Humans and Dragons *contains spoilers for Liveship and Tawny Man books*

[redchild]

He also says that throughout history, every culture except our modern world has invented complex rituals to deal with the killing of animals by humans; rituals of shredding off blame, asking forgiveness, honoring the animals' soul, abating the anger of the spirit guardian.
So maybe by having these mythical creatures perform similar acts of violence and murder against human beings, they also shouldered a part of the guild that humans carry?

I knew some cultures had those rituals but I didn't realise every (non-modern) culture did. Interesting! Hmmm that is also an interesting thought about the guilt of humans for killing animals being one possible motive behind the mythical half-animals that kill humans.

If you're interested in learning about the similarities of myths between cultures (he argues that all myths have more similarities than differences,) you can look up Joseph Campbell's book Myths to Live By, or you can watch the very good documentary series "The Power of Myth" with Campbell and Bill Moyers. He does mention the dissonance humans experience when it comes towards killing animals.

I was watching a TV show about the dissection of a crocodile tonight and the 'armour' on the back and tail are incredibly dragon like to me! I think the largest documented crocodile is over 6 metres long - that's pretty damn huge - and it is rumoured they used to be a lot bigger than that. I think something like a 10 metre long crocodile is definitely getting into dragon size territory!!!!
I cannot explain where the real world inspiration for the wings of a dragon could possibly come from though!

Maybe pterodactyls or bats? Possibly even birds as they are descendants of the dinosaurs. Just imagine a chicken with scales and big teeth. Eastern dragons have no wings but they fly as well. Why is it that all (mythical) dragons fly? There are no modern lizards I can think of right now that can fly (not just glide.)