Why Don’t The Dragons Just Eat People?

A reader question this week requires !!!SPOILERS!!! from CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE to answer it.

So if you haven’t read CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE yet (though to judge from sales chart, a very large number of you have, thank you!) stop reading this post right now.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

Anyway, a reader asked how I came up with the idea in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE that eating a sapient being would have an effect on a dragon similar to the consumption of methamphetamine in a human.

It came about because I was thinking about fantasy worldbuilding (one of my favorite topics), and an obvious question came up.

In the Nadiaverse, why don’t the dragons just eat people?

I mean, seriously, why not? The logical answer is that there is a cultural taboo or a legal prohibition against it. However, lots of activities are taboo or illegal, and people still partake in them all the time. The dragons, of course, don’t really want to kill humans, since that reduces their number of potential admirers, because what the dragons really want is to be surrounded by a circle of devoted admirers in awe of their magnificence. But that comes back to a cultural taboo again. Some dragon with darker inclinations like Tarthrunivor or Ferrunivar might buy a private island, stock it with a dozen people kidnapped from surrounding companies, and have themselves a hunting party like the Boyars’ Hunt in GHOST IN THE RING.

But what if there was a more serious reason?

Anyway, while I was writing DRAGONSKULL: WRATH OF THE WARLOCK I was thinking about this, and I happened to click over to YouTube, which for some reason was displaying a lot of official clips from BREAKING BAD that day. BREAKING BAD is about mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White who receives a fatal diagnosis, and desperate to provide for his family after his death, decides to start manufacturing and selling illegal methamphetamine. During the series, Walt descends from a man trying to provide for his family into an evil man in love with the power and money his drug dealing brings him, and in a tale as old as Ancient Greece, his hubris soon brings about his nemesis and ruinous downfall. (I have to admit that I didn’t like BREAKING BAD all that much – too dark – but it is a superbly executed example of story structure with an emotionally satisfying ending.)

Methamphetamine is very, very bad for you, and you shouldn’t use or try it. Or make it, for that matter!

Then the answer came to me – what if eating a sapient being had a same effect on a dragon as methamphetamine did on humans?

Another drug like fentanyl or heroin wouldn’t work –  a depressant drug would just make for a stoned, lassitude-prone dragon, which would hardly be a threat to characters. But dragons are more innately magical than Elves or humans in the Nadiaverse, and can change shape with ease. Their bodies are therefore more easily controlled by their minds, which means that if they knowingly choose to eat a sapient creature, it has an immediately deleterious effect on them. Addiction takes hold swiftly, usually followed by homicidal mania in a few months.

Interestingly, this only happens it the dragon knowingly consumes a sapient creature. Due to their intensely magical nature, it has to be a choice freely made without compulsion. If a dragon unknowingly ate a sapient creature, like some orcish world was making ground meat out of captured dwarves, nothing would happen.

Ferrunivar and Tarthrunivor are much darker and more ruthless dragons than Varzalshinpol, Polvimrandur, Sarrunivor, and Delaxsicoria, who are all basically pretty cheerful. But Tarthrunivor has the self-discipline to keep his ruthlessness and darker impulses in check, and would view consuming a sapient creature as an unforgiveable folly, though he has been tempted by the idea. Ferrunivor, by contrast, was much younger and much less self-controlled. He also considered himself an artist, and artists often enjoy doing avant garde things that shock their elders. Think of how many musicians, actors, and artists came to a bad end through drugs.

Which, as it happens, is how he met his downfall.

Anyway, I hope that was an interesting look into the creative process behind CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE!

-JM