Line #6 Fridge/Dinotopia


1	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
2	* In ''Journey to Chandara'', James Gurney states that Dinotopia no longer appears on modern maps. The manner in which he says so [[FridgeHorror implies that the island no longer exists]], except that he says that ''Dinotopia'' no longer appears on modern maps. He never states that it doesn't appear ''under another name''; it could have been renamed over the years to keep it hidden; someone in modern day -- like in Jurassic Park, for example -- would go right in there at the mention of "dinosaur" and a "Utopia" to retrieve or enslave a dinosaur, so it may have just been renamed for its own safety.
3
4	[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
5	* All the dinosaurs are referred to by the names given to them by the mainstream scientific community (despite the island being completely isolated from that community)... including the ones that haven't yet been discovered and named at the time the books are set in.
6	** Not the only terms either; words such as "taxi" and "helium" didn't exist yet either.
7	** The Dinotopians are probably using whatever words the specific species of animals are using for themselves, so we could probably consider this a TranslationConvention.
8	*** The fact that the Latin translation of ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' is a minor plot point in ''The World Beneath'' rules out TranslationConvention. Denison also expresses fear of them -- in 1862, four decades before the species was named.
9	*** It gets even more confusing in the prequel novel ''First Flight.'' In it, we're introduced to "Northies", or ''Quetzalcoatlus northrop''. This species was named after Jack Northrop, meaning that the Dinotopians somehow know the name of an animal named after ''a person who wasn't even born yet!''
10	* Dinotopians use leathers, skins, furs, and [[ImaHumanitarian other]] [[HumanResources animal products]] were seen in use by the Dinotopians. In Journey to Chandara it's explained when Arthur Dennison is given a new journal bound in the skin of an IntellectualAnimal "whose dying wish was to donate his body to science".
11	** There must be a larger variety of things that the [[TalkingAnimal dinosaurs]] can donate their bodies to: [[ForScience Science]], one of several causes that [[HumanResources need the materials for building]], and [[ImaHumanitarian Culinary]]. Humans can only donate their bodies [[ForScience for scientific uses]].
12	* The dinosaurs are depicted as having found some path to peace, to the point that even with the issue of CarnivoreConfusion addressed, the carnivores and herbivores can get along, but this doesn't explain how the dinosaurs found this path and why they chose it. Though CarnivoreConfusion is addressed, this story relies heavily on the HerbivoresAreFriendly trope. The carnivores are said to be "hungry by nature and have no stomach for civilization" so it doesn't make sense that they would agree this path. Second, herbivores themselves can be nasty (as discussed on the trope page for HerbivoresAreFriendly) so it doesn't explain how they all get along, especially when they would go through food very quickly and how they resolve disagreements such as a LoveTriangle or human traits such as greed, pride, envy and deceit. Third, this society is dangerously vulnerable to a military invasion force (the closest Dinotopia has to an army are the non-weapon wielding Skybax and the natural weapons of the dinosaurs, assuming [[GodzillaThreshold they don't call in help from the carnivores]]...), and they'd better pray to God that if an army manages to arrive that they doesn't have weapons (I don't think even the Posedian robots had weapons on them).

Context Fridge / Dinotopia