Tor Books’ blog is currently wrapping up a stirring and fiery Dragon Week and, after publishing a Top 5 Deadliest Dragons article, Tor took to Twitter to ask the essential question: Which is the deadlier dragon, Smaug or Godzilla?
What furious kaiju hell did they release?
A VERY IMPORTANT DRAGONWEEK POLL.Which is the deadlier dragon?*
*retweeted for typo
— Tor Books (@torbooks) July 9, 2019
The choices were between Smaug and Godzilla, two seemingly obvious dragons. But…is Godzilla a dragon? This, it would seem, is not settled discourse!
Is Godzilla a dragon, or a lizard-monster-dinosaur hybrid? What constitutes a dragon? Do atomic “fire” breathing land walkers qualify at all?
He's usually a mutated dinosaur, altho in the newer films he's a prehistoric super species.
— Jojira (@Goji_Saurus) July 9, 2019
So still not a dragon
— Krista Fields (@Krista_Fields) July 9, 2019
HERE WE GO.
Big boi lizard who spits
— Caleb is a McFreakin Doodle
(@AirheadedAviatR) July 9, 2019
Multiple dragons and dragon-type creatures spit or breathe various deadly substances like fire, acid, ice, venom. Godzilla definitely spits. Hmmm.
https://twitter.com/alienghic/status/1148668270016204800
Smaug isn’t without his detractors, either.
F
— Caleb is a McFreakin Doodle
NEVERMIND. No one gets to be a dragon!
https://twitter.com/wolfmanwalter13/status/1148640069588279296
https://twitter.com/wolfmanwalter13/status/1148663774129377280
Oh.
Oh wait.
A new challenger approaches!
From medievalist Sarah Durn, via an excellent feature on io9:
The dragon deity Ryūjin is considered the god of sea in Ryūjin shinkō, an offshoot of Japanese Shinto. There’s even the Dragon Palace at the bottom of the sea further connecting Japanese dragons to the oceans that surround the island nation. […] Though based in part on Japanese dragons like Ryūjin, Godzilla takes on a new composite form—just as Godzilla is an entirely new form of destruction.
Godzilla is not only a dragon, they’re based on one of the original dragons.
In the end, this is what Twitter decided:
A VERY IMPORTANT #DRAGONWEEK POLL.
Which is the deadlier dragon?*
*retweeted for typo
— Tor Books (Check Mark) (@torbooks) July 9, 2019
Nearly 70 years and you still can’t keep Godzilla down. The King of Monsters reigns supreme!
I grew up assuming Godzilla was a Dragon, I never new what a Smoug was![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
@1: May we assume you now know who Smaug is?
I think my argument would be that Godzilla is insufficiently serpentine. The body shape is common whether or not a dragon has wings or legs.
Another key factor is whether or not his bones are friable post-mortem.
No shame in the fact that he’s got a little more thump in his trunk.
Dragon is a very big and vague category. Despite efforts by certain IPs and despite the popularity of certain attempts at systematization, such systems do not apply universally. Ultimately, if someone somewhere identifies a creature as a dragon, then it is a dragon. Wyverns benefit from a slightly more robust definition given their linkage to medieval heraldic custom, which IIRC defined them as creatures with wings in place of their forearms as opposed to heraldic dragons which had four limbs plus wings, but even there the systematization is only for the realm of heraldic representation, and only within the systems that follow western European custom and practice.
TLDR – Godzilla is a dragon if you want it to be one.
PS – As for Tolkien dragons, I’ve always loved the name Scatha the Wyrm.
I always wondered why Godzilla was trashing Tokyo and decided maybe he thinks Tokyo is a shit city…lol a thought occurred to me just last week …Godzilla isnt his real name supposedly gojira is his realname but how much you want to bet gojira isn’t his real name either his real name likely has ZERO to do with godzilla OR gojira he probably doesn’t know or give two fucks that people call him godzilla OR Gojira…he just likes to trash Tokyo every chance he gets…LOL
Godzilla is NOT a dragon. Ugh.
“Big boi lizard who spits” wins the internet today
Since when should gozilla be a dragon?
Popular culture tends to standardize the appearance of mythological creatures, which modern people then, in ignorance, project backwards into time. The contemporary conception of dragons as four-(or two)-legged, fire-breathing reptilian monsters with wings derives from European depictions of the late Middle Ages, whereas the concept of a dragon is far more ancient and universal. Apep, Leviathan, Vritra, Python and Jormungandr, to take a few famous examples, were long before described as dragons, and none of them fits that medieval mold. A creature such as Godzilla would have been called a dragon without hesitation by most people at most times right up until nearly the present day. So would Ghidorah and even Rodan.
As to which dragon is deadliest: Smaug was slain by an arrow. Sure, it was a precision shot through a chink in his armor. But still: a single arrow. Godzilla, meanwhile, endures the concentrated firepower of the world’s mightiest modern militaries with little to no harm. I can’t see how it’s even a question.
Hrmmph. Godzilla is a monster (King of the monsters, in fact.)
Dragons are not monsters and monsters are not dragons. Separate phyla.
Evidence: What? This is the Internet! I need no evidence; the facts are apparent!
Don’t be ridiculous. Godzilla isn’t a dragon. King Ghidorah, on the other hand…
It never occurred to me that dragons and Godzilla would be in the same category. After all, the dragons I read about now have human intelligence if they don’t already shapeshift into humans and are associated with wealth as well as power. Godzilla is just monstrous strength and animal cunning. He has no wealth nor any desire to accumulate any.
Look, if Godzilla identifies as a dragon, I am not going to tell him he’s wrong.
Mostly I’m going to be running away screaming, trying not to get stepped on.
@12 — Also, don’t forget about Orochi.
On one hand, this is not the sort of question to which one can usefully apply traditional logic. OTOH, that rarely stops us from trying….
Let’s start with the proposition that dragons and dinosaurs are two distinct (but potentially related) creature-sets. Let’s further observe that Godzilla has points in common with both – like dragons, he has a breath weapon; physically, though, he has more in common with dinosaurs.
What this suggests taxonomically is that Godzillas as a class (and given all the different filmed Godzillas plus critters like Ghidorah and Gamera, clearly there’s more than one) are a distinct group existing between dinos and dragons on the charts, with all three having a common ancestor farther back.
By this logic, then, Godzilla is not a dragon, but he’s clearly a cousin to dragons.
I’ve read all of Lady Trent’s available research, and she never mentions any dragon remotely like Godzilla. He has no wings, no ruff, and I don’t think his bones would dissolve about death. So unless an expert draconologue objects, Godzilla would classify as “lesser dragonkind”.
But the true answer is that the definition of a category is only relevant based on what actually exists in said category and in closely related ones. As far as I know, Godzilla is unique and doesn’t belong to any species: Godzilla is Godzilla.
Sheesh. Dragons are quadrupeds with a morphology based on lizards and snakes. Some are capable of flight and/or breathing fire (or other stuff), others are not. Godzilla is a biped with a morphology based on that of bipedal dinosaurs, particularly T. rex and Iguanodon.
From medievalist Sarah Durn, via an excellent feature on io9:
No, that’s a sloppy article that ignores the actual history of the original Godzilla film and fails to make any coherent argument except in the case of Ghidorah.
The reality is that the original Godzilla movie (1954) was heavily based on The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which featured a (quadruped) dinosaur that had been awakened by an atomic bomb test, started off attacking isolated parts of the US East Coast (including attacking a lighthouse, a scene based on the Ray Bradbury short story “The Fog Horn”), and ended up attacking New York City.
An early version of the Godzilla project was actually titled The Giant Monster from 20,000 Miles Under the Sea, and an early draft of the screenplay had Godzilla attacking a lighthouse. It’s well known that the final design of Godzilla was inspired by contemporary depictions of T. rex and Iguanodon, and in fact in the film itself it’s referred to as a dinosaur.
So: dinosaur. (Debating whether Godzilla is a dragon or a dinosaur is like debating whether King Kong is a gorilla or a bear. Or maybe whether he’s a gorilla or a giant robot.)
IF Godzilla were to be classified as a dragon, he would be a drake. Four limbs, tail, spits a breath weapon…. But Godzilla walks on two legs, and walks upright like a man. The only dragons that walk on two legs only HAVE two legs, and they don’t tend to walk like people.
King Ghidorah is the closest thing to a dragon that walks upright, and even then that’s a stretch.
All I know is that whenever I see that picture of Godzilla, all I can think about is Tohru giving a thumbs-up.
Someone needs to hop a time machine back to the 13th century and tell them that they don’t know what a dragon is.
This is silly. Dragons are made-up.
No wings, no flight, no dragon.
Agreeing with “Argent” here. Especially about the part re: running away screaming, trying to avoid being stomped flat and bloody.
Godzilla!
Godzilla!
Godzilla was a man
I mean, he was a dragon man
Or maybe he was just a dragon
But he was still Godzilla!
Godzilla!
Godzilla!
Burninating the countryside,
Burninating the peasants
Burninating all the peoples
And their thatched-roof cottages!
Thatched-roof cottages!
And the Godzilla comes in the NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
Gojira is definitely draconic, just as he is also iconic. However, he is certainly not a dragon.
Dragons are quadrupedal and bear wings (or wing-like structures) making them six-limbed creatures. Gojira is a four-limbed, bipedal creature with no wings (or wing-like structures).
Godzilla is not a dragon he is a radioactive mutant gojirasaurus.