Dungeons and dragons movie fat dragon

Why is the Underdark deserted except for a chonky dragon? The answer involves nearly 25 years of lore. If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission.

Then, when these legacy elements are portrayed on screen in a mainstream film, such as Honor Among Thieves , they can stir up more negative press. So, if Honor Among Thieves 2 is made , the producers may want to avoid other classic monsters due to their problematic roots. While the film avoided treating Themberchaud poorly due to his size, his depiction had to be treated carefully. While this on its own would not be controversial, Drow elves typically have black, obsidian-like skin, and it's this, as well as portraying all "dark" elves as monolithically evil, that could cause problems in another Honor Among Thieves movie. Unfortunately, this risks misrepresenting or tokenizing another culture without understanding the cultural context around these mythological creatures. However, while they seem like relatively harmless monsters to battle on the big screen, future Honor Among Thieves movies may wish to avoid them due to their roots in Jewish folklore. In these stories, golems were sometimes created to help protect Jewish communities from antisemitic attacks, and given that antisemitism is still very prevalent in the world today, thoughtlessly using a golem could disrespect an already maligned community.

Dungeons and dragons movie fat dragon

He revealed Wizards of the Coast was worried about making Themberchaud "too chunky. Check out Latcham's full quote and interview below:. Jeremy Latcham: They sometimes gave us a hard time about making the dragon too chunky. Which we just kind of said, Trust us, it's gonna be fun. The fatter he is, the better he is. I promise. You're gonna like it. No one is out to fat shame Themberchaud. He is a ferocious guy who'd like to eat a lot of people, and other things too. He eats whatever comes his way, but it was a fun line to walk there. We're not making fun of Themberchaud. We're scared of him. He's not the object of derision in any capacity, which was kind of fun. The dragon is so fat that it has trouble flying, breathing fire, and moving, choosing to slide down the pile of bones from his victims to eat those intruding on his home.

So, if Honor Among Thieves 2 is madethe producers may want to avoid other classic monsters due to their problematic roots. In this early source, the dragon is given a fascinating role in the city of Gracklstugh. Explaining it would take forever, dungeons and dragons movie fat dragon, and be a spoiler, but suffice it to say they need to sneak a painting into a heavily protected wagon.

Honor Among Thieves perfectly threads the needle of giving fans what they want to see without confusing the many, many people who have never rolled a sided die in their life. Honor Among Thieves may have more comedy than it does action, and it has a lot of action. Lots of mocking, lots of laughing, lots of cursing when things inevitably go to hell—the movie understands and replicates the fun of RPGs. Xenk is an utterly humorless character who ends up being a laugh riot for his inability—maybe unwillingness—to say or understand anything but the plainest of speech. When she sports Doric as a fly, what kicks off is a five-minute action scene with Doric shape-changing into a variety of animals to escape the wizard and a castle full of Neverwinter soldiers. It rules. Any kind of meta-commentary would have taken viewers out of the world of the film, by necessity, and would have marred the experience.

Once they make it past the creatures that dwell in its subterranean catacombs like the intellect devourers, the giant red dragon is their final opponent. His appearance not only makes engaging him humorous given his physical limitations, but it also makes him an unpredictable foe whose maneuvers cannot be anticipated easily by the group. Themberchaud helped the gray dwarves light their forges and temper their steel, and he was taken care of by the Keepers of the Flame. By the popular 5th edition, and Escape the Underdark gamebook, his appearance was given far more girth than in previous iterations, thanks to artist Richard Whitters. In Honor Among Thieves , Themberchaud doesn't reside in the duergar city but in Dolblunde, another settlement in the Underdark controlled by gnomes, long since abandoned. Back home in Gracklstugh, the Keepers of the Flame fed Themberchaud unruly slaves, fattening him up with the express purpose of eventually killing him, since red dragons tend to veer towards tyranny in their older age. While Themberchaud can breathe fire, he eventually struggles with this ability as Edgin and the rest of the thieves evade him. Given that Themberchaud was force-fed to never leave the city, and the fact that in Escape the Underdark , he states, "And now I am far too large to ever leave. Even if I tore the entire place down around me, I could not claw my way to the surface from here," it's heavily implied that even if he wanted to, he couldn't be very physical at this stage of his life.

Dungeons and dragons movie fat dragon

Why is the Underdark deserted except for a chonky dragon? The answer involves nearly 25 years of lore. If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. If writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were willing to go all-in on a deep-cut character like Themberchaud, what else from the sourcebooks could I expect them to dig into?

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Check out Latcham's full quote and interview below:. Image: Paramount Pictures. Including monsters like Succubi and Incubi, as well as Lycanthropes, in future movies could perpetuate harmful ideas about sexuality and otherize people who are different, especially if their traits are treated as deserved or a curse. He's not the object of derision in any capacity, which was kind of fun. Next Slide. His eyes get huge, his mouth extends horribly, and his head starts sinking into his torso. List slides. This one was once the home of gnomes, who abandoned it centuries ago. If writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were willing to go all-in on a deep-cut character like Themberchaud, what else from the sourcebooks could I expect them to dig into? Jeremy Latcham: They sometimes gave us a hard time about making the dragon too chunky. Of course, Holga the Barbarian can take care of herself, and easily gives the orc a very painful, satisfying comeuppance. The Dungeon Master presents a problem, and the players have to figure out a way to solve it which inevitably gets wild, weird, and overelaborate. The duergar, also called gray dwarves, are like the drow of dwarves: Cold, grim, and work-obsessed, they have all the crafting skill of the more familiar fantasy dwarf archetype, with none of the boisterous fun.

Themberchaud , titled the Wyrmsmith of Gracklstugh , was an adult red dragon allied with the duergar of Gracklstugh in the Northdark of the Underdark in the 14 th and 15 th centuries DR , [4] [2] [7] [5] [6] [3] though he later relocated to the Hanging City of Dolblunde. As the Wyrmsmith, Themberchaud used his fire breath to heat the city's great forges and temper the famous steel blades manufactured by the gray dwarves of Gracklstugh. He was attended to by the Keepers of the Flame , a monastic order of psionic duergar priests.

Why It Couldn't Breathe Fire. This was unexpected. Next Slide. But since they are one of the only examples, using a Rakshasa in a movie could constitute appropriation, especially if the film did not include additional context and research around the setting the demon appears in. During the movie, the heroes do comment that Themberchaud seems to have found a new lair, suggesting that his arrival in Dolblunde is recent. And the movie does appear to take place a number of years after the Rage of Demons storyline. It was funny, it was exciting, it was unique, and it sums up the movie extremely well. Which we just kind of said, Trust us, it's gonna be fun. Xenk is an utterly humorless character who ends up being a laugh riot for his inability—maybe unwillingness—to say or understand anything but the plainest of speech. Start Slideshow. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. This is not the expectation when a deadly fire-breathing dragon is described, which works in the film's favor.