Obsessed With Dragons, Draconically obsessed? Come! Talk!

Okay, so I pretend that I'm only passionate about dragons, rather than obsessed. But then, who am I kidding? Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed to the point where when I graduate, my degree might as well say it's a Bachelor's of Dragonology as opposed to Biology. (And if the Registrar liked me a little more it would, drat it!)

But, back to the point. As dragons feature very prominently in Ambition, I thought (and was encouraged) to give y'all the opportunity for discussion, chat, questions, ramblingness regarding them. They don't even have to be Orisian dragons, which is fortunate since only 1 has made an appearance thus far.

I admit that I have no insightful or thought provoking opening statement or question to present to you - and I acknowledge the risk that this thread may go nowhere that is entailed with that.

However, what I do present to you is an open floor that happens to be all dragony-shaped. I'll happily answer questions and talk about Orisian dragons, random dragons, my dragon species that will eventually get me graduated, etc., so on and so forth.

Here there be Dragons. <^.-.^>

Re; your .sig--no one said you have to drink the lemonade!

Lemonade drinkage is not mandatory, this is very true. I suppose you could set up a stand and sell it, instead; but then you can only introduce so much lemonade into a community before it is then saturated with said liquid. ...and then you get things other than severe gastro-intestinal disorders.
....or you could just have a life-long supply of lemonade-filled water balloons.
...
Obviously the disorders are really only mentioned to encourage you to get inventive with lemonade, hence heightening the creative facet of respective culture while broadening personal horizons. Y-es.

Excellent! In the next town, we will be giving lemonade to dragons, instead of maidens. There's a community working together and getting inventive! Who is with me?

Yeah, that is a great idea I am with you - feed the dragons lemonade and tell them if they do not behave they have to drink more and subsequently have to die of severe gastro-intestinal disorders :hehehe:


mjkj

So, something I've been meaning to ask you about, to see if you knew anything about it:

What is the difference between Leviathan and Dragon? Or do you not know much about the creature attached to the name Levaithan?

Is this a specific "Dragon" you're talking about? As I see it capitalized and wonder.

If you're asking about what the difference is between Leviathan and a "general, non-specific" dragon, then the only answer that I have is that there isn't any, as all my books that talk about the Leviathan classify it as a dragon.
(if it's that, then it leads into the <sarcastic>wonderful</sarcastic> question of: "What makes a dragon?")


All I know about Leviathan is that it's said to have been created on the fifth day of Creation, is enormous, has 300+ incandescent eyes, nostrils emit steam, impenetrable scales, lots and lots of teeth, and it left pretty shinies on the surface of the water behind it. And that there was originally a pair of them, but they were too awesome and could potentially demolish things like, oh... the world if there was a race of them. So one got destroyed. Poor Leviathan. I don't know if Leviathan is male or female.... My book says it's traditionally considered male, but there's something called the "Book of Enoch" in the Apocrypha (<--I have no idea what they're talking about there... do you?) that says Leviathan is female and has a terrestrial counterpart called Behemoth.
Anyhow, the surviving Leviathan, whatever it's gender, got immortality in exchange for it's partner.... which downright sucks, in my opinion. Oh, and something about God "disporting" with it for the last 3 hours every day - which will continue up 'til the Day of Judgement when it'll be slain by the Archangel Gabriel. Then the righteous will eat it, get housed in a tent made from some of it's skin, and the rest of it will get spread over the walls of Jerusalem.

Is that the Leviathan you're talking about? As that's about all that I've picked up from my books.
...........

Oh, and as for the movement for giving dragons lemonade:

I'm behind you guys all the way!
....emphasis on behind... Preferably at a far distance but from where I can still see.

Yeah, sounds about right That's waaay more that I knew.

I'll have to look into things a bit more I guess. I'm mostly curious because a bible-scholar/dinosaur-freak type guy once said something like "Why aren't dinosaur's mentioned in the bible, if dinos and man ever co-existed? Well, dinosaur is an 18th/19th century term, even the translators of the King James bible wouldn't have known to use the word anywhere." Yeah, something like that. He's of the opinion that dinosaurs and man co-existed (and may still co-exist). It fits well with the Young Earth theory, since dinos and man would have come into existence within a week of each other, and thus would have had to co-exist. There's a bunch of neat evidence that can point to this being correct. I think it's a cool idea personally I wish I knew where some of his sources were to point anyone interested... I sadly don't even remember his name x_x

Uhm, I don't know how much my school preparation is worth, but I think dinosaurs and men never co-existed:
If I remember well, dinosaurs extinguished something like 65 millions of years ago, at the end of the Mesozoic era; while the first human being, the Australopithecus, appeared on the Earth more or less 2 millions of years ago, between the end of Cainozoic era and the beginning of Neozoic era... so, uhm... I don't think that a co-existance in chronologically possible... ^^°
But I could be worng, I'm not a Paleonthology teacher!


Ah, as regards the lemonade-to-dragons thing... you can count on me, guys!!!

Yeah... that's if you buy into the evolutionary viewpoint, which personally I don't. For me, the geological evidences I've seen support the biblical account. The biological evidences also support it as well. But ultimately we all have the same evidence available, the difference comes in the personal interpretations and conclusions, which inevitably will result from one's presuppositions.

Example: I can see the Grand Canyon and say, "Oh, that looks like something a massive world-wide flood could do!" and another could say "look at what millions and millions of years or erosion did!" Obviously, one of us has to be wrong, but it doesn't make either of us better

But aside, my curiousity springs from my presuppositions, in order to seek the - what's now - against the grain idea of what dinos mean to this world as it were less than 10,000 years old. I'm well aware of the greatly publisized, and mostly accepted without serious consideration, idea of the big band/billions of years of evolution standpoint. You see it everywhere. But where'd people get the idea of dragons in the first place, if not, initially and at it core at least, from visual experience? (Luth'rai could probably answer that to some degree )

So yeah, Luth'rai, do you know where the general origin of dragons exists? What's the earliest encounter with dragon-like imagery/ideas that you've read about?

Exact. We have opinions. They don't match. Pity. Now let's go on...

Good question, indeed. Among the things that I have (not many, actually -or at least not as many as I'd like), the first sign of the dragon idea appears into chinese mythology, chronologically speaking, but there could surely be something before that -since I assume there are lots material about that, thatI do not possess... but on How the image of the dragon was born... I absolutely have no idea.
Always took for granted that they picked small reptiles and imagined a big-sized version of them, but now that I think more about it... I am really perplexed...

Luth'rai can tell you a lot more about that. But I can also answer a few bits. The first dragon imagery, as we know it today. actually appeared in Mesopotamia, the "Cradle of Civilization." That's older than China. Leviathan from the Apocrypha, as we talked about earlier, is one dragon-like critter that came from there. So the Sumerians and other ancient civilizations had dragon folklore.

But, like I said, Luth'rai can tell you more. A lot more.

Hah! Mesopotamia! Why didn't it came in my mind?
Well I can't say I know many things about dragons, but I'm quite passionate with them, though...
Actually, I'm passionate with so many things that it's hard to take them under control, but it's another story... ^^°
Let's wait for Luth'rai's response, then...

Yeah, it's pretty much thought that the dragon first appeared in Sumer somewhen around 3rd millenium BC (or BCE, whatever) - along with everything else cool (namely, writing, the city and the centralized state).
The possible oldest dragon depiction is a human-headed winged snake on a prince's libation vase, c. 2150 BC. If you look up "libation" in a dictionary, I believe the definition most appropriate runs something like, "a pouring out of wine or other beverage in honor of a deity." As this vase belonged to a prince, it's possible that the dragon was a symbol, similar to the gryphon (a "Flying Quadruped"), of royal omnipotence.
It's also possible that with the new political and religous context created through the development of writing, the city and the centralized state, a new symbol was needed- the "Flying Quadruped." This is supported by the fact that there's a distinct lack of Flying Quadrupeds in precentralized state societies. If you think about it, it makes sense, as flying 4-leggers such as dragons, gryphons, hippogriffs, pegasi, sphinxes, winged lions and heck, even winged giraffes (there's one from around Nubia) demonstrate a mastery over both land and air - somewhat intimidating, you must admit.

Of course, the dragon doesn't need wings to make it a dragon. Leviathan didn't have wings, but can easily be identified as a dragon. The commonly seen bat-like wings on European dragons were swiped from the demons of Chinese mythology.

Oh: Dragons pop up in the earliest Chinese literature dating to about 2700 BC.

(As Sly was asking me about dragons and Babylon and when, or something....) The dragon that adorns the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (also called the mushhushshu) is from around the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC). It's a rather distinctive dragon, with horns, the head, neck and body of a snake, forelimbs rather like a lion's and the hind feet of a raptor (the bird of prey kind, mind you, not the veloci- or utah- types); and it's very similar to the dragons of Iranian mythology of about 2000 BC. It's also associated with the god Marduk, the slayer of Tiamat (not our Tiamat, though). Of course, a good portion of Babylonian myths are merely ones taken and adapted from Sumerian mythology.

...information overload, yet? 'Cause I can keep going. I mean, I've only grabbed 4 of my dragon books to make sure what I'm spouting off was spouted off by someone with credentials first (so if something up there is wrong, I either typed it wrong or it "ain't my fault"), and I've got more.
----

EDIT: Heheh, Aarien, y'beat me by about a half hour or so, I think. Cripes, I didn't think typing this up would take me so long.
^.-.^

Eheheheheh, well, this is the proof that you made an accurate research before answering us. A sign of seriety and professionality, according to me!

Oh, and by the way: WHOA. I've really learnt a lot of things, today!