The The A dragon scales are largely, though not entirely impervious to flame. They protect the more vulnerable flesh and musculature beneath.

As a dragon ages, its scales thicken and grow harder, affording even more protection, even as its flames burn hotter and fiercer.

Where the flames of a hatchling can set straw or fire, the flames of

Belaerian and Fagar in the fullness of their power could and did melt steel and stone.

When two dragons meet in mortal combat, therefore, they will often employ weapons other than

their flame, plaws black as iron, long as swords and sharp as

razors, jaws so powerful they can crunch through even a knight's steel plate. Tales like whips

whose lashing blows have been known to smash wagons to splinters, break the spine of heavy destriars, and send men flying 50 feet in the air.

The knight is the standard, dominant martial figure of Westeros and has been for eons now.

This quote shows us that the warrior class is completely outclassed by dragons who, minus the occasional lucky shot

from a scorpion or the like, have no threats to fear except from each other.

None of this is an exaggeration as far as we can tell either. We saw Drogon break the back

of a wild horse and he's a young dragon. A bigger dragon could probably do that to an elephant

or a mammoth,

maybe even if it had a giant on its back.

With something so powerful, so unrelentingly dominant under your control,

the last thing you'd want to do is lose it, we'd think.

But we've seen countless examples of people's squandering power, even power they fought hard to acquire both real

world and fictional.

Though for most Targaryens, power is something they're born with.

Access to dragons is an inherent birthright, or at least it was.

But the Targaryans in this era seem to have forgotten that lesson.

...