GOF post DH look, Dragons

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 182009



Carol wrote:
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. (I don't know whether the goblins had other
dragons as well; HRH don't see any, but, if they exist, I'm sure
they're subject to the same mistreatment.) 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.

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!). Between the
pressure of large Muggle populations and the Statute of Secrecy, 
dragon populations are probably dwindling (much like giant
populations). 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. Occasionally, as with Norbert in SS/PS or the TWT
in GoF, they'd be called upon to transport dragons, but that can
hardly be their primary job. (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.)

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. 

Carol, who vaguely remembers some researcher in the Wizard of the
Month archives who was killed by the creatures she was studying
(Trolls?) a la the author of "Born Free," who was (ironically) mauled
to death by a lion, IIRC.

Julie:
I agree with your assessment, Carol. I've always seen Charlie?in a
researcher/conservationist type job. With a little adventure thrown in ;-)

Regarding Joy Adamson, although initial reports said she was killed by a 
lion, it was shortly discovered that she was murdered (the marks on her
body being too sharp and bloodless to have come from an animal). A
local young man was eventually convicted of her murder. Ironically her
husband was also murdered a few years later protecting a tourist from 
a poacher. Which just goes to show that working in the field?of wild animal 
conservation is far more likely to get you killed by humans than by the 
animals themselves (Dian Fossey being another example).

Julie


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