# Orcs: Foundation or Cliche



## FatCat (Aug 25, 2012)

Hey all!

This thread is the by product of an interesting conversation on MS chatboard.
The topic of discussion seemed to be, originality in fantasy writing. Despite the title, this is not limited to Orcs specifically, but all the common Fantasy creatures, dragons, trolls, werebeasts, vampires, you get the idea. Why are these so prevalent in Fantasy writing, do you consider these things to be a foundation of the fantasy genre, or a cliche? I attempted to word this vaguely to produce discussion along the topic. So, what are your ideas, are Orcs a fantasy foundation, or a fantasy cliche 

Side note- I think world building was the appropriate place to put this, sorry in advance if there was a better forum for this.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2012)

The main reason we still see orcs, trolls, and the like is either because many writers don't want to bother making up their own creatures, are heavily inspired by Tolkien or his imitators, or feel more comfortable with the familiar. I wouldn't tell any budding writer _not_ to use these creatures at all, but they're definitely not a must-have either.

I have dragons in the short story I've just started, but I only call them dragons because that's a familiar term that can be co-opted to connote any large fictional reptile. Beyond being big and dangerous carnivores they don't have much in common with mythological dragons; if anything their true inspirational roots lie in dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 25, 2012)

I'm interested in the topic, but not the debate. Make sense at all?

I like those creatures so of course I want to see more of them. Just like when I play Final Fantasy and I am happy to see chocobos and moogles


----------



## Philip Overby (Aug 25, 2012)

Fantasy, like sci-fi or other genres, have things that recur.  Does this make them bad?  No.  It just makes them part of the genre.

If I mention orcs, an image comes to your mind.  If I mention futariguchi onna, then you probably don't know what that is.  My job as a writer is to make both of these creatures interesting, regardless how much or how little you know about them.  I could write an awesome story about orcs or I could write an awesome one about futariguchi onna.  Or I could write bad ones for both.  

Genres have convention.  Whether they're cliche or not, people are going to keep writing about them.  Your job as a reader and writer is to decide if you want this pattern to continue.  

I'm going to end each one of these "cliche" threads with this from now on:

"Cliches are not bad, if your writing is good."

Phil the Drill stamp of approval.


----------



## Astner (Aug 25, 2012)

Jabrosky is on the right track. We use commonly established fictional creatures not to alienate the reader. That said, the best orcs aren't necessarily the original ones. For instance, the orcs in Warhammer are better illustrated than those in Lord of the Rings.

In the end "orc" is just a label. The creativity should be invested in the idea this label represents, and not the label itself.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2012)

I will add that I've always had a strange sympathy for orcs in particular and never liked it that they were usually the bad guys. I guess it's the champion of the underdog in me. Honestly, I much prefer the post-_Warcraft III_ trend of giving at least some of them a certain degree of nobility.


----------



## FatCat (Aug 25, 2012)

Sometimes while reading, if there is one of these elements I can't help but ask, why!? Is the orc/troll/elf/goblin a useful addition to the plot, i.e. using them to further a prevalent idea of the work, or is it simply 'cool'.

 The term fantasy brings to my mind a lot of different things, but most among them is the allowance of the author to make new species and races that are tailor made to the plot of his/her fantasy. Someone first decided to invent another race and call them orcs, but the repetition throughout the genre itself is somewhat hard to justify, in my opinion. Example; Is the woods-dwelling, immortal elf culture reflecting your views on humanity, highlighting certain aspects that he/she find in human nature like futility against time, conservation of nature in the industrial world, or just because (and I do agree with the following) elfs are just awesome. 

The same goes with vampires; are they added into the work with slight differences for the sake of originality (Sparkles in the sunlight? ) or is the classic idea twisted to create something that you find useful or imperative when telling your story. Don't get me wrong, I do agree that the inclusion of these ideas is not a bad thing at all, if the story is compelling ,well, thats all I need. However sometimes I wish I could see the creativity going into the alteration of the classic element being put to use in an original idea, and one that adds to the general theme of the work. 

 That being said, I think that dragons and the like have stayed around for so long simply because of the fact of their continual adaptations of the same awesome, fire-breathing, fear-inspiring, and anciently wise species are usually really fun to read, no matter the name.


----------



## FatCat (Aug 25, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I will add that I've always had a strange sympathy for orcs in particular and never liked it that they were usually the bad guys. I guess it's the champion of the underdog in me. Honestly, I much prefer the post-_Warcraft III_ trend of giving at least some of them a certain degree of nobility.



I'm waiting to read about the refined orc, the kind that enjoys the finer things in life; good wine, intellectual conversation, gourmet cooking.....maybe even a monopoly monocle, just don't mind the crushed and broken bodies of half a generation of adventures behind the antique armoire.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2012)

FatCat said:


> That being said, I think that dragons and the like have stayed around for so long simply because of the fact of their continual adaptations of the same awesome, fire-breathing, fear-inspiring, and anciently wise species are usually really fun to read, no matter the name.


I know I've said this before, but the main reason I settled on dragons for my current WIP is because their fictional nature allows you to take more creative liberties with them. Normally I prefer dinosaurs to traditional dragons, but using real dinosaurs in fantasy forces me to make as few paleontologists cry as possible by sticking to scientific accuracy. You can get away with a lot more with dragons than dinosaurs, which probably explains why the former appear so much more often in fantasy to begin with.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 25, 2012)

I include all of those fantasy elements because by and large they exist in mythology and legends.

Whether it is orcs, dragons, trolls, or whatever, they've been part of our collective consciousnesses for longer than we've been alive.


----------



## Saigonnus (Aug 25, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> Normally I prefer dinosaurs to traditional dragons, but using real dinosaurs in fantasy forces me to make as few paleontologists cry as possible by sticking to scientific accuracy.



I would consider how little we really know with hard facts about dinosaurs; much of those "facts" are simple suppositions that fit what evidence we do have. All it could take is finding another fossil to completely redraw what dinosaurs look like to those paleontologists. I think if; for example, you add feathers to a T-rex, none of those paleontologists could really make any complaints about it since their nearest ancestors are turkeys and it is possible they had feathers even then (there is no evidence one way or another as to what their skin looked like). I think taking literary license even with traditional and well-documented creatures should be encouraged especially with fantasy novels; where an amount of suspension of disbelief is required anyway.

I, for example use a character named violet that is a normal appearing cat (though strangely colored) with human intelligence and "magical" talent. Do you think that would cause an outcry among normal biologists since normal cats don't have magical powers or advanced intelligence? I would think not since it IS a work of fantasy.


----------



## Anders Ã„mting (Aug 25, 2012)

FatCat said:


> I'm waiting to read about the refined orc, the kind that enjoys the finer things in life; good wine, intellectual conversation, gourmet cooking.....maybe even a monopoly monocle, just don't mind the crushed and broken bodies of half a generation of adventures behind the antique armoire.



Some Elder Scrolls orcs are kinda like that - as a people they are from a fairly warlike society due to their religion, but a lot of them still come across as perfectly civilized.


----------



## FatCat (Aug 26, 2012)

Anders Ã„mting said:


> Some Elder Scrolls orcs are kinda like that - as a people they are from a fairly warlike society due to their religion, but a lot of them still come across as perfectly civilized.



I believe I killed the one Orc in Skyrim who was, don't mess with the Dark Brotherhood


----------



## Anders Ã„mting (Aug 26, 2012)

FatCat said:


> I believe I killed the one Orc in Skyrim who was, don't mess with the Dark Brotherhood



I think I met that guy. Couldn't figure out the point of him. It's always a bit dull when you run into characters who obviously only exist for a quest you haven't found. Oh well. The mage college also has an orc librarian, incidentally.

Anyway, there were more of them in Oblivion, since it took place in more civilized parts and in a more civilized time. Back then you'd run into orcs merchants and orc townspeople all the time. (Actually, one of the things I didn't like about Oblivion was how well integrated all the races were. Made the diversity feel kinda pointless, if you know what I mean.)


----------



## FatCat (Aug 26, 2012)

Yeah, the racial tension of Skyrim made it feel alive, in a sense. Poor khajit, having to sit outside in the cold. Thats what they get for having tails though!


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 26, 2012)

Forgive me if this drives us off-topic, but another thing that bothers me about old-school orcs and all the other traditionally evil monster races is that they feed into the perception that evil is visibly ugly and easy to distinguish from good with a superficial glance. In truth, the worst of evil doesn't have tusks, live in spiky castles, wear black robes, or whatever. Truly effective and dangerous evil is the kind that masquerades as good. That kind of evil has a seductive power that can trick even genuinely good people into following it.


----------



## Astner (Aug 26, 2012)

The Elder Scroll series has always taken a neutral approach to the playable races. So that you can enjoy the setting the same without having to worry about imperials beating you up on the streets just for being an orc.

As for _evil_? Well it depends on what you mean with evil. It has to be more than being bad just for the sake of being bad. But at the same time I agree with you in that I don't see an orc sitting in a library with his snout in a book.


----------



## ShortHair (Aug 27, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> I include all of those fantasy elements because by and large they exist in mythology and legends. Whether it is orcs, dragons, trolls, or whatever, they've been part of our collective consciousnesses for longer than we've been alive.



Consider me ninja'd.



Saigonnus said:


> I would consider how little we really know with hard facts about dinosaurs; much of those "facts" are simple suppositions that fit what evidence we do have. All it could take is finding another fossil to completely redraw what dinosaurs look like to those paleontologists.



I've toyed for years with writing a story on this topic. Could someone have found dinosaur bones, centuries before the birth of paleontology, and reconstructed them as a dragon? What else would the biblical line "giants in the earth" refer to?


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 27, 2012)

ShortHair said:


> Consider me ninja'd.


Thanks for using a word I never looked up before  very useful!



ShortHair said:


> I've toyed for years with writing a story on this topic. Could someone have found dinosaur bones, centuries before the birth of paleontology, and reconstructed them as a dragon? What else would the biblical line "giants in the earth" refer to?


I think in real life that dinosaurs and large lizards (komodo, crocodile, etc) are probably where dragons came from, but I think that the quote refers to the nephilim, doesn't it? The giant offspring of humans and angels? 

I've got those in my books too...


----------



## SeverinR (Aug 27, 2012)

Phil the Drill said:


> Fantasy, like sci-fi or other genres, have things that recur.  Does this make them bad?  No.  It just makes them part of the genre.
> 
> If I mention orcs, an image comes to your mind.  If I mention futariguchi onna, then you probably don't know what that is.  My job as a writer is to make both of these creatures interesting, regardless how much or how little you know about them.  I could write an awesome story about orcs or I could write an awesome one about futariguchi onna.  Or I could write bad ones for both.
> 
> ...


But, your futariguchi onna will probably not catch on, unless they get an abbr. name.
Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Dragon, short, easy to say, and instantly bring to mind a pictured being.
Futars might catch on, but the tough long named creature probably wouldn't.
But then again, we don't refer to dwarfs as  Homosapien-dwarfis either.

I might also point out, cliches aren't cliche if they are different.
What ever you write, make it yours, not WOW, not Tolkiens, Not Bob Godfrey's creation in the 9th grade AD&D club.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 27, 2012)

Anyone else bugged by the title of this thread? It just says "j". Can that be fixed?


----------



## FatCat (Aug 27, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Thanks for using a word I never looked up before  very useful!
> 
> 
> I think in real life that dinosaurs and large lizards (komodo, crocodile, etc) are probably where dragons came from, but I think that the quote refers to the nephilim, doesn't it? The giant offspring of humans and angels?
> ...



I remember watching something on TV about the origins of dragons. The premise was an attempt to explain why so many cultures, separated by thousands of miles, all came up with the same type of mythical beast, before anyone would be able to travel these distances. The explanation was that it had something to do with residual primitive fear of predators, like the scales coming from poisonous snakes, claws from countless predatory mammals, and the wings an association of carrion birds. This was awhile back, but it's an interesting theory. 

Also, no idea why the title was changed to 'j', it used to be 'Orcs: Foundation or Cliche? Wasn't me, so it might just be a glitch.


----------



## Sheilawisz (Aug 27, 2012)

I have restored the Thread's original name, but I have no idea why it had changed...


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 27, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> But then again, we don't refer to dwarfs as  Homosapien-dwarfis either.


Has anyone had their dwarves be related to humans before? I think of them as wholly distinct families/species/etc. 



SeverinR said:


> I might also point out, cliches aren't cliche if they are different.


I agree with you, but I think the vast majority consider anything with the same name as something else to be cliche.


----------



## CupofJoe (Aug 27, 2012)

ShortHair said:


> Consider me ninja'd.
> I've toyed for years with writing a story on this topic. Could someone have found dinosaur bones, centuries before the birth of paleontology, and reconstructed them as a dragon? What else would the biblical line "giants in the earth" refer to?


ShortHair
Not only could they. It has almost certainly happened... 
The first two i can think of are
1) The Greek idea of the cyclops has a skull that looks remarkably like a Mammoth's... and
2) Asian images of dragons often have hooked beaks [like eagle] that look remarkably like the skulls of Protoceratops.
Each generation reinterprets the evidence it has to fit its own needs and prejudices...


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 27, 2012)

Sheilawisz said:


> I have restored the Thread's original name, but I have no idea why it had changed...


Gremlins.

.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 27, 2012)

FatCat said:


> I remember watching something on TV about the origins of dragons. The premise was an attempt to explain why so many cultures, separated by thousands of miles, all came up with the same type of mythical beast, before anyone would be able to travel these distances. The explanation was that it had something to do with residual primitive fear of predators, like the scales coming from poisonous snakes, claws from countless predatory mammals, and the wings an association of carrion birds. This was awhile back, but it's an interesting theory.



I personally like to think that at some point in time, dragons actually existed. Like direwolves.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 27, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> I personally like to think that at some point in time, dragons actually existed. Like direwolves.



A few years ago Animal Planet or Discovery Channel came out with a special that they presented as though they had actually uncovered evidence of dragons. I was FLIPPING OUT for like the first 40 minutes of the special because they never came out and said that it was fake until at one point they were like, "If someone was to discover this..." and I was like, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING MEEEEEE.

Still, it was pretty cool. The premise was that they uncovered a medieval dragon carcass that had been frozen in some mountain range and plotted its evolution back from prehistory. At one point they show a dragon fight a T-Rex so you know it had to be a good show.


----------



## FatCat (Aug 27, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> A few years ago Animal Planet or Discovery Channel came out with a special that they presented as though they had actually uncovered evidence of dragons. I was FLIPPING OUT for like the first 40 minutes of the special because they never came out and said that it was fake until at one point they were like, "If someone was to discover this..." and I was like, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING MEEEEEE.
> 
> Still, it was pretty cool. The premise was that they uncovered a medieval dragon carcass that had been frozen in some mountain range and plotted its evolution back from prehistory. At one point they show a dragon fight a T-Rex so you know it had to be a good show.



You seriously just made me spit wine out on my keyboard, damnit!!!


----------



## Shockley (Aug 27, 2012)

FatCat said:


> I remember watching something on TV about the origins of dragons. The premise was an attempt to explain why so many cultures, separated by thousands of miles, all came up with the same type of mythical beast, before anyone would be able to travel these distances. The explanation was that it had something to do with residual primitive fear of predators, like the scales coming from poisonous snakes, claws from countless predatory mammals, and the wings an association of carrion birds. This was awhile back, but it's an interesting theory.



 I would say that it is much more likely that we are interpreting the phenomenon through western eyes. Instead of saying 'Oh, obviously, the lung is its own monster invented by east Asian peoples' we jump to the idea of this as an 'Asian dragon.'


----------



## FatCat (Aug 27, 2012)

Shockley said:


> I would say that it is much more likely that we are interpreting the phenomenon through western eyes. Instead of saying 'Oh, obviously, the lung is its own monster invented by east Asian peoples' we jump to the idea of this as an 'Asian dragon.'



I can't say I understand what you're saying here. What I was referring to was not just asian dragons, but dragons across a wide cultural extreme. I'm not sure how asian dragons were specified in this TV series, then again I'm not sure why eastern dragons were specified in your comment.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 27, 2012)

Shockley said:


> I would say that it is much more likely that we are interpreting the phenomenon through western eyes. Instead of saying 'Oh, obviously, the lung is its own monster invented by east Asian peoples' we jump to the idea of this as an 'Asian dragon.'


I agree completely with this.

Anyway, I've decided to include orcs and goblins in one of my projects, but I plan a big twist for them:



Spoiler: The Twist



They are actually different races of human beings exactly like the hero; he only _perceives_ them to be monstrous and evil because of a delusion the villain imparts onto him using a magic necklace, and they are actually on the sympathetic side.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 27, 2012)

FatCat said:


> I can't say I understand what you're saying here. What I was referring to was not just asian dragons, but dragons across a wide cultural extreme. I'm not sure how asian dragons were specified in this TV series, then again I'm not sure why eastern dragons were specified in your comment.



 I was using the Asian dragon as an example. 

 The point I was trying to make is that we have something called a 'dragon.' It is part of our culture, our mythos. Other cultures have their own things, which they call by their own names and give their own purposes. Then, one of our cultural anthropologists (or something similar) shows up and says, 'This is their version of a dragon.'

 It's completely inaccurate and unfair to the traditions.


----------



## FatCat (Aug 27, 2012)

What do eastern peoples call their 'dragons', I assumed they had a similar outlook to these mythical beasts as we did. To my understanding a wide variety of dragons were present to cultures outside the eastern concepts.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 27, 2012)

Well, the point I'm trying to make is that there are no dragons outside of western culture. Just things we equate with our concept of dragons.

 Ask yourself this: What are the similarities between the Asian and Western Dragon? Basically none. They are both vaguely reptilian and that is the end of it. The western dragon is a thing of evil (almost universally), and usually in Christian cultures a representation of the Devil. In Asian communities, it's almost always a positive force - most of the time it is a god worthy of veneration.

 Any time you hear someone say 'this culture has a dragon,' it's best to interpret that sentence as 'in my opinion, this is fairly close to the western concept of a dragon and I am going to label it as such, even if it's inaccurate.'


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Shockley said:


> I would say that it is much more likely that we are interpreting the phenomenon through western eyes. Instead of saying 'Oh, obviously, the lung is its own monster invented by east Asian peoples' we jump to the idea of this as an 'Asian dragon.'



That may be true, but can you say that the reverse is not true? I find it likely that when other cultures look at they western dragon, they might also say, "that's kinda like a different version of our [insert cultural icon here]." You could in fact say that the dragon is the "western lung" just as you could say the lung is the "eastern dragon." 

The point is, yes it's a little Eurocentric to say that Creature X is the [insert culture]'s dragon. But if you look at the bigger picture, it is remarkable that so many different cultures independently "invented" such similar beasts, regardless of what they call them. It's not so far-fetched to thing these different beasts might actually be a series of related creatures being interpreted through different cultural lenses.

To clarify my point, a lion depicted in Chinese art looks very little like a lion as depicted in European art. Does this mean the Chinese lion is not really a lion, but instead its own separate thing? No. It's just being viewed through a different cultural and artistic point of view.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I agree completely with this.
> 
> Anyway, I've decided to include orcs and goblins in one of my projects, but I plan a big twist for them:
> 
> ...



I thought your world didn't have magic?


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 28, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> I thought your world didn't have magic?


Changed my mind about that.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> Changed my mind about that.



Interesting. Anything in particular cause the switch? Also, how have you managed to integrate the new element?


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

FatCat said:


> You seriously just made me spit wine out on my keyboard, damnit!!!


Sorry! Was it because you believed it for a second too! That was my reaction then!



Shockley said:


> I would say that it is much more likely that we are interpreting the phenomenon through western eyes. Instead of saying 'Oh, obviously, the lung is its own monster invented by east Asian peoples' we jump to the idea of this as an 'Asian dragon.'


I think this is silly. That's like saying a leyak isn't a type of vampire or Frankenstein isn't a type of golem. We use English to describe things because we are speaking English. If I was speaking Japanese I would say ryu or tatsu and if I was speaking Chinese, I would say lung. But here's the kicker, if a Chinese person was speaking English, they would probably describe their dragons as dragons. ...because they are dragons. 



Shockley said:


> Then, one of our cultural anthropologists (or something similar) shows up and says, 'This is their version of a dragon.'


I think the point he was trying to make was that a theory for similar creatures across cultures (not just China/Europe, but others also) all have this creature which is a hodgepodge of our biggest predators--cats, raptors, snakes, etc. Now, the anthropologist in question is of course relying on the fact that the traditions couldn't be transmitted across cultures and that we are able to genetically program a speciesism into ourselves that would be expressed artistically or under the influence of drugs/fear into a dragon or dragon-like creature. This unfortunately, since the theory is interesting, results in his argument not having as much scientific merit as it might otherwise.

Inconsequentially, these creatures were believed to have a common ancestor in the Dragon's World DVD I referenced earlier. They had that the land-based dragons died out with the dinosaurs and only the water-based ones lived through it. The water-based ones eventually becoming the Asian dragons. 



Shockley said:


> Well, the point I'm trying to make is that there are no dragons outside of western culture. Just things we equate with our concept of dragons.


OK, so if we equate them with dragons let's just keep using English to describe them then. Right? Since we are speaking English...

Don't get me wrong, I am all for using proper names for things. But if it looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon and for all intents and purposes is a dragon, then it is a dragon. Any Chinese or Japanese experts that know what they call European dragons? I only studied Japanese for two years and never got into geek speak. I just think of this as a specific type of dragon. 



Shockley said:


> Ask yourself this: What are the similarities between the Asian and Western Dragon? Basically none. They are both vaguely reptilian and that is the end of it. The western dragon is a thing of evil (almost universally), and usually in Christian cultures a representation of the Devil. In Asian communities, it's almost always a positive force - most of the time it is a god worthy of veneration.


I don't know that I've ever disagreed with you so much about something Shockley. 

They are both reptilian, but definitely more snake and serpent related. Usually related to the water. Related to sea serpents and Leviathan or synonymous depending on your beliefs. Powerful and almost always on the top of whatever hierarchy they are in. Typically able to fly. Probably based on real creatures = snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs and whales. 

I would say that your "almost universally" representation of western dragons is a little extreme, and only applies to ancient dragons. 



Shockley said:


> Any time you hear someone say 'this culture has a dragon,' it's best to interpret that sentence as 'in my opinion, this is fairly close to the western concept of a dragon and I am going to label it as such, even if it's inaccurate.'


Does anyone in our genre actually think of the western concept of a dragon when they think of dragons anymore? I think most people think of a Tolkien / D&D concept if they think of anything. In those, dragons were intelligent but could choose their own leanings. There were good and bad dragons and even if they were portrayed as having European body types more often than not, they were rarely malevolent beasts that lived the lives of hedonists without real dreams and goals. 

So now we are back to a different forum's thread. Call it a dragon if you want to. Call it a lung or ryu if you want to. Call it Badsfrlavnoi (just random letters on the keyboard, not a real thing...yet!) if you want to, but they still are going to be the same thing, and that is a dragon. 

As far as what I mentioned earlier--a leyak is a type of vampire where its head and spine/organs detaches from the body and seeks to suck the blood from a pregnant woman, while Frankenstein was a golem made out of flesh and bone instead of mud.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> That may be true, but can you say that the reverse is not true? I find it likely that when other cultures look at they western dragon, they might also say, "that's kinda like a different version of our [insert cultural icon here]." You could in fact say that the dragon is the "western lung" just as you could say the lung is the "eastern dragon."
> 
> The point is, yes it's a little Eurocentric to say that Creature X is the [insert culture]'s dragon. But if you look at the bigger picture, it is remarkable that so many different cultures independently "invented" such similar beasts, regardless of what they call them. It's not so far-fetched to thing these different beasts might actually be a series of related creatures being interpreted through different cultural lenses.
> 
> To clarify my point, a lion depicted in Chinese art looks very little like a lion as depicted in European art. Does this mean the Chinese lion is not really a lion, but instead its own separate thing? No. It's just being viewed through a different cultural and artistic point of view.



You said a lot of what I said, but much more diplomatically I think and definitely more concise. 

Unrelated P.S.: In my attempt to see what Chinese and Japanese people thought of European dragons, I realized that their wikipedias are much "prettier" than ours.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Don't get me wrong, I am all for using proper names for things. But if it looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon and for all intents and purposes is a dragon, then it is a dragon. Any Chinese or Japanese experts that know what they call European dragons? I only studied Japanese for two years and never got into geek speak. I just think of this as a specific type of dragon.



I concede that we should call them lung or ryu or whatever to denote the specific type of _dragon_, but in my mind they are still a type of dragon. 

Japanese calls European dragons ドラゴン, which is "du-ra-go-n", but they still have this classified under 竜 "ryu" in their wikipedia which is exactly the inverse of what we do. We have dragons and have Asian dragons such as naga, ryu and lung classified under dragons.


----------



## Astner (Aug 28, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Japanese calls European dragons ドラゴン, which is "du-ra-go-n", but they still have this classified under 竜 "ryu" in their wikipedia which is exactly the inverse of what we do. We have dragons and have Asian dragons such as naga, ryu and lung classified under dragons.


ドラゴン is pronounced doragon, and it's technically not a Japanese word.

Similarly with Lord of the Rings, 指輪物語 pronounced: yubiwa monogatari; meaning: story of ring(s), would be Japanese. However the title of the movie in cinemas was: ロードオブザリング; pronounced: Roodo obu za ringu.

That said I don't really think that there's a need to separate them. A western dragon may well be presented as some whether ruling deity as well.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

...doh!

But still, that was my point. They pronounced it their way of saying dragon, so I conceded that we should specifically call Chinese dragons lung, Japanese dragons ryu, etc, but they are still dragons.


----------



## Astner (Aug 28, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> ...doh!
> 
> But still, that was my point. They pronounced it their way of saying dragon, so I conceded that we should specifically call Chinese dragons lung, Japanese dragons ryu, etc, but they are still dragons.


J.K. Rowling did it well. She included various eastern dragons, one that comes to mind is the Chinese fireball. Implying that they were different races of dragons. Similar to dwarves, elves, and men.

However, it depends on what setting we're discussing. Is it a setting with just one type of dragon, or with different types of dragons (including the eastern)? In the former case there's no need for a distinguishing, whereas in the latter J.K. Rowling's approach works well.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

I'm going to come back to this when I'm not running between classes, but something was brought up which illustrates my point fairly well. I'm going to address this point, then come back to the others at about one or two o'clock central time.



> To clarify my point, a lion depicted in Chinese art looks very little like a lion as depicted in European art. Does this mean the Chinese lion is not really a lion, but instead its own separate thing? No. It's just being viewed through a different cultural and artistic point of view.



 When European explorers first entered China, they saw these stone statues in front of buildings. They asked the local Chinese what these things were, and they were answered with 'shi/se.' The European explorer looked at these statues, decided they were looking at lions and decided that 'shi/se' meant 'lion.' 

 But here's the problem with that interpretation - the explorer assumed he was looking at a lion. He wasn't. He was looking at a representation of a breed of Chinese dog - specifically, this kind of dog:








 Here's the kicker: This breed of dog's name, if translated directly from Chinese to English (through way of Tibetan, due to certain unfortunate environmental problems), comes out as 'Snow Lion.' So here's what happened:

 We had a term that basically meant 'door guard' and referenced, culturally, a large mammal. The Europeans - not being familiar with the Tibetan Mastiff (which is not a mastiff, further pushing this point), assumed this was a lion. The local Chinese - not being familiar with lions - had no real way of correcting them. To this very day, the Chinese word 'shi/se' is still translated into English as 'lion,' and no one has bothered to correct the error.

 I'll tie this all into one thread of thought shortly.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 28, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> Interesting. Anything in particular cause the switch? Also, how have you managed to integrate the new element?


The main reason was that I decided to stop caring about "scientific realism" in my fantasy and loosen up. That said, I haven't really thought about a coherent magic system yet.

@ the whole dragon discussion

It depends on how you define "dragon". If a dragon is simply any large fantastical creature with reptilian properties, then I see nothing wrong with calling the Asian monsters dragons. However, such a broad definition does not mean that European and Asian "dragons" are closely related beyond that sense; they could still have been independently invented by different cultures. Similarly, while we might call African bows and arrows by the same name as similar devices used by Native Americans for the sake of convenience, we can't necessarily conclude that these inventions are related by common ancestry (i.e. Africans sailing over to the Americas and teaching the natives how to make bows and arrows, or vice versa).

Funnily enough, few people call Godzilla a dragon even in the broad sense of the word.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Shockley said:


> The local Chinese - not being familiar with lions - had no real way of correcting them.





> The local Chinese - not being familiar with lions





> *not being familiar with lions*



Asiatic Lion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





History:


> The Asiatic lions were once quite common throughout its historic range in Southwest and Central Asia and are believed to be the ones depicted by the guardian lions in Chinese culture.



EDIT: A bit of cursory reading leads me to believe that the Chinese guardian lion is not solely based on that dog breed. As I understand it, The Chinese got the guardian lion idea from India and Tibet, part of the historic range of the Asiatic lion, having seen them in Indian temples. They then rendered those images into their own cultural style, mixing in things from the Lion-Dogs, such as the shaggy mane. So the guardian lions are in fact lions. The Chinese just decided to take artistic liberties. Also, saying that an explorer would confuse that little dog for an actual lion is an insult to human intelligence.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> It depends on how you define "dragon". If a dragon is simply any large fantastical creature with reptilian properties, then I see nothing wrong with calling the Asian monsters dragons. However, such a broad definition does not mean that European and Asian "dragons" are closely related beyond that sense; they could still have been independently invented by different cultures. Similarly, while we might call African bows and arrows by the same name as similar devices used by Native Americans for the sake of convenience, we can't necessarily conclude that these inventions are related by common ancestry (i.e. Africans sailing over to the Americas and teaching the natives how to make bows and arrows, or vice versa).


Agreed. But another point is that I don't think many of us consider "dragons" to mean European dragons anymore either, which is why we have all been prefacing the word "dragons" with "European" when we wanted to refer specifically to that type. In English at least, dragon has taken on a broader definition.



Jabrosky said:


> Funnily enough, few people call Godzilla a dragon even in the broad sense of the word.


I think of Godzilla more as a Tarasque type creature, which is dragon-like...according to a quick search he was supposed to be a combination of several dinosaurs in design, but mutated by the atomic bombs (why he breathes atomic energy). If you go with dragons are inspired by dinosaurs theory, then I guess you could consider Godzilla a type of dragon, but a "real-life" one where the inspiration (dinosaur mix) started to resemble the myth (dragons). Most of the films treat him as a type of mutated lizard or whatever though, don't they? I think this is probably why you don't see more dragon associations with Godzilla. 

...Interestingly enough, he did fight a dragon.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> Asiatic Lion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 As much as I enjoy the attempt at being pedantic, you should read your own source before you try and throw it in my face as proof that I am wrong: And I quote, directly: 'The historic range of the Asiatic lion of the Panthera leo Persica subspecies is believed to have extended from Northern India in the east through modern Iran, south throughout the periphery of the Arabian Peninsula and west towards modern Greece and Italy.'

 Please notice that 'China' is not listed as part of its historic range. In fact, there's a massive mountain range blocking it from China. 



> EDIT: A bit of cursory reading leads me to believe that the Chinese guardian lion is not solely based on that dog breed.



 Perhaps not solely. But anyone with any knowledge of dog breeds would have to agree that the animals depicted have a closer appearance to dogs as they tend to look in China and East Asia than they do lions. 



> As I understand it, The Chinese got the guardian lion idea from India and Tibet, part of the historic range of the Asiatic lion, having seen them in Indian temples.



 Indeed, though the linguistic evidence continues as far as Tibet. Their word for the statues also equates to 'door guard,' and is also applied to that specific dog breed. The word, as we translate it, is 'Snow Lion' They call their statues 'Snow Lion.' The linguistic evidence is obvious. 

 I would love to see an image of the 'Snow Lions' in India. I would really love it, because as best I can see from the reading they originate in Tibet. I'm even looking for it now, and turning up absolutely nothing.



> They then rendered those images into their own cultural style, mixing in things from the Lion-Dogs, such as the shaggy mane.



 This I don't buy. We have thousands of years of Chinese are, and they have no problem depicting any other animal as how it looks. You just have to look at their depictions of tigers, or even culturally obscure animals like giraffes, to get a feel for that. 



> So the guardian lions are in fact lions.



 No. Not in fact. That's just something your insisting based on guesses. My claims are based on linguistic evidence.



> Also, saying that an explorer would confuse that little dog for an actual lion is an insult to human intelligence.



 You're assuming that the explorer in question would have seen the dog that the statues are derived from. They are an incredibly rare breed of dog, and chances are the explorer in question would not have seen a living specimen unless he also stopped by Tibet.

 So, here's what happened as I would guess it: He showed up. He saw a statue, and tried to guess what animal was being depicted. Not understanding that the Chinese gender the statues, he saw a pair of ruishi statues and assumed he was looking at two male lions. Had the explorer understood (remember, these early explorers would have been going in with zero knowledge of the culture and zero knowledge of the language) that he was looking at a male and female pair, he probably would have gone on to some other animal because female lions don't have manes. 

 It's not saying he's stupid - it's saying he's encountering something that's as strange and foreign to him (the Tibetan snow dog, which rarely live outside of Tibet) as lions are to the Chinese peasant he talks to. 

 Now, I'll respond to the body of the dragon issue.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

On to dragons. I got a little turned around when quoting things, so I might have scrambled bits here and there and completely missed points. Point them out if I did.



> That may be true, but can you say that the reverse is not true? I find it likely that when other cultures look at they western dragon, they might also say, "that's kinda like a different version of our [insert cultural icon here]." You could in fact say that the dragon is the "western lung" just as you could say the lung is the "eastern dragon."



 That probably does happen. That said, it doesn’t make the view any less ethnocentric. 



> The point is, yes it's a little Eurocentric to say that Creature X is the [insert culture]'s dragon. But if you look at the bigger picture, it is remarkable that so many different cultures independently "invented" such similar beasts, regardless of what they call them. It's not so far-fetched to thing these different beasts might actually be a series of related creatures being interpreted through different cultural lenses.



 My issue is that I don’t see them as similar.

 Earlier I said the lung was reptilian – that was me firing off half-cocked, as I don’t see them as particularly reptilian. It has scales, yes, but I’d associate it more as a fish-like creature that can fly. 

 More to the point, the image of the ‘Chinese dragon’ is kind of a stereotype that doesn’t fit into how they are usually depicted: For instance, (for lack of a better term) ‘the Dragon King,’ who is a humanoid. 

 They seem almost identical to nature spirits with a particular aquatic preference.



> I think this is silly. That's like saying a leyak isn't a type of vampire or Frankenstein isn't a type of golem. We use English to describe things because we are speaking English. If I was speaking Japanese I would say ryu or tatsu and if I was speaking Chinese, I would say lung. But here's the kicker, if a Chinese person was speaking English, they would probably describe their dragons as dragons. ...because they are dragons.



 That’s only because of a limitation within language. I’m a history major focusing on early Germanic peoples, so I see things like this all the time. 

 We realize that something is particularly difficult to translate, so we just skim over it and give it an easy term. A perfect example is the Old Norse concept of the Jotunn. This is almost always translated into English as ‘Giants,’ simply because that makes more sense to as ‘All Consuming Chaos,’ which is a more literal translation. That does not, however, make fire (Loge) or death (Hel) or giant serpents surrounding the earth (Jormungandr) humanoid giants, even if they are regarded as Jotunn. 



> I think the point he was trying to make was that a theory for similar creatures across cultures (not just China/Europe, but others also) all have this creature which is a hodgepodge of our biggest predators--cats, raptors, snakes, etc.



 I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of these figures though. That makes sense within the European tradition, but it ceases to hold water as soon as you move elsewhere. Remember that the Chinese culture doesn’t see the lung as a dangerous or predatory – it is a god, and sometimes a bringer of good weather. 



> Now, the anthropologist in question is of course relying on the fact that the traditions couldn't be transmitted across cultures and that we are able to genetically program a speciesism into ourselves that would be expressed artistically or under the influence of drugs/fear into a dragon or dragon-like creature. This unfortunately, since the theory is interesting, results in his argument not having as much scientific merit as it might otherwise.



 … That doesn’t make sense to me at all, but it does remind me why I try to avoid anthropologists when possible. 



> OK, so if we equate them with dragons let's just keep using English to describe them then. Right? Since we are speaking English…
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I am all for using proper names for things. But if it looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon and for all intents and purposes is a dragon, then it is a dragon. Any Chinese or Japanese experts that know what they call European dragons? I only studied Japanese for two years and never got into geek speak. I just think of this as a specific type of dragon.



 You’re speaking English, but you’re describing a cultural concept that is fundamentally alien to English language. That’s the problem I’m trying to point out.



> I would say that your "almost universally" representation of western dragons is a little extreme, and only applies to ancient dragons.



 Considering that the dragon faded out of western literature for roughly a thousand years and only had a resurrection within the last seventy, I’ll go with tradition on this one. 



> .'
> Does anyone in our genre actually think of the western concept of a dragon when they think of dragons anymore? I think most people think of a Tolkien / D&D concept if they think of anything. In those, dragons were intelligent but could choose their own leanings. There were good and bad dragons and even if they were portrayed as having European body types more often than not, they were rarely malevolent beasts that lived the lives of hedonists without real dreams and goals.



 D&D pulled their dragons from Tolkien, basically. Tolkien pulled Smaug almost directly from Fafnir (Who was a dragon that had a horde of gold and had killed a ton of dwarfs to get it. He was faced by Siegfried, who got his hands on a magic ring and was chased by a previous owner of the ring. Then, the ring gets destroyed in a fire.). 

 I don’t think you can draw a line between Tolkien’s dragons and the traditional European concept of a dragon.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Shockley said:


> As much as I enjoy the attempt at being pedantic, you should read your own source before you try and throw it in my face as proof that I am wrong: And I quote, directly: 'The historic range of the Asiatic lion of the Panthera leo Persica subspecies is believed to have extended from Northern India in the east through modern Iran, south throughout the periphery of the Arabian Peninsula and west towards modern Greece and Italy.'
> 
> Please notice that 'China' is not listed as part of its historic range. In fact, there's a massive mountain range blocking it from China.
> 
> ...



You didn't read what I said closely enough. At no point did I say that the Asiatic lion lived in China. So your counter to that is by definition a straw man. As for the rest of it, perhaps I was not quite clear. I'll try again. The Chinese depiction of the lion was imported from Indian temples. India _is_ part of the Asiatic lion's range. And if you look at the original Indian art, which is on that same wiki page I believe, they are in fact lions. Furthermore, all evidence I can find points to the "snow lion" being a mythological creature- one that is featured on the flag of Tibet. Also, you know what else the Chinese imported from India? Buddhism. I don't think its absurd to reason that while they were busy importing Buddhism, they also imported the idea of "door guard" lions (from temples no less!), which they then adapted to suit their own culture.

EDIT: It should be noted that I was aware that my post seemed to imply that the Asiatic lion lived in China, which is why I amended the post to clarify my point. Also, I would like to amend this one to note that while the Tibetan Mastiff is colloquially called the "snow lion", whether it is in fact THE "snow lion" is up for debate. Was the myth designed after the dog? Or was the dog bred to resemble the myth? It's a chicken-egg thing.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

> You didn't read what I said closely enough. At no point did I say that the Asiatic lion lived in China. So your counter to that is by definition a straw man.



 The part you quoted was me talking about Chinese peasants (in a period ranging roughly from 600 AD to 1800 AD) not being familiar with lions. So when you point out Asiatic lions as a counter to that, I don't understand any other way to read that line. Please, clarify for me.



> rthermore, all evidence I can find points to the "snow lion" being a mythological creature- one that is featured on the flag of Tibet- not a dog breed. Also, you know what else the Chinese imported from India? Buddhism. I don't think its absurd to reason that while they were busy importing Buddhism, they also imported the idea of "door guard" lions (from temples no less!), which they then adapted to suit their own culture.



 The 'snow dog' of Tibet is a mythological creature. I'm not talking about that creature, at least not directly. 

 I'm talking about the 'Snow Lion Mastiff,' which is a breed of dog. The reason I pointed it out is that we (English-speakers that is) call it the 'Snow Lion Mastiff' because the term for the dog breed 'Snow Lion Mastiff' as used by the Chinese is identical to the root they use for the word we translated as 'Snow Lion.'

 Edit: To clarify, the picture of the dog I posted above is a 'Tibetan Mastiff.' The term as used in Tibet is 'khyi,' which is a cognate of 'shi.' We English read 'shi' as lion.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Shockley said:


> The part you quoted was me talking about Chinese peasants (in a period ranging roughly from 600 AD to 1800 AD) not being familiar with lions. So when you point out Asiatic lions as a counter to that, I don't understand any other way to read that line. Please, clarify for me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



See the edit to my previous post.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to know what the Chinese have to say on this. Because really their opinion would be the definitive word, wouldn't it? By all appearances, they've made it clear the the qilin is not a unicorn. Why have they not similarly tried to distance the guardian lion from the lion or the lung from the dragon? People highly educated in Chinese culture still call them lions and dragons. Why should it now be "incorrect" to do so?


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

I sincerely doubt, for what it's worth, that the Snow Lion Mastiff/Tibetan Mastiff was bred to resemble the mythological creature. I base this on several things:

1. That assumption requires that the early Tibetans had a basic knowledge of genetics and the heritability of traits. I don't know if they did or not, but that would have to be demonstrated before it could be assumed.

 2. The Tibetan Mastiff, while having that name, is not a unique species to Tibet. It exists in China, other Himalayan communities and even Mongolia.

3. I looked at the American Kennel Club website for more information: 



> [...]They are considered by many to be the basic stock from which most modern large working breeds, including all mastiffs and mountain dogs, have developed.[...]





> The origins of the Tibetan Mastiff are somewhat murky, but earliest written accounts place a large dog around 1100 BC in China. The breed remained isolated in the Himalayan mountains, where it developed into the Tibetan Mastiff we know today.[...]



 So there's no real mention of conscious breeding in one direction. 

 Without evidence, I can't assume that the dog was selectively bred.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

The dog was not selectively bred then. But there still seems to be a difference between "Snow Lion" the dog and "Snow Lion" the lion aka the mythological creature. But regardless, the argument stands that the Chinese got their "lions" from India, and the Indians got their "lions" from lions. Therefore, the Chinese "lion" is still a lion, or at least is descended from iconography of actual lions, though the Chinese may have mixed in Tibetan mastiff traits never having seen a lion in person.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

I'm not even convinced of the lion bit, to be completely honest. I know there are status of lions in the odd Hindu temple, but they seem to have a different focus and a different make than the Chinese Lions.

 You might be absolutely correct on this, of course, but I don't think the evidence is there. At least not on the same level as the linguistic evidence.


----------



## Mindfire (Aug 28, 2012)

Well I'm not sure it matters so much who's correct because that's impossible to know. What matters is that both theories are plausible, so i dont think its fair to attribute the "lion" thing to a misnomer by dumb Euro explorers. At least not this time. (Though they did manage to botch names a lot.)


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 28, 2012)

Incidentally, even the very concept of a European dragon is nebulous. "Dragon" originates from ancient Greek, yet the "dragons" in Greek art look quite different from Welsh dragons. To validate the concept of a European dragon, we would have to demonstrate that all the vaguely reptilian creatures found in various Europeans mythologies share a common pan-European origin, an effort further muddled by the human propensity for combining originally unrelated ideas into one package.

I'm with Shockley that the serpentine monsters in Asian traditions have a separate origin from the winged ones in European traditions, but while that would preclude linking these two creations as descended from a universal archetype as many mythologists have tried to do, I don't think it precludes calling them both dragons in the broad sense of being giant fictional reptiles. It's no worse than identifying Norse Aesir, Egyptian Neteru, and Yoruba Orishas together as "gods" despite having more or less separate conceptual origins.


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

I'll accept a ceasefire on this, Mindfire, though I think there are few things that can't be chalked up to Europeans just completely misunderstanding what's going on around them.

 @Jabrosky: Welsh is a sub-language of Celtic. Celtic is descended from Proto-Celtic, which itself is Indo-European. Greek itself is Indo-European, so there could be strong basis for the idea that 'dragon' is a universal European concept, especially with a word as clearly understood etymologically as 'dragon.'

 That said, you are correct about very different perceptions as to what that term means.


----------



## Jabrosky (Aug 28, 2012)

Shockley said:


> @Jabrosky: Welsh is a sub-language of Celtic. Celtic is descended from Proto-Celtic, which itself is Indo-European. Greek itself is Indo-European, so there could be strong basis for the idea that 'dragon' is a universal European concept, especially with a word as clearly understood etymologically as 'dragon.'


Fair enough, that makes sense.


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

Wow, lots to reply to. I think a cease-fire is fine, although I can't help but chime in where I think it is needed. I'll try to word it diplomatically. 



Shockley said:


> Please notice that 'China' is not listed as part of its historic range. In fact, there's a massive mountain range blocking it from China.


India and China were pretty clearly borrowers of each other in a lot of things (I think Buddhism was mentioned as an example) so this does not have as much merit as you might like.



Shockley said:


> Perhaps not solely. But anyone with any knowledge of dog breeds would have to agree that the animals depicted have a closer appearance to dogs as they tend to look in China and East Asia than they do lions.


I'm not saying Wikipedia is the best source at all, but it is pretty informative, and here is what they have to say about the matter: Chinese guardian lions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and the source article: The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum - 'Art and Soul




Shockley said:


> This I don't buy. We have thousands of years of Chinese are, and they have no problem depicting any other animal as how it looks. You just have to look at their depictions of tigers, or even culturally obscure animals like giraffes, to get a feel for that.


I think the issue here is that their knowledge of lions was second-hand usually.



Shockley said:


> My issue is that I don’t see them as similar.
> 
> Earlier I said the lung was reptilian – that was me firing off half-cocked, as I don’t see them as particularly reptilian. It has scales, yes, but I’d associate it more as a fish-like creature that can fly.


My understanding is that the earliest Chinese images of dragons resembled coiled snakes, but eventually became confused with crocodiles. As a marine reptile, it makes sense to give these guys fish scales, especially if earlier images had snake scales.



Shockley said:


> We realize that something is particularly difficult to translate, so we just skim over it and give it an easy term. A perfect example is the Old Norse concept of the Jotunn. This is almost always translated into English as ‘Giants,’ simply because that makes more sense to as ‘All Consuming Chaos,’ which is a more literal translation. That does not, however, make fire (Loge) or death (Hel) or giant serpents surrounding the earth (Jormungandr) humanoid giants, even if they are regarded as Jotunn.


Would you call Jormungandr a dragon though? 'cuz I would. 



Shockley said:


> I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of these figures though. That makes sense within the European tradition, but it ceases to hold water as soon as you move elsewhere. Remember that the Chinese culture doesn’t see the lung as a dangerous or predatory – it is a god, and sometimes a bringer of good weather.


The anthropologist in question was trying to explain why the Inuit had a reptilian dragon-like creature when they had no first-hand knowledge of dragons (going off of memories of old research here, may be mistaken). Just because something is a predator doesn't mean it has to be bad. I think if it wasn't for the serpent tempting Eve that European dragons would have developed to be good guys too. My personal theory is that it was the influence of Christianity that prevented them from being seen as anything other than a super-snake = devil. 



Shockley said:


> You’re speaking English, but you’re describing a cultural concept that is fundamentally alien to English language. That’s the problem I’m trying to point out.


And I'm trying to explain that it is not a problem except for to scholars that are obsessed with language. Dragon means something else now.



Shockley said:


> Considering that the dragon faded out of western literature for roughly a thousand years and only had a resurrection within the last seventy, I’ll go with tradition on this one.


It faded out of literature? How did it fade out of literature? What thousand years are you referring to? It's in every King Arthur story that's been around for the last thousand years, so I am guessing not that thousand. Also on the Welsh flag or whatever. Not to mention the Naga of India and the sirrush etc in the Middle East. I don't think just because people stopped writing new myths means that it "faded out of literature for 1000 years". That would assume we don't have access to the old stuff and that the new stuff doesn't count. 



Shockley said:


> D&D pulled their dragons from Tolkien, basically. Tolkien pulled Smaug almost directly from Fafnir (Who was a dragon that had a horde of gold and had killed a ton of dwarfs to get it. He was faced by Siegfried, who got his hands on a magic ring and was chased by a previous owner of the ring. Then, the ring gets destroyed in a fire.).
> 
> I don’t think you can draw a line between Tolkien’s dragons and the traditional European concept of a dragon.


So why would you then? Are you upset that Tolkien called them dragons? Or does Fafnir, who by your own admission is a European dragon, mean that you can draw that line? D&D dragons all like treasure and are intelligent, but they are not all evil. I think most people think of what has been done with dragons in the last seventy years when they think of dragons. At least in the literature sense. I grew up with D&D dragons. I'm fine with a wyvern being a type of dragon or even chimaera if someone wants to identify them as dragon or dragon-like or dragonkin. All I am saying is that today, not when Europeans first went over to China, but today, dragons are dragons. And all of the rest are types of dragons. 



Shockley said:


> @Jabrosky: Welsh is a sub-language of Celtic. Celtic is descended from Proto-Celtic, which itself is Indo-European. Greek itself is Indo-European, so there could be strong basis for the idea that 'dragon' is a universal European concept, especially with a word as clearly understood etymologically as 'dragon.'


I'm pretty sure the original Greek translated as "snake" also. Again, I believe that there are very similar roots for dragons in any culture and I do not believe that it is just a language mistake. I will concede that maybe it is a language mistake, but it ended up being correct in the long run.

The discussion has been very informative though. Even though I've read these articles and web sites (or forms of them) before, it's always nice for a refresher. Thank you everyone!


----------



## Shockley (Aug 28, 2012)

> India and China were pretty clearly borrowers of each other in a lot of things (I think Buddhism was mentioned as an example) so this does not have as much merit as you might like.



 Indeed they were, but even the Chinese concept of Buddhism shows how difficult it was to get from China to India. The core of the point of Journey to the West is ‘Hey, this is a difficult journey that should not be undertaken lightly.’ 

 Cultural borrowing or not, the concept of a lion would have been incredibly foreign to a Chinese peasant during the age of exploration.



> I'm not saying Wikipedia is the best source at all, but it is pretty informative, and here is what they have to say about the matter: Chinese guardian lions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> and the source article: The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum - 'Art and Soul



 I will gladly disagree with Wikipedia on quite a few points, both on this issue and others.



> I think the issue here is that their knowledge of lions was second-hand usually.



 As was their knowledge of giraffes. Their giraffes are, however, almost perfect. I have trouble believing that they wouldn’t flourish a giraffe, but corrupted the lion so much that it becomes almost unrecognizable. 

 Being a fan of Chinese culture, it’s always been my impression of their art that realism was very important. You find very few animals that are stylized at all – let alone stylized beyond the point of easy recognition. 



> My understanding is that the earliest Chinese images of dragons resembled coiled snakes, but eventually became confused with crocodiles. As a marine reptile, it makes sense to give these guys fish scales, especially if earlier images had snake scales.



 You have to go into the far ranges of Chinese domains to find crocodiles, and most of those lands were incredibly hostile to the Chinese. I’d say it’s substantially more likely for the average Chinese peasant in ancient times to be more familiar with a lion (which is already incredibly unlikely) than with a crocodile. 

 That said, there is a huge dispute over whether those early items are coiled snakes or not. That’s something I’ve seen time and time again on the Chinese history forums (all two of them) that I’ve frequented.



> Would you call Jormungandr a dragon though? 'cuz I would.



 Absolutely. But would you call him a giant? 

 (That said, the Old Norse didn’t see him as a dragon per se. That was ‘dreki.’ Jormungandr was ‘ormr.’ Just a snake, as opposed to what Fafnir was.)



> I think if it wasn't for the serpent tempting Eve that European dragons would have developed to be good guys too. My personal theory is that it was the influence of Christianity that prevented them from being seen as anything other than a super-snake = devil.



 The snake in the garden of Eden is just one of many western depictions of evil lizards/snakes/reptiles/dragons. Fafnir and Nidhogg are traditional evil dragons within the European tradition and predate Christianity. If you identify Jormungandr as such, he fits the description as well. Cetus might also fit the pure definition, though there could be debate on that.

 I would say it’s much more likely that the depiction of Lucifer in Revelation as a dragon is influenced by Classical traditions, not the other way around. 



> And I'm trying to explain that it is not a problem except for to scholars that are obsessed with language. Dragon means something else now.



 I would gladly count myself among the language-obsessed scholars.



> It faded out of literature? How did it fade out of literature? What thousand years are you referring to? It's in every King Arthur story that's been around for the last thousand years, so I am guessing not that thousand. Also on the Welsh flag or whatever. Not to mention the Naga of India and the sirrush etc in the Middle East. I don't think just because people stopped writing new myths means that it "faded out of literature for 1000 years". That would assume we don't have access to the old stuff and that the new stuff doesn't count.



 First off, I specified western literature so I’m just going to ignore the Naga and anything going on east of (for the lack of a better divider) Ankara. 

 Secondly, the most recent work that you reference (King Arthur, and I’m going with the most recent writing down before the advent of modern literature (So Malory)) is roughly seven hundred years old. I stand by my thousand year statement.



> So why would you then? Are you upset that Tolkien called them dragons? Or does Fafnir, who by your own admission is a European dragon, mean that you can draw that line?



 I think you misunderstand. I was saying that Tolkien picked up the old tradition of the European dragon and made it popular again. There’s no need to draw a line. 



> I'm pretty sure the original Greek translated as "snake" also. Again, I believe that there are very similar roots for dragons in any culture and I do not believe that it is just a language mistake. I will concede that maybe it is a language mistake, but it ended up being correct in the long run.



 I wasn’t saying that it was a language mistake. I was saying that the Welsh concept of a dragon and the Greek concept of a dragon could very well be related due to A) the words being cognates (draig/drakon) and (B) both languages having their roots in the same mother tongue. I was arguing that there is a distinctly European concept of a dragon, not that it was an ‘accident.’


----------



## Zero Angel (Aug 28, 2012)

I thought Naga counted along with the west since it is "Indo-European", but OK.

Mallory wasn't the last to write King Arthur stories, he just collected and made everything relatively cohesive at the time of his writing. And it was 600 years ago, which is 400 years different than 1000. And the Faerie Queen was 1590, so only 420 years ago. Again, what about the fact that we still had access to all of the myths--just because there wasn't anything "new" being published doesn't mean that we didn't find dragons interesting. 

I did misunderstand. I thought you were saying that there was no relationship between Tolkien and European dragons. 

Also, I was going back to the Chinese thing when I said that the Greek word was snake. Maybe the European people were wrong to call "lung" a "dragon" at the time, but I believe that was the most right choice they could have picked, because I do believe they have the same origins, they just developed differently.


----------



## Ireth (Sep 6, 2012)

Astner said:


> J.K. Rowling did it well. She included various eastern dragons, one that comes to mind is the Chinese fireball. Implying that they were different races of dragons. Similar to dwarves, elves, and men.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Chinese dragons aquatic, not fire-breathers? A "Chinese fireball" seems a bit of an oxymoron. Disney did something similar with Mushu in _Mulan_ -- he was clearly a Chinese dragon as far as his body shape was concerned, but he also breathed fire. Whether or not these are a deliberate case of making the dragons "not too foreign" or an honest mistake isn't entirely clear.


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 6, 2012)

Ireth said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Chinese dragons aquatic, not fire-breathers? A "Chinese fireball" seems a bit of an oxymoron. Disney did something similar with Mushu in Mulan -- he was clearly a Chinese dragon as far as his body shape was concerned, but he also breathed fire. Whether or not these are a deliberate case of making the dragons "not too foreign" or an honest mistake isn't entirely clear.



The dragons in Avatar breathe fire. They're the patrons of pretending after all. The creators of the show have done their research, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are firebreathing dragons in eastern lore, but they're just not the norm.

Also, 800th post!!! :-D


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 6, 2012)

Ireth said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Chinese dragons aquatic, not fire-breathers? A "Chinese fireball" seems a bit of an oxymoron. Disney did something similar with Mushu in _Mulan_ -- he was clearly a Chinese dragon as far as his body shape was concerned, but he also breathed fire. Whether or not these are a deliberate case of making the dragons "not too foreign" or an honest mistake isn't entirely clear.



Hahaha. I didn't even notice that -_- You could make an argument that dragons are portrayed with a flaming pearl sometimes, so this influenced them, but it was probably just an Americanization (or westernization, if you will). The same thing happened to Godzilla when he came to America. The original had a radiation death breath, but when he came over here we painted him green and gave him a fire breath.


----------



## Astner (Sep 6, 2012)

Ireth said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Chinese dragons aquatic, not fire-breathers? A "Chinese fireball" seems a bit of an oxymoron. Disney did something similar with Mushu in _Mulan_ -- he was clearly a Chinese dragon as far as his body shape was concerned, but he also breathed fire. Whether or not these are a deliberate case of making the dragons "not too foreign" or an honest mistake isn't entirely clear.


Eastern dragons aren't as element-bound as their western equivalents.

坐龙 pronounced Zuo Long is played with a fireball (the sun) which was the explanation for sunrise and sunset. This was before any historical records of Western influence.


----------



## Shockley (Sep 7, 2012)

Let me ask, how early is your record of Zuo Long? I ask, because it's difficult to get an exact date for when west and east first meet. There are three possible points marking the introductions of western and far eastern culture:

 1. The surrender, in 321 BCE, of Taxila to Alexander the Great. Taxila is important because it was an important center of trade, learning and religion. Kautilya was educated there, the Mahabharata was probably composed there, Mahayana Buddhism was created there, and it was the intersection of three major trade routes (two of which, if I'm not mistaken, go into China). The city of Sirkap, which became the seat of the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria, was on the opposite side of a river. 

 2. My favorite possibility involves the defeated Roman legions after the Battle of Carrhae in 54 BCE. Ten thousand Romans were confirmed as being taken prisoner, then released several years later. In 36 BCE, a Chinese historian recounts a 'fish-scale unit' that fought as mercenaries at the Battle of Zhizhi. Based on this, there is a pseudo-legitimate (and extremely unlikely) theory that this fish-scale unit might well have been a Roman legion released from Parthia. 

 3. By the Three Kingdoms era (220-280 CE) was a regular occurrence, so much that it only receives slight reference in the historical annals. The first recorded direct contact between Roman and Chinese officials was in 166 CE


----------



## Astner (Sep 7, 2012)

The segment was what I can recall from what was brought up in high school during religion class. I can't seem to find any reliable sources online to indicate the history of the dragon.


----------



## Vinegar Tom (Sep 8, 2012)

If I may for one moment ignore the peculiarly intense debate over whether two different kinds of made-up animal are actually the same made-up animal and return to the original topic, there are two very good reasons never, ever to use Orcs. Firstly, fantasy is supposed to be a genre in which absolutely anything is permitted. Endlessly ripping off tropes invented over half a century ago by Tolkein is like writing sci-fi in which a square-jawed hero in a fish-bowl helmet flies to Mars in his rocketship and saves a screaming lady in a space bikini from a bug-eyed monster with his raygun.

If the author can't even be bothered to think up a race of monsters that aren't exactly the same as the ones that appeared in the most famous novel ever written in the genre, how imaginative is the rest of the book likely to be? It's probably mass-produced generic fodder aimed at lazy readers who just want to graze on the same book with very slight variations over and over and over again. And if it isn't, that's what it looks like before you even open it, let alone buy it.

The other problem with Orcs is that they're cannon-fodder and absolutely nothing else. They were literally created by magic to be monstrous creatures of pure evil. I forget whether this detail in the movie is true to the book, but they don't even breed, so there are no women, children, or non-combatants. Every single Orc is an evil adult male warrior it's OK to kill on sight, so if you're fighting Orcs, there's no moral conflict about the good guys committing genocide, any more than people trying to stamp out malaria would worry about spraying the entire swamp with insecticide rather than building tiny little POW camps for any mosquitos who happened to be pacifists. They might as well be Daleks, zombies, or any other 100% evil race who are clearly different from the good guys and have absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

Well, that's fine if you just want to tell a biff-bang-pow! story of how the really cool hero and his multiracial gang of exotic buddies win endless swordfights with vast expendable hordes of ugly baddies, until eventually the necromancer in the Dark Tower gets killed and everyone lives happily ever after. But don't expect to win any awards for originality. Also, you're probably writing the novel of your current D&D campaign, and that's never a good idea.

But if you're trying to tell a story with any kind of moral complexity, or withy well-developed characters who aren't just Conan the Unstoppable Killing Machine with a different hat on, entire races who all have exactly the same one-dimensional personality are not a good way to go - and that includes Elves, Dwarves, and just about every alien race ever featured on _Star Trek_ (though even there, Klingons, who are basically Space Orcs, have been allowed to become almost as one-and-a-half-dimensional as Vulcans).

Also, the argument that evil races which deserve to be wiped out are automatically those who are the ugliest compared to your people (in your opinion, though probably not theirs), or are in any way clearly identifiable on sight as being at least 99% likely to be evil because of their DNA, is very dodgy indeed - ever heard of a guy called Hitler?


----------



## Astner (Sep 8, 2012)

I thoroughly disagree. I think your view is one-dimensional, both in the sense of representing the _orc_ and the value of said term.

As I mentioned earlier, _orc_ is just a label with certain connotations to it that can be used as an advantage. You're not uncreative for deciding to use this label, just as you're not uncreative for using the labels _dragon_ or _gorgon_. The creative input depends solely on what effort you put into designing _your orcs_. If you have interesting ideas regarding their origin, biology, and other miscellaneous aspects that make _your orcs_ unique and more interesting than any other equivalent on the market then you've displayed great creativity designing them.

Coming up with names for species just for the sake of being original has nothing to do with creativity. It's the role of the species that's important and in which the creativity should be invested, not the name. People take comfort in the _orc_ because they know of them, it's not like the _karaak_ which will be read and then forgotten among the other fifty-eight newly invented terms.

Furthermore, I can see that you're not familiar with orcs from the _Warhammer_ setting by calling them all "cannon-fodder and absolutely nothing else" which certainly doesn't apply.


----------



## Steerpike (Sep 8, 2012)

Vinegar Tom:

There is some inherent contradiction in the idea that Fantasy is a genre where absolutely anything is permitted, but at the same time you can never, ever use orcs. 

Also, as Astner notes the idea of orc as one-dimensional cannon fodder is one-dimensional thinking in an of itself, and it also reflects a more limited familiarity with the genre. There are fantasy books out there with orcs in them, where orcs are not this way at all.

I don't find your reasons for an absolute prohibition on orcs compelling because they demonstrate an inaccurately one-sided and shallow view of what an author can do orcs. They are certainly by no means required in a fantasy story, but if an author wishes to include them the story can still be done well and can still be complex. You are hampered by your own limited thinking.


----------



## Ireth (Sep 8, 2012)

Vinegar Tom said:


> I forget whether this detail in the movie is true to the book, but they don't even breed, so there are no women, children, or non-combatants.



The book states outright that the orcs "breed after the fashion of Men and Elves", so yes, there are presumably orc women and children out there somewhere. And in the movie Saruman is said to have "crossed orcs with goblin-men", so that implies a kind of breeding as well -- maybe he rounded up she-orcs for that purpose, but we don't ever see them. Just because something is not present in a work doesn't man they're absent from the world. Look at The Hobbit -- not a single woman in sight other than Bilbo's relative Lobelia, but there are obviously women in Middle-earth, as the LOTR books and histories clearly show.


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 8, 2012)

Vinegar Tom said:


> Also, the argument that evil races which deserve to be wiped out are automatically those who are the ugliest compared to your people is very dodgy indeed.



I have a 100% evil race whose members all appear flawlessly beautiful. Do I get a cookie?


----------



## Jabrosky (Sep 8, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> I have a 100% evil race whose members all appear flawlessly beautiful. Do I get a cookie?


I do think the scariest and most effective villains (or at least the most influential) are those who can portray themselves as good, so I'll give you the cookie. What kind would you like? I'm a big Oreo man myself.


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 8, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I do think the scariest and most effective villains (or at least the most influential) are those who can portray themselves as good, so I'll give you the cookie. What kind would you like? I'm a big Oreo man myself.



I too have a liking for Oreos. ^_^


----------



## Shockley (Sep 8, 2012)

To the topic I never really addressed, now that we're back on subject:

 While Tolkien was the first to use the term 'Orc' as a synonym for 'Goblin,' he didn't devise the word 'Orc' or create its meaning as a bad guy. It comes to us from Anglo-Saxon, meaning 'Demon.' The term even occurs in the Beowulf text, being used to describe Grendel. This has even earlier Latin roots, but I've made my background for the point I'm about to make: Tolkien created very little - nine times out of ten, he was just modernizing legends and myth to fit a modern audience. So in that sense, and knowing the background of the term, I'm alright with the use of orcs in the same way I'm alright with the use of elves and dwarves.

 One of my all-time favorite things in fantasy is the depiction of the orc in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. There are orcs in this world (and dwarves and elves and gnomes, too) but the world is going through an industrial revolution. So the orcs, when encountered, tend to be factory workers and the under-class of the industrial revolution. They are perfectly capable of being intelligent (one of the better-spoken characters is an orc), but lack that intelligence due to the absence of schools and civil freedoms. I loved that.


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 8, 2012)

Vinegar Tom said:


> If I may for one moment ignore the peculiarly intense debate over whether two different kinds of made-up animal are actually the same made-up animal and return to the original topic



Dude, we've been off that for a while, although it was an interesting conversation  And it was clear that we were discussing the languages and the myths and the real-world, right? You know, information that people might want to know if they were writing stories with either version of the myth...



Vinegar Tom said:


> Also, the argument that evil races which deserve to be wiped out are automatically those who are the ugliest compared to your people (in your opinion, though probably not theirs), or are in any way clearly identifiable on sight as being at least 99% likely to be evil because of their DNA, is very dodgy indeed - ever heard of a guy called Hitler?


Shouldn't most other species appear ugly to your species? I mean, we're kinda' genetically programmed for one thing here...it's procreation if that wasn't clear.



Steerpike said:


> Vinegar Tom:
> 
> There is some inherent contradiction in the idea that Fantasy is a genre where absolutely anything is permitted, but at the same time you can never, ever use orcs.
> 
> ...



Man, I gotta' start checking the forums more -_- you ninja me with alarming frequently.



Ireth said:


> The book states outright that the orcs "breed after the fashion of Men and Elves", so yes, there are presumably orc women and children out there somewhere. And in the movie Saruman is said to have "crossed orcs with goblin-men", so that implies a kind of breeding as well -- maybe he rounded up she-orcs for that purpose, but we don't ever see them. Just because something is not present in a work doesn't man they're absent from the world. Look at The Hobbit -- not a single woman in sight other than Bilbo's relative Lobelia, but there are obviously women in Middle-earth, as the LOTR books and histories clearly show.


The orcs don't just breed after that fashion, in one of his creation stories (he contradicts himself sometimes unfortunately) they are "fallen" elves. Although it is implied that they are able to magically create them at some points, I am not sure if this is an assumed implication or if it is intentional as it has been years since I've researched Tolkien.



Mindfire said:


> I have a 100% evil race whose members all appear flawlessly beautiful. Do I get a cookie?


YES! ...but you have to give it to yourself. That cool?

Of course, you are still going with the idea that we can have 100% evil races...



Mindfire said:


> I too have a liking for Oreos. ^_^


Fried oreos are absurdly good. 



Shockley said:


> To the topic I never really addressed, now that we're back on subject:
> 
> While Tolkien was the first to use the term 'Orc' as a synonym for 'Goblin,' he didn't devise the word 'Orc' or create its meaning as a bad guy. It comes to us from Anglo-Saxon, meaning 'Demon.' The term even occurs in the Beowulf text, being used to describe Grendel. This has even earlier Latin roots, but I've made my background for the point I'm about to make: Tolkien created very little - nine times out of ten, he was just modernizing legends and myth to fit a modern audience. So in that sense, and knowing the background of the term, I'm alright with the use of orcs in the same way I'm alright with the use of elves and dwarves.


Great job! I agree with everything you said here. ~sigh~ I've missed agreeing with you. 

...Nothing new to add to all of the quotes I just replied to. Just throwing my change in there with the rest.


----------



## Steerpike (Sep 9, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Man, I gotta' start checking the forums more -_- you ninja me with alarming frequently.



I happen to be in possession of a time machine. I simply read your responses, then travel back to just moments before you post and...voila! Instant ninja.


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 9, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Of course, you are still going with the idea that we can have 100% evil races...


Well, thousands of years of wallowing in bitterness and spite tends to do that to you.


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 9, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> I happen to be in possession of a time machine. I simply read your responses, then travel back to just moments before you post and...voila! Instant ninja.


 

...wish I woulda' thought of that!



Mindfire said:


> Well, thousands of years of wallowing in bitterness and spite tends to do that to you.



Do what to yourself? Give yourself cookies?


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 9, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Do what to yourself? Give yourself cookies?


No, make you irredeemably evil. I quoted the wrong part of your post. lol

FIXED!



> Zero Angel said:
> 
> 
> > Of course, you are still going with the idea that we can have 100% evil races...
> ...


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 9, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> No, make you irredeemably evil. I quoted the wrong part of your post. lol
> 
> FIXED!



Ahh, I see. 

I think they need the Disney channel so they can see that we can really all just get along like the Fox and the Hound 

...


----------



## Mindfire (Sep 9, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Ahh, I see.
> 
> I think they need the Disney channel so they can see that we can really all just get along like the Fox and the Hound
> 
> ...



Somehow I don't see that working.


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 9, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> Somehow I don't see that working.



Snap. I'm out of ideas. It worked on me


----------



## Collen (Sep 9, 2012)

To be honest, I've never been all that interested in orcs. They seem so bland and boring. If I really need a race of all-evil minions in my book (I don't), I'll make my own. Orcs might be getting a little cliched now, but it's not the fact it's cliched that's the problem. The problem is that orcs have less an impact as other original creatures and produce less 'wonder' than they used to - right now when you see an orc, you don't go 'Wow!' Orcs are just part of the generic fantasy package.


----------



## FatCat (Sep 9, 2012)

Wait...this thread isn't about dragons anymore?


----------



## Zero Angel (Sep 9, 2012)

FatCat said:


> Wait...this thread isn't about dragons anymore?



...it can be...

Going with the "evil orc" topic, do you guys typically have an alignment set for your dragons?  e.g. metal ones are good and chromatic ones are bad, etc.


----------



## Collen (Sep 10, 2012)

My dragons are neutral; this is almost outright stated in the novel. They are neither against the good guys nor the bad guys (as far as you can call either of them that; I prefer to keep things grey and gray) and simply work on their own. They work above morals, and the only real way to make an enemy of them is to kill one of their own. And they're the Eastern kind, making storms and rain - I've always liked them better than the 'create fire everywhere and kill everything' dragons.


----------

