GoF Ch 17- 20 post DH look - DRAGONS

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 181999

> > Mike wrote:
> > But if it's a "job", who's paying Charlie and his mates to
> > look after dragons?

> Carol responds:
> First, thanks, Mike, for bringing up a topic that we haven't
> discussed to death!

Mike: My pleasure!


> Carol responds:
> I don't think that Charlie and his friends train dragons for
> Gringotts. I think that the poor, abused dragon that we see in
> DH (kept confined and out of the light so long that it's nearly
> blind) is "trained," using a cruel variation on Pavlovian
> conditioning, by Goblins who teach it to associate the sound of
> the clankers with brutal mistreatment. 
> -<snip>-
> How the Goblins obtained their dragon(s), I don't know. I can't
> imagine someone like Charlie and his friends selling a dragon to
> the Goblins if they knew the treatment it would receive. 

Mike:
Oh I quite agree. Charlie's group would never be a party to what 
the Goblins did to that poor dragon, not imo. I also think you've 
got the method of training down correctly. I don't know how long 
dragons in the Potterverse live, but I'd imagined that the Gringotts
dragon had been there for a very long time. Possibly pre-dating the 
formation of the group Charlie is now with. Gringotts undoubtedly
got their dragon through less than upstanding means. Doesn't speak 
very well for the Goblins, does it?

Going into this series I suppose I had JRRT's version of dragons 
in mind, sentient and highly intelligent dragons. Now, I'm not sure
that JKR's version are even as smart as hippogriffs. I still don't
approve of what the Goblins obviously did and were doing to that 
dragon, but I suppose they treated it the same way people treat 
pitt bulls in RL.

[An aside, probably best answered on OTC, why didn't Tolkien have 
dragons after The Hobbit? Not a one in the Trilogy. Geoff? Anyone?]


> Carol responds:
> 
> That aside, the dragons seem to live mostly on a dragon preserve
> in Romania, perhaps one of the few places where they can safely
> be kept from Muggle view (and Muggles kept safe from them!).

Mike:
Ron told us that they are dying out, much like the Giants. They are 
rare but not extinct in Britain. He also told us about the MoM 
dispatching Obliviators whenever a Muggle  caught sight of a real 
dragon and lived to *try* to tell about it.


> Carol:
> I see Charlie's job as something like that of a Muggle
> researcher studying a dangerous endangered animal like, say,
> the Siberian tiger. They would want to provide ideal breeding
> and living conditions for the dragons, keep the population
> healthy, study their habits, and so on.
> <snip>
> 
> As for who pays them, surely it's the MoM (not necessarily just
> the British version)--the same people who pay Wizarding
> researchers to maintain the Hall of Prophecy and to study Death,
> Love, Time, the Mind, and other mysteries. 

Mike:
OK, this is a good explanation. I can buy this. I can also see the 
value to wizarding society to not only keep the dragons sequestered, 
away from Muggle eyes, but judging by the praise Dumbledore received
on his Chocolate Frog card (12 uses of dragon blood), the study of 
dragons and their qualities must be of value to wizards.



> > Mike wrote:
> > Qui bono, who benefits and therefore who gets something
> > out of this group doing stuff with dragons besides the
> > group themselves?

> Carol:
> (They might also supply dragon skin, dragon blood, and
> dragon heartstring to merchants and manufacturers,
> but I don't want to think about that part.)

zgirnius:
On a positive note, perhaps the magical ingredients/substances to
which you refer, may be obtained from a dead, dying, or severely
injured dragon which is not able to live on its own anymore. (As
Sluggie could still harvest the venom of the recently deceased
Acromantula, Aragog). 

Mike:
This was also on my mind. There seems to be a thriving market in the 
wizarding world for parts of dragons that would require their death. 
Dumbledore's blood (though maybe he only got a couple of pints from 
the live ones), Ollivander's heartstrings, the twins dragon-skin 
jackets, etc. Are there enough dragons and do they die from natural 
causes fast enough to keep all these users in sufficient supply of 
their *materials*?



zgirnius:
The Siberian tiger RL analogy brings up another function Charlie 
and Co. may have - they may act analogously to National Park 
rangers who prevent poachers from irresponsibly killing off the 
endangered animals for a quick Galleon to be made off selling the 
parts to shady dealers.

Mike:
I'd like to think this was the case, Zara. Yet going back to my 
question about dragon intelligence in the Potterverse, do we know
that they don't raise them simply as stock? The treatment they 
receive in GoF does not indicate otherwise, however much the 
"handlers" may look kindly upon their charges. They can be doing 
this responsibly, unlike the approach the poachers take. Culling
the varieties they have too many of, the sick and/or dying, etc.
But that would make them less like Park Rangers and more like 
ranchers.

All of the GoF dragons were nesting mothers with a brood of eggs. 
There seemed to be sufficient quantity to more than re-stock the 
preserves allotment of dragons. And I'd imagine that the preserve 
Charlie works on is not boundless, so they must have a limit to 
their quantity. Would they be doing that by selling off the excess 
to merchants, or releasing the excess into the wild?

Mike, who wants to think the best of Charlie and his mates, but 
isn't encouraged by the attitudes that predominate in the WW towards
even sentient beings, much less the seemingly non-sentient.