This thought crossed my mind as I was reading the thread by @BalrogRingDestroyer :
It's all very well for reptiles - to which class dragons must belong - to subsist in hibernation for a long time; some big snakes and crocs can go for months (perhaps even a year or more) without feeding after really stuffing themselves, without hibernation. Even warm-blooded hibernators can co for months without feeding. And I'd guess that the bigger the critter, the longer the period could be (losing heat goes to the power of two, the surface area; maintaining heat goes to the power of three, volume / mass).
But spewing flames as Smaug, Glaurung, Ancalagon & Co. (just in Middle-earth) did involves extremely higher orders of magnitude of expending calories (or kilojoules).
I'll just quote Gandalf from Chapter III "The Ring Goes South" of Book 2 in "Fellowship", when the Fellowship got stuck in the snowstorm on Caradhras. Legolas had just said "If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a path for you." To which Gandalf answered "If Elves could fly over the mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save us. But I must have something to work on. I cannot burn snow." This is after Gandalf had lighted a fire from wood the Fellowship had brought along with his staff - after neither Gimli nor Legolas had been able to do anything to light it, the wood having become sodden because of the snowfall.
The point is: fire needs fuel. Where are the firedrakes, including Smaug, getting their fuel from???
We've all probably seen too many news items in the last few years of horrific forest fires. Including the use of fire-fighting helicopters and planes, with the latter more to the point the flying boats. They can refill their water tanks by skimming over a lake or whatever, the movement filling up their tanks quickly. So where are the gasoline lakes that Smaug and Co. skimmed over, lower jaw dipped in, to slurp up their fuel?
It has something of the illogical nature of rockets in science fiction: where are the bloody fuel tanks on them??? A Saturn-5 (the moon rocket) was perhaps 90 percent fuel tank. So how do the firedrakes fuel their fire?
It's all very well for reptiles - to which class dragons must belong - to subsist in hibernation for a long time; some big snakes and crocs can go for months (perhaps even a year or more) without feeding after really stuffing themselves, without hibernation. Even warm-blooded hibernators can co for months without feeding. And I'd guess that the bigger the critter, the longer the period could be (losing heat goes to the power of two, the surface area; maintaining heat goes to the power of three, volume / mass).
But spewing flames as Smaug, Glaurung, Ancalagon & Co. (just in Middle-earth) did involves extremely higher orders of magnitude of expending calories (or kilojoules).
I'll just quote Gandalf from Chapter III "The Ring Goes South" of Book 2 in "Fellowship", when the Fellowship got stuck in the snowstorm on Caradhras. Legolas had just said "If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a path for you." To which Gandalf answered "If Elves could fly over the mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save us. But I must have something to work on. I cannot burn snow." This is after Gandalf had lighted a fire from wood the Fellowship had brought along with his staff - after neither Gimli nor Legolas had been able to do anything to light it, the wood having become sodden because of the snowfall.
The point is: fire needs fuel. Where are the firedrakes, including Smaug, getting their fuel from???
We've all probably seen too many news items in the last few years of horrific forest fires. Including the use of fire-fighting helicopters and planes, with the latter more to the point the flying boats. They can refill their water tanks by skimming over a lake or whatever, the movement filling up their tanks quickly. So where are the gasoline lakes that Smaug and Co. skimmed over, lower jaw dipped in, to slurp up their fuel?
It has something of the illogical nature of rockets in science fiction: where are the bloody fuel tanks on them??? A Saturn-5 (the moon rocket) was perhaps 90 percent fuel tank. So how do the firedrakes fuel their fire?
