In a battle between animals representing the most powerful houses in "Game of Thrones," which beast would best the others?
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00:00In Game of Thrones, the most powerful houses are represented by animals.
00:05But what would happen if those animals were to fight each other?
00:14So we have a stag for House Baratheon, a lion for House Lannister,
00:19a wolf, direwolf, for House Stark, and a dragon for House Targaryen.
00:24So it would kind of seem like this is a no-brainer, right?
00:26I mean, obviously, the dragon would win.
00:28But there are some circumstances where special abilities that the other animals have
00:33might actually defeat the dragon.
00:36Let's look at the stag.
00:37So the stag is the only one of all these animals that's not a carnivore,
00:41so you'd think, oh, it's at a disadvantage.
00:43But stags actually have big, powerful racks of antlers.
00:48And actually, we saw in the very first episode of Game of Thrones,
00:52the Starks found a direwolf in the forest that had been killed by a stag.
00:56Well, of course, the stag was dead, too. It had been killed by the direwolf.
00:59But at least you could see that the stag could defend itself against a direwolf
01:03and even potentially a lion.
01:05Oddly enough, though, the stag is probably the one that has the best shot at taking down a dragon.
01:11Because the other two carnivores, they tend to attack their prey by jumping at it and biting its neck,
01:18ripping out its throat, tearing pieces of it off while they're chasing it.
01:22None of that would work on a dragon because of its armored scales.
01:25But a stag with its pointy antlers might possibly be able to penetrate those scales to kill the dragon.
01:34Now, of course, that would have to happen with a lot of force, probably more force than a stag could generate.
01:39So that would mean that the dragon would have to actually fall on the stag
01:42and impale itself on the antlers, which would kill the stag.
01:46But then actually, you know, that would get both of them out of the way.
01:49And then you just have the direwolf and the lion left.
01:51So between the direwolf and a lion, wolves and direwolves, which actually were Ice Age mammals that were once here on Earth and are now extinct,
02:02direwolves and wolves hunt in packs.
02:05So they're used to sort of being a team player.
02:08A wolf by itself might be at a disadvantage against a lion just because it's used to fighting with its pack mates.
02:14So a direwolf matched against a lion, the lion might end up being the victor there.
02:20Of course, a direwolf, a lion or a stag beating a dragon would be a pretty big upset.
02:26So how could such a scenario work?
02:29So to find out, I talked to someone who organizes something called March Mammal Madness,
02:35which is an annual bracket, except instead of pitting sports teams against each other,
02:40it pits mammals against each other in a series of battles with only one victor at the end.
02:46And her name is Dr. Katie Hind.
02:49And she told me that there are some circumstances that could potentially explain why a dragon might not perform as well as you would expect it to.
02:57And one of them could have to do with what we know about the dragon's behavior in Game of Thrones.
03:03Now these dragons are very, very bonded to their mother, Daenerys Targaryen.
03:08And if she weren't around on the battlefield, that might affect their performance.
03:12That might make them not want to fight.
03:14So they might be likely to fly away.
03:16Another possibility is because dragons are so big and they generate fire and they have to fly,
03:21they need a lot of food, they need a lot of fuel to keep going.
03:24And so if a dragon was really hungry and weak, then maybe the carnivores might have a chance to take it down.
03:32Or if it got hungry and it decided that it just wasn't worth the effort for it to try and take down these, you know, fairly tough meals,
03:39maybe, again, it would just fly away and look for something easier to eat.
03:43So while these are all possibilities, if you, you know, if you really just put them all together in a battlefield and had them go at it,
03:52I don't think there's any question about which one would win.
03:55Dragon all the way.