Why are the wyverns still called dragons?

[Jenshae]

Are you just spreading ignorance to make the nerds rage, Bethesda?

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Skyrim is to Dragons what Twilight is to vampires with their "sparkling skin"

On one hand, you have dragons that require an extremely lucky and brave knight to dodge the flames, the claws and to get a lucky strike into the soft underside of the dragon with the force and speed of a horse behind their lance.
Dragons that can polymorph, be right with you, luring your party into their den to eat you. Magic and those forearms that can pick warriors up and then bite their heads off.
Dragons that need armies and ballista to bring them down ...

Then on the other hand, you have Skyrim, where it has big scaled bats that spits some fire, can be killed with mere arrows by one random in flammable fur armour.
You can even shout at them and kill them by hurting their feelings.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

There is a cross over, the earliest use of Dragons recorded in English is Geoffrey of Monmouth a monk, recounting the story of child prophet Merlin, who revealed a red and white dragon, that fought and showed how England would defeat Wales.
The earlierst painting of that[robscholtemuseum.nl]

However, before that painting was made, the earliest English dragon depiction was this one[upload.wikimedia.org].

Definitely four legs.
The only debate is one or two sets of wings.

Originally posted by Jenshae:

Guard, "There is flying monster coming!"
Wizard, "What type?"

Situation A
Guard replies, "Wyvern!"
Wizard grabs antidotes for the tail and people live.

Situation B
Guard replies, "Blue Dragon!"
Wizard casts group resistance to electricity and people live.

Situation C
People in this thread reply, "Dragon!"
... and people die.

[IanL]

lol ... how true ... a mythological faux pas on their part.

[aceb20]

Because in their lore they are dragons. You are making the assumption that their dragons are directly related to something in our world which is extremely meta.

[Jenshae]

I can go around calling a potato a tomato, doesn't change what it is or what I should be calling it.

[WizardTim]

If you create a world in which a potato is called a tomato than within the context of your world, a potato is called a tomato.

Dragons have been portrayed with many different anatomies. D&D is not the sole authority on what makes a dragon a dragon.

[Jenshae]

I think the Welsh would also argue with you[en.wikipedia.org].

[IanL]

Originally posted by WizardTim:

If you create a world in which a potato is called a tomato than within the context of your world, a potato is called a tomato.
...

The only problem with that is everyone looking in at that world from ours will see a potato and know it as a potato and find it hard to relate to it as a tomato If you gave it a name that has no parallel in our world that would work because there is no conflict.

[Squirrell]

The way that you see things is that there is a hard fact filtered by your "world view" or Weltanschauung.

They are called dragons because most of the world doesn't think like you. It is you that has a problem due to the way that you think. In short, your mind has created the problem.

[IanL]

There is no problem, it's simply an observation. There is consistency of form to that which we name in order to provide coherent symbolic communication. If the name Dragon is used regardless of the form it's representing then the word ceases to have any meaning.

There is nothing to stop you doing that, I'm not arguing that, just questioning why one would want to. If the game had called Trolls Humans and Humans Elves I expect there would have been far more comments regarding this, not that there is an inherent issue with that if it's consistent within the context of that world.

You can use all the philosophical babble you like but if I start calling a Ford Model T a Tesla Model 3 then people are going to question that despite that fact they are both automobiles, because there are characteristics that allow us to distinguish between them.

[Skidrow]

Dont get why complane about something that what 0.1% agree with you about.

[IanL]

Originally posted by CF Skidrow:

Dont get why complane about something that what 0.1% agree with you about.

Because it's our right, just as it's your right to make up fictitious percentages lol

Not that we are complaining anyway, more making an observation and engaging in debate.

[Jenshae]

Originally posted by CF Skidrow:

Dont get why complane about something that what 0.1% agree with you about.

Ignorance is a wonderful thing.

[Humble]

Human are troll
Dragon could be view of Serpent, or snake, or dinosaur in somebody's mindset, but there is many word, thought it's questionable that Serpent are a snake, but Dragon and Dinosaur is difference, Dinosaur is land-based creatures while dragon is sky-based creatures, not necessary to had ability firebreathing, Serpent is crawl/ground-based creatures, not same way as Dinosaur are and do not had a wings.

Not all dragons are a wyverns and not all wyverns are dragon, wyvern could be called serpent if had no arm, leg, and wing, and some called that, other call wyverns a worms, depend on storytelling.

[Jenshae]

Dinosaur = dinosaur
Dragon = dragon
Serpent / snake = type of snake

... that is why we are speaking English, in order to say a word and have others know what we mean by it.

Calling a Wyvern a "dragon" dilutes the meaning and can then require clarification.

"A dragon is coming!"
"What weapons do we need? Does it have front legs? I could get close if it doesn't and stab it with a sword! If it does have four legs I would need a pole arm to - " burns to death in flames

[war2die4]

Originally posted by Jenshae:

burns to death in flames

God I hope so atleast then you can stop asking stupid ass questions

[IanL]

F. Zappa once said 'Stupidity is the basic building block of the Universe' and I'm starting to think he was right.