What's your kind of dragon? · 10:27am Jul 3rd, 2023
In MLP canon. dragons come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. Why is this so? My head canon is that it's not just a matter of genetics – dragons are shaped by their personality and interests.
My best example in my stories is that of Smolder. While we learned that she is very feminine to the point of being embarrassed by her girly desires, we did not see much beyond her coming to terms with that.
I ran with the idea and had her follow a career in the Royal Court where behavior and appearance are very much a part of the interplay among the nobles. Smolder was able to express her femininity and her strength in that environment, and so she grew into a dragoness graceful in form and strong of character.
But what if she had not been like that? Dragonlord Ember chose Smolder to attend the School of Friendship for unstated reasons. What if that was because she saw someone like herself that could benefit dragons in general by learning new things at the school. Would that Smolder grow up to be much like Ember?
Or maybe Smolder would have succumbed to more base tendencies as she matured, becoming greedy and jealous.
What is your take on dragons? And do you like the direction that I took with Smolder?
I took a different path with Cinder in my House Path Universe, but she had a very different personality to Smolder and ended up growing in an entirely different way.
I like the direction that you took with Smolder. A strong and graceful lady of the court that will make a strong ambassador to Earth once the Equestrian Empire decides to reveal itself.
Chad Spike from finale is kinda following the same principle, like he dreamed of being a strong knight and finally got there. Also gorgeous pictures : )
My headcanon is that dragons in MLP are more feral looking, it's just that child cartoon messed with their image for child cartoon reasons : )
Very intresting idea this, which leads to thinking.
We have seen Spike only undergo instant extreme growth at hatching due to immense infusion of magical energy, but which Celestia was able to revert, magically drain at the time. In Spikes birthday episode, he Greed growths far more slowly, but still far faster than normal aging.
What if the shape to intent and greed growth were parts of the same mechanism, that the seen Dragons were smmoth and rounded because like dolphins, they didnt have much, but they had all the food and each other, and as they were could deal with pretty much any problems coming their way. Crackle just took it to extreme, maybe think like a cross between Twilight and Tree Hugger, an experimental research hippie who prefers to work on themselves? Torch couldve just ended up like any other Titan class, spikes, plates, blades etc, but mainly just relies on shere tankage to get his point accross while remaining approachable?
Like there are drawings of Spike in other styles? slightly older, a bit taller, but more lithe and sharper points and edges, the sort you might see in Cage matches, a compact combat form etc?
Mainly though, if dragons can vary in physical structure depending on requirements, dsires and emotions, could this make them related in some manner as the Earth variation to the Wood/Mushroom version that ended up as the Changelings? The Sea Pearl of the Hippogriff Sea Ponies might be related to Sirens, Water Dragons who in myths were occasionally said to have shape changing in siituations, which would then lead to just how spread out Dragon genetics or the equivalents could be over the many thousands of years through the world if not global population, and the effects?
What if Dragons are the oriigonal crystaline mineral magical lifeforms that budded from the underground magical gem deposits that gained a distribution and size large enough to trigger first self energetics, a mineral through which surrounding random energies happen to be altered to a new energetic form that when interacitng with the surroundings slowly caused closly matched minerals to alter and add to the growing deposit, and it lasted long enough to be like a starfish, the core survived when the volcano it was in eventually exploded?
Could almost make a TV show about it.
Dragon.
Born from an egg on a mountain top.
Sorry, just a quick thought thats likely wandered through what the hay to well he came through here a week ago and just kept going.
In my head canon dragons are magic. This not a satisfactory description. I have seen that there are several categories of creatures in MLP, when you look at how they work with magic.
There are the ones that just happen to live there. The yaks, the griffons, the saddle arabians, the abyssians... these beings would be no different in a world without magic.
Then there are the magic users: the ponies, the breezies, the centaurs, the sirens and the hippogriffs. These beings actively use and manipulate magic. If you were to take the magic away, they are fundamentally lesser for the loss.
Then there are the creatures that cannot exist without magic, like changelings and, the point of this: dragons. The rules of all the other creatures simply do not apply to dragons, they seem to be whatever they think they should be. One example of this is Torch. He is unreasonably huge. There is no precedent for a being of that size, but he knows that dragons are bigger and tougher than anything else, and as the dragon lord, he is bigger and tougher than any other dragon.
So he is.
Spike is another key example, in a few ways. First, there is no sane reason for a biological creature to be able to eat gems. In my imagination Twilight was overthinking and she didn't know why dragons hoarded gems, so since she was a child, she figured that they must eat them and tried to feed some gems to him. Spike, being a creature of pure magic and not knowing any better, adapted to the environment and started eating gems.
Secondly, there is the greed growth episode. Spike wants things, and has the basic knowledge that being bigger can carry (and then take) more things. So his growth can be reasoned out. He also has the sense of self of a child, so he does not grow in any proper way, but rather looks like a child who has never seen a dragon would picture it. But why does he get dumber? Well, he knows that if he knew what he was doing, he would stop, which is contradictory to his desire to have more things. So he makes himself stupider in order to get what he wants. I find this an interesting play on ego vs id.
Also, in my head canon, the greed growth episode is only possible because of the gem eating. Because Spike is regularly consuming magic batteries, he has more magic packed into his body than any other living creature (outside of the demi-gods of the world like alicorns or draconequis). This is demonstrated in the Equestria games episode, when Spike casually melts a glacier the size of a building.
Some quick math while I nerd this up a little:
about 15m by 6m oblique spheroid = 301m^3 = about 271,000kg of ice = 90 Terajoules (in 5 seconds), or over 2000 times the output of the worlds largest nuclear reactor.
Okay, I went a bit long on that... but yes, I love what you are doing with Smolder!
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I still find it amusing that Chad Spike from the finale isn't even close to as big as Buff Spike from A Dog and Pony Show way, way back in season 1.
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Um...shit, dude; That's a whole dissertation.
I can't find myself faulting your logic.
When i imagine 'adult' dragons in MLP i think of pic three, not saying that she WOULDNT wear a dress like in pic two it would just be done likely in private or only around trusted friends and such, she does like cute things after all.
the big dragons like torch and the others i think are 'elder' dragons, hundreds, or thousands of years old, and that they undergo something of a metamorphasis at some point, having a large growth spirt (probly while hibernating, the 100 year nap, some stories sugest) where they loose their ability to walk upright, and some become less intelegent (but not all, torch is not stupid by any stretch after all) and atain thier final elder form, the one they will retain for the rest of their life
I like this take on the dragons, although its a cartoon and "Mean" dragons look mean because of that, this theory makes sense, meaner dragons look meaner because their body matches their personality.
Love this idea
Dramatic ones
And ones who have staffing problems
And ones that are stalwart against all but the most horrid of threats
And of course are always seeking ways to improve themselves
We have to remember that this is an intrinsic to their person. Its part of their being and more then likely part of their very survival. So merely denying it would be bad. Perhaps a more positive outlet then?
Also recall that dragons are projections of power and lust, so actual may present a bit of a problem