I just dont get it...

So I've been playing this facebook game (Pet Dragons, wicked awesome) and you can put a custom image in for your pet. One thing I noticed tonight is how often dragons are paired with a treasure-filled cave of some kind, in both images and stories. A perfect, and well know example being Smaug, from the Hobbit (Coming soon to a theater near you!). Anyway, dragons are always talked up as these ancient mystical powerfully-magical beings (I read a lot of fantasy)...and yet in almost every case, they seem to be obsessed with treasure... Seems silly to me.

Now, is it an ego thing, to show their dominance over humans, or is it a bait thing, knowing that our feeble countenances cant resist a big ol golden goblet (see: Indiana Jones)...or is it something else? I mean its not like they can (or need to) just wander into their local market and buy an apple...clearly they don't need it for financial purposes...so what is it?

/* insert theories here */

I would have to say it's more of a character flaw inhearent in the species, kind of like (most) humans thinking we're the only intellegent species on earth. Dragons, being so physicaly and mentaly awsome, the perfect being even as some of them think, find that they must constantly surround themselves with treasures both beautiful and magical for many varied reasons. Perhaps some are so vane that they are trying to show themselves off to the best advantage. Or the "look upon me and dispare" syndrom, projecting their inward feelings of superiority outward by haveing a so truely massive hoard of that which the next lowest critter on the food chain (us) finds to be most precious to many of us (gold and jewels and so forth = power= fear me) For some though, I tend to think its more likely that they just happened to eat the right group of or town of people and pilaged and like showing off their prowess to other dragons.

i think its more in the lines of them loving a good symphony. the clanking of the coins...the screaming of the towns people and then the roar of the dragon itself...while everything goes quiet but the nice sizzle of everything turning to ash....ah music....

hey everyone like to have "stuff" and with those huge claws do you think they'd be able to organize their treasures nicely?

and good help is so hard not to eat.. I mean find

The hobbit movie !!! YAY !!!

I think they use all those coins at the "Dragon E. Cheese" play games, get tickets, then buy useless disposable plastic crap.

Ratar_Killer wrote:

I think they use all those coins at the "Dragon E. Cheese" play games, get tickets, then buy useless disposable plastic crap.

Hey, glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth is not "useless disposable plastic crap." It's a way of life. Even for dragons.

/* pictures a dragon with billy-bob teeth.... */

Wow...

I was told, by a friend of mine that the original association was from the fact that petrified diansour skulls were known to be placed in temples in early history. The best known was in the parthanon. they also collected great amounts of wealth in early temples and when people were allowed into the temples to see the wealth and power of the gods, they mused about what could have been the beast that the skulls belonged to.

As a result, the word of mouth caused out modern myths about dragons to be formed and they were alway associated with the vast amounts of wealth the skulls were shown with.

now if you believe that, there might be a bridge purchase in your future........

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

...now if you believe that, there might be a bridge purchase in your future........

Awesome...

A fantasy author, whose name escapes me at the moment, posited that dragons liked to rest in piles of gold due to the properties of the metal. Seems just as plausible as anything else I have read - although there are some fantasy authors that do not bestow greedy characteristics onto their dragons. I can't recall if McKiernan is one of them (but his series are some of my favorites).