Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

Dragons - Intelligent Or Insipid?

Greetings my friends. I write this story from my brand spanking new laboratory, which I recently relocated to. Fortune has smiled upon me, and so I have a little more time (squeezed between my experiments of course with which to indulge my faithful listeners and pass on the results of my important experimentations. I have received a number of questions that readers would like me to help solve, and I choose one with which to begin my theorising now. I shall attempt to deal with the others as time is available. Axel writes: "Be saluted, honorable one, Something weird puzzles my poor mind. In the old stories, dragons were not just powerful, but also very intelligent and extremely clever creatures (check Bilbo the hobbit, the Silmarillon, etc.). But now (cfr Dragonsands and some other places), they appear to be just some sluggy old brainless adventurer whackers. The abuse of beer, psychedelics, fryon gas, insecticides,...??? Maybe the eminent professor could enlighten me?" Thank you Axel for the question. Of course, there has long been controversy over the Dragon's sense of intelligence and general aptitudal ability. It would seem that in some literature they seem rather erudite, whilst in the basic RPG, they indeed are mindless servants to violence, who fail to acclimitize to situations that place them at peril. So I imagine that the question then becomes one of truth - is the literature correct, or are the games correct, or neither? First priority then becomes to determine the reality, and then to analyse the cause/effect principle. Experiment One First step was to of course, study the older cultural mediums. Of course I read the Hobbit, as well as the Lord Of The Rings back an University, as part of my Medieval existentialist thesis - but my memories were reasonably fresh, given the passing of time. I remembered the Dragon as a wise and noble creature - one whom nearly inevitably in the ancient fantasy tale would guard a precious treasure. I wondered however if this was the idealism of a young nihilist on my part. Of course one of the earliest representations of Dragons was the legend of St. George. Apparently in a distant land, a Dragon lived on the outskirts of a small town, and demanded a young girl each year to prevent it from rushing upon the city and destroying all the inhabitants. One year the daughter of the King was chosen, and a miscreant named St. George (Saint may have indeed been his first name, as he was indeed very young at the time) wounded the Dragon terribly with his magic sword Ascalon, and the princess led the cursed creature back to the village where St. George slew it with one blow. There are two hypothesis here - the question being, who was stupider? I found my faith in the ancient literature as a way of establishing past Dragon intelligence beginning to wane at this point. If I were a Dragon, and required a fleshy morsel now and then, I would consider it a better tactic to loiter around a suitable throng like perhaps the medieval equivalent of Times Square and Sunset Strip, not smalltown Cleveland. And further on, couldn't the Dragon have just rushed the town anyway, and taken a lifetime's supply of young maidens to stockpile? Of course the argument could apply to the inverse - the peasants unintentional reward for this heroism was Christianity. And then there was the legend of the Nibelung Hoard. Nibelungs were a race of dwarfs and elves from Scandinavia. They gathered an immense treasure that was stolen by them. Eventually their hero, Sigurd acquired the gold by slaying Fafnir the Dragon. Fafnir had killed Sigurd's father Hreidmar to steal the treasure, and then turned himself into a dragon to protect the hoard from other thieves. This example of history asks even further questions regarding the intelligence of Dragons, or in this case, would-be Dragons. Stealing a vast amount of gold and then transmogrifying into Dragonhood doesn't seem like something eminently sensible - you can't exactly wander down to the general store and spend your hard earned money if you can't fit through the doorway. And being a Dragon presents yourself as something of a target - a small humanoid thief would have better chances of escaping the long arm of justice, one would think. And less likely to scald himself sleeping after a good curry. And so the legends continued - the Greek Hydra, who when one head was cut off would grow two in it's place. Why not have double the heads from the beginning, and save the effort, not to mention the pain? Also from Greece, Cecrops, the mythical founder of Athens, half human/half Dragon. Credited with establishing marriage customs - I'm sure many of us are thankful for that little piece of stupidity. Leviathan, from the Bible, who decided to take on God - Amway lost that battle, what chance did a Dragon have? So it seemed there was a difference in the portrayal of Dragons between the novel and the mythology. And the Professor always says - when in doubt, go with the mythology. Experiment Two It was now my task to compare the Dragon of literature to that of reality, conceptually speaking. It posed an interesting conundrum - where would one find a Dragon today? Of course, computers are banned at the sheltered workshop, so I could only reminisce about my contests with Dragonkind in MM6... I found that generally, they each only guarded relatively small hordes - they had in fact shared the treasure amongst their ample numbers, which seemed wise to me. One Dragon I found held only a thunder mace - he must have been the King - read Sun Tzu's Art Of War - confuse the enemy. The other thing I noticed was that in MM6 there were numerous "Dragon Towers" - these being high turrets that fired upon anything airborne within the village, expressly designed to keep Dragons out. Of course the beauty of the situation was that the Dragons were hundreds of miles away, in a locale where there were absolutely no Dragon towers whatsoever. I'm sure the Freehaven citizenry were ecstatic with how their taxes were spent. I'm sure I could hear the Dragons chuckling away at the humans when my party entered Dragonsand..... Suddenly in the midst of my pondering, I was interrupted. Being that my TV rights were no longer suspended after that violent mashed potatoes incident the week before when I was undeservedly overmedicated, I was allowed to watch children's television only. And there right before me was a Dragon! It's behaviour was perplexing within the modern conception - it danced and sung (badly I thought, but who am I to judge reptilian vocals?) with children, in what appeared to be a ghetto. It's name was hardly awe inspiring - it was a purple fluffy thing named Barney. Could be that my judgement was in error however - it seemed to deal most sensibly with a child that persisted in kicking it in the crotch repeatedly. Were it that I should have such tolerance! Either way, it had grasped the modern sensibilities with both hands, and had accepted a more cosmopolitan way of life - I didn't doubt that it had a plethora of gold and jewels sequestered away somewhere, and yet it had time to spend with the dregs of society - the common man's progeny. But I knew that at the heart of all Dragon's instincts was the hunger for violence - though this creature had cloaked itself in a visage of harmony with humanity, I knew it's motives had to be foul. It was my duty as a samaritan to save those poor waifs. That night, I scaled the wall, armed only with a home fashioned skateboard simile I had fashioned during woodwork. With dogs sniffing out my trail and barking angrily, I followed the river downstream, hopefully hiding signs of my passage. I had watched the credits of the program, and knew now that it was produced in Hollywood, at Paramount studios - the treachery! The ghetto was obviously a mockup, designed with cruel cynicism to mock the lower classes. Hitching a ride on the back of a bus, I skated into the center of Hollywood, and it didn't take me long to find Paramount - I followed the trail of Heather Locklear lookalikes - it seemed that my months of television could be a saviour as well as seperatist poison. Dressed in a blonde wig and hotpants, and cursing the fact that I hadn't shaved my legs for some time, I entered the studio. It seemed as though things were being packed up for the day - where to locate the malevolent Barney? And then I spotted the hideous creature - leaning back in a chair with "Barney" emblazoned on the back, and smoking a Cuban - flaunting it's illegality in everybody's face. I looked around - we seemed to be alone. But I needed a weapon. I surveyed the darkening studio in desperation. What I needed was a trusty sword, or hefty mace. Unfortunately all I came up with was a nail file - but it's side was good and raspy, like sandpaper. It would do the deed, if it came to that. "Creature of Corruption!!!" I screamed. "Stand, and meet your destiny!" I must say that the hand that thrust out the nail file threateningly was delightfully steady. "What the.....?" The Dragon turned in surprise, with an expression of.....alarm? Or was that fear that I could sense? I prepared for its fiery breath, shielding myself with a chair. "Security!!!" it screamed, a girlish tremor in it's voice. This was going to be easier than I thought. I rushed it, and we were entangled on the floor - it smelled strange - not very bestial. More like a woman's perfume. I rubbed the file vigorously against it's throat, but I appeared not to make much of an inroad into it's furry neck. All of a sudden a terrible burning sensation spread over my face - the reptilian monster held a can in it's clumsy paw, and the nozzle was pointed in my direction. What manner of ancient combat was this? I rolled over quickly, gasping for air. "Jerk off..." snarled Barney, and kicked me in the abdomen, and then in the head. And then he broke a chair over my back. I crouched in a fetal position, awaiting the inevitable feeling of hooked talons rending into my privates. Suddenly there was a shout. "Break it up!" A man in a grey uniform pulled the mythical horror from my prone body, and pushed the creature away. He helped me up. "You OK there lady?" Barney the Dragon panted, doubling up. He put on his best human impersonation. "She....she....." "Good god, Fred - what's happening here?" asked the uniformed person, apparently the question was directed at a third party I couldn't see - my vision was rather blurred, as my glasses had been shattered in the struggle. "We gotta keep a lid on this, or the show's finished!" finished the grey guard. He turned to me, and reached into his pockets. "Lady, I'm going to write you a cheque. Twenty thousand enough?" Bribery - I could see that he had fallen victim to the wiles of deception perpetuated by the Dragon. "I don't want your stinking money!" I cried, "Can't you see what's happened to you??" "Jesus Christ - it's a man. Must be a nutter - or someone casting for the new series of "Maude...." I'm a pseudo-intellectual, you twit!" I screamed - the number of times I had to justify my profession to the unintelligencia.... If only I wasn't imprisoned in the sheltered workshop.... "How much?" I asked. "Now you're talking my language" smiled the guard - a rather brutish individual. "Don't give him any f***** money!" shouted Barney. The greed inherent in his species was only two visible. But I'd lost my nail file.... "Shuddup Fred" He turned to me. "Thirty thousand - and you never speak of this to anyone." "You have a deal, my neanderthal friend." I smiled, seeing the possibilities - a new lab, and freedom to pursue my experiments! "Thirty thou is double what I get for thirteen weeks work!" whined Barney. "Done." stated the human in grey garb. Thus my experiment was completed. Throughout history, Dragons were beings that coveted, against better wisdom, usually inviting an inglorious end. The next day I cashed the cheque, and bought a rather delightful Volvo. And I rented some laboratory space at the Miskatonic University. I even had some change left over for some second hand petri dishes! And I am pleased to say that a few weeks later, Barney the Dragon's television show was axed due to poor ratings. So in conclusion, it would seem that Dragons are with few exceptions, very stupid and greedy creatures who like all of us must follow the ancient Karmic wheel principle - what goes around comes around. Until next time friends, Professor Ezra D. Peabody