OOTS #1220 - The Discussion Thread

[bunsen_h]

The way they are depicted in fiction (Tolkien mostly, but going back to Beowulf) is that dragons seem to be perfectly happy to lie around on their hoard in an out-of-the-way spot for centuries until someone shows up to bother them, whereupon they make a ruckus. Even the highly intelligent ones mostly seem to want
a) treasure
b) to be left alone
c) vengeance on anyone who fails b
This describes two of the three dragons we've seen in OotS so far (the one at the top of the Draketooth family tree, admittedly, seems to have had...other motivations).

I suppose there is a more recent literary tradition of dragons banding together, making alliances, playing politics, and that sort of thing, but it's hardly true in "all of fiction."

That's not really true even of Tolkien. Smaug had spent a few years on his hoard, but before that, had caused terrible destruction. The White Council decided to nudge Thorin towards bothering Smaug in the hope that by stirring up that conflict, the Dwarves and Lake-men together would take Smaug down. This was a strategic play, because they anticipated that otherwise, Smaug would be a valuable force under the control of Sauron and/or the Witch-King of Angmar AKA the leader of the Nazgûl, in the war that they foresaw. Imagine how the War of the Ring would have gone if Sauron had had Smaug to use! EDIT: -- If, in D&D terms, Brand hadn't made that shot with his Arrow of Slaying (dragon).

And Smaug was far less of a destructive force than some of the other dragons in the earlier ages of that world had been.