of conquest they usually tried to get the biggest bang for their buck by using dry grass, and hiding their dragon until the moment arrived. the only time they used their dragonfire extensively was for Harrenhal.

Now THIS, this is art!

So are you going to tackle the Ancient aliens vibes if the Great Empire of the Dawn whose capital was once Asshai? Asshai being the place dragons originated from and whose original inhabitants taught Valyrians how to make dragons. Also, the place where the Valyrian looking but not Valyrian Daynes and Hightowers originate from.

No, they are not nukes. They are halfway between temperamental warhorse and fighter jet. I find that more apt.

I wonder how well dragons deal with cold. If Daenarys brought her dragons to the wall, I'd imagine that feeding them and keeping them alive might be a big logistical problem.

*Nukes with minds of their own, YIKES, RIGHT? But as always with George, it is only one way of looking at it!*

3:15 I thought the explosions were from wild fire caches going off and not the actual force of Drogon's fire? Edit: Nevermind, there are shots where the flame is literally peeling buildings apart. I guess I always attributed it the small bits of green flame you see in wide shots.

"The Year Was...Way The Fuck Back In The Day"...I have to start a story like that now!

your napalm/sticks to burns riff is what the wildfire is described like. which makes me think you are spot on.

I love the smell of dragons in the morning !

Analysis is on point! There already is something in ASOIAF that does exactly what you're describing: WILDFIRE Okay, okay, wildfire doesn't coming with it's own ignition source but the connection is there. At least the Targaryens used to think dragons and wildfire are connected (see Aerion Brightflame and whatever happened at Summerhall).

It’s definetelly Napalm. Like they use it on Dorne (Vietnam) with great destruction but no strategic benefit (in the form of victory).

I'd always looked at them as helicopter gunships. :)

Dragons must have impervious teeth to withstand ANY fire breathing, magical, chemical, or any other methods 😅

Been a while since I got a video in Subs that I had to drop everything for.

The development of tanks might be a good analogy for why there were so may wars with Old Geese. When they were first made nobody knew how to use them and as the Brits learned how to make them work effectively the Germans developed counters

This is the most pedantic thing I've watched in a while. Hats off to you sir

Just started the video, and I've gotta say ive always thought about this. Always felt a closer comparison was to planes btw, Intents AND purposes.

I always think that dragons have an ignition source in their mouth and there mouth is just heat resistance

We cook food with heat and fire to pre-digest it. without using special enzymes, cooking food breaks it down somewhat making it cheaper energy wise for the body to ingest.

The doom of valaryia was just a massive nap napalm filled civil war?

I always thought of wild fire as a stand-in for napalm. Dragons aren't nukes in terms of destructive power, they're nukes in the sense of the leverage they give the owner. And people don't know how to hatch dragons, even people with dragon eggs, sort of like how possessing uranium does not automatically lead to building nuclear weapons. Countries want nukes to defend themselves against other countries with nukes, which is the same reason people want dragons in ASOIAF. Maybe if dragons spat wild fire I would agree about the napalm, but napalm is wild fire, it's gelatinous, right?

Their fire would not contain any enzymes unless those are something completely magical and function without denaturation at high temperatures. Enzymes are proteins, some of the most temperature sensitive substances in our organism, even though the efficiency of enzymatic reactions growth with temperature, they still would be denatured in a fire. The good news is, you don't need enzymes to pre-digest a meal, you do just that by cooking it. So if dragon fire is energetically efficient enough to grant extra energy from cooked food that exceeds energy used to cook said food, here is the reason to eat roasted meat.

My whole takeaway from this video is that the national anthem of the valyrian freehold was definitely fortunate son.

Well if the Valerians were so unbeatable, why did it take five wars? And what kind of weapon is a harpy, another winged mythical creature?

For me this is Canon.

Is there an argument to make that dragons (and dragon fire in general) is more akin to Byzantine "Greek Fire," which was used by the medieval East Roman Empire to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and win battles even when far outnumbered. It was a closely guarded secret that not many knew how to replicate (just like many do not know how to hatch dragons) ?

Do you think they can still be classified as Weapons if Mass Destruction? I mean, burning the largest castle in the lands has to count for something. Also Jaehaerys and his two sons destroyed an entire Dornish fleet off the coast of the Stormlands before they cold land. Definitely classed as fantasy air support.

Fire makes food more digestible for the dragons _ that and good microbiomes.

Yep dragons are planes

I really like your theories in the video and I would add that they fit very well with The Order Of The Green Hand theory that there are huge subterranean tunnel path networks in Dorne, that the Dornish used to hide safely while the armies and dragons searched above, I mean how could Aegon that mapped the entirety of Westeros from memory riding for days and even all of them riding at once couldn't find the Dornish armies and peoples? How could not a single minor lord of Dorne flipped out of fear and kneel to the Targaryens when Martell is not a even highly loved house? How could the major revenge firebomb campaign have so few recorded casualties and affected Dorne so little that people didn't become angry at the Martell or even doubt they could win the war unless they had a major ace in the sleeves? How far and and how deep the caves that Arienne finds during her journey in the WOW preview chapters go? If the Children Of The Forest lived in Dorne once wouldn't they have built caves, tunnels and underground cities that would be empty now there also? On the ground level in Dorne there aren't deep lush jungles all over you could hide from someone above in the sky, there isn't anything it's just sand, you can't hide unless you go beneath.

Best equivalent militarily IMO is the Aircraft Carrier as far as force projection goes.

When you going to make a video on alien Targaryens

look up Bombardier beetle...other critters can do such things too.

Dragon fire can't melt steel beams!

Dragons are also tools, just look at the fused stone.

All I know is dragons= bads, people that don’t like dragons=good. Maesters/braavos did nothing wrong

Maybe they are more like biological internal combustion engines?

Wait a sec... so wildfire is artificial dragon spit? Hmmm...

6:40 George didn't put that much thought into it. Dragons are magic and breath fire no need for an in depth explanation on how that works.

This is cool, but what if it's just Magic? 🤷‍♂️

You confusing valyrians and velareons is really funny

dude, go touch grass

Yes they are! Bye 😎. They not supported to literally. Is literature!!

Grrm: dragons are the nuclear equivalent of my low fantasy world Braibdead fanboys who legitimatly think they would do a better job then martin:uhm no guys you cwbt have a suitcase bomb dragon its not like real nukes at all The asoiaf fandom was a mistake