Dragons: Rowling v. McCaffrey

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 24354

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Yis M Koslowitz <tkoz1 at j...> wrote:
> One sentence rant - Anne McCafferey's dragons ARE NOT CUDDLY!
> Robyn, who is Weyr bred.

To quote from Gregory Feeley's "13 Ways of Looking at a Dinosaur" 
(from the 1993 anthology Dinosaur Fantastic)

It is preadolescent boys who like dinosaurs, just as preadolescent 
girls may develop an interest in horses
Girls want to ride horses, 
but boys want to be dinosaurs. Dragons may seem related to dinosaurs 
in popular culture, but the most beloved dragons around, those of 
Anne McCaffrey's novels, are basically leather-winged horses, ridden 
by humans dressed in boots and jerkins who enjoy such telepathic 
rapport with their mounts as the books' predominantly female audience 
can only yearn for. The quintessential dinosaur-loving kid, on the 
other hand, is the comic strip's Calvin, who imagines his hometown in 
every sandcastle he tramples.

Dragons are often intelligent, and sometimes can speak: small wonder 
that amity even cooperation can be imagined between their kind and 
ours. Dinosaurs are, almost by definition, a primordial force: 
destructive, intractable. The one novel I know of to bring together 
the two creatures, Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks, tellingly unites a 
female dragon with a male dinosaur. ("He's not much on brains," she 
confides, "but what a body!")

END QUOTE

Rowling's dragons are clearly dinosaurs.  I can easily imagine Calvin 
devouring Harry Potter, while remaining put off by McCaffrey.

     - CMC

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