Wait, you think the dragon is... death itself? Is that actually what it's supposed to be? I supposed that it was something more like climate change due to hyd

Wait, you think the dragon is... death itself? Is that actually what it's supposed to be? I supposed that it was something more like climate change due to hydrocarbon fuels or something of that nature. The story clearly depicts a world where the dragon did not exist at one point, but it then showed up and society adapted to it. That never happened with death. I also figured that a large part of the story was unrealistic in the way society was presented. It depicts a society which is entirely cowed in its approach to the dragon... and yet is capable of a wholesale overturning of literally generations of worldview on a dime. Humanity doesn't tend to work like that. A more realistic take would have had the dragonologists fed face-first into the dragons maw so that society could avoid facing the notion that not only had they been seeing the world the wrong way their entire lives, but so had their ancestors, and it had cost them countless loved ones while they simply quietly accepted it. Those who are invested in irrationality generally react to damage caused by the irrationality with doubling down, not backing off. Especially with a whole room full of people lamenting all the people lost to the dragon, the last idea that is going to gain widespread popularity is "all those deaths were for nothing."