.

In a recently and utterly low stakes online conversation the topic has been raised how many legs should a dragon have? This discussion has principally been initiated because G.R.R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones novels, disputed the image used for the newest series which shows the beast with four legs and two wings.

Martin’s argument is based on evolution and that flying creatures evolved wings from their forelimbs leaving only the rear two to serve as legs. He’s right about that. On Earth all land animal life descended from a common ancestor which set the pentadactyl limb structure. Everything animal we know has the basic limb design, One Bone, Two Bones, Many Bones. IF dragons were evolved creatures from an ecology that mirrors Earth’s, then you would expect the same body form rules to apply.

In fact, the common ancestor is the reason why I have an issue with Cameron’s Avatar. Every land animal in that ecology has six limbs except for the big-eyed human analog. They are as out of place as a four-legged dragon.

But if they were evolved creatures they would not exist.

There is simply no way that a beast that large, that massive will evolve flight. Yes, there were some flying dinosaurs with absolutely enormous wingspans, but they remained light, fragile creatures not massive lizards with weights measures in tons. It is furthermore an impossibility for the ‘fire breathing’ to evolve as depicted. The energy consumption required to power such abilities is too staggering to contemplate.

With all that said, dragons exist in a setting where the laws of physics are upended by sorcery and magic. In a world where non-nuclear transmutation is possible, and the laws of thermodynamics are abandoned. In such a setting a genesis for a creature outside of biological evolution exits and along that path the arguments of two or four legs are reduced to the author’s preference.