Before I start with this part, let me just add something – this video I did not become aware of until after the first part of the article was posted and therefore was unable to use it as one of the visual aides. I still think it is interesting enough to provide an idea of just how maneuverable short – winged hawks can get, which in turn could be beneficial to designing the Dragon. So without further ado:

Now for the rest of the article:

Limitations

Apart from the physical limitations, there are influences outside of the Dragon that could come in to play and change the nature of the way it fights in the air, if it fights at all.

Apart from some generic diseases, very little research is done by most authors on the particular type of physical ailments that would threaten the life of the Dragon. As a flying creature, the Dragon’s heart and respiratory system come a close second in the importance and possibility of being able to fly. The most threatening diseases, then, are the ones that affect these organs. There is a wide variety of sicknesses – viral, bacterial, and, the most feared, fungal diseases, such as Aspergillomycosis, or Asper for short. Wheezing breath, lessened endurance and quick fatigue are a very bad sign. Asper is nearly impossible to cure and it carries the added risk of making the lungs so vulnerable more often than not the bird also develops secondary infection, like Pneumonia, which, needless to say, is the end of line.

In combat applications, logistical aspects, as much as biological, need to be considered. The army, which the Dragon is a part of, would have to employ specialized medical officers providing routine health checks. Due to the Dragon’s size a large quantity of medication would need to be carried around, to counter as many diseases as possible. If the Dragon is scaled, and therefore armored, would the medical team have developed a special kind of syringe in order to get the medication in through its thick armored skin?

Weather, too, is where the things get tricky. Things like humidity and temperature can not only alter he combat situation of ground – based troops, but would also dictate the Dragon’s involvement in battle. Water, as was previously said, is a big problem. Birds, for one, do not fly in the rain unless they absolutely have to. Wind speed can affect maneuverability and the speed of flight, and increased heat, as well as increased cold, put additional strain onto the Dragon’s body. In birds, exertion in extreme temperatures, especially when they are not used to them, can lead to fatal heat strokes, heart failure or freeze their vulnerable lungs.

One must also consider the origin of the Dragon in regards to the upcoming campaign – what if the campaign is taking place in an arid desert environment and the Dragon’s home is the snowy wasteland somewhere far north or vice versa? In a setting that the Dragon’s body is unfamiliar with and unsuited for, health issues are certain to follow. For example, the Gyrfalcon is an Arctic specie of a falcon. In a place where temperatures throughout the year barely climb above freezing, various types of bacteria, viruses and fungi are not as prevalent, since it is too cold for them to survive. When brought into moderate temperatures, unless kept in special conditions, the Gyrfalcon’s system is very vulnerable, giving in to the most mundane pathogens that local species don’t even catch, since they are naturally immune to them, having been adapted to temperate weather and environment. If you switch the situation around a little, desert – bound birds, such as the Harris, again, unless provided with proper housing, can suffer significant frost damage, even lose the vitally important digits sporting claws, since they are unused to deal with below – freezing temperatures for an extended period of time.

This aspect as well is often overlooked by many fantasy writers who not only don’t bother to do their research, but also fail to apply common sense, the most glaringly unthought – through example being the immensely moronic Battle of the Burning Plains in which Saphira, a dragon that was born and raised in temperate conditions and lived in such, or slightly colder (the dwarves’ stronghold with that ridiculous name which I have no idea how to pronounce) for her whole life up to that point, shows up in a desert, one filled with noxious gas to boot, and is all happy and dandy, no sings of respiratory issues, no signs of early fatigue brought on by heat, nothing.

In terms of starting a military campaign, this would have impact on the preliminary stages and planning – consider the weather in the environment you are going to march in, then pick the suitable specie of Dragon to help you achieve your goals.

Education

It is often assumed that the ability to fly is an inherent trait. This is untrue to an extent. Flight is as much a learned ability that the birds perfect over the course of their lives, as it is instinctual. Flying creatures are born with it the same way a human is born with the ability to walk and run – it is there and come the right time, the right neurons start firing up, make you stand upright and move those dangly things at the bottom of your body to create motion, but it takes years of training and exercising to be able to run a marathon. It is the same way with animals that fly, birds especially – their instinct tells them to flap wings to not fall and die a pile of horrible broken and mangled mess, but becoming a successful flier requires finesse and skill that can only be learned. And the same way you can distingueish people also by the way they walk or hold themselves, the same way unique, personal approaches to flight individualize each bird. There is much more to it than spreading the wings and waving them frantically around, which is ignored in Dragon – centered stories so much it’s not even funny.

When you walk around the woods or a park in late spring/early summer, which is when many young birds are taking flight for the first time, you can sometimes see them, sitting on the edge of the nest or the branches around it, flapping their wings, but holding on to the solid object they are sitting on. That is because they are not trying to fly just yet, merely working out to get their young, still undeveloped muscles to strengthen enough for them to not be completely exhausted by the time they are mid-way through their second wingstroke. For young birds, even short flight is a tiring experience. Also, they have not quite figured how the tail works yet, so the whole affair is very short, awkward, noisy, and ends with a very undignified crash – landing. Young birds get scared when they accidentally pick up too much speed, when they soar too high in the sky for the first time, and usually only stop when hitting a branch they desperately grab a hold of, in the former scenario, or after a very, veeeery slow and careful descent marked by terrified screaming every time the wind moves a single feather out of place in the latter.

This is where the parents come in. By accompanying the youths on their early flights, they show them how to handle themselves in the air, what the tail is for, which places are good for landing and which are not, they show them what dangers to avoid and what spots are safe. If you take another look at that Peregrine video I linked in Part One, in its second half, you can see the adults dropping food to the young, which teaches them maneuverability and agility, but also provides them with hunting essentials and teaches them to not be afraid of heights and soaring. The adults help their young overcome their fear of heights by carrying the food high in the air and only when the chicks garner enough courage to join them, are rewarded with some tasty pigeon.

The lower age and lower skillset of the juvenile birds can also be seen on their anatomy – with some species, like the Red – Tailed Hawk, the tail of the juvenile birds is much longer than that of adults. Longer and larger tale means the bird is more stable in the currents and less finesse is required in order to do certain maneuvers. When they change their plumage for the first time, however, off go the training wheels that helped the young birds learn their flying essentials and the longer tail is replaced with a shorter one, which allows for more advanced, albeit more challenging, flying. Age – based dimorphism that manifests itself in a different coloration of the feathers in some species is also designed to get the youngsters through their first year – it is very inconspicuous, “designed” for the bird to blend in with the environment better and avoid detection by other predators. Also, when they wander into another bird’s territory, the juvenile coloring tells the experienced bird that what they are dealing with is a young, inexperienced passage (age class), so they should cut it some slack. It only depends on the discretion of the home bird whether they do that or not.

Lack of experience also show on the physique of the juvenile birds – they are very lean, bony and kind of awkward. Only with age they build up muscle mass, get wider in the shoulder and heavier in the chest.

With age and experience birds of prey also learn some new tricks and they devise their own unique hunting strategies and approaches to hunting. Just as an example, I once saw a Harris Hawk in a tailchase with a pigeon – pigeons have this nasty habit of swerving abruptly when they know the final blow is coming and the Harris knew that from her previous experiences with the birds. So when the pigeon was right in her reach, she suddenly dropped about a half a meter in the air, with wings closed, spun around her axis and with her claws reached up, snatching the pigeon that never saw this coming from below. There is a slight problem to these individual techniques and strategies, though – once the bird becomes comfortable with their style, so to speak, it is impossible to get it to un-learn that and teach it something else, which would be more convenient in a different type of environment and favorable, as well as practical for you as the hunting partner. But these unique types of attacks can also be beneficial – if possible, maybe you could have other Dragons learn from their peer, to achieve greater battle efficiency.

So, if you were a General with age – diverse group of Dragons, ranging from grizzled veterans to untested youths, how would you handle the situation? What tasks would you assign them? Would a younger Dragon coming up with a new maneuver affect your training program and the repertoire of attacks and ambushes you have for your aerial unit? What would a Dragon boot camp look like?

In many stories featuring a Dragon, the creature in question is raised by a human who will later become its partner. In that case, it falls to the human to replace the parent in educating the Dragon in the essentials it is going to need if it is to become a proper adult. How is the partner going to go about this task? How would neglected or badly executed training affect the young Dragon? How would the General deal with a Dragon well set in its ways, refusing to adjust to the regulations? Would he find a way in which this unique approach would work best or would the Dragon be assigned a different task in which its stubbornness would not create any problems? The possibilities are endless. And speaking of humans:

The Human Partner

Last but not least is the human partner of the Dragon. I find it baffling that in many works of fantasy fiction the human partner gets so little space, not as a character, but as a partner. Allow me to explain:

If you are, for example, a poor farm boy number 7615 who, up to that point, had no education whatsoever in the matters of raising, training and caring for a Dragon, and you happen to stumble upon one that conveniently hatches, stuffing its face with rats or any other kind of meat you find lying around until the Hatchling burst may not be the best idea and, in fact, can kill your Dragon before you say “Destiny”. I am not going to go into detail of just how stupid every single facet of Eragon raising little Saphira is, in part because it is the only bearable (and kind of cute) part of the books, but mostly because if I did, this would be a very, very long article and it is extensive enough as it is.

The bottomline is – caring for a giant, flying Dragon, especially if it is a mere baby, is a very difficult task that would not only take up most of the human partner’s free time and thoughts, but it also requires education. For example – how does Eragon know that the meat he feeds to Saphira is not going to make her sick? What if she was a fish – eater? The havoc it would wreak on her just firing – up digestion. Should he take the bones out or not? Are there some additives crucial for her proper development that he does not know about, such as certain minerals and metals that he should be adding to her food, which the birth parents know by instinct to seek out?

A human partner should be, along with general care and “maintenance”, which goes without saying, also trained in fundamental medical care, in case something happens en route and there is no medical officer in sight to take care of the problem. Paolini, whose name has been invoked more times in the course of this article than would be excusable for any writer to be, overlooked this completely with using a simple heal – all magic spell. But in order to be able to heal something with magic, shouldn’t he know at least how the anatomy works, so as to not knit the wrong tissues together? Come to think about it, for a Dragon Rider, Brom taught him very little to nothing about actual Dragon Care. How do you treat a torn wing membrane? How to prevent her claws from overgowing? What if they break? What if they need sharpening and filing? Nah, forget it, the more important thing for him to learn is swordplay, just disregard the dragon who is bound to him with her very essence and needs care, whatever that word means. What if she gets food poisoning? What if she falls ill? Surely then he is going to regret developing staff – fighting skills out of nowhere instead of being able to tell what antidote to use if she eats something that makes her tongue turn green with purple spots.

What about equipment? Is Dragon – riding so prevalent in the particular world and society that saddles, girdles and the like are produced en masse? Are there certain craftsmen who do it? Whichever the option, the partner should be versed in maintaining the equipment themselves – the leather needs regular waxing and oiling to be comfortable for the animal wearing it – and be able to perform quick emergency fixes and alterations on it, depending on the circumstances, and in a time of dire need be able to fashion some makeshift gear by themselves.

Naomi Novik, again, did this well and as far as I am concerned, the woman can do no wrong in this regard. In the Temeraire series, the officers in the aerial fleet are often trained from childhood, being in the crew of one of the dragons – and I am not even touching on what a genius move giving the dragons crews was, else we would be here ’til Christmas – learning by performing tasks, petty at first, increasing with importance as they garner experience. So that years later, if they get a dragon of their own, they would know what they are doing. And as much as I despise The Pit Dragon series by Jane Yolen, I have to admit that even she put more effort into this aspect of Dragon – care, by having the main character raised on a dragon farm, having tended to the creatures most of his life, and therefore making it absolutely plausible and believable that he would know how raise one after he decides to steal a hatchling and rear it himself.

In Conclusion

Fantasy is such an incredible genre – it allows for the impossible things to exist, if only in ink and paper. And pixels, if you are into that sort of thing. Aerial battles on living – breathing creatures, to me, are the embodiment of that in some regards. But in order for the reader to be invested and to create tension, it has to grounded in reality and familiar just enough to be able to give the reader something to latch on to and immerse. Inconsistency and nonsense, on the other hand, tend to have the very opposite effect. The examples I have listed throughout this article, especially the bad ones, are a result of lack of research and nothing else. My own approach comes from my views and opinions, therefore it may seem like I am only considering the issue from a single angle – but that is where you are free to chime in and provide your own, unique vision. The point of this whole excourse, after all, was merely to pinpoint the problems that modern writers incorporating Dragons in their works have and suggest a solution or two, rather than to tell you how things should be done – I don’t think anybody can do that. The rest is where you come in and express your own take on the problem. As long as you remember to do your homework and employ common sense, you should be fine. Better than that, actually:)

Thank you so much for reading!

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Comment

  1. Klutor the Ninth on 14 June 2011, 11:45 said:

    Am I actually the first to comment?
    looks around nervously
    Oh well – allow me to briefly imitate a brainless youtube commenter and scream FIRST!!11!!!

    this video

    was beautiful. And awesome.

    If the Dragon is scaled, and therefore armored, would the medical team have developed a special kind of syringe in order to get the medication in through its thick armored skin?

    Avoided if we’re in a fantasy setting where technology is (overall) equal to that of medieval Europe. which is where most of these stories take place. My current WiP, however, doesn’t fit in there, so all my mythical creatures will get good medical care when needed.

    Birds, for one, do not fly in the rain unless they absolutely have to.

    As far as I know, horses also freak out when it rains, but that’s probably more related to them being scared of thunder and lightning which is very, very frightening! Galileo! Galileo!. Same with dogs.
    And we humans are pretty uncomfortable walking outside when it’s pouring, too. The whole film noir/cyberpunk/Humphrey Bogart/James Dean/Deckard image of An Awesome Badass Anti-Hero swaggering off into the rain, hands in pockets, cigarette clenched between lips… doesn’t work in real life.

    shows up in a desert, one filled with noxious gas to boot, and is all happy and dandy, no sings of respiratory issues, no signs of early fatigue brought on by heat, nothing.

    The fail; it is epic. Even Yugioh acknowledged the fact that animals (or monsters, for that matter) are at least a little disadvantaged when they’re outside of their typical habitat.

    Lack of experience also show on the physique of the juvenile birds – they are very lean, bony and kind of awkward. Only with age they build up muscle mass, get wider in the shoulder and heavier in the chest.

    Here I immediately thought of pumas (cougars/mountain lions/whatever you want to call the biggest small cat). Their adolescents are also lean and long-legged to the point of looking clumsy and kinda ugly. I’m no expert, but I think this helps them to learn how to run around in the snow (which pumas are known to do bloody well) while still being small enough that they need Mum to catch them some food.

    Evolution generally favors larger and stronger individuals, but there are many exceptions – salmon, for example, stay kinda medium-sized until they reach the last home stretch of their epic journey, after which they become bigger, stronger and more colourful (in order to attract mates).

    I once read a story in which a bunch of kids and a young dragon (“teenaged”, not baby) went looking for said dragon’s mom. Guy flew like a champ, even though he’s spent his entire life cooped up in a cave, not even knowing what the outside world looks like. Fail.

    pigeons have this nasty habit of swerving abruptly when they know the final blow is coming

    Have you ever seen a dog and a cat team up to kill a pigeon? Even that technique didn’t save it, lol. In all seriousness, though, that’s good point; how would one dragon beat the air-maneuvers of another, different one? Something to give some thought.

    If you are, for example, a poor farm boy number 7615

    I think you mean Luke Skywalker Copy 7615. ;-)

    What if she was a fish – eater?

    One of my most plot-important dragons in my new WiP is an omnivore who eats mostly fish, fruit and roots. I’m still calculating her daily intake, because she’s pretty damn huge. She’s also pregnant.

    How do you treat a torn wing membrane?

    I read somewhere that if this happened to a pterodactyl, it was pretty much a death sentence. I wonder if Dinotopia, which features people riding pterodactyls, mentioned this possibility… and now someone is going to check it up before I do.

    What about equipment? Is Dragon – riding so prevalent in the particular world and society that saddles, girdles and the like are produced en masse? Are there certain craftsmen who do it?

    This is one thing I remember from Dinotopia. Giant dinosaur-riding-saddles were mass-produced in different shapes and sizes, catering to different species, uses, amounts of passengers, etc. There was even a type of one-man head-saddle for sitting on a sauropod’s head. Pretty innovative, even if it requires immunity to the fear of heights.

    Temeraire sounds awesome, BTW.

    All in all, brilliant article. I enjoyed it very much. Well done! :-D

  2. swenson on 14 June 2011, 11:55 said:

    You’ve really inspired me with these articles, you know? I never thought I’d write anything with dragons in it, but the more I read these articles, the more intrigued I get. There’s so much more out there than most people put into it, isn’t there?

    I was especially captured this time by the mention of weather. Too often we think of intelligent dragons (or other large beasts) as simply bigger, scarier humans who can fly. Not true at all, though. If it’s raining hard, maybe the dragon or dragons will simply refuse to fly—not because they don’t like water, but because it’s too hard for them to do so, and it would make them vulnerable to counterattack or even medical problems. Or climate, which I admit I had never even considered before.

    This is great stuff! Now if only we knew more about pterodactyls specifically… I wonder how they differed from birds, actually? The only non-bird flying thing we have today is a bat, but that would be nothing like a pterodactyl, I’m sure.

    Also, that video at the top was amazing. What a beautiful bird! And think about how quickly they react to fly through such tiny spaces!

  3. Damselfly on 14 June 2011, 12:13 said:

    This article is really fantastic, well written as well as educational. Keep up the good work!

  4. dragonarya on 14 June 2011, 12:33 said:

    Great article, it’s so detailed, and above all, makes so much sense! :D Truly points to keep in mind.

  5. Clibanarius on 14 June 2011, 14:16 said:

    and I am not even touching on what a genius move giving the dragons crews was, else we would be here ’til Christmas

    That was good common sense, one human on a dragon’s back isn’t going to do much good, I mean he or she is just not.

    The Dragon’s most likely going to be to big for the rider to hit anything (especially in the air), it’d be like putting one man on an Elephant instead of a crew in a Howdah.

  6. falconempress on 14 June 2011, 15:26 said:

    OMG COMMENTS! Thank you so much, everyone!

    @Kluthor – I am so happy to see I am not the only Dinotopia maniac in this community. HOW AWESOME IS THAT SERIES?! Way awesome, thats how much.

    The things you mention about the pterodactyl getting their membrane torn and subsequently dying sound very likely – I do not know that much about dinosaurs, but from watching birds I can tell you that missing fearthers (aggressive moult) or broken feathers (physical damage) are a big problem – they hinder the ability to fly and maneuver and, subsequently, hunt too. So it does seem very likely that with big enough a tear the pterodactyl would pretty much be dead.

    Fun fact – did you know that broken feathers can be fixed? It is called imping and it basically looks like that tail – fixing scene in How To Train Your Dragon. Only without the dragon. Or the awesome flying. Damn, as far as I am concerned, that movie got everything right and is bloody perfect.

    Going back to Dinotopia and what you said about the saddles – yes, they do have them all specially made for different species! Precisely! How could I forget to mention that? For different species, different genders and in case the individual creature is off the usual size chart for the species, also “tailored” specially to fit that individual.

    As far as I know, horses also freak out when it rains, but that’s probably more related to them being scared of thunder and lightning which is very, very frightening! Galileo! Galileo!. Same with dogs. And we humans are pretty uncomfortable walking outside when it’s pouring, too. The whole film noir/cyberpunk/Humphrey Bogart/James Dean/Deckard image of An Awesome Badass Anti-Hero swaggering off into the rain, hands in pockets, cigarette clenched between lips… doesn’t work in real life.

    True! We used to have a dog when I was younger. He would go nuts during any storms or fireworks, the poor thing.

    And dont tell me about rain – I just got back from outside, when I was caught by this really heavy pour-down flash storm and after having ran though it for only about a minute or so am soaked to the bone, I swear there is not a single dry piece of string left on me. Yeah. Rain is nasty. How can anything outside of earthworms be out and about in the rain, is beyond me.

    I once read a story in which a bunch of kids and a young dragon (“teenaged”, not baby) went looking for said dragon’s mom. Guy flew like a champ, even though he’s spent his entire life cooped up in a cave, not even knowing what the outside world looks like. Fail.

    A teenaged aerial creature that had never been outside and has never flown before should have permanent muscle deterioration at this point and be barely able to spread the wings at all. Fail indeed.

    Have you ever seen a dog and a cat team up to kill a pigeon? Even that technique didn’t save it, lol. In all seriousness, though, that’s good point; how would one dragon beat the air-maneuvers of another, different one? Something to give some thought.

    NO I HAVENT! Now I need to research it! I have to study for my final in taxes tomorrow (oh the joy, oh the glory) but I think I can take the time to check this out :D Of course, it makes a huge difference whether it is just one-on-one and whether the target is ganged up on.

    Temeraire sounds awesome, BTW.

    Temeraire is awesome. Way awesome. Dinotopia level awesome. Check it out.

    @swenson:

    awww, you made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I dont know what to say except for I have no idea how to express how happy I am about it right now :D

    I absolutely agree with everything weather – related you said. When people sometimes ask me about birds and I start naming all the conditions in which they would refuse to cooperate and move their feathered bums, they look at me and go: “then when do they fly?” Birds are like cats – they are so not going to do anything they dont absolutely have to, much less when the weather is bad. I think dragons would be very much like that as well.

    This is great stuff! Now if only we knew more about pterodactyls specifically… I wonder how they differed from birds, actually? The only non-bird flying thing we have today is a bat, but that would be nothing like a pterodactyl, I’m sure.

    I wonder, too. Gah! If only we were further along with our cloning technology! I suppose the mechanics are not all that different – you need a large surface for soaring, pointed tip for stooping, great eyesight for spotting prey… but these are all just guesses. Such a shame more is not known about them :(

    @Clibanarius:

    The Dragon’s most likely going to be to big for the rider to hit anything (especially in the air), it’d be like putting one man on an Elephant instead of a crew in a Howdah.

    True. Didnt you say in your article that for example bombing, fly-bys of fiery death and ground – based combat would be best? In Temeraire the humans dont actually hit anything until the dragons get close enough and then they have boarding parties, capturing enemy dragons almost like ships and goddammit, now I want go and re-read Temeraire again :D

  7. WulfRitter on 14 June 2011, 16:57 said:

    What a great conclusion to an amazing series of articles! I really appreciate that you discussed the effect of a new environment on dragons. Personally, I find it weird whenever I read a story where the human warriors are struggling with a harsh environment, and the dragon (gryphon, pegasus, etc) is still flitting about as though he’s been living in a frozen, arid tundra all his life when, in fact, the dragon grew up in a verdant forest.

    And thank you for mentioning that as an animal, dragons would be prone to illness. Historically speaking, knights spent a goodly amount of time and effort protecting their valuable mounts from the changes in elements and from possible health risks – I’ve often wondered why stories about dragons don’t reflect this.

    Side note: Raising a domesticated horse takes a lot of knowledge and insight; how in the hell does a farmboy figure out how to raise something as bizarre as a dragon?

  8. swenson on 14 June 2011, 18:31 said:

    ^^ that actually sparks something in my mind. So Eragon was raised on a farm that I believe is mentioned having cows and horses (or at least one of each or something). He’d realize that different animals require very different care, especially young ones needing a lot of special attention, including their diet. This goes doubly for an orphaned animal. And while you could argue “dragons are intelligent and have ancestral memories, therefore Saphira isn’t completely on her own”, Eragon didn’t know that at that point. (and c’mon, can you imagine leaving a human baby or toddler to survive more or less on their own in the wild? Actual intelligence is not really something you always have since birth.) So even in-story, he should’ve known better than to just leave the baby dragon to freeze out in the cold! (as it was winter, as I recall.)

    Although, didn’t he go get tips from Brom? Not many, obviously, and only after he had Saphira for a while, though.

    Anyway, enough Eragon ranting, more about this wonderful article!

  9. falconempress on 15 June 2011, 06:23 said:

    @swenson – if my memory serves me right – it has been a long time since I last read the first book, after all – the only info Eragon got from Brom were things like how big the dragons grow, how long do they live, what colors they come in, what names they had, etc. He definitely did not ask anything about rearing a dragon in particular. So yeah, Saphira should have died within the week of her hatching. The whole ancestral memories angle does not work either, seeing as Saphira was, for all intents and purposes, an infant – she could not even mindspeak until she was roughly the size of Eragon himself, I think. And now that I think about it, he did leave her out in the snow, for all predators to grab, unless she froze to death first! The two of them truly have such a unique and close bond.

    And you are absolutely correct – having grown up on a farm, he should have been around plenty of baby animals to realize that not all of them are the same and are raised the same way.

  10. Klutor the Ninth on 15 June 2011, 09:42 said:

    HOW AWESOME IS THAT SERIES?! Way awesome, thats how much.

    Yeah… and those pictures! I first discovered it back in the 90s, so now I’m feeling really nostalgic.

    Going back to Dinotopia and what you said about the saddles – yes, they do have them all specially made for different species! Precisely! How could I forget to mention that? For different species, different genders and in case the individual creature is off the usual size chart for the species, also “tailored” specially to fit that individual.

    I remember the head-saddle cause this one guy used it to be able to water plants in a pot. Plants growing in a pot on the ledge of a high building. In other words, the 40-plus-ton sauropod stood in the street, blocking traffic, so his human buddy could water plants. Talk about Mundane Fantastic.:-D

    Also, what was the name of that place where the humans helped the duckbills to raise their babies? The Hatchery, or something?

    Fail indeed

    Thought so.

    The only non-bird flying thing we have today is a bat, but that would be nothing like a pterodactyl, I’m sure.

    I dunno, swenson – a lot of scientists have compared pterodactyls to bats, even though the wing structure is quite a bit different. Personally I think they were like a cross between bats and albatrosses, with a bit of vulture thrown in on the side.

    NO I HAVENT! Now I need to research it!

    It’s not on youtube, cause it happened in the 90s. Our dog and our cat grew up together, so they didn’t have the whole “racism” thing between them. They were like sisters. So they teamed up and utterly destroyed one bird after the other. Usually the cat got up in a tree, scaring the bird into going down… and then the dog pounced on it like a miniature tiger.

    If only we were further along with our cloning technology!

    Then I can finally have my very own sabre-toothed cat. Awesome!

    he did leave her out in the snow, for all predators to grab, unless she froze to death first!

    Aww, poor baby dragon! :-(
    Why would Eragon do that? It sounds just like that scene where “The Goddamn Batman” leaves Dick Grayson, age 12, in the Batcave to eat rats or starve to death.

  11. swenson on 15 June 2011, 13:48 said:

    I think it was because he didn’t want his family to find out about it. In fairness, I think (I’m not going to look it up, so you can do so if you really want to know for sure) he did make her a shelter of some kind and maybe even leave her some food, but still. You don’t just leave random babies lying out in the wild, even if they are capable of movement/eating on their own. When it’s winter.

    This Dinotopia stuff sounds interesting. I never ran into it before.

  12. Clibanarius on 17 June 2011, 00:46 said:

    @ FalconEmpress.

    Yeah, something as heavy looking as a Dragon would be best used on the ground where it can slam its naturally armoured, fire-breathing, multi-ton frame to bear against enemy formations.

    IMNSHO ;P

  13. falconempress on 17 June 2011, 02:00 said:

    @Kluthor:

    Yeah… and those pictures!

    Yes! How amazing! To be honest, had it not been for Dinotopia, a lot of my personal work and story would not exist at all. Gourney created such an amazing, unique and immersive world, I always loved the atmosphere. And you have to also love all the little details he slips in, like pottery, tapestries, designs on tableware, things that you dont notice at first, but subconsciously know they are there. And the Brachiosaurus “firetruck” – OH MY GODS is that awesome. The series is pure genius. Have you read Journey To Chandara yet?

    @Kluthor, swenson:

    Well yeah, he wanted to hide her from his family, but had he given it a thought, he could have come up with something else. I mean – the guy has his own frickin room and she is just a tiny little baby – leaving her in the middle of the forest, all by herself, should have been plan Z.

    @swenson:

    Dinotopia is AWESOME, in case you did not get what Kluthor and I had been jabbering about in between the squeals of fan joy. I think the author can describe it better than anybody:

    http://www.dinotopia.com/dinotopia.html

    Also this:

    @Clibanarius:

    Yes, I think you mentioned something like that in your article!

  14. Golcondio on 20 June 2011, 08:39 said:

    Guys you forget that Saphira is BLUE, which makes her immune to ice- and water-based attacks ;)

  15. Briareos on 7 August 2013, 18:48 said:

    Thank you so much for these well written articles! Lots of food for thought. None of the WIP’s I have on the go include Dragons/Big Flying Creatures, but the one I’m planning to write for NaNo this year might.

    Eragon… I’ve got three, maybe four of the books, but only read the first one. Tried the second one, but couldn’t get into it. Also, I agree with the whole leaving Saphira out in the wild. Why would he do that?

    Dinotopia! I love those books! I’ve got all three of them, plus some postcards and the novel written by Alan Dean Foster I believe it is. My dad got it for us… ummm… a few years ago because I was a dinosaur fan(before Jurassic Park came out), so he got the first one for me. I got Chandara pretty much when it came out!

    Have you read the Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey? I’ve got… most of them and the ones I’ve read(about six of them) are pretty good. Though it was a few years ago, so my memory is pretty fuzzy, but the dragons were treated like living creatures, rather than flying bikes.

    And I’ve decided to check out Temeraire, due to your praise of it. Thank you. A minimum of one extra book to add to the pile of 15+ books i have yet to read! Not that I’m complaining mind…