The Dragons of Harry Potter Part 2

Listen up you dumb morons. I haven't written in quite some time because I have a girlfriend now. I know, it's hard to believe a dragon-enthusiast like myself can actually even relate with members of the opposite sex, but it can sometimes happen. So while I've spent a lot of time shopping at DSW, attending Mary Kay parties, and watching movies with Hugh Grant in them, I've still managed to dedicate some of my hours to researching beloved dragons.

Unfortunately for me, the time I spend researching dragons looks more like devoting myself to tarring and feathering more abhorrent use of dragon imagery in popular culture than it does actually doing research. Honestly Harry! I've been moaning worse than Myrtle writing this blog the past few weeks. Let's (reluctantly) pick up where we left off...

3. The "Common Welsh Green"

Based on similar skull structures, dual cranial horns and maybe its coloration, I think the dragon they were probably trying to convey is Serpentus eminalius (also known as the Highland Horned Serpent). Everyone knows this dragon is way out of proportion though. Its wings are far too small. In fact, the wingspan of the Highland Horned Serpent has been known to reach over 60 feet! Its hind quarters are also too skinny. And based on some negative feedback I received in my last blog, I won't make any more references to Calista Flockhart. But seriously, this dragon is more gaunt than Professor McGonagall in an oversized Hogwarts robe.

Calling it a "common" dragon is also a little misleading. There certainly was a time when dragons were far more globally abundant; but events in the past 1200 years in particular have diminished their numbers dramatically. (The major event being the "Little Ice Age" which roughly lasted from 1560-1855CE. Individually significant drops in global atmospheric temperature, particularly that of 1650 and 1770, contributed heavily to a worldwide population decrease.)

*The argument that I propose against its name is really only a matter of semantics. Therefore the rating I unleash on this piece of crap is based on its visual portrayal alone.

Overall rating: B-


4. The "Hungarian Horntail"

I nearly whomped my willow when I saw this POS on the big screen. Where is its forelegs? There seems to be this growing trend in the scholarly world of dragon research (headed by Lionel Mischke of UNI) that teaches that dragons use their wings bi-functionally- that is, both as wings and as forelegs. Dragons are NOT birds. They ALWAYS have two sets of legs and one pair of wings. Fossil, bone and faunal evidence has NEVER corroborated the idea that dragons lacked forelegs.

I was (amazingly) surprised that the movie-makers managed to depict this dragon's fire-breathing capability rather accurately in that fire is dispensed by means of two glands in a dragon's mouth. The fire that dragons emit does not however, come from the back of the throat, as often believed. The horns that line the dragon's neck are also slightly far-fetched. Even Rita Skeeter knows that you idiot.

Overall rating: C-


The thing that kills me about this whole portrayal of dragons in Harry Potter is that dragons are meant to look "beatable." As if they can be defeated. As if a bumbling, 13-year old, broom-straddling bundt munch is actually going to outwit a dragon. I'd rather choke on a chocolate frog than think about this subject any more.

**If you haven't read the books let me just spoil it for you and get it over with: Gandalf is gay, Neville dies and Bruce Willis is dead the whole time. Spoiler alert, you dimbos. The end.