here be dragons 🐉

But Is Jabba A Dragon Though?

he has the body plan of a lindworm. I suppose you could argue that he is too thick to be considered “serpentine”, but he is longer than he is wide, and not entirely unlike an especially chunky gaboon viper. his upright posture distracts from the fact that he’s built like an abbreviated mole lizard, which are lindworms.

and then of course he acts like a dragon. I don’t know if Star Wars uses gold or something else but whatever it is I’m sure he hordes it. eats people sometimes. disturbing taste for princesses. knights come to kick his ass.

And not all creatures under the broad category of “dragon” fly. Lindworms don’t fly, neither do wyrms, drakes, sea serpents, or hydras. Lungs/Chinese dragons can fly but they don’t use wings to do it. Jabba should not be disqualified as a dragon simply because he uses repulsor technology to achieve airborne locomotion.

Jabba is unlike a slug in so many ways. He has jointed limbs, a hard internal skeleton, a skull with fixed spherical eyeballs, and no sensory tentacles or pneumostome. He is capable of facultative parthenogenesis--like komodo dragons and other squamates--continuously growing larger and living for hundreds of years hoarding wealth and power and preying on princesses. His resemblance to a slug is superficial, though we may describe him as such in an insulting fashion... like how a dragon may be called a “worm”.

Also he can and does eat people.

Dragons are the same way. It’s an umbrella term, and while some irritating pedants insist that only a four-legged creature with words god can be considered a dragon, they only say that to make sure everyone in the room knows that they know what a wyvern is. Wyverns and lindworms and amphitheres are obviously all under the dragon umbrella.

If these things are dragons, then “dragon” is as fluid a category as “worm”:

Take, for example, the dragons from The Last Airbender. They’re clearly dragons, as they breathe fire and have wings, but they’re also more like elemental spirits that visually and behaviorally resemble lungs more than they resemble, say, Smaug. Do their similarities to lungs disqualify them from dragonhood?

Also, it’s not like the medieval Welsh concept of a “dragon” evolved in a vacuum. There are mythical creatures from around the world that bear strong resemblances to That Specific Creature Which We Are Apparently Now Inisisting Is The Only True Dragon. Welsh and British folklore was surely being influenced by mythology from disparate cultures. 

That thing does not have innate dragony-ness to me. It looks like a turtle with tentacles. 

But, while I think the answer to “can we consider Jabba the Hutt to be a dragon” is yes, no one has asked whether or not Jabba would consider himself to be a dragon.

i’m reading Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schreiber and

you make some good points and also I ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU FOR THIS

fine.

DRAGON LOCATED

AAAAA PHEW i just finished binding a bunch of new zines that compile my PNW fantasy sketch pages :”) just in time for when I get to table at the Portland Zine Symposium tomorrow!!!!! if anyone’s in the area come say hi!!!

"He's having a dragon day."

I was supposed to have my

horse re-shod today.”

Day 13 - One material

like look at Smaug, look at his ears, DON’T YOU JUST WANT TO SCRATCH BEHIND HIS EARS AND TELL HIM HE’S A GOOD BOY

and look at this guy, I guess he’s supposed to be ferocious but it looks more like “whoa man chill out, I’m just saying that those shoes with that helmet was maybe not the greatest fashion decision, just a little friendly advice, no need to get defensive.”

THIS LITTLE BB ALL CURLED UP AND TAKIN’ A NAP

I want this one to live in my pocket and be my sassy talking dragon sidekick

SO SMILEY!! “gonna go terrorize some helpless villagers aw yiss”

but my favorite is this little doodle here

just look at him

enchanted tea kettle dragons