The sixth chapter of The House of the Dragon begins with a birth: that of Rhaenyra. Despite the logical cries, everything goes without incident and she soon has her third child in her arms. The same does not happen with Laenawhose delivery is complicated to the point that the maester offers Daemon the same solution that Viserys was once offered with Queen Aemma: a emergency caesarean section in which the mother very possibly would not survive. Laena is not willing to die in childbirth, so she stands before her dragon and begs him to finish her off. The next day, Daemon and his daughters look at the circle of ashes inside which are still the laena’s bones. And this is where a question arises: why weren’t the bones burned?
We know that when a body is cremated, it is completely reduced to ashes and not a trace of the bones remains. Even in Game of Thrones We saw how Daenerys’s dragons were able to completely pulverize a human being, leaving nothing but their ashes. Therefore, it would be expected that vhargar, Laena’s dragon, did the same to her Amazon. This is not the case, so we can ask ourselves a question.
On the one hand, what temperature It is needed to disintegrate the bones And secondly, can dragons reach that temperature? Logically, it is all hypothetical, since these animals do not exist, but it is not something impossible to answer.
The heat that pulverizes the bones
The main component of bones is hydroxyapatitea biological mineral formed by crystalline calcium phosphate. Therefore, to know at what temperature the bones disintegrate, we must know what is the temperature at which this material decomposes. This can vary, but in general it is between 800 °C and 1,200 °C.
It is clear that this is a very high temperature, so we do not know if the dragons can reach it by spitting their flames.
Neither in George RR Martin’s novels nor in Game of Thrones either The House of the Dragon Explicit references are made to the temperature reached by the dragons fire. However, if we look at the last chapters of the first series, we can make some conclusions.
They were observed in 2019 by the user of Reddit MrBanana, realizing that when Daenerys devastates King’s Landing on Drogon’s back, this is capable of undoing stone walls as if they were made of paper.
This can give us an idea of the temperature of the fire that the dragon vomits, since normally the walls of castles were made of sandstone or limestone. The melting point of the first is around 1,300 °C, although it depends on the density. As for limestone, it can range from 825 °C to 1,339 °C. Therefore, the dragon fire should be of at least 1,200°C-1,300°C to raze the city the way he did. That is above the temperature to decompose hydroxyapatiteso they could undo the bones.
What happens to Laena in ‘The House of the Dragon’?
We have come to the conclusion that Vhagar could have completely reduced Laena’s body to ashes, including your bones. But that is not what happens. This could be for two main reasons.
On the one hand, since Drogon is a very special dragon, which was kept for centuries in a petrified egg with his two brothers and was born in the flames, it could be that his fire was more powerful than the rest. He might even have fed on Daenerys’ own anger. This is not scientific, of course, but at the moment we are talking about fantastic creatures, the license is allowed.
On the other hand, in this chapter The House of the Dragon we see how Vhagar initially resists complying with Laena’s wishes. She is his rider and the dragons are loyal to those who fly with them. However, realizing that she is suffering from it, she decides to obey one of her desperate dracarys and engulfs her in flames. This shouldn’t be easy for the dragon either and he may not blast fire from her with the same intensity as he would on another occasion. Who knows? Perhaps the dragons can control the temperature with which they vomit. That is already just assumptions, but what is clear is that, if we stick to what we see in both series, the bones could have also turned into ashes.