What makes Smaug so much more dangerous is not just his size, but his intelligence and capacity for sheer ruthlessness. He can reason and plan and scheme. He is a smart weapon with rationale. GOT Dragons are just ballistic missiles. SMAUG is a guided bomb with AI.
And he wasn't even near the strongest dragons in the history of Arda. Most powerfull dragons (like almost everything in Tolkien's books) lived in the first age.
@@MyPrideFlag Glaurung was hands down the most dangerous, intelligent and malicious dragon of them all. Despite Ancalagon’s size, Ëarendil bodies him hard
What’s crazy is that Smaug was small compared to Ancalagon The Black. Ancalagon was so big that when he was killed and fell from the sky, he broke three mountains with his body.
"But Eärendil came, shining with white flame, and about Vingilot were gathered all the great birds of heaven and Thorondor was their captain, and there was battle in the air all the day and through a dark night of doubt. Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin." -Quenta Silmarillion, "Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath". It says "towers of Thangorodrim", that could refer to artificial towers or to the mountain(s) itself/themselves. Either way Ancalagon is vastly larger than Balerion, but he may not be nearly as large as many people think.
Ancalgon depending on how you wish to interpret the writing of tolkien can range between 400 metres long to 125 miles long with a wingspan of twice that. If its the latter then ancalgon would truly be the greatest dragon in all of fiction. Still at 400 metres long he's just over a quarter of a mile long which is way bigger then vhagar and even smaug.
@@ButterHeroBread by all means provide some examples, I know of 1 in germanic myth that eats moons. Or maybe the naga from Japanese mythology, or if you really want to push the envelope of what a dragon is the world servant from norse myth.
It's been confirmed by a few sources that Thorin was 5'3". He was described as being very tall for a dwarf. Smaug was the smallest of the Tolkien dragons, so imagine the biggest, Ancalagon next to them all.
The movie glorified smaug in terms of size so the others are probably smaller too. Probably will never know the movie size of the others because they hadn't started with more lotr stuff until now like 20 years after the movies and I haven't seen the new thing but I've heard it's meh and I doubt it has another dragon. The GOT spinoff however, seems to be well liked and I like it. Has a lot of dragons so that's a plus. They really should have made more lotr stuff they missed out. At least GOT Is going to and they have already done like 80 hours of screen time counting hotd, And almost all of those hours are good quality, most of season 8 really sucks as everyone knows lol
Tolken's dragons are just on a another level compared to GOT's dragons. Not only were they extremely long lived but they also were able to think and make descisions like humans or even better than humans due to their extremely long lives and experiences.
First off I don’t think Tolkien said anything about his dragons being immortal and also GOT’s dragons have been shown to be just as smart and intelligent as humans
But what people forget is Drogon is only like 7-10 years old. So he is half the size of Vhagar (who is now almost the size of Balerion) at just 1/18 her age, Drogon being about 10 and Vhagar around 180. That is why they said that Drogon was Balerion reborn, the 2nd coming of him. And safe to assume he would have been biggest yet at that age
Smaug is actually pretty dang small in the Lore like around 59ft or something like that but in the movie they made him look bigger to be more menacing.
@@TheAgent99 nah 59ft for smaug. Anchleon the Black was the massive dragon during Morgoths time that was 900 plus feet they say he was as big as the mountain ranges
@@hoomii_ch movie didn’t exaggerate his size, he’s the smallest of the dragons of his time, which means that he’s just the smallest dragon of the time, but still massive compared to game of thrones dragons
There’s nothing to say that he’s going to stop essentially growing soon he might grow all the way up until he dies, but it might be like a centimeter every year.
dumb and dumber made him grow fast but their also might be another reason, since from what i remember magic was slowly weakening and disappearing in the post conquest era, it got revived after Daenerys dragons were born and with only 3 dragons and a massive amount of magic to themselves they might have grown faster due to that(lore wise)
@@karl-x8p do you mean destruction? If you mean destruction, I think you should remember that it’s implied that dragons who can free range and live wild grow faster than dragons in the dragon pit. Which would explain why Daenerys’s dragons grow so quickly- especially Drogon, who was never confined as her other dragons were. And also not all dragons grow at the same rate. For example, Sunfyre is known to have grown much faster than other dragons. Even tho he lived in very similar conditions as the other Targaryen dragons. How “young” a dragon is, is not as important as the size of a dragon is
The vfx producer said that Vhagar was 150 meters long, so. I actually think that when we see her again she will be larger than she was before, because in the book it says that by the time of the dance she had grown nigh as large as Balerion when he died.
@@TheAgent99 Really....To be honest, watching the panoramic shots of Vhagar and Smaug, we can say that they are almost the same size. If there is any difference, it is probably minimal.
I am honestly so thankful for this video. I'm currently prepping to write a novel that features LOTS of dragons. It's very easy to write down their size as a number, like 50ft, 80ft, 130ft, etc., but harder to actually conceptualize that. This video really helps put an image to the number.
Smaug is actually a fairly small dragon, at least in Tolkien's Legendarium (the movies made him much bigger). Tolkien's painting of Bilbo talking to Smaug shows the dragon to not be terribly large. The really big dragons lived in the First Age of Middle-earth, like Glaurung "The Father of Dragons" and especially Ancalagon the Black, who was absolutely enormous and was big enough to destroy the mountains of Thangorodrim, which stood above the gates Morgoth's fortress Angband, when he fell upon them after being slain by Earnendil. Of course, Tolkien's dragons had god-like intelligence and could weave magic with their malice (the "dragon-spell"). It's possible they were originally of the Maiar, like the Balrogs.
Smaug was the greatest dragon of the Third Age. He was not a "fairly small dragon". And Tolkien himself stated that the painting he did of him was not to scale.
Smaug was only small compared to the huge winged dragons Morgoth released before his fall, like Ancalagon, but those beasts were all slain by Ëarendil and the Valar. He is the biggest living dragon by the time of the Hobbit, and the last remaining great fire drake.
Love the info you’ve given in this. Learning more and more about Tolkien’s universe myself but it’s always nice to see others speak about it and learn from them too.
The 150 length statement came from one of the vfx people. She meant wingspan. This was later clarified in an interview for ART of VFX, with Sven Martin, the vfx supervisor for HOTD: "Vhagar is supposed to be 90 meters long with a wingspan of 150 meters, so we added a digital double of Aemond to our turntables to get visually reminded about the scale of the dragons" - I would post a link, but then the comment won't show up. You can look up the interview easily on google with some key words.
Besides being bigger, Smaug is also wildly intelligent and cunning, like on par with a human being if a human being could live and collect memories for 100s of years.
@@BDawg-hy7pl They'd be equivalent to the smartest horses or dogs. Where they become something more is with their inherent psychic meld to their riders.
one major point to be considered is that aemond is too small compared to daenerys atleast at the time he claimed vhaegar. That scaling should be adjusted.
@@khanzada7493 but since aemond is a preteen and a guy he’s probably all arms and legs, while deanerys is a grown women so she’d be longer in the torso. This matters when you’re comparing their sizes when they’re sitting down on a dragon
@@brendanmorin9935 Yes, but my point still stands. If we're gonna put into account 9 inches while measuring sizes of up to 100-200 ft, it's gonna get lengthy.
Small correction, Smaug is one of the smallest dragon of the middle earth universe, there are many dragons that are far bigger than him, and the actually biggest dragon is Ankalagon, who was...yeah really big. Edit: Oops, didn't hear you said movie/series, sorry then
What? He was small compared to someone like Ancalagon, and likely there were plenty dragons in the War of Wrath that were bigger, but Smaug himself was the greatest fire drake of his time.
I don't remember being quoted that smaug was one of the smallest dragons in middle earth, on the contrary, he is described as being the biggest dragon of his time, but that is irrelevant here, because the smaug in the book is different from the smaug in the movie, in the book according to the illustrations he is not even a third the size he is in the movies, and the same thing happened with Drogon
@@shaycormac4470 smaug was the biggest dragon of the 3rd age but compared to the dragons of the 2nd age he was small and if you compare him to the dragons of the 1st age he was a ant.
Balerion the Black Terror was the largest dragon ever to exist in the Game Of Thrones - House of the Dragon universe. He literally fits a whole mammoth in his mouth and could eat it.
It's worth noting, drogon grew at a rapid paste due to NOT being kept in captivity. Dragons like Balerion, and Vhagar only were moved out of the dragon pits due to out growing it, so it is likely drogon will be grow to be bigger than balerion.
Balerion was free range for like 150 years before the Pit was even built, assuming the pit stunted him, it probably extended his life by stopping him getting too big and dying sooner, Drogon if free his whole life will most likely become too big and die before 200.
@@InTheFastLain balerion was 180 when he landed in the pit and stayed there after receiving horrible injuries when he went to valeria and fought a unknown opponent, he spent the last 40 years of his life in the pit and was described as sluggish/sickly for the last 40 years, only time he left the pit is when he was 219 years old after prince (later king) viserys claimed him and took him out to fly but baleryion was so weak at the point he only managed 3 laps around kings landing before he tired out and landed back in the dragon pit where he'd stay until he died a year later, the injuries along with the seeming illness he got in valeria likely shortened his life span bc of how severe they are and in the books it's implied the maesters that were treating and feeding him may have also gradually poisoned him to death or atleast poisoned him enough to keep him in a sluggish/weakened state and either they or the king wrote his death off as old age (to either hide the fact the maesters poisoned him or if it was the king that ordered it it was to hide the fact of his injuries/illness lest the targs enemies try to find whatever injured/infected him in order to use it against there other dragons), vheager reached the size baleryion was during the conquest and she has no issues with flying/landing and in the books theres a even bigger wild dragon then vheagar called the cannibal and he is stated to rival or even be the same size as baleryion was in his prime/at his largest before his death with most sightings/reports and legends of him putting his age at 200-300+ years old in the house of the dragons timeline , but he still a very fit and healthy dragon despite his age/size, he is apparently scheduled to make atleast 1 appearance in the tv series as the showrunners admitted they do have designs/animations drawn/animated for him.
@@CrimsonReapa Vhagar is lumbering and slow, struggles to take off, Balerions death is shrouded in mystery, you can't count simply having grown too big out, Cannibals origin, age and size are all complete speculation, I hope Cannibal isn't one of those loose threads left dangling and never explored more.
@@InTheFastLain GRRM himself stated when dragons get to big they would start to injure and eventually break there limbs once they get to big, vheagar is abit slow to take off but other then that she is just fine, she doesn't suffer any sort of damage/injury to her limbs when she lands and balerion was also stated to have never had any issues landing prior to his death, balerion most likely died from a combination of his injuries,illness and old age along with possible poisoning from the maesters, but nothing indicated his weight was becoming a major/serious issue to him, as for cannibals size it was stated he rivaled prime balerions size and it is even a in series debate among GoT character about who was bigger (basically GoTs version of the goku vs superman debate we have in real life) since both were monstrously huge dragons much bigger then any other westeroes dragon (even rhegar)
Martin himself states that the only dragon that could ‘give Smaug some trouble’ was Balerion. And he also acknowledges Tolkien’s dragons were far more intelligent. So the creator of ASOIAF is stating his dragons aren’t on par with the dragons in Tolkien’s world.
It’s crazy to think Smaug dwarfs the GOT dragons. He is the largest dragon, sure. For his time. In fact he is quite small compared to the rest of the other dragons that predate him. Cool reference video!
He's not, They made Smaug bigger for the movies. Smaug was the smallest dragon of middle earth, but still very cunning. In the books Smaug is about 20m (~66ft). The fact that Smaug was so intelligent still makes him incredibly scary, though.
@@rosebuddelicious8491 It was almost estimated the same thing as in this video, this information that he is only 20 meters long was not written by Tolkien and is not canonical, that medieval illustration of Smaug, Tolkien himself said that the image was not made to scale
I just really want hbo to depict Balerion now after seeing how diverse and detailed the Dragons can be. He's the ultimate Dragon in the setting. He got as big and old as a dragon can get and dies of old age
He didn't die of old age, he died from infectuous wounds from what is presumed to be an encounter with a FireWyrm. He flew of to Valyria on his own kidnapping Aerea Targaryen ( who also came back infected and quickly died). As far as I know no dragon has been documented to die of old age in that universe. Good news though, it's been confirmed they are creating a whole prequel show focused on Aegon's original conquest of Westeros.
Love the video. The size of Vhagar from your calculations seems a little small to me. Also, one of the show runners said she’s 150 meters long. Now sure how creditable that is
This is really quite accurate... Daenerys had Drogon as an egg and Daenerys looked to be only around 22 - 25 years old when she started flying around on him. Daenerys was sold to Khal Drogo at around 13 years old, which is when she had Drogon as an egg... So yes Drogon would have been barely 20 years old before Daenerys was killed (in D&D versions though 🤷♂️).
@@d34dthumbalinax35 yes! Imagine if Daenerys lived to be an old woman of 70+ years old... Which would have made Drogon to be around 50 years old (which is still very young for a dragon) Drogon, would have so huge!
Drogon size deductions mean nothing. During the last seasons, drogon’s size was anything but coherent. How does the drogon seen at the Tarly burning scene suddenly fit inside the throne room? VFX for dragons in GoT and even still now in HotD, is really bad at keeping proportions right
@@RikkiTikkiTavi290 based off of what ? He literally explained how drogon was able to fit in the throne room, the roof and walls were literally destroyed
Vhaygar is hundreds of years old. Drogon was less than a decade old by the end of GOT. So it’s understandable that he’d be much smaller than the former
Now if Smaug was so large and dangerous imagine Ancalagon the Black who was by far the largest of all of Melkor/Morgoths dragons in the First Age. Smaug was nothing in size compared to him, It has been written that Ancalagon was the size of a small to medium sized mountain and in the War of Wrath when Morgoths forces were being pushed back he unleashed his Dragons on the host of the Valar to regain the advantage, and while many of the winged dragons were released and did damage, it was Ancalagon that really tuned the tide. When he was finally slain by Earendial and he fell from the sky he landed on the towers of Thangorodrim and destroyed them, these towers were 35 000 ft tall and 5 miles across, each one of them and he destroyed all three of them on impact... so lets just take a second to imagine the size of the True King of the Dragons!!!!
The towers weren't that big at all. The book doesn't list any sizes or lengths; that's completely made up. Ancalagon was around the size of movie Smaug.
@@CherrySteak well that’s not completely true, at least in so far as them being completely made up it isn’t true, if you read up the towers of Thangorodrim weren’t actually built structures but rather volcanic mountains that were said to be the highest peaks in the middle earth at the time. Admittedly the exact numbers around the size of the of the mountains are not known as the figures are never given, however, there is a drawing of them by Tolkien himself which is illustrated in Karen Wynn Fonstad’s book an Atlas to Middle Earth. If this drawing is to scale it would have the towers at about 35 000 ft high and and 5 miles across…
I have always found that to be improbable and more a Tolkienian epic way of writting. I mean, where do you even house a dragon like that, the gates of Angband had to be massive to even let this beastie pass. That being said, it is without question that Ancalagon was the biggest and could eat Smaug for lunch and Belarion for dessert.
Smaug really has the perfect size for a dragon in my opinion. Anything bigger than that is just goofy. People seem to really hype up Ancalagon but come on now... being so big that it breaks several mountain ranges when falling is just over the top.
@@superkamiguru7985 Caraxes rips out Vhagar's neck while Vhagar guts Caraxes and rips off one of his wings. Aemond/Vhagar die instantly but Caraxes lives a little while and manages to crawl onto a beach before he dies. So stupid. Daemon/Caraxes would destroy that old geezer and pre pubescent boy Aemond.
Smaug is a small almost tiny dragon in the Middle Earth lore, there are others that cast shadows over nearly entire cities with the shadows from their wings.
Now let's put all these kittens side by side with Glaurung or Ancalagon. Valyrian dragons are big, but by scaling comparisons, Tolkien's ones are just impossibly enormous.
if I recall correctly, Balerion was said to be so big that his wingspan/body would shade entire cities he flew over. If Vhagar is close to that she’s pretty damn big.
Smaug is on another level and what makes him so dangerous is that Smaugh has intellect, Vhagar and Drogon are Wild beasts, and only docile with the respect of their riders.
Please to remember that this is comparing a true dragon (Smaug) versus a wyvern. Sizes are going to be different. Two legs vs. four legs . And as was pointed out in other comments, Ancalagon the Black was seen holding on to two mountain tops because of size.
I don't remember if Smaug's size was ever specifically stated in any of Tolkien's books, I'll let other people argue about that. But I remember watching the special features for The Desolation of Smaug film and when they asked Peter Jackson how big he should be, he said "Make his head the size of a city bus, we'll work backwards from there."
Now imagine Ancalagon, the largest dragon that ever lived in Middle Earth, which when it spread its wings could completely cover the sunlight. Just imagine. lol
@@ahmadxolmaxmatov morgoth is literally a bitch version of eru lluvetar.hes the strongest of the valars. Not surprised he can get his hands on some spicy magical animols
Smaug was considered the Last of the Great Fire Drakes of the North and the biggest Dragon of his time, but in comparison to the other Great Fire Drakes Smaug is actually considered to be one of the smallest ones. Next time I want to see a comparison between the biggest Dragon that Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire / House of the Dragon has to offer against the monstrosity of Ancalagon The Black, the biggest of Tolkien's dragons....
You could have also thrown in Ancalagon the Black, probably the largest dragon in fiction, probably with Deathwing and the Dragon Aspects in comparison too from Warcraft.
Would be interesting to see how dragons from other fantasy series would measure up. I mean just imagine tiny baby Alduin just showing up next to these titans and somehow defeating them.
Even though Smaug was essentially a “average joe” dragon in the world of lord of the rings and not as powerful as his own ancestors, he would be the undisputed king of dragons and more important and impressive a intellectual creature. He would be bigger then every dragon of Westeros and could talk to the very same people who ride other dragons.
@@derekfurst6233 yeah but like Lions and Tigers, the most significant base for future size happens in the first 5 years. Also, Valyria had Dragon-pits too and based on the Targaryens status as a 'lesser house' among the Dragon Lords, the dragons from the most important houses were probably all Balerion's size and beyond.
@@dragonballsuper1519 so, I definitely can't say for certain if he was in a pit in Valeria. However, given that he is a particularly giant dragon, in lieu of any other Intel, I'd guess he wasn't pitted
@@derekfurst6233 the reason I think he was at certain points living in a pit, including during Maegor's era, is that Balerion despite being the largest and oldest dragon to ever live on Westeros was still dwarfed by those that grew up in Valyria and belonged to the greater Houses. One of the dragon horns, that can bind a dragon to a non-Targaryen rider, was made of the actual horns of a dragon from Valyria: “My brother found this thing on Valyria,” Victarion told the thralls. “Think how big the dragon must’ve been to bear two of these upon his head. Bigger than Vhagar or Meraxes, bigger than Balerion the Black Dread.” - Winds of Winter
Drogons size is actually crazy, considering he is only 7 years old by the end of Game of Thrones. He definitely had the potential to be larger than even Balerion, in a shorter timespan.
Vhagar is 150 years old, while Drogon was only six at this point. I think in the Snow series Drogon is going to be huge! Perhaps with a life span as Vhagar, Drogon could surpass The black dread
Actually her being 150 years old doesn't make a lick of sense since the dance can't be 50 years from now since Rhaenyra dies at 33. Vhagar was more like 172 when Aemond claimed her.
@@frankthecat1671 Yes, I know. But if you're going to look at Daenerys's dragons are just less than ten years old in season 7 but they look like airplanes already. So, it confuses me like how much time have passed. It was stated by the time that Balerion reached the age of 200, he stopped growing. So the show just made drogon and his brothers big just for spectacular.
Awesome size comparison video. Loved the images you used to compare them. Really gives us a great side by side with their correct designs. So Smaug was too big for this world too huh. I would prefer one the size of Meleys, silverwing, or sheepstealer. Formidable, but still fast enough to outfly mama vhagar if I needed to flee… which I would… nobody would kill my dragon… over my dead body
smaug is much more dangerous not because of his enormous size difference but because he is a genius murdering psychopath, the "dragons" in game of thrones are more animalistic, if not for his giant ego he would have won and killed men, elves, dwarves and orcs in the hobbit. Funny little fact Smaug is considered the smallest of the wyrms in the world of Tolkien by a lot!
@@shaycormac4470 Balerion was big enough to swallow a mammoth whole. That gives him a throat diameter of perhaps 15ft, and a total length of several hundred feet. Ancalagon was so big that, when he fell on Thangorodrim, the largest mountains in all of Middle Earth, his weight CRUSHED THEM TO RUBBLE. He crushed mountains, that's not a BIG dragon, that's a Gargantuan dragon
@@shaycormac4470 it is true ancalagon's exact size was never stated however the books/tolkien did state ancalagon is/was as big as mountains which puts anacalgon at .5 kilometers at the lowest of low balls as the smallest mountain on earth is just under half a kilometer in height with your average mountain being 1,000 feet (1 kilometer) but based on illustrations of him along with him flattening not 1 but 2 mountains when his corpse fell on top of them means he is well over the 1 kilometer mark since the 2 mountains he flattened were bigger then average sized ones (i forgot how big but they are def over 1,000 feet in height), infact his head alone is/was so big you could fit smaug and all the Westeros dragons from GoT on top of his head with room to spare, thats how massive he was.
@@CrimsonReapa ancalagon was never EVER stated to be mountain sized, he literally has only 1 sentence describing him and in the same sentence he dies, whoever says that he is mountain size or whoever uses that picture with him holding the Mountains in his hands is nothing more than an idiot since in Tolkiens works size of a creature doesnt mean power, just like how balrogs were only 2 people tall yet durins bane destroyed the mountains side when his corpse fell the same can be said about ancalagon who didnt destroy 3 mountains but 3 mountain peaks and taking in consideration that his corpse was falling and for the power that he held while being alive this statement of him being mountain sized is just moronic
The main theme I took away was the changes made from book to movie for both universes. In the GOT/HOD universe, they made their dragons smaller than the books, and in the Hobbit/LOTR universe they made them bigger. Just an interesting observation.
People are discussing how big smaug actually is, but im just so happy they made him the way they did in the movies. I dont think any villain or monster has ever given me those chills before. He's so huge but also intelligent and something about the thought of being stuck inside a mountain with that absolute beast just fills you with dread.
Drogon is maybe 10 years old while vhegar is more than 200 years old. Don't forget he's one of the three dragons used by Aegon to conquer the seven kingdoms. If drogon is half his size at the age of ten imagine how big he can get if he lives to be 200 like vhegar
@@elmore1026 there is no "maybe" ... in the books Drogon is barely old enough to carry Daenerys ... In the show, Drogon grew due to fan service and the need to move the plot forward. According to book lore, a dragon reaches "riding age" at 10 years old. So ..yeah.. Drogon is far from comparing himself with Vhagar or the Black Dread. Now, I am sure in the books Martin will make Drogon grow a bit faster because magic is coming back into the world or something.. but in the show, Drogon was absurdly large for being merely 7 years old.
@@elmore1026 and don't worry...there will be no sequel "SNOW". Lol. People still believe that ? it's tragic actually.. That was just bait for the public to launch publicity for House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones universe after the disaster called Season 8.
Vhagar's size is said to be 150 meters by visual effects producer of HOTD. That is 492 feet. And these dragons keep on growing until they die, so Vhagar is the biggest. We have seen that size of Vhagar in last episode of S1.
Right, I would consider Smaug vastly more dangerous then the other two put together. He had no master and considered people to be entertainment and food. He routinely tormented dale folk before eating them, throughout his life.
People need to stop saying that Smaug was a "small" dragon. Tolkien never, ever described him as such. He was the greatest, most terrible dragon of the Third Age, the last of the great fire drakes. Ancalagon was definitely bigger, and probably there were other earlier dragons that were bigger too. But even by dragon standards, Smaug was big and powerful. It's exasperating to see people repeat over and over again the same false information they get from size charts made by fans.
Tolkiens dragons are entirely different than the “dragons” in ASOIAF…. Very very different. Plus Smaug is a special dragon in Tolkiens work. The reason Gandalf helped the dwarves because of Smaug (intelligent and cunning, needs no rider) potentially joining the enemy. (Dragons are basically evil in Tolkiens work, or at least work with Morgoth and than Morgoths lieutenant Sauron). If Sauron had a dragon like Smaug…. The whole thing would have ended rather quickly in favor of upjump Sauron. Forgot to add Smaug isn’t even that big for a Tolkien dragon. But he is incredibly cunning.
No we need a new Eragon movie. cause the original just missed all the points, altough it did a few things right! Also comparing Saphira to LotR is hard. While there is magic in Arda it isnt fully known or spelled out. And battles are full of magic cause that just not how tolkien wanted it or wrote it. Prophecy, willpower, great feelings or trauma, oaths and song have great power and often evokes magic and is most of the magic we see. While Eragon and saphira can cast spells at will, set up defenses and literly grow carriable tiny nukes before they even enter battle. So if i had to say it would be Eragon and Saphira that wins over Glaurung and smaug for sure. and i would think Ancalagon as well.
You were actually pretty close in this video. In the Hobbit movies, Smaug is said to be between 430 to 460 feet, with a wingspan of about 360 feet. Quite the beast indeed.
You most know. When you calculate or estimate who's bigger in this king of monsters you use everything not juts the taller. And i think Veghar is bigger cuz she's has more muscle and weight
If you look at the scale at 4:30 you can see that Smaug is not that much thinner overall than Vaghar. Their necks are about the same thickness. Vaghar does have a proportionally larger chest but it's still not that much deeper than Smaug's. Then, Smaug's tail is way thicker and longer than her's And considering Smaug was bringing down the massive stone pillars inside The Mountain by pretty much just pushing on them, I do believe he's heavier overall. Hes very whide and thick, but he's also very very long. For example, I'm a bit over 5'8 (1.73m) and relatively muscular. I'm about 80kg. A friend of mine is around 6'5 or 6'6. And he's built like a broom stick. All bone and skin. Really thin and tall fellow. Yet, he's a bit heavier than I am pushing at about 85-87kg An uncle of mine is also pretty tall and an more or less as muscular as I am and he's easily 90+kg
I think you oversized Smaug a lot! in 4:32 we see all three dragons, and Smaug head is 4 times BIGGER than Drogon, THAT would make a Thorin 8-9 feets tall!
@@suhailraina540 Huh???? Kit Harrington is Jon Snow. Therefore Jon Snow is 5'8. This is about the dragon in the show, so we use show Jon's measurements.
What makes Smaug so much more dangerous is not just his size, but his intelligence and capacity for sheer ruthlessness. He can reason and plan and scheme. He is a smart weapon with rationale. GOT Dragons are just ballistic missiles. SMAUG is a guided bomb with AI.
And he wasn't even near the strongest dragons in the history of Arda. Most powerfull dragons (like almost everything in Tolkien's books) lived in the first age.
@@MyPrideFlag but he would take out a westros dragon smaug had magic and I super smart
@@MyPrideFlag Glaurung was hands down the most dangerous, intelligent and malicious dragon of them all. Despite Ancalagon’s size, Ëarendil bodies him hard
@@ronnietornado396 glaurung is so dangerous and cunning that melkor himself grounded it for centuries
He’s pretty stupid in the movies 😭💀
What’s crazy is that Smaug was small compared to Ancalagon The Black. Ancalagon was so big that when he was killed and fell from the sky, he broke three mountains with his body.
More like a whole mountain range
"But Eärendil came, shining with white flame, and about Vingilot were gathered all the great birds of heaven and Thorondor was their captain, and there was battle in the air all the day and through a dark night of doubt. Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin."
-Quenta Silmarillion, "Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath".
It says "towers of Thangorodrim", that could refer to artificial towers or to the mountain(s) itself/themselves. Either way Ancalagon is vastly larger than Balerion, but he may not be nearly as large as many people think.
Ancalgon depending on how you wish to interpret the writing of tolkien can range between 400 metres long to 125 miles long with a wingspan of twice that. If its the latter then ancalgon would truly be the greatest dragon in all of fiction. Still at 400 metres long he's just over a quarter of a mile long which is way bigger then vhagar and even smaug.
@@camerongooch9606 there are still dragons bigger than that, homie
@@ButterHeroBread by all means provide some examples, I know of 1 in germanic myth that eats moons. Or maybe the naga from Japanese mythology, or if you really want to push the envelope of what a dragon is the world servant from norse myth.
It's been confirmed by a few sources that Thorin was 5'3". He was described as being very tall for a dwarf. Smaug was the smallest of the Tolkien dragons, so imagine the biggest, Ancalagon next to them all.
It’s genuinely terrifying to think about how big ancalagon the black was
And Smaug is the smallest in the verse💀
Smaug in the Hobbit is much smaller
Acnalagon was so big that his wing span blocked out the sun and his roar could be heard from the other side of middle-earth.
The movie glorified smaug in terms of size so the others are probably smaller too. Probably will never know the movie size of the others because they hadn't started with more lotr stuff until now like 20 years after the movies and I haven't seen the new thing but I've heard it's meh and I doubt it has another dragon. The GOT spinoff however, seems to be well liked and I like it. Has a lot of dragons so that's a plus. They really should have made more lotr stuff they missed out. At least GOT Is going to and they have already done like 80 hours of screen time counting hotd, And almost all of those hours are good quality, most of season 8 really sucks as everyone knows lol
Tolken's dragons are just on a another level compared to GOT's dragons. Not only were they extremely long lived but they also were able to think and make descisions like humans or even better than humans due to their extremely long lives and experiences.
First off I don’t think Tolkien said anything about his dragons being immortal and also GOT’s dragons have been shown to be just as smart and intelligent as humans
@@sammyfield5426 Here we go
shrek has the smartest dragon in fiction and its not even close
@@bandapel1354 🤣
@@sammyfield5426 Apologies I meant superlong lives not necessarily immortal. Should've been more specific
But what people forget is Drogon is only like 7-10 years old. So he is half the size of Vhagar (who is now almost the size of Balerion) at just 1/18 her age, Drogon being about 10 and Vhagar around 180. That is why they said that Drogon was Balerion reborn, the 2nd coming of him. And safe to assume he would have been biggest yet at that age
Half the length, but nowhere near as massive. Vhagar looks to weigh at least 5-10 times as much.
This made more sense when you think about it. Balerion forges the Iron Throne, then Drogon Destroyed it.
@@RikkiTikkiTavi290 well, obviously, when you grow you don't just get longer, you obviously get heavier too lol
That’s a good point
@@svellah4388 Yea I onow, that means Drogon would be far smaller than half the size.
Smaug is actually pretty dang small in the Lore like around 59ft or something like that but in the movie they made him look bigger to be more menacing.
Precisely
And still defeated an entire dwarf kingdom
That is a misconception smaug in the books is actually 900 feet
Tolkien even said smaug was huge
@@TheAgent99 nah 59ft for smaug. Anchleon the Black was the massive dragon during Morgoths time that was 900 plus feet they say he was as big as the mountain ranges
Vhagar: One of the largest dragons in Westeros.
Smaug: The smallest dragon in Middle-Earth.
lorewise in a novel, would u like to tell how big is smaug in the novel?
@@hoomii_ch Huge as fuck but in lore dragon-wise? small.
@@jedenzet so lore in novel smaug was small then, the movie should be exaggerate. heh :P
@@jedenzet The "lore" you keep referring to wasn't written by Tolken.
@@hoomii_ch movie didn’t exaggerate his size, he’s the smallest of the dragons of his time, which means that he’s just the smallest dragon of the time, but still massive compared to game of thrones dragons
This just puts into perspective how ungodly massive ancalagon the black was cause he made Smaug look tiny.
The fact that drogon is half the size of vhaegar at 1/18 the age really says how fast drogon was growing.
Dump and Dumper made him to grow that fast for wow factor. Hes not that big in books.
@@Kornn66 he's also 2 years old in the books yet already big enough for dany to ride. Younger than he was at the end of the show too
There’s nothing to say that he’s going to stop essentially growing soon he might grow all the way up until he dies, but it might be like a centimeter every year.
dumb and dumber made him grow fast but their also might be another reason, since from what i remember magic was slowly weakening and disappearing in the post conquest era, it got revived after Daenerys dragons were born and with only 3 dragons and a massive amount of magic to themselves they might have grown faster due to that(lore wise)
@soudino2723 I mean even in the books at the age of 2 years old drogon is big enough for dany to ride
When he said Jon snow is just a bit shy of 6ft I couldn’t trust any other measurements going forward 😂
Was looking for this 🤣
hes 5'7"
I meet Kit Harington in real life and I'm 6ft3 and I tower over him yeah he definitely isn't 6ft lol.
In the books, Drogon is barely able to lift Daenerys up to the sky for couple of mile. Which means he should be smaller.
books are until 5th season , this is Drogon from 7th season
@@blagoje7 the show’s seasons after 5th season are not valid
@@carlx3358 but we’re talking about Drogons size from the tv show
@@brendanmorin9935 Can you really think that a "baby" dragon can cause that much destruction?
@@karl-x8p do you mean destruction? If you mean destruction, I think you should remember that it’s implied that dragons who can free range and live wild grow faster than dragons in the dragon pit. Which would explain why Daenerys’s dragons grow so quickly- especially Drogon, who was never confined as her other dragons were. And also not all dragons grow at the same rate. For example, Sunfyre is known to have grown much faster than other dragons. Even tho he lived in very similar conditions as the other Targaryen dragons. How “young” a dragon is, is not as important as the size of a dragon is
The vfx producer said that Vhagar was 150 meters long, so. I actually think that when we see her again she will be larger than she was before, because in the book it says that by the time of the dance she had grown nigh as large as Balerion when he died.
Smaug in the movie is actually 202 meters long
@@TheAgent99 Really....To be honest, watching the panoramic shots of Vhagar and Smaug, we can say that they are almost the same size. If there is any difference, it is probably minimal.
vhagar grew to the size of balerion was at the time of conquest she does not grow up to the size of balerion at the time of his death
@@dhananjay1087 Yes she did read Fire and Blood.
Vhagar is like 150 years old, she ain't getting any bigger noticeably in 6 yr timeskip
I am honestly so thankful for this video. I'm currently prepping to write a novel that features LOTS of dragons. It's very easy to write down their size as a number, like 50ft, 80ft, 130ft, etc., but harder to actually conceptualize that. This video really helps put an image to the number.
Super awesome , I’ve made a few stories myself I’m looking for a camera in my range to shoot a few short films for them
Smaug is actually a fairly small dragon, at least in Tolkien's Legendarium (the movies made him much bigger). Tolkien's painting of Bilbo talking to Smaug shows the dragon to not be terribly large. The really big dragons lived in the First Age of Middle-earth, like Glaurung "The Father of Dragons" and especially Ancalagon the Black, who was absolutely enormous and was big enough to destroy the mountains of Thangorodrim, which stood above the gates Morgoth's fortress Angband, when he fell upon them after being slain by Earnendil.
Of course, Tolkien's dragons had god-like intelligence and could weave magic with their malice (the "dragon-spell"). It's possible they were originally of the Maiar, like the Balrogs.
Smaug was the greatest dragon of the Third Age. He was not a "fairly small dragon". And Tolkien himself stated that the painting he did of him was not to scale.
Smaug was only small compared to the huge winged dragons Morgoth released before his fall, like Ancalagon, but those beasts were all slain by Ëarendil and the Valar. He is the biggest living dragon by the time of the Hobbit, and the last remaining great fire drake.
Love the info you’ve given in this. Learning more and more about Tolkien’s universe myself but it’s always nice to see others speak about it and learn from them too.
Tolkien did not know how to draw, many of his drawings are poorly proportioned 😂
tolkiens painting is just caricaturistic, his ability to write such things doesnt mean he can clearly show how big smaug is
The 150 length statement came from one of the vfx people. She meant wingspan. This was later clarified in an interview for ART of VFX, with Sven Martin, the vfx supervisor for HOTD: "Vhagar is supposed to be 90 meters long with a wingspan of 150 meters, so we added a digital double of Aemond to our turntables to get visually reminded about the scale of the dragons" - I would post a link, but then the comment won't show up. You can look up the interview easily on google with some key words.
Besides being bigger, Smaug is also wildly intelligent and cunning, like on par with a human being if a human being could live and collect memories for 100s of years.
I don’t think the dragons of Westeros are dumb, they just can’t talk
Way smarter than an average human.
@@BDawg-hy7pl They'd be equivalent to the smartest horses or dogs. Where they become something more is with their inherent psychic meld to their riders.
one major point to be considered is that aemond is too small compared to daenerys atleast at the time he claimed vhaegar. That scaling should be adjusted.
Not that major a difference. Aemond is 4'5 and Daenerys is 5'2. When we're comparing entire dragons, a difference of 9 inches is acceptable.
@@khanzada7493 but since aemond is a preteen and a guy he’s probably all arms and legs, while deanerys is a grown women so she’d be longer in the torso. This matters when you’re comparing their sizes when they’re sitting down on a dragon
Your mom should be adjusted. #mature
@@joewaters86 got’em
@@brendanmorin9935 Yes, but my point still stands. If we're gonna put into account 9 inches while measuring sizes of up to 100-200 ft, it's gonna get lengthy.
Small correction, Smaug is one of the smallest dragon of the middle earth universe, there are many dragons that are far bigger than him, and the actually biggest dragon is Ankalagon, who was...yeah really big.
Edit: Oops, didn't hear you said movie/series, sorry then
What? He was small compared to someone like Ancalagon, and likely there were plenty dragons in the War of Wrath that were bigger, but Smaug himself was the greatest fire drake of his time.
I don't remember being quoted that smaug was one of the smallest dragons in middle earth, on the contrary, he is described as being the biggest dragon of his time, but that is irrelevant here, because the smaug in the book is different from the smaug in the movie, in the book according to the illustrations he is not even a third the size he is in the movies, and the same thing happened with Drogon
Ancalagon is like godzilla soze
@@shaycormac4470 the book smaug is as big as the movie smaug, bilbo is way to big in the painting stated by Tolkien
@@shaycormac4470 smaug was the biggest dragon of the 3rd age but compared to the dragons of the 2nd age he was small and if you compare him to the dragons of the 1st age he was a ant.
Ancalagon, The Black: "Look at these babies dragons... Aren't they cute and little?"
Balerion the Black Terror was the largest dragon ever to exist in the Game Of Thrones - House of the Dragon universe. He literally fits a whole mammoth in his mouth and could eat it.
Black dread
@@SaintNickTheSauceGod ?
@@arielneptunemermaid.7508 not Black Terror, Balerion the Black Dread
@@robertsmith2110 ok
The largest tamed dragon
It's worth noting, drogon grew at a rapid paste due to NOT being kept in captivity. Dragons like Balerion, and Vhagar only were moved out of the dragon pits due to out growing it, so it is likely drogon will be grow to be bigger than balerion.
Balerion was free range for like 150 years before the Pit was even built, assuming the pit stunted him, it probably extended his life by stopping him getting too big and dying sooner, Drogon if free his whole life will most likely become too big and die before 200.
@@InTheFastLain balerion was 180 when he landed in the pit and stayed there after receiving horrible injuries when he went to valeria and fought a unknown opponent, he spent the last 40 years of his life in the pit and was described as sluggish/sickly for the last 40 years, only time he left the pit is when he was 219 years old after prince (later king) viserys claimed him and took him out to fly but baleryion was so weak at the point he only managed 3 laps around kings landing before he tired out and landed back in the dragon pit where he'd stay until he died a year later, the injuries along with the seeming illness he got in valeria likely shortened his life span bc of how severe they are and in the books it's implied the maesters that were treating and feeding him may have also gradually poisoned him to death or atleast poisoned him enough to keep him in a sluggish/weakened state and either they or the king wrote his death off as old age (to either hide the fact the maesters poisoned him or if it was the king that ordered it it was to hide the fact of his injuries/illness lest the targs enemies try to find whatever injured/infected him in order to use it against there other dragons), vheager reached the size baleryion was during the conquest and she has no issues with flying/landing and in the books theres a even bigger wild dragon then vheagar called the cannibal and he is stated to rival or even be the same size as baleryion was in his prime/at his largest before his death with most sightings/reports and legends of him putting his age at 200-300+ years old in the house of the dragons timeline , but he still a very fit and healthy dragon despite his age/size, he is apparently scheduled to make atleast 1 appearance in the tv series as the showrunners admitted they do have designs/animations drawn/animated for him.
@@CrimsonReapa Vhagar is lumbering and slow, struggles to take off, Balerions death is shrouded in mystery, you can't count simply having grown too big out, Cannibals origin, age and size are all complete speculation, I hope Cannibal isn't one of those loose threads left dangling and never explored more.
@@InTheFastLain GRRM himself stated when dragons get to big they would start to injure and eventually break there limbs once they get to big, vheagar is abit slow to take off but other then that she is just fine, she doesn't suffer any sort of damage/injury to her limbs when she lands and balerion was also stated to have never had any issues landing prior to his death, balerion most likely died from a combination of his injuries,illness and old age along with possible poisoning from the maesters, but nothing indicated his weight was becoming a major/serious issue to him, as for cannibals size it was stated he rivaled prime balerions size and it is even a in series debate among GoT character about who was bigger (basically GoTs version of the goku vs superman debate we have in real life) since both were monstrously huge dragons much bigger then any other westeroes dragon (even rhegar)
true
Plus Smaug took English as a 1st language class 👩🏫
Martin himself states that the only dragon that could ‘give Smaug some trouble’ was Balerion.
And he also acknowledges Tolkien’s dragons were far more intelligent.
So the creator of ASOIAF is stating his dragons aren’t on par with the dragons in Tolkien’s world.
Yes. Martin’s world is more grounded in reality. Dragons are more like animals.
@@lustrazor44 yes but the new hotd show kinda turns to the fact that dragons have there own mindsets and ideas. but still nothing like smaug
@@scotstefan4926 smaug speaks and thinks better than ı do so, yeah big man thing ye
There is not a single thing that makes ASOIAF better them Arda.
@@lustrazor44 Well, as much as a 200 ft 50 ton magical fire breathing ‘animal’ can be grounded in reality.
It’s crazy to think Smaug dwarfs the GOT dragons. He is the largest dragon, sure. For his time. In fact he is quite small compared to the rest of the other dragons that predate him. Cool reference video!
He's not, They made Smaug bigger for the movies. Smaug was the smallest dragon of middle earth, but still very cunning. In the books Smaug is about 20m (~66ft).
The fact that Smaug was so intelligent still makes him incredibly scary, though.
@@rosebuddelicious8491 The same goes for the dragons of GOT.
@@mikeycityify makes sense, stopped reading GoT after Song of Ice and Fire
@@rosebuddelicious8491 lmaoo you are braindead kid
@@rosebuddelicious8491 It was almost estimated the same thing as in this video, this information that he is only 20 meters long was not written by Tolkien and is not canonical, that medieval illustration of Smaug, Tolkien himself said that the image was not made to scale
"Just like a biscuit compared to Smaug"...... That got me 🤣🤣😂
It’s funny cuz Smaug was one of the smallest dragons in Lord of the Rings lore.. back in Morgoths time there were huge dragons
Ancalagon The Black is laughing his ass out hahaa
I've been watching your videos for the last few months and had to subscribe now. Great content and I love the discussions in the comments.
You started wrong, Kit Harrington isn’t 5’10, he is 5’6 😂😂😂
I just really want hbo to depict Balerion now after seeing how diverse and detailed the Dragons can be. He's the ultimate Dragon in the setting. He got as big and old as a dragon can get and dies of old age
He didn't die of old age, he died from infectuous wounds from what is presumed to be an encounter with a FireWyrm. He flew of to Valyria on his own kidnapping Aerea Targaryen ( who also came back infected and quickly died). As far as I know no dragon has been documented to die of old age in that universe.
Good news though, it's been confirmed they are creating a whole prequel show focused on Aegon's original conquest of Westeros.
Love the video. The size of Vhagar from your calculations seems a little small to me. Also, one of the show runners said she’s 150 meters long. Now sure how creditable that is
150 m vs. 73 m is acceptable, just a small miscalculation. Common thing in architecture and construction building
@@doragonsureia7288 oh yes! Like when I told my girlfriend I was 6’ but actually 5’2
@@connormohun1373 or when she says she is almost 20 but is actually 16 rip
@@doragonsureia7288 haha and she swears she’s not your cousin but… she’s your cousin
@@doragonsureia7288 Does size matter?
No.
And it works both ways😂😂😂
the fact that drogon in the show was still considered very young, he definitely over time would have probably been the biggest dragon ever
This is really quite accurate... Daenerys had Drogon as an egg and Daenerys looked to be only around 22 - 25 years old when she started flying around on him. Daenerys was sold to Khal Drogo at around 13 years old, which is when she had Drogon as an egg... So yes Drogon would have been barely 20 years old before Daenerys was killed (in D&D versions though 🤷♂️).
thats actually insane.
@@d34dthumbalinax35 yes! Imagine if Daenerys lived to be an old woman of 70+ years old... Which would have made Drogon to be around 50 years old (which is still very young for a dragon) Drogon, would have so huge!
Drogon would deffo be the largest dragon in existence if you give him just one and a half decade.
In seasons 7 and 8, they said that Danaerys's dragons are full grown. I get confused about how many years have passed.
Drogon size deductions mean nothing. During the last seasons, drogon’s size was anything but coherent. How does the drogon seen at the Tarly burning scene suddenly fit inside the throne room? VFX for dragons in GoT and even still now in HotD, is really bad at keeping proportions right
Bro the roof and walls were gone. It was more like a throne patio
@@kvltofsobek90 No he's right
@@RikkiTikkiTavi290 based off of what ? He literally explained how drogon was able to fit in the throne room, the roof and walls were literally destroyed
Great job on your scale comparison!
Vhaygar is hundreds of years old. Drogon was less than a decade old by the end of GOT. So it’s understandable that he’d be much smaller than the former
He's smaller in the books, the show made him looks bigger
Drogon is a very young dragon that is still growing. We may see him again.
After that disaster of an ending, I'm doubtful
Drogon is actually pretty massive for his age, he is only 7 years old and is already a bit more than half the size of vhagar. It’s pretty impressive
That because Dumb & Dumber f**ked up Drogon size. In the book, Drogon is not that big. It take more than decades for dragon to be at that size.
@@MerkMD yeah that’s true but dany and her dragons are basically miracles so it makes sense for them to be abnormal esp her dragons
@@bloomingval her dragons are free range unlike dragons in HOTD who are all stuck in the dragons pit...wild dragons was known to grow larger quicker
@@MerkMD It's a joke that Dumb&Dumber can actually make dragons look more epic but Effed up Long Night big time...
Now if Smaug was so large and dangerous imagine Ancalagon the Black who was by far the largest of all of Melkor/Morgoths dragons in the First Age. Smaug was nothing in size compared to him, It has been written that Ancalagon was the size of a small to medium sized mountain and in the War of Wrath when Morgoths forces were being pushed back he unleashed his Dragons on the host of the Valar to regain the advantage, and while many of the winged dragons were released and did damage, it was Ancalagon that really tuned the tide. When he was finally slain by Earendial and he fell from the sky he landed on the towers of Thangorodrim and destroyed them, these towers were 35 000 ft tall and 5 miles across, each one of them and he destroyed all three of them on impact... so lets just take a second to imagine the size of the True King of the Dragons!!!!
The towers weren't that big at all. The book doesn't list any sizes or lengths; that's completely made up. Ancalagon was around the size of movie Smaug.
Damn! Not into the the Rings but that’s pretty impressive.
@@CherrySteak well that’s not completely true, at least in so far as them being completely made up it isn’t true, if you read up the towers of Thangorodrim weren’t actually built structures but rather volcanic mountains that were said to be the highest peaks in the middle earth at the time. Admittedly the exact numbers around the size of the of the mountains are not known as the figures are never given, however, there is a drawing of them by Tolkien himself which is illustrated in Karen Wynn Fonstad’s book an Atlas to Middle Earth. If this drawing is to scale it would have the towers at about 35 000 ft high and and 5 miles across…
I have always found that to be improbable and more a Tolkienian epic way of writting. I mean, where do you even house a dragon like that, the gates of Angband had to be massive to even let this beastie pass. That being said, it is without question that Ancalagon was the biggest and could eat Smaug for lunch and Belarion for dessert.
arrax wipes ancalagon
Smaug really has the perfect size for a dragon in my opinion. Anything bigger than that is just goofy. People seem to really hype up Ancalagon but come on now... being so big that it breaks several mountain ranges when falling is just over the top.
Aemond was a small kid during his first flight on Whagar. He was much smaller than Daenerys.
Not really he is a boy so his height was almost equal to hers. She's like 5'6
And the fact that Caraxes would still land some fatal blows is insane!
Vaghar is old and slow … so it’s no surprise caraxes will be able to rip off her saggy old throat
Thanks for the spoilers
Caraxes may not be big as compared to vhagar but is badass just like his rider daemon targeryn
Not that hard to do when you dive bomb someone’s neck from behind lol
@@superkamiguru7985 Caraxes rips out Vhagar's neck while Vhagar guts Caraxes and rips off one of his wings. Aemond/Vhagar die instantly but Caraxes lives a little while and manages to crawl onto a beach before he dies. So stupid. Daemon/Caraxes would destroy that old geezer and pre pubescent boy Aemond.
Smaug is a small almost tiny dragon in the Middle Earth lore, there are others that cast shadows over nearly entire cities with the shadows from their wings.
Now let's put all these kittens side by side with Glaurung or Ancalagon. Valyrian dragons are big, but by scaling comparisons, Tolkien's ones are just impossibly enormous.
That is fun math. It really does help show the origins of how small Daenerys' dragons really are. Thank you MindQ!!
Luke never should’ve gone in to speak with the Baratheons after he saw Vhagar parked outside .
if I recall correctly, Balerion was said to be so big that his wingspan/body would shade entire cities he flew over. If Vhagar is close to that she’s pretty damn big.
entire GOT cities, so basically villages with some extra buildings
@@d0meh1t Kings landing....
@@kryzzan7039 which has its 1mil citizens living in squander because of how tight knit they are. It spans the same land as a village
@@d0meh1t Whats your idea of a village lmao?
@@d0meh1t ummm, no
Smaug is on another level and what makes him so dangerous is that Smaugh has intellect, Vhagar and Drogon are Wild beasts, and only docile with the respect of their riders.
Please to remember that this is comparing a true dragon (Smaug) versus a wyvern. Sizes are going to be different. Two legs vs. four legs . And as was pointed out in other comments, Ancalagon the Black was seen holding on to two mountain tops because of size.
What do you mean? Smaug only has two legs, unless you count his wings. Same for the GoT dragons.
@@ElijahDawkins-yb1ucSmaug has 4 legs in the books and the first movie. They changed it in the second.
I don't remember if Smaug's size was ever specifically stated in any of Tolkien's books, I'll let other people argue about that.
But I remember watching the special features for The Desolation of Smaug film and when they asked Peter Jackson how big he should be, he said "Make his head the size of a city bus, we'll work backwards from there."
Now imagine Ancalagon, the largest dragon that ever lived in Middle Earth, which when it spread its wings could completely cover the sunlight. Just imagine. lol
and smaug is just a small dragon compared to ancalagon the black.Lets take a moment to appreciate how OP dragons in Tolkien's universe are
And I appreciate how Morgoth defeated with a such army.
@@ahmadxolmaxmatov Fr man , i can't imagine how big ancalagon was
@@ahmadxolmaxmatov morgoth is literally a bitch version of eru lluvetar.hes the strongest of the valars. Not surprised he can get his hands on some spicy magical animols
The big boy tripped over a mountain and broke off its tip. If that doesn't scream absolute unit, I don't know what will.
A dragon from that universe was killed with a single black arrow really two since it took one to knock
the scale loose.
Smoug is a beast. Easily the best dragon ever appeared on TV or Cinema. The voice is also very menacing.
Smaug was considered the Last of the Great Fire Drakes of the North and the biggest Dragon of his time, but in comparison to the other Great Fire Drakes Smaug is actually considered to be one of the smallest ones.
Next time I want to see a comparison between the biggest Dragon that Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire / House of the Dragon has to offer against the monstrosity of Ancalagon The Black, the biggest of Tolkien's dragons....
Good job mate. Wow, them's some bigass dragons.
Some vfx artists are saying vhagar to be around 500ft. BTW love your work!
You could have also thrown in Ancalagon the Black, probably the largest dragon in fiction, probably with Deathwing and the Dragon Aspects in comparison too from Warcraft.
In fiction is crazy
@@Naldinho456 nah. comics, anime, D&D, religion/culture has some larger stuff (espec anime)
Do the male dragon from 'Reign of Fire".
Reign
@@Josh_Exitcamper . Dammm auto correct. Lol
He was huge and sneaky when he walked up to their castle and baked it. And he melted tankd also. Lol
That dragon was huge too
Smaug was one of the small dragons, imagine the great dragons of the first age...
Smaug the most talkative dragon ever 🤣
I liked how you figured out the sizes of Drogon, Vhagar and Smaug.
Would be interesting to see how dragons from other fantasy series would measure up.
I mean just imagine tiny baby Alduin just showing up next to these titans and somehow defeating them.
Then compare them all to true monsters like Ancalagon the Black from the Silmarillion.
Check out Ankalagon, father of Dragons. He destroyed a whole mountainside when he fell from the sky.
Glaurung was the Father of Dragons; Ancalagon was the Mightiest of Dragons.
Even though Smaug was essentially a “average joe” dragon in the world of lord of the rings and not as powerful as his own ancestors, he would be the undisputed king of dragons and more important and impressive a intellectual creature. He would be bigger then every dragon of Westeros and could talk to the very same people who ride other dragons.
The fact that Smaug is like the smallest dragon in his universe
Ankalagon from the First age would litteraly be like a flying Godzilla. When he fell on the peak of a mountain, he BROKE it.
Three of them, and was powerful to give battle against the Gods.
Unlike Vhagar and Balerion, Drogon grew up outside of a Dragonpit, which means he will be much bigger than either one when he reaches their age.
I am pretty sure balerion was free-range for almost all of his life. He was 180 something when they attacked westeros
@@derekfurst6233 yeah but like Lions and Tigers, the most significant base for future size happens in the first 5 years. Also, Valyria had Dragon-pits too and based on the Targaryens status as a 'lesser house' among the Dragon Lords, the dragons from the most important houses were probably all Balerion's size and beyond.
@@dragonballsuper1519 so, I definitely can't say for certain if he was in a pit in Valeria. However, given that he is a particularly giant dragon, in lieu of any other Intel, I'd guess he wasn't pitted
@@derekfurst6233 the reason I think he was at certain points living in a pit, including during Maegor's era, is that Balerion despite being the largest and oldest dragon to ever live on Westeros was still dwarfed by those that grew up in Valyria and belonged to the greater Houses. One of the dragon horns, that can bind a dragon to a non-Targaryen rider, was made of the actual horns of a dragon from Valyria:
“My brother found this thing on Valyria,” Victarion told the thralls. “Think how big the dragon must’ve been to bear two of these upon his head. Bigger than Vhagar or Meraxes, bigger than Balerion the Black Dread.”
- Winds of Winter
@@dragonballsuper1519 I've been avoiding reading twow sample chapters but that's really cool!
i would like to see a comparison between Smaug, Glaurung and Ancalagon. But it's hard to only compare book material
I think Glaurung is probably the same or 50 ft longer but being a bit bulkier
I believe it's Belerion's skull beneath the throne room, not Vhagar's, which mean the skull would be a little larger than Vhagar's.
Smaug has a Brain. It can chew those two alive and spit em
Drogons size is actually crazy, considering he is only 7 years old by the end of Game of Thrones. He definitely had the potential to be larger than even Balerion, in a shorter timespan.
Drogon is a Dragon. Vhagar is a monster. Smaug is a Kaiju.😂
Ancalagon is a planet
Vhagar is 150 years old, while Drogon was only six at this point. I think in the Snow series Drogon is going to be huge! Perhaps with a life span as Vhagar, Drogon could surpass The black dread
That's where I get confused. They clearly said in season 7 that they were full grown dragons so how many years have passed?
Vhagar is more like 180 plus years old, according to lore; there also an error there.
Actually her being 150 years old doesn't make a lick of sense since the dance can't be 50 years from now since Rhaenyra dies at 33. Vhagar was more like 172 when Aemond claimed her.
@@johndinobuff583 Dragons in ASOIAF are known to never stop growing. The phrase "full grown" is either complete bullshit or refers to sexually mature
@@frankthecat1671 Yes, I know. But if you're going to look at Daenerys's dragons are just less than ten years old in season 7 but they look like airplanes already. So, it confuses me like how much time have passed. It was stated by the time that Balerion reached the age of 200, he stopped growing. So the show just made drogon and his brothers big just for spectacular.
I believe Smaug is the smallest dragon from LOTR lore. I cant image to see Ancalagon The Black on screen.
From Jeremy Clarkson to this. Thank you RUclips algorithm.
Awesome size comparison video. Loved the images you used to compare them. Really gives us a great side by side with their correct designs.
So Smaug was too big for this world too huh.
I would prefer one the size of Meleys, silverwing, or sheepstealer. Formidable, but still fast enough to outfly mama vhagar if I needed to flee… which I would… nobody would kill my dragon… over my dead body
Actually Smaug was one of the smallest of his world.
@@Johnnysmithy24 what does that have to do with my comment?
“This world”, a song of ice and fire.
I was not talking about middle earth
@@quailjailss Ah sorry
smaug is much more dangerous not because of his enormous size difference but because he is a genius murdering psychopath, the "dragons" in game of thrones are more animalistic, if not for his giant ego he would have won and killed men, elves, dwarves and orcs in the hobbit. Funny little fact Smaug is considered the smallest of the wyrms in the world of Tolkien by a lot!
2:04 We don't see any of that clearly, as Aamond was just a kid back then, so the picture with Drogon should be enhanced.
I love how Smaug is basically Caraxes with a Godzilla growth spurt and the ability to talk.
Smaug is an absolutely TINY dragon. Try Ancalagon... GoT biggest dragon would be one of Tolkien's smallest dragons
and where did you get it from? Tolkien never made it clear what size ancalagon is in the books
@@shaycormac4470 Balerion was big enough to swallow a mammoth whole. That gives him a throat diameter of perhaps 15ft, and a total length of several hundred feet. Ancalagon was so big that, when he fell on Thangorodrim, the largest mountains in all of Middle Earth, his weight CRUSHED THEM TO RUBBLE. He crushed mountains, that's not a BIG dragon, that's a Gargantuan dragon
@@shaycormac4470 it is true ancalagon's exact size was never stated however the books/tolkien did state ancalagon is/was as big as mountains which puts anacalgon at .5 kilometers at the lowest of low balls as the smallest mountain on earth is just under half a kilometer in height with your average mountain being 1,000 feet (1 kilometer) but based on illustrations of him along with him flattening not 1 but 2 mountains when his corpse fell on top of them means he is well over the 1 kilometer mark since the 2 mountains he flattened were bigger then average sized ones (i forgot how big but they are def over 1,000 feet in height), infact his head alone is/was so big you could fit smaug and all the Westeros dragons from GoT on top of his head with room to spare, thats how massive he was.
@@CrimsonReapa What about Glaurong? Even though he is Wingless he is still considered a Dragon and being the First Dragon Ever Created by Morgoth
@@CrimsonReapa ancalagon was never EVER stated to be mountain sized, he literally has only 1 sentence describing him and in the same sentence he dies, whoever says that he is mountain size or whoever uses that picture with him holding the Mountains in his hands is nothing more than an idiot since in Tolkiens works size of a creature doesnt mean power, just like how balrogs were only 2 people tall yet durins bane destroyed the mountains side when his corpse fell the same can be said about ancalagon who didnt destroy 3 mountains but 3 mountain peaks and taking in consideration that his corpse was falling and for the power that he held while being alive this statement of him being mountain sized is just moronic
In one of the BTS videos they released someone mentioned Vhagar being 150 meters
Maybe her wingspan is
The main theme I took away was the changes made from book to movie for both universes. In the GOT/HOD universe, they made their dragons smaller than the books, and in the Hobbit/LOTR universe they made them bigger. Just an interesting observation.
Got to give it to Smaug. Dude may be small but He can speak, reasoning, smart, Poetic in his speech, riderless and a master of coin.
People are discussing how big smaug actually is, but im just so happy they made him the way they did in the movies. I dont think any villain or monster has ever given me those chills before. He's so huge but also intelligent and something about the thought of being stuck inside a mountain with that absolute beast just fills you with dread.
Drogon is maybe 10 years old while vhegar is more than 200 years old. Don't forget he's one of the three dragons used by Aegon to conquer the seven kingdoms. If drogon is half his size at the age of ten imagine how big he can get if he lives to be 200 like vhegar
Vhagar dies at 181. Drogon is just big cause he needed to grow fast for the show
@@sunreaveraethas8286
Maybe or maybe not. There is a sequel in development (SNOW). I think it will answer most of our questions, or i hope it does!
@@elmore1026 there is no "maybe" ... in the books Drogon is barely old enough to carry Daenerys ... In the show, Drogon grew due to fan service and the need to move the plot forward. According to book lore, a dragon reaches "riding age" at 10 years old. So ..yeah.. Drogon is far from comparing himself with Vhagar or the Black Dread. Now, I am sure in the books Martin will make Drogon grow a bit faster because magic is coming back into the world or something.. but in the show, Drogon was absurdly large for being merely 7 years old.
@@elmore1026 and don't worry...there will be no sequel "SNOW". Lol. People still believe that ? it's tragic actually.. That was just bait for the public to launch publicity for House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones universe after the disaster called Season 8.
@@stefanciocan1605
ruclips.net/user/shortsiJfBMJbG5Vg?feature=share
Vhagar's size is said to be 150 meters by visual effects producer of HOTD. That is 492 feet. And these dragons keep on growing until they die, so Vhagar is the biggest. We have seen that size of Vhagar in last episode of S1.
Smaug talks the common human tongue. The other two can’t.
Right, I would consider Smaug vastly more dangerous then the other two put together. He had no master and considered people to be entertainment and food. He routinely tormented dale folk before eating them, throughout his life.
@@Raszagil Yup Smaugy was a real piece of work and a little hole was his undoing. Tolkien is still the man.
People need to stop saying that Smaug was a "small" dragon. Tolkien never, ever described him as such. He was the greatest, most terrible dragon of the Third Age, the last of the great fire drakes.
Ancalagon was definitely bigger, and probably there were other earlier dragons that were bigger too. But even by dragon standards, Smaug was big and powerful.
It's exasperating to see people repeat over and over again the same false information they get from size charts made by fans.
Tolkiens dragons are entirely different than the “dragons” in ASOIAF…. Very very different. Plus Smaug is a special dragon in Tolkiens work. The reason Gandalf helped the dwarves because of Smaug (intelligent and cunning, needs no rider) potentially joining the enemy. (Dragons are basically evil in Tolkiens work, or at least work with Morgoth and than Morgoths lieutenant Sauron).
If Sauron had a dragon like Smaug…. The whole thing would have ended rather quickly in favor of upjump Sauron.
Forgot to add Smaug isn’t even that big for a Tolkien dragon. But he is incredibly cunning.
We need Eragon 2
I suppose Saphira is stronger than GoT dragons but weaker than LotR ones.
*shut*
@@Tarnished-bn5gq Yea you should shut your mom
No we need a new Eragon movie. cause the original just missed all the points, altough it did a few things right!
Also comparing Saphira to LotR is hard. While there is magic in Arda it isnt fully known or spelled out. And battles are full of magic cause that just not how tolkien wanted it or wrote it. Prophecy, willpower, great feelings or trauma, oaths and song have great power and often evokes magic and is most of the magic we see. While Eragon and saphira can cast spells at will, set up defenses and literly grow carriable tiny nukes before they even enter battle.
So if i had to say it would be Eragon and Saphira that wins over Glaurung and smaug for sure. and i would think Ancalagon as well.
@@olorin7940 the original was shit. So was the book series. Let’s move on.
You were actually pretty close in this video. In the Hobbit movies, Smaug is said to be between 430 to 460 feet, with a wingspan of about 360 feet. Quite the beast indeed.
Got here for a quick comparison, ended in a fucking math lesson
Smaug is actually the smallest dragon in middle earth... Anchalagon is 100 times bigger than Smaug...
Probably even more than 100x
I'd say he might be slightly bigger than that, considering he ferried balrogs into battle.
You most know. When you calculate or estimate who's bigger in this king of monsters you use everything not juts the taller. And i think Veghar is bigger cuz she's has more muscle and weight
If you look at the scale at 4:30 you can see that Smaug is not that much thinner overall than Vaghar. Their necks are about the same thickness.
Vaghar does have a proportionally larger chest but it's still not that much deeper than Smaug's.
Then, Smaug's tail is way thicker and longer than her's
And considering Smaug was bringing down the massive stone pillars inside The Mountain by pretty much just pushing on them, I do believe he's heavier overall.
Hes very whide and thick, but he's also very very long.
For example, I'm a bit over 5'8 (1.73m) and relatively muscular.
I'm about 80kg.
A friend of mine is around 6'5 or 6'6. And he's built like a broom stick. All bone and skin. Really thin and tall fellow.
Yet, he's a bit heavier than I am pushing at about 85-87kg
An uncle of mine is also pretty tall and an more or less as muscular as I am and he's easily 90+kg
Kind*
I think you oversized Smaug a lot! in 4:32 we see all three dragons, and Smaug head is 4 times BIGGER than Drogon, THAT would make a Thorin 8-9 feets tall!
The best thing about this video is that Americans will use dragon heads to measure instead of cms haha
Meanwhile Ghidora " hold my bear you insects"
Kit Harrington is not 5’10 but only 5’8”.
Yeah, he's slightly taller than me..
But jon snow is
Right. One minute in and already miss stated a fact that easy to Google.
Calm down Karen
@@suhailraina540 Huh???? Kit Harrington is Jon Snow. Therefore Jon Snow is 5'8. This is about the dragon in the show, so we use show Jon's measurements.
WoW! Man amazing Smaug is my all times favorite Dragon and I am Proud of it. 🐉❤️
Smaug is canonically as big as two jumbo jets.
Wow. This was a neat comparison!