Talk:Codice of Chimeria

I think he was referring to noble dragons, the maiden-devouring, gold-hoarding variety. A barbarian hero probably wouldn't want to be known for killing swamp dragons. --Old Dickens 23:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be an easy explanation except a description of the nature of dragons follows (given by Hrun). Here is the full text:

"Dragons don't exist," said Hrun flatly. "Codice of Chimeria killed the last one two hundred years ago. I don't know what we're seeing, but they aren't dragons."

"But they carried us up in the air! In that hall there must have been hundreds-"

"I expect it was just magic," said Hrun, dismissively.

"Well, they looked like dragons," said Twoflower, with an air of defiance around him. "I always wanted to see dragons, ever since I was a little lad. Dragons flying around in the sky, breathing flames..."

"They just used to crawl around in swamps and stuff, and all they breathed was stink," said Hrun, lying down in his bunk. "They weren't very big, either. They used to collect firewood."

"I heard they used to collect treasure," said Twoflower.

"And firewood." ...

The description certaintly seems to match a swamp dragon more than it matches a noble dragon. That is why I assumed so for the article. TC01 23:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

The only explanation I can see is that Hrun is mixing up his dragons (not the sharpest knife in the drawer). How does he know what they were two hundred years ago? It's an odd exchange altogether. --Old Dickens 00:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

So what are we going with for this article? The "Codice killed the last Noble dragon still in this universe, as all the other ones left", or the "Codice killed what he thought was the last Swamp dragon but he was wrong"? TC01 19:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Beats me. Hrun also suggests the dragons didn't breathe fire, either, which even swamp dragons do, in a small way. It seems to be another anomaly sent to try us by The Author. A lot of things have been overhauled and improved since The Colour of Magic, from the Patrician on. I wouldn't put a lot of weight on a one-off statement by Hrun against the larger body of description of various dragons, though.
If no solution presents itself, how about a Fair And Balanced© Wikipedia-style presentation of what Hrun said as well as how this is hard to reconcile with other testimony? --Old Dickens 20:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I suppose it's worth mentioning that the Patrician at the time (or at least as of Mort) kept a pet swamp dragon, which nobody thought especially unusual.

My own take, for what it's worth, is that it's the Noble Dragons which everybody assumes to be extinct and indeed are extinct in the Disc's plane of reality except for their quasi-existence around the Wyrmberg; whereas I don't see an implication anywhere (outside the present passage) that Swamp Dragons ever disappeared. Certainly Sybil never suggests that they had been a desperately-endangered-thought-gone-forever species within her own adult lifetime. If we need an explanation, besides a simple early-book inconsistency, it's that Hrun has the brains of a cauliflower. Solicitr 15:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)