Dragons

[Demus]

Okay so, I just had this weird epiphany about dragons while looking at some really old artwork by Neko-Maya and remembering how I accidentally mistook a spray-painted dragon for a real one and thought the guy had a hand-grenade and not a spray can in his hand.

"What would he need grenades for anyway if he had a dragon?" She asked me.

So, maybe dragons are sort of magical. Not because they can conjure up flames, but because they can feed on and store energy - mostly heat! Go back to medieval times and imagine a dragon spiraling down from the skies and snatching poor innocent cows and pigs for food. The farmers are all pissed for losing their livestock, but sort of happy for not being the easier target. Anyway, eventually they will snap and decide to take some pitchforks and torches and go hunt for the dragons. Maybe they'll do alright - they'll just swarm all over the thing and start poking.

But let's go back to cows for a moment. Cows are methane powerhouses, and some folks have argued that cows are the leading cause of global warming because of that. While this is debatable, my point is that the dragon is probably full of that stuff after a decade of living with an all-cow diet. So let's assume the dragon isn't entirely mentally handicapped, and decides to eat some of the angry farmers (and some of those pitchforks and torches)! Bam! The methane catches on fire, and the dragon (possibly for the first time in it's life) is stored full of fiery death. The farmers proceed to empty their bowels and die.

So now we get back to the grenades! They're not a weapon for the guy who happens to own a dragon - they're food. Pull the pin and push one down a dragon's throat; instant meal, and a little extra kick whenever it decides to breath fire. Well, no, it won't just be breathing fire anymore - it'll be breathing explosions.

It doesn't stop there! When nuclear tests started rolling and mushroom clouds could be seen left and right, what if a dragon had swallowed a nuclear warhead? The sheer amount of energy consumed would make the dragon grow huge and be capable of breathing radioactive torrents of pure-white fire. You know what that looks like? Lasers. Godzilla was a dragon. And I'm not talking about the american 1998 Godzilla either (although, why not? Maybe it just ran out of laser fuel).

So, there you have it. I swear I'm just bored.

Anyway, how would one go about explaining dragons? How do fantasy authors do it, if at all? I just recently finished reading the Inheritance Cycle, and the book series was fun until the author stopped trusting the readers' suspension of disbelief. He started explaining way too much, and ended up not explaining the only questions anyone ever cared about.

[tony1695]

Anyway, how would one go about explaining dragons? How do fantasy authors do it, if at all? I just recently finished reading the Inheritance Cycle, and the book series was fun until the author stopped trusting the readers' suspension of disbelief. He started explaining way too much, and ended up not explaining the only questions anyone ever cared about.

Well, each author has a different take on dragons. To some, they are merely beasts who like shiny things and have a habit of setting towns on fire. Others have them as terrifyingly smart. Some spit fire, some spit ice, some spit a cloud of corrosive acid. Some are avatars of gods, some are evil incarnate, some are in between.
Depends on what the author wants. That's what makes dragons so great. The only thing that's agreed on is the basic body structure, and some authors like to mess with even that.
It's license to cram as much awesome into one creature as you want. Want a telepathic, gem-hoarding sociopath that likes to recite poetry? Go for it! A gentle, kind-hearted, mountain-sized monstrosity that causes earthquakes by moving? Sure, why not.

[Schrodinger]

I've seen two different interpretations of a dragon can realistically breathe fire, one is a mix between a spitting cobra and a bombardier beetle spitting two chemicals that when mixed function like napalm. The other hinges on dragons having a flammable gas bladder and storing a catalytic mineral in their mouths for combustion. Holy crap it's a Demus!

[RedDwarfIV]

Gonna leave this link here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... eDifferent