this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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I don't wish to question your dragon expertise, but, what with them being fictional, I'd argue that they can have any number of legs you wish to imagine them having.
It's just down to how you describe an animal. In pictures you show but in books it's just description so it's good to have somekind of standard to follow to help the reader understand.
Like a wyvern has a much different way of walking since it doesn't have fore-limbs, and has to walks on the ends of it's wings. Imagine a bat walking on all fours. A dragon has it's wings on it's back and walks on its 4 legs. By having a kind of standardized naming provides a much different mental image of how the creature behaves.
I'm afraid that is not how fictional things work. It's also not how folk beliefs work. There is no one single standard definition of "dragon" that everyone agreed with once when there were real dragons. They've always been fictional and they've always been described by different people in different ways. Which makes sense since no one has ever seen one.
I would also point out that, despite medieval illustrations, I have never seen anyone seriously discuss the idea that St. George killed a wyvern.
"Miniature from a Passio Sancti Georgii manuscript (Verona, second half of 13th century)"
And then there's these two showing St. George killing a four-legged dragon.
"De Grey Hours (c. 1400)"
"Saint George Killing the Dragon, woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1501/4)"
So you can argue that all of those people back when people believed dragons were a real thing that existed were wrong about what a dragon was, but that's a little silly.
I am more talking about modern fantasy and not historical fiction/exaggeration.
Language evolves and there is no reason that we can't invent new definitions/classifications of things that don't reflect previous nomenclature. Especially for fantasy where everything is made up.
I agree there is no one true definition but I think something like this is the accepted descriptions that is also reflected in other media like DnD. For example, alot of people say Skyrim got their dragons wrong (naming wise) because they are more akin to what people consider Wyverns.
https://dragons.fandom.com/wiki/Types_of_Dragons
Edit: Added (naming wise)