From: "Todd" <merlyn@>
Date: Wed Feb 14, 2001 6:34 pm
Subject: a little about dragons

The bit about reawakening the dragons began to get me thinking at
last. While I've had little to say for a while on Breakdowns, the
mention of the dragons finally got my creativity demons beginning to
work, maybe since dragons are much more something that I can say
about than, say, space stations or alien invasions.

At any rate, I thought a little about what our already-released
stories have said about dragons. Besides Apep (and Isfet, of a sort,
although I believe that we'd designed her as not fully dragon), we've
had four dragons pop up so far on stage in TGS:

1. and 2. Albion and Fafnir (the two dragons in Season One
of "Pendragon", "Dragons' Wrath")
3. Li (the young female dragon in "Timedancer")
4. An anonymous wyvern slain by Sir Lancelot in "The Ill-Made
Knight", in Season One of "Pendragon".

Now, these four dragons were definitely active in historical times,
in a way that the dragons that will be awakened weren't. So
obviously not all dragons are hibernating. (I don't think that Li
is; in fact, I have plans for her to pop up for a guest-star scene in
one of the episodes of Pendragon Season Four).

Another point, here about the wyvern, Albion and Fafnir: they differ
from Apep (and from Li as well), in being, not highly intelligent,
but behaving more like wild animals, mindless and motivated purely by
instinct. I might add that a lot of dragons of traditional legend
(particularly the ones that usually get slain by a noble knight or
hero such as St. George) are portrayed in a similar light, as savage
beasts without any signs of sentience.

My theory is that there are two sub-sets of dragons. The first of
these, to which Apep and Li belong (and at least the bulk of the
hibernating dragons, IMO), are a more advanced, intelligent race,
capable of thought and rationality (though Apep shows that this
thought and rationality can wind up extremely twisted). They can
speak and reason and are as sentient as humans, gargoyles, and faerie-
folk.

The second sub-set includes Albion and Fafnir, among others. This is
a more "degenerate" dragon sub-species, unintelligent, mere animals
by nature, the kind that simply go about breathing fire on everything
in sight, eating humans and livestock, laying the land waste, etc.
until a knight such as St. George or Sir Lancelot comes along and
slays one. Whether they're something that the "Great Worms" such as
Apep evolved from, or degenerate descendants of the "Great Worms"
(maybe influenced towards an animal level by the fay to make the
species less of a menace to them after Apep's defeat) I don't know as
yet. My own theory is that, by the present-day, these dragons are
now almost extinct. Albion and Fafnir may be the only ones of this
kind left by 2001.

So that leaves the hibernating dragons. The bulk of these, I
believe, are "Great Worms" from Apep's time or not long afterwards.
(There may be a few lesser dragons among them as well). Whether
bound by the fay after the Dragon War or simply going into a retreat
because their side lost, I don't know either (it may have been dealt
with already, but if so, I've forgotten it). But these would have to
be rough intellectual equals to Apep (though lesser in stature than
him, I imagine).

However, not all the sentient dragons (apart from Apep) are dormant;
Li has been established as active in historical times already,
in "Timedancer". So that means that a strain of the "Great Worms" is
still active, though maybe not up to the level of Apep and his
contemporaries. Of course, Li may be the only member of this strain
alive for now; I don't know if we've confirmed or denied this in the
canon (I may have to reread the stories that she appears in).

I'll say more on this tomorrow, if I can. I'm not certain that I've
quite finished this, actually, I'll confess. Maybe by tomorrow
morning, I'll know exactly where I'm going with these thoughts.

Todd Jensen