Dragonslaying

[wordwalker]

One of the most fun things about fantasy is being just realistic enough to get characters into serious trouble. Such as creating a monster that's simply too massive to exist, and then still have to look for the physically best ways to stand up to it. So here, with spoilers from across fiction, is:

NINE WAYS TO KILL A DRAGON

1. Poison — the simplest method, if you can get enough into the dragon. Best example: Tanith Lee's short story "Draco, Draco," where a sacrificial maiden poisoned herself before offering herself to the dragon.
2. Magic — some wizards might actually be stronger than the dragon, or at least know its weakness. Best example: Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard Of Earthsea, where Ged defeats young dragons through paralysis spells, immature dragons by fighting in dragon form, and their father by using his true name against him.
3. Archery — the very best archer might be able to hit the eye, ear, or traditional "secret weak point in its armor." Best example: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, where Bard the Bowman shoots Smaug's weak spot as he flies over the town.
4. Ballistas — clumsy but powerful, if you can hit. Best example: the SciFi Channel movie Dragon Star, involving a team sent out with a wheeled ballista (with gunpowder bombs attached for good measure... well, they can't all be classics).
5. Rockfall — even clumsier but worth trying to set up. Best example: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance: Dragons of Winter Night, where a dragon is lured into a tower for gates to slam onto its head, trapping it to be finished off.
6. Lance — an ordinary knight has some extraordinary momentum with warhorse, knight, and armor mass focused on a lance point. Best example: Gordon R. Dickson's The Dragon And The George explains just how powerful a lance charge is.
7. Axe — if it has to be a straight fight against something that tough, "Any fool who'd go after a dragon with a sword…" Best example: Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane, source of the quote and also uses with poisoned harpoons.
8. Jump on the head — for true daredevils or the desperate only. (Variation: wait for it to bite at you and then try to stab that head.) Best example: the anime series Record Of Lodoss War.
9. Dragon-Slaying Weapon — deus ex machina. Best example: Fred Saberhagen's Books of Swords series includes the god-forged sword Dragonslicer, allowing half-trained peasants to become professional dragon-hunters.

So: have I missed anything?

 

[CupofJoe]

A great list - Wordwalker.
A bigger Dragon? but that doesn't really answer the problem....

 

[Zero Angel]

I also enjoyed the poisoning in "Dealing with Dragons" by Patricia C. Wrede. Dragonsbane in your coffee anyone?

I've also seen some dragons die when their "fireproofing" is damaged (whether this is a rupture in their bodies or magickal or whatever), the effect is explosive! ...or just fiery, but still cool. It's pretty bad when your own nature kills you

 

[srcroft]

I would say a few more:
-Weak or loosened scale.
-Swallowing a black powder explosive or chemical (alcohol) to act as a catalyst with its own fire.
-Open mouth, brain attack (no suggested lol) -- not safe.
-Another Dragon in your control.
-Using its own weight against it (Judo) generating enough force to do damage.
-Leak in the fire bladder--not good--for the dragon.
-Drowning. Chains and weights and a lake << That's an S.R.Croft original idea. lol

 

[shangrila]

How about just shooting it with a grenado/black powder charge? They do it in a later Malazan book and it blows a house sized crater into it's gut.

 

[srcroft]

Depends on your Dragon. Some have their scales be harder then diamonds, therefore, you need weapons with dragon claws in it or bones. Now if you had a grenado with dragon bone shrapnel--that would work. If you just look at them like a big lizard, then they can go down pretty easy. Heck you get them cold, and Bam 60 degrees = death. Lizards = coldblooded. I have a Bearded Dragon. Most of that logic is ignored, making them more like hairless mammals.

 

[Saigonnus]

Drizzt Do'Urden and Wulfgar slew a white dragon by dropping a massive icicle through it's back in the first of the Icewind Dale Trilogy.... works every time XD

 

[Butterfly]

In Fire and Ice (Not GRRM - But this one Fire and Ice: The Dragon Chronicles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) - Not a brill film by any means, but they had an interesting way of killing dragons.

An Ice dragon was unleashed to kill a fire dragon. They fought, and ice won, which solved the problem of the fire dragon, but left Ice dragon alive to kill everything that survived the fire dragon. To kill the Ice dragon took a bit more work (on the human side of things). A hero, lured it into a salt mine, and the salt melted the ice dragon, thereby killing it.

 

[srcroft]

LMAO HAHAHAHA That would work for Slug Dragons too. Very creative, you could have had them fight near the sea and get trapped in salt water. Very creative, I love it.

 

[Devor]

Ram it with a flying ship. Seduce it with an exploding female dragon decoy. Tie up all the maidens in the kingdom and leave them struggling every two hundred feet in a line leading to the tripwire for a giant anvil. Trick it into attackinflg your enemy army so that they can kill it for you.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I heard a story about a peasant that invented a creative way to kill a dragon:

He took a dead goat and filled it with lead, so when the dragon ate the goat and tried to shoot fire at the peasant, the lead melted instantly and the molten lead burned the dragon's body from inside...

Another idea would be to put the dragon under a Sleeping Charm (like Fleur did in Harry Potter!) and keep it sleeping until it becomes very weak from lack of activity and food... and then, you kill it =)

 

[Christopher Wright]

I suggest getting it to fly after you. Then you paint a tunnel on the side of the mountain, and as it's flying after you at full speed you run into the tunnel to escape. The dragon, of course, will smash into the painting. Because it's a painting.

And while it's sitting beside the painting of the tunnel, little birds and stars whirling around its head, have a train rush out of the tunnel to run it over.

 

[Steerpike]

Just make sure you get you use Acme[SUP]TM[/SUP] Tunnel Paint. That's the only brand that is really effective and allows the tunnel painter to run into the tunnel.

 

[Christopher Wright]

Actually, Acme Tunnel Paint rarely lets you run into the tunnel. It usually lets the other guy run into the tunnel. Acme products have a tendency to (literally) blow up in the purchaser's face...

 

[Steerpike]

That's a good point. You'd think Wile E. might have ditched that company in favor of someone else after a few dozen product failures. Either that, or get a good attorney - there's strict liability for product design defects, I think, and he could probably get a settlement out of Acme and then order a roasted road runner.

 

[Christopher Wright]

He was pretty smart for a coyote, but he was still only a coyote.

 

[Butterfly]

LMAO HAHAHAHA That would work for Slug Dragons too. Very creative, you could have had them fight near the sea and get trapped in salt water. Very creative, I love it.

Great big giant Slug Dragons... wow... I'm having visions of fully armoured knights covered in slimy snot, sliding about all over the place, dripping with it after finally being able to stand in awkward poses, whilst wondering which girl they can flick it at next.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Poison – the simplest method, if you can get enough into the dragon. Best example: Tanith Lee's short story "Draco, Draco," where a sacrificial maiden poisoned herself before offering herself to the dragon.

The problem with this idea is that dragons are typically very large, meaning you are going to need a lot of very potent poison to inconveniance one. Kinda like in the second Jurassic Park movie, where they use an insanely dangerous neurotoxin just to tranquilize the dinosaurs.

As a general rule, I'm doing to say that anything that couldn't realistically take down an elephant probably isn't going to work on a dragon either.

Magic – some wizards might actually be stronger than the dragon, or at least know its weakness. Best example: Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard Of Earthsea, where Ged defeats young dragons through paralysis spells, immature dragons by fighting in dragon form, and their father by using his true name against him.

Also depends a bit on the type of dragon. Some aren't even sapient, let alone capable of casting spells.

Archery – the very best archer might be able to hit the eye, ear, or traditional "secret weak point in its armor." Best example: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, where Bard the Bowman shoots Smaug's weak spot as he flies over the town.

I sorta doubt a bow is really going to do much to a dragon. It's actually surprisingly hard to kill something human-sized with a bow and arrow (as in, you can survive for hours with an arrow sticking out of your chest) let alone a giant flying reptile.

And it's not really about the dragon having impenetrable scales, either - again, it's about size. Even if you hit a "vital" area, something as big as your average fantasy dragon is probably just going to be annoyed by it.

The Hobbit gets kind of a pass on this, because it was implied to have been a magic arrow.

Ballistas – clumsy but powerful, if you can hit. Best example: the SciFi Channel movie Dragon Star, involving a team sent out with a wheeled ballista (with gunpowder bombs attached for good measure... well, they can't all be classics).

Rockfall – even clumsier but worth trying to set up. Best example: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance: Dragons of Winter Night, where a dragon is lured into a tower for gates to slam onto its head, trapping it to be finished off.

Frankly, this is probably the most realistic approach. Hit them with something big and very damaging.

[*]Lance – an ordinary knight has some extraordinary momentum with warhorse, knight, and armor mass focused on a lance point. Best example: Gordon R. Dickson's The Dragon And The George explains just how powerful a lance charge is.

Problem is that the dragon must be grounded, on terrain where a cavalry charge is feasable, and not spewing fire at the knight in question.

Axe – if it has to be a straight fight against something that tough, "Any fool who'd go after a dragon with a sword…" Best example: Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane, source of the quote and also uses with poisoned harpoons.

Honestly, it probably doesn't matter wether you have an axe or a sword. Plenty of swords could deliver very damaging cuts, and they also function as piercing weapons, meaning deeper wounds which is important when fighting a very large creature.

But more importantly, if you are hardcore enough to engage a dragon in melee, I say you can use whatever weapons you feel like using.

Jump on the head – for true daredevils or the desperate only.

I-a see what-a you did there.

Dragon-Slaying Weapon – deus ex machina. Best example: Fred Saberhagen's Books of Swords series includes the god-forged sword Dragonslicer, allowing half-trained peasants to become professional dragon-hunters.

I'd go a step further and say that any magical weapon capable of causing sufficient damage could be used against a dragon.

Depends on your Dragon. Some have their scales be harder then diamonds, therefore, you need weapons with dragon claws in it or bones.

I never understood why something like a dragon should have a weakness against its own body parts. Even if dragon claws are made out of some kind of unbreakable super-keratin, the reason they are dangerous is that they are attached to a dragon. Even if you had a dragon claw, and even if dragon claws can penetrate dragon scales, that doesn't make you physically strong enough to pull that off.

Ram it with a flying ship. Seduce it with an exploding female dragon decoy. Tie up all the maidens in the kingdom and leave them struggling every two hundred feet in a line leading to the tripwire for a giant anvil.

Wile E. Coyote: Dragonslayer.

I heard a story about a peasant that invented a creative way to kill a dragon:

He took a dead goat and filled it with lead, so when the dragon ate the goat and tried to shoot fire at the peasant, the lead melted instantly and the molten lead burned the dragon's body from inside...

And interesting idea, though it presume that the dragon generates its firebreath in its stomach.

Another idea would be to put the dragon under a Sleeping Charm (like Fleur did in Harry Potter!) and keep it sleeping until it becomes very weak from lack of activity and food... and then, you kill it =)

I'd put this under the general "use magic" option.

I suggest getting it to fly after you. Then you paint a tunnel on the side of the mountain, and as it's flying after you at full speed you run into the tunnel to escape. The dragon, of course, will smash into the painting. Because it's a painting.

And while it's sitting beside the painting of the tunnel, little birds and stars whirling around its head, have a train rush out of the tunnel to run it over.

Wile E.Coyote: Dragonslayer II - Them's the Drakes!

That's a good point. You'd think Wile E. might have ditched that company in favor of someone else after a few dozen product failures. Either that, or get a good attorney - there's strict liability for product design defects, I think, and he could probably get a settlement out of Acme and then order a roasted road runner.

Actually, there's this interesting theory postulating that he doesn't actually buy Acme products - he's their beta tester.

That explains why he seems to get faulty products half the time and never uses the same gadget twice, even the ones that might actually have worked with more precautions or preparations.

 

[wordwalker]

Agreed; pretty much any dragonslaying method is going to be either unreliable or relies on some exotic power.

My list is actually a trimmed-down version of a piece I wrote a while back, that has some similar notes on how tricky most of these can get. Poison, for instance, really does need a lot of power and volume --or specialized "dragonsbane" stuff that's halfway to deus ex machina again-- and another problem is that you may need it to work on weapons, since a lot of dragons have enhanced senses that can spot poisoned bait. (See The Hobbit again, or remember that the root word "drakon" meant sharp-eyed, as in perfect treasure-watchers.)

In retrospect I had one idea that probably counts as a separate tenth method: "a bigger dragon" or other monster. It might mean magic, it might mean raising the beast and training it or being able to strike a bargain with it-- or it might be luring one dragon into another's territory. (Then you sell popcorn and package it up as the next Godzilla movie...)

Actually, there's this interesting theory postulating that he doesn't actually buy Acme products - he's their beta tester.

That explains why he seems to get faulty products half the time and never uses the same gadget twice, even the ones that might actually have worked with more precautions or preparations.

That is the best single explanation I've ever heard. Especially if you combine it with the revelation they dropped that time Wile E. tried putting on a Girl Road-Runner Disguise: that the desert has hundreds of identical coyotes, one hiding behind every rock and cactus. So each product goes to a new coyote, and usually obliterates him and then the next one goes to the next coyote in line... (And remember that note in the corner of the Acme blueprints: "Acme, a division of Road-Runner Industries.)

And we thought dragons were dangerous...

 

[Devor]

Frankly, this is probably the most realistic approach. Hit them with something big and very damaging.

I'm in complete agreement that, short of magic or gunpowder, the Ballista is the way to go. I was originally thinking "Harpoon Gun," like you'd use to bring down a whale, and then I remembered that he had listed ballistas and figured there wasn't really a difference.

You'd have to either strike a weak point - not just a chink in the armor, but also a point where the vital organs are near the surface - or strike deep enough to pierce those vitals anyways. So in a nutshell, either use a long thrusting weapon or strike the head. I think the wings might also be vulnerable depending on the situation.