On Worldbuilding: Dragons [ The Last Airbender l Smaug l Game of Thrones ] PART ONE 

I NEED A HERO. I'M HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO TO COME SUPPORT ME ON PATREON patreon.com/hellofutureme See, look how smooth that was? I even used the running joke. Many smooth. Much tact. ~ Tim

You know despair when you see a balrog riding a freaking Dragon!

"Why are all my friends dead" *A WIZARD DID IT*

"Dragons could be prey for something even bigger." Me: hoW ABOUT WE NOT? That's absolutely terrifying. Yikes.

No one: Shadiversity: what about dragons? Me: agreed

I recently read The Hobbit, so I can confidently say that Smaug does practice poetry. What is even more shocking is that he does so because dragon culture values poetry. They see communicating through double entendres and metaphors as a type of verbal combat. The scene is actually very similar to the game of riddles between Bilbo and Gollum. Also, in the book that is actually the second time Bilbo enters the cave, so Smaug was already expecting him.

Great, now I want Paarthurnax and Smaug to engage in a philosophical debate.

Which is better to be born a skilled writer or to overcome your cliche writing through hellofutureme - Parthannax

"Dragons... who rarely interact with one another, except to sink their teeth, or something else into them" Smooth, nearly slipped by me.

In relation to culture, here's a thought: in a world with multiple intelligent species, creatures could develop their sociability/intelligence towards interacting with creatures besides themselves. So, you could have dragons who don't have their own culture so much as each dragon adapting themselves to a place in relation to a culture of other intelligent beings around them. So you might get a "human" dragon and an "elven" dragon and an "orcish" dragon who are naturally external to, but have picked up a lot of how they think, behave and express themselves through, their interactions with those races. So you could have dragons that are "solitary" in that they don't interact much with other dragons, which makes some sense if every dragon needs a huge amount of space to get food/absorb magic/some other reason, but are still intelligent and cultured and have a variety of outlooks. Which might be interesting for presenting dragons as dual-natured, both intelligent but also bestial, as when they interact with each other they fall back more on instinctual behaviours.

“They’re likely to develop philosophies, like-“ Ad: “WhEn ReAliTy StArs GeT TogETheR”

"I'm great at writing concisely." *sarcasm intensifies*

Shadiversity is really getting around recently

WHAT ABOUT DRAGONS! WE CAN'T FORGET THE DRAGONS PEOPLE! DRAGONS HAVE FEELINGS TOO!

Communist Dragons. COMMUNIST DRAGONS. That is all.

16:05 "...lone dragons who hoard treasure and rarely interact with one another except to sink their teeth--or something else--into them." Oh my...

"It's their speed, versatility and the threat they pose to *ad plays* Double Stuffed Oreo Cones at Sonic." Let it be known dragons be coming for those Oreo cones!

SUDDEN MACHICOLATIONS.

Dragon Hobby No.1: Age of Empires, Except they use real Humans/Dwarves/Elves/Kobolds and the "Game" usually Lasts a few Centuries Dragon Hobby No.2: "Hey Survaruil, What do you say we have a Shouting Match over that Tiny human City over there, Give them a show?".... a few hours later "Maybe we should have been more careful about Collateral Damage? I mean it USED to be such a Nice Tiny City..." Dragon Hobby No.3: Building Random Ass Dungeons to Stash Portions of their Hoard in... But Pesky Adventurers Keep Finding them... so here's the fun part, Build things to Keep them out! (Seriously how else would one Explain the Cockamamie nonsensical Room by Room Encounter and Sequential Traps that Fill D&D Games Dungeons?! I mean the name of the game is your first Hint at how these Things happened! :P) Dragon Hobby No.4: Sleep... it's not that they NEED Sleep, but it spends time... and Life is LONG waiting for something interesting to Happen Dragon Hobby No.5: "I wonder what would Happen if I Did something Minor to that Mortal Village?"... 50 years later... "How Was I Supposed to Know Diverting that River away from the Village would Cause them Die out? It's only a Tiny League Further than it was Before!" Dragon Hobby No.6: Debate... they can Live Long enough to actually See the END of some of the tougher Philosophical Questions, which seems like a Useful trait Dragon Hobby No.7: Kidnapping Princesses (Or Princes, not like they'll see much Difference between Two Fancy Tiny pink things)! Always some fun to be Had with this one, be it to encourage an Army/Hero to Gear up and come on by for a Tussle. or for Simple Debate with someone who isn't an other dragon and is also more likely to have an Education within the Mortal Races. Dragon Hobby No. 8: Tic-Tac-Toe, But you know, BIGGER Dragon Hobby No.9: Cake... That's it, just Cake Dragon Hobby No.10: Re-Cataloging their Hoard in Order of Acquisition, Alphabetical, Personal Attachment, Utility, How Comfortable it is to LAY on, Date and place of Origin, Feng Shui, Decor to Show off to potential Visitors and how Yummy it is...

I'm struggling with the Dragonborn fighting Thomas the Tank engine. CHOO CHOO XD

I swear, every video you upload just makes me want to revise EVERYTHING I've ever written. And that is a good thing! You inspire me with each work you share, and thank you for each and every one! Now the only question left is, what about dragons?

Don't go to the comment section. Thar be dragons

The Earthsea novels has my favorite depiction of dragons. Wise, ancient, magical, verbal, and morally ambiguous. If a dragon would rather speak to you than eat you, than you were known as a Dragonlord

I just noticed that the dragons in Fire Emblem are an interesting mix of these tropes. 1. The divine dragons are the equivalents of gods in the world. They are worshipped as protective deities, with some being more involved than others. For example, the goddess Mila provided wealth, protection, and crops for her people, but they grew lazy and when she disappeared they were thrown into chaos. 2. Despite being divine, almost all the dragons are destined to degrade over time, or become mindless beasts of immense powers. The dragons all respond differently to this. Some seek ways to prevent it, some embrace it and start causing destruction early, and some choose to end themselves to spare others. Despite Fire Emblem being a Japanese game, the dragons usually resemble western ones to fit with the setting, but have more “eastern sage” personalities, as intelligent beings that are either revered or feared. And with them becoming more like western beasts over time, the FE dragons are certainly interesting.

In my world, I compare dragons to whales. Really old and majestic animals that are highly intelligent, but sadly often hunted. Of course this comes with breath weapons and sometimes wings. They also, like whales, have different behaviours depending on their genus. So the smaller forest dragons live in groups to protect themselves. Whereas the titanic Mountain dragons live alone, hunting rarely. Ooh, another thing. My world has science, people have studied magical animals. My fantasy world has a paleontological record. And in that, we learned where dragons originated from. Dragons are related to early sea turtle ancestors, and split as some moved onto land, and into the trees when their sea environment became a swamp, and some stayed in the water, becoming dragon turtles. From then on they receded their shells into tough armour on their body, developed gliding, then flight, then an ice age cane and they were screwed, so they developed green, antifreeze blood. Which they can vaporize into a gas to make their breath weapon. Some can also ignite their breath, forming fire (All true dragons have a breathweapon, but not all have wings) Eastern dragons doo exist in my world, but they aren’t true dragons, they are sometimes believed to be related to them, but they are not true dragons. Primarily because of their body type, intelligence, and lack of a breath weapon. They speak their own language, and sorta have a culture. However their culture has been devastated by the humanoid races (especially humans, screw the humans), and their language includes sounds that the human body that cannot be produce. As such, many of them have grown sour of humanoids

How to even add dragons to your urban fantasy: SCP-1762. One of the saddest and best stories I have ever read.

For a "dragon protagonist" I really hope you'll dive deeper into Wings of Fire and the idea of the dragon-only worlds, where humans take a back seat

Please make a video on de-escalating character abilities so that a story isnt bloated with complex interaction and/or massive power creep

The Attack On Titan music made me wheeze

"It can be negotiated with." "Never make a deal with a dragon" , Shadowrun

As a "dragon enthusiast" and writer, this video makes me immensely happy, seeing this level of thoroughness.

"How do you write an original dragon story?" I mean, there's Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. It's certainly original! :D

What the, I left your vid Shad because I wanted to watch something else, and you come back. Niiiice.

I always cry at the dragon dance episode. From the very first time I watched it as a child it just tugs my heartstrings for idk what reason.

3:00 "Hercules~…" *"Honey, you mean HUNKules!"*

“MONOLITHIC FIRE-BREATHING DEATH LIZARDS” gets me every. Damn. Time.

6:40 Tolkien! What did you do? You've made a metal singularity. Dear god, that is too cool

How did we survive this school day? A WIZARD DID IT

In my world an age dominated by dragons is what moved the young dwarf civilization to move underground and the elvish civilization to hide in the forests where their cities wouldn't be seen from the sky. because dragons.

Dragons are my favorite mythical creature- I would never get bored of them. I love the versatility in different cultures they have and what they mean to a stories people.

I now feel tempted to have a group of communist dragons in my story. "The revolution never came so quick!!"

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you watched Shrek 2 recently...

Shad has infiltrated every channel I'm subscribed to lol.

Always remember - iroh never killed the dragon - he's far too awesome for that

What a lovely crossover!

The one thing that can unite the Aussies and the Kiwis: Dragons.

I got an add about Kit Harrington and Toothless before this video....

THE CHANNELS ARE COLAPSING! THE SINGULARITY IS NIGH!

I’m sure these are a tooooonnnn of work, man, but thank you so much for making them!

I've been watching Shad for a lot longer than HFM, so I absolutely lost it, giggling, when he appeared. That setup was so perfect! His running gag fits just too well

I'm assuming that the dragons in Eragon would count as Western Thinkers as they're immensely beastly but able to be reasoned with.

The Red Dragon from Welsh Mythology who became the symbol of our country is a reflection of good and bad things. He's first mentioned when many great plagues were sweeping the country, from no one being able to keep their secrets, to earthquakes. He was fighting a white dragon, which caused many of the problems and with some magic, he and the white dragon were sealed in chests and berried deep into a mountain in the country. But many years later, a Welsh king is under threat and retreats into the mountains to create a fort to protect himself. But every day it crumbles, so the King tries to find out what's happening. A boy tells the King of the dragons under the mountain and the King digs them out. The White and Red Dragons fought and the White Dragon flew away, injured. The Red Dragon was said to symbolize the Welsh and the White Dragon the invaders after the King. In a book I'm writing, I hope to reflect this idea of Dragons and many other Welsh Mythological creatures being good and bad. You mentioning coal helped me remember an important detail of my world building concerning one of my characters, that I'm going to make a point in their history. Thanks for the idea and if you do research the Welsh Dragon (or any other Welsh myths) just ask me, it's my favorite thing to look up.

This was a great video Tim and thanks for teaching us all of these things when we want to write a story on them. I personally like to base a dragons habitat and other needs based on its design because you can't really have dragons that would fit more in the sky living in the ocean there wings would have to be shorter and there body's more streamlined. Really looking forward to learning from part 2 of this video I tend to think about different dragon designs all the time but I am never quite sure how to put them in a story.

I love that you referenced the Temeraire series. Its a super interesting series that takes a super practical take on dragons actually existing.

Ahhh, Dragons.

A really original take on dragons is in a webtoon called "Abide in the Wind," (which no one freaking knows about). They're super powerful and devine, metaphysical creator type creatures, but don't posess the choatic intelligence of humans and are therefore highly suseptible to corruption once intelligent life evolves on a planet they've created. They barely seem to have consciousness until they choose someone to safeguard their power and lifeforce in their bodies. It's super cool.

Physically recoiled when Shadiversity glitched in

No mention of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern :( I know it's old but it's my favorite and quite possibly my first experience with dragons, I think this video puts them in between a western thinker and a western beast. Although I'm not sure about how to dissect the series in relation to the other points. PS As a kid I really wanted a Fire Lizard as a pet. (still, do actually)

4:24 Well, actually there are types of "dragons" (Long) associated with all elements of Chinese philosophy. There is the Azure Dragon (Qinglong), which is associated with Wood (and was the official symbol of the Qing dynasty); the Yellow Dragon (Huanglong), which is associated with Earth; the Black Dragon (Heilong), which is associated with water; the Red Dragon (Chilong), which is associated with Fire; and lastly the White Dragon (Báilong), associated with metal.

3:20 is the best moment in this video- Wings of Fire forever!

If there were dragons on Roshar, I imagine it would go something like this: Azir: *Hushed conversations about the scholarly institutions of this new beast* Shinovar: Keep them away from the rocks! Jah Keved: The diagram said *nothing* about this. Thaylenah: Create submarines to keep safe from the fire. Alethkar: ATTACK!!!!

I fucking love dragons so this is great.

How to kill a dragon? Simple, just throw a pommel.

A sudden Shad appeared! I love it. I can really feel those machicolations

You never fail to amaze me in the depth and passion you have for everything writing creative and nerdy. You are truly a gift thank you for the videos you make, they always brighten my day.

The perfect collaboration doesn't exi-

omg I sooo love your editing. I’m just sitting here chuckling with delight and getting information on one of my fav topics. Thanks 🙏 😍 💙

Yes hello did somebody say dragons?

I highly recommend that you read Niklas Krog's "The Freedom Wars" trilogy (Trilogin om Frihetskrigen), if you haven't already. That series is a fascinating take on world building, empires, and the use of fantasy elements. Krog also manages an awesome prequel in the book "The War of the Great Peace" (Den Stora Fredens Krig). On the topic of dragon culture, I ALWAYS bawl my eyes out at the end of the main story line in Skyrim. The grief shown by the dragons is heart breaking.

Love that you referenced The Age of Fire Series and Temeriare. Two SEVERELY under represented Dragon-related series!

I always loved Naomi Novik's dragonworld. Everything seemed to be so well thought out and planned, it was just perfect. And the social criticism she brought into it amazed me. Although Temeraire was clearly intelligent and had his own personality, the government only accepted the rights of dragons, when they experienced France's military strength. By not using the dragons as mere tools, but recognizing them as intelligent beings who deserve respect, payment, a voice in the parliament, Bonaparte had the upper hand in the war for quite some time. What I especially liked, was the part of the story where Temeraire went to China and learned how the asian culture treated dragons, which brought him to the plan and strong will of bringing that better treatment and high respect for dragons home to his english friends. Okay, I'll stop now... No one I know even heard of those books and I never get to geek out about them :D But I'll stop now before it gets out of hand :D

Oof, Shadiversity jump scare, not fun.

I mean, in Wings of Fire there is literally a dragon succession crisis. That's awesome.

YAY! Dragons! Temeraire! Shadiversity! And your mad editing talents and awesome analysis = might be my favorite video of yours yet. Thanks!

'Wings of fire-' *flips table* YASSS

Awesome plug for Shad! :D Love his channel!

Yeah you're doing a topic that I love. Dragons were the Genesis of my imagination

Nice bit having Shad break in there! Well done with everyone in character.

*this video but every time it plays I need a hero it gets 5% faster*

I started watching, and thought, "gosh, wouldn't this be a good spot for that Shad line 'what about dragons'" and lo and behold, my wish was granted! Perfection.

You put that “Fairy Godmother” song to WORK! Lol

The wings of fire books got me very interested in dragons in fantasy

Where was this when I started writing on WattPad? Also, I expect WoF to be mentioned in part 2.

I love that you mentioned Temeraire because the way they are treated: equals and philosophers in the east and warmachines in the west, and Temeraire in the middle of that, was what attracts me the most to the series!

I got so many ideas on how to incorporate dragons into my story, you have no idea how grateful I am! My long-dead inspiration has partially revived, now I just need the part two of this video XD

One kind of dragon archetype that I have seen a couple of times is where dragons are kind of "third force" in the battle between heaven and hell kind of representing the material world (where Gods represent heaven and demons represent hell) and in these chases they tend to be very wise and powerful but ultimately mostly aloof or hostile to some degree to the humans. Building into the world kind of three way conflict between Gods with humans, Demons with monsters and Dragons with animals or some other force.

I like how Robin Hobb used dragons. They were gone for so long from the world that you could have said their impacts were forgotten but every bit of magic has some how been influenced by dragons. They are definitely western thinkers through and through. I want to say that the main two dragons tintiglia and icefire are different on a mental level Tint is more human because she was raise and lived only with humans and wants human relationship( she is a lot younger than icefire) but icefire who is distinctly more Fafnir like lives as a dragon should have been in his mind.

the shadiversity collab didn't age wel...

Also I'm happy that you mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series - I was worried that this video wasn't going to mention it. It seems like you may have just skimmed it when researching the video - Temeraire is a fascinating outlook on dragons which kind of upends all of the typical dragon tropes. It engages with the question of "If dragons are intelligent, why shouldn't they have equal rights to people?" It explores the notion of dragon autonomy, right to pay, conditions under which they're kept, even freedom to vote and be represented in Parliament. In addition, later books look at how dragons have affected the course of history around the world - like how they've allowed central African tribes to become a secret industrial powerhouse. Each nation's dragons have their own complex culture, beliefs, morals and political systems. And the actions of the main dragon protagonist actually cause the advancement of dragon rights in Britain in later books. All in all, it's an absolutely brilliant take on dragons which definitely deserves a read through. I encourage anyone who sees this comment to pick it up and give it a go.

Okay, you made this video so inspiring that I immediately wrote a tiny story about dragons right after I watched.

Robin Hobb's "The Farseer Trilogy" also seem to be an interesting subvertion of different types of dragons.

When u mentioned Wings of Fire and showed the 6th book (Moon rising) I got so excited and impatient to read it XD I'm on The Dark Secret btw (Book 4) Also great video, Tim! Edit: 3 years passed so quickly wow, but still have to read arc 3 lol

I plan to have my dragons to be apart of 2 different religions. The trolls who believe dragons are the God's of strength. While humans believe they are servants of death. Though the dragons themselves don't care for either. Does that sound like an interesting idea?

I haven't read the Temeraire series in so long. It was really nostaligic to see you mention it. I honestly loved it so much especially as I tend to shy away from war stories.

thank you for mentioning The Dragon Prince. it’s awesome

Communist Dragons? Don't tempt me with a good time

Actually dragons as depicted in GoT and Harry Potter are wyrms. Western dragons have 4 limbs and may or may not have wings

As a PHD student, and Evolution scientist, I think it's awesome that you consider this in your world building and do it pretty accurately

Your f***ing awesome, you have made my d&d game gold from pyrite. I can't tell you how great I think you are.

"A society does not survive with huge threats around them by chance." I feel like that's such a simple but important part of worldbuilding, with politics, with food, with economy or trade, and with creating ecosystems.