Cerebus Syndrome

[jeriendhal]

I think I must be a terrible angst-monkey. I'd fully intended to make Damsels & Dragons basically light fantasy, along the lines of Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest books, but my desire to stick dark nastiness keeps rearing it's ugly head. Okay, yeah, I'm still going to stick the Norwegian Drow (Ya, da Spider God vill be drinkin' yar blood, ya-betcha!) in there somewhere, but I just came up with a horrible, horrible idea for explaining why there are no male dragons in the Valley, and it involves Jeremy growing up, and changing from Cute Naive Mildly Annoying Kid, to Large Adolescent Dragon That Is Scary as Sh*t. And worse, being somewhat aware of what's happening and fearing the change because he doesn't want to lose his friendship with Isolde.

Bascially when dragons reach adulthood, a sharp dicotomy occurs between males and females. Females retain their intelligence and ability to co-operate with each other. Males become super-territorial and their intelligence becomes overridden by their instincts. The Valley was created for no small reason to protect female dragons from their male counterparts. Most males can't stand each other long enough to share a kill, much less mount an organized attack on the Valley, so any arriving singly will be rapidly driven off. It's also the males that give rise to the rampaging dragons of folklore, which keep knights like Lance gainfully employed. Currently the male-to-female ratio is running about 1 to 10, and the females woud like to keep it that way.

Which leads to the following quote from a conversation between Isolde and Mom.

Isolde: But if male dragons are so terrible, how on earth do you ever make love with them to create eggs?

Jeremy's Mom: We don't call it "making love."

Yech.

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

"Bascially when dragons reach adulthood, a sharp dicotomy occurs between males and females. Females retain their intelligence and ability to co-operate with each other. Males become super-territorial and their intelligence becomes overridden by their instincts. The Valley was created for no small reason to protect female dragons from their male counterparts. Most males can't stand each other long enough to share a kill, much less mount an organized attack on the Valley, so any arriving singly will be rapidly driven off. It's also the males that give rise to the rampaging dragons of folklore, which keep knights like Lance gainfully employed. Currently the male-to-female ratio is running about 1 to 10, and the females woud like to keep it that way."

Hmmm. See Man-Kzin Wars for comparable problem and how the Kzintosh solved THAT one. A little genetic tinkering, and the females are no longer sentient and quite content to stay in harems and play with shiny things...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Let's hope the male dragons never figure out that trick!

Though if some magical equivilent could be found by Isolde, it might help the female dragons solve their little problem. I can decide if it might be too late for poor Jeremy though.

[jrcubindy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an episode of Angel...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

How so?

Sorry, I've never seen Angel (or Buffy).

[jrcubindy.livejournal.com]

You poor deprived child.

Anyway, there was this ep of Angel, with a race of demons that controlled their females by removing the organ that controlled their personalities and passions turning them into what basically amounted to living zombies ...there was a movement helping the women to escape to our plane.