I actually didn't, but I do see how you might have got that impression. I got my general view of dragons from Heroes of Might and Magic III, and they were among the strongest creatures there.

 

I've always wondered why Dragons love gold. Its not like they spend it or anything, it just sits and has no value other than being shiny.Especially since the Dragons in your scenario are sentient and Intelligent beings, surely they must have questioned their greed for gold no?

 

Do we humans question our greed for money? Or other material objects ? Not really. We see things, and we want even more. The richest men in the world still want more. I'd say it would be the same with these Dragons. Sure, they may not spend it, But they may just want it for the sake of having it. There doesn't have to be a complex reason behind it.

 

Liking gold as a terminal value doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective, but if dragons were created by something, then they might have been engineered to do so.

Edit, sniped: there are reasons behind everything. The most likely reason for dragons liking gold is that somebody made them, and as part of them made them like gold. Either that or they eat gold, which doesn't seem likely.

 

probably because everybody knows that the dragon with the biggest stash of gold has the biggest penis and gets all the dragon ladies.

 

Why can't dragons just do stupid shit sometimes?

Humans do all kinds of stupid shit, all the fucking time. If dragons and humans are at war it would be kind of unfair if dragons didn't do any stupid shit. That in mind, an obsession with a shiny but in practical terms largely useless metal seems as good a flaw as any. You could even make hoarding gold their religion, the bigger the dragons hoard in life the higher their place in the afterlife.

It's not like humans aren't obsessed with the stuff either. If you wanted you could even make gold magical and give it a obsession causing mental compulsion that dragons just so happen to be particularly weak to. You could even make it the humans secret weapon when they figure it out and gather all the gold they can get their hands on to set a final irresistible trap and the dragons chase ir to their ends like Gollum and the ring.

 

Things do stupid stuff for a reason. As long as that reason makes sense in the context of the story, that's fine. "Dragons like gold because they like gold" is not a good reason.

 

They could be like some birds and decorate their nest in order to attract potential mates. The more gold a dragon hoarded, the more enemies it had to slay and thus the stronger they are and the better the offspring.

 

Not every mutation preserved by evolution is necessarily selected for. It's perfectly possible for a trait to develop which is a side effect of some other development.

 

Liking gold - specifically gold - sounds like a complex adaptation to me. It seems extraordinarily unlikely to be a holdover.

 

Quite a few complex human traits are quite difficult to explain as being selected for in any direct sense. The ability to appreciate art, for example. A dragon's liking for gold seems to be somewhat analogous to that.

Though it would be amusing if gold was toxic to dragons and that they developed a hoarding tendency to prevent them from eating it.

An alternative fun explanation could be a dragon's life span being directly tied to the size of their hoard.

All that said, I don't think there's any mention in HP or side books that dragons hoard.

 

I actually have an original work of fantasy in which is more along the lines of Adam Smith of the Rings, where objects grant power based on their society's concept of value. Dragons, in this case, are stricken merchantilists complete with privateers. The more gold they have, the more metaphysical oomph they have to toss around

 

That's kind of what I was meaning.

They reasons don't have to be good to us for them to make a good story.
Honestly, wars usually aren't fought over good reasons.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for hopelessly bloody and ultimately pointless wars.


Edit: Added quote because I am slow and posts happened.

 

If I had to guess (which is a dangerous business in EvoPsyc, but forgive me), I would say that humans value art as an extension of it being a communication medium. Not all humans appreciate art, but all humans (with a few outliers) like communication. Dragons, on the other hand, seem to have a universal proclivity for hoarding gold - this implies that gold itself is the terminal value. Change that to "dragons value gold for x property" and the problem disappears.

 

It suddenly occurs to me that Harry throwing tons of gold at the Hungarian Horntail would be a hilarious way to distract it and thus win the task -- can you imagine Ron's reaction?

 

Fuck this, they're dragons.

Once upon a time, this really fucking awesome dragon was like "I FUCK BITCHES AND GET SPECIE", so other dragons were like "yeah, I want that too".

T3t, there's something to be said for everything you're saying. But I honestly don't want to read about any of that shit in my fiction.

 

I actually thought of this in OCD terms. We humans like to collect various things, stamps, bottle caps, dead butterflies. Imagine if you thought that you just HAVE to collect all the stamps in the world, just have to. That's how dragons, despite being intelligent, think about gold. It's gold and they collect it, all of it.

 

Either that or they feel to need to collect shinnies for their nests (because it helps them sleep or whatever) and they are smart enough to know the value of things and prideful enough that they know they would look ridiculous if it has no value. And since they are big and strong, they feel like they are entitled to take their bedding by force.

 

I was reading a story (not one I would recommend here) and it had Hermione make a passionate speech about Harry. Among the things she said was that Harry wasn't the strongest warrior, or the smartest Wizard, etc but regardless of that he tries to do the right thing anyway. When you don't have any of those standout good traits that make Harry really powerful but he wins anyway, we call it deus ex machina. However in Dresden Files we have a group of people who take that to to an artform, Knights of the Cross.

Not that I have anything against badass! Harry, but sometimes it feels very contrary to the original spirit of Harry Potter to have him be this extremely talented Wizard of immense prowess for (insert authorial Fiat here). I'm no writer but it seems to me like the idea has never been explored yet in any of the crossovers I've read yet. Either one of the swords somehow comes to the HP world, or once Harry gets into DF he somehow comes into possession of one of the swords. When I get to my next job I'll probably expand this post but it seems fitting to me that if Harry was going to wield any of the swords it would be Michael's. It is after all the sword of love.

 

I've seen it once in a crossover where he and Sirius end up in the Dresdenverse.