History Literature / DragonRider

** In “A Griffin’s Feather”, Twigleg is convinced that everyone (even a crab scuttling past him on the beach!) regards him as a freak because he is an ArtificialHuman who had been born in a glass jar. In fact, nobody except Twigleg himself even thinks about this, let alone thinks it matters. When the other characters first encounter Twigleg in ''Dragonrider'', Barnabas suggests that Sorrel is prejudiced against him because he is a homunculus, but in fact she is just being as wary as she would be of anyone else who might be an enemy – [[JerkassHasAPoint and with good reason]].

* AcePilot: Lola Graytail, who even introduces herself as such.

** Hothbrodd explains that, contrary to human prejudice, fjord trolls are highly intelligent, but adds that mountain trolls are just as stupid as everyone says. (We don’t meet any mountain trolls, so don’t know whether this is true or just [[FantasticRacism Hothbrodd’s prejudice]].) Weirdly, the English translation has Hothbrodd say that fjord trolls (like himself) are stupid.
* AntiquatedLinguistics: In the original German, non-human characters never call anyone Sie (the usual polite form of ‘you’), preferring to address even a superior with either the familiar ‘du’ or the archaic, ultra-deferential ‘Ihr’. This is the plural of ‘du’, and, used to address a single person, is the second-person equivalent of a king referring to himself as ‘We’, and is never used in modern German outside of fiction. However, bearing in mind that many fantastic beings are either hundreds of years old or have not had much contact with humans since the Middle Ages, it is understandable that their speech patterns are different from ours. Generally, tyrants like Nettlebrand and Kraa expect to be addressed as ‘Ihr’, while more easy-going leaders like Shrii prefer ‘du’. However, fantastic beings who have previously served a despot may feel more comfortable addressing anyone they see as an authority figure as ‘Ihr’. Twigleg still calls Ben ‘Ihr’ even when they have been close friends for several years, and in spite of the fact that he is Ben’s teacher.

* ArtificialHuman: Twigleg.

* CharacterDevelopment: At first, Twigleg just seems to be a pathetic YesMan tending towards EvilMinion. As he gets further away from Nettlebrand, he shows himself to have HiddenDepths, both in having the ability to love and the courage to rebel against Nettlebrand, and in turning out to be be a self-educated RenaissanceMan who, for example, had taught himself to read Urdu because he was investigating all the world religions and needed to be able to read Hindu sacred texts. In ''A Griffin's Feather'', he has had time to catch up with the modern world, and turned out to be brilliant with computers - though, as he prefers the old-fashioned ways, he still insists on submitting handwritten reports in 17th-century Gothic calligraphy that the other characters can barely read.
* ChekhovsGun: Nettlebrand's missing scales.
* ChekhovsSkill: Sorrel's marksmanship and proficiency with spitting, coupled with the properties of Firedrake's breath, come in handy near the end of the book.
** Tattoo, one of the dragons who had been restored from being TakenForGranite, flames a boatload of poachers early in ‘’The Griffin’s Feather. It sinks immediately, without trace – no sign of burning wreckage. Later on, [[spoiler: Tattoo’s fire twice turns griffins to stone – but it isn’t until the second griffin that we actually see this happen]].
* CowardlySidekick and RecklessSidekick: Twigleg alternates between these. Most of the time he is extremely timid and terrified of most things (though he does his best to face up to them anyway). However, in an OutOfCharacterMoment, such as in ''Dragonrider'' when he finally gets the chance to take revenge on Nettlebrand, or in ''A Griffin's Feather'' where he is frantic with worry about Ben, he can be dangerously reckless, and wind up in a situation where he needs to be rescued. Then again, getting captured and being in mortal peril also happens to him when he hadn't wanted to accept the dangerous task in the first place, but was just going through with it because it needed doing.
* CreatingLife: The MadScientist who created Nettlebrand was adept at this, although his real goal in life was to make gold.
** Twigleg says that [[spoiler: the MadScientist actually COULDN'T create life, but instead "borrowed" a life from another creature... in Nettlebrand's case, a toad, in Twigleg's probably a spider, wood louse, or other small insect.]]

* CunningLinguist: Twigleg speaks hundreds of languages – not only numerous human languages, but also Elven and many bird languages, including at least a dozen dialects of Parrot. However, as most of his knowledge of human languages had come from studying books in the alchemist’s castle, it’s about four hundred years out of date – and possibly his pronunciation would have sounded a bit odd even back then.
* {{Cyborg}}: Nettlebrand was made from a living creature, but, unlike the other enchanted creatures made by the alchemist, is partly metallic; he is covered with golden armour, and keeps his heart locked in a metal box inside his body. This explains why, while dragonfire simply turns the CreepyRavens back into [[spoiler: crayfish]], Nettlebrand becomes [[spoiler: a mass of melted armour, out of which a toad eventually hops]].
* DeadpanSnarker: Sorrel, when she isn't complaining about her hunger.

* {{Doorstopper}}
* TheDragAlong: In ''Dragonrider'', Sorrel is this to Firedrake, mixed with SourSupporter. In ''A Griffin's Feather'', Twigleg is this to Ben and Barnabas (about going on a quest to search for griffins) and Sorrel is this to Firedrake (about going to rescue Ben).

** Most griffins regard dragons as their natural enemies, and despise all other creatures, especially horses – which makes things awkward when Barnabas needs the griffins’ help to hand-rear a clutch of orphaned {{Pegasus}} eggs. They can do deals with humans, because humans are as mercenary and ruthless as griffins.

** In “A Griffin’s Feather”, Twigleg is convinced that everyone (even a crab scuttling past him on the beach!) regards him as a freak because he is an ArtificialHuman who had been born in a glass jar. In fact, nobody except Twigleg himself even thinks about this, let alone thinks it matters. When the other characters first encounter Twigleg in “Dragonrider”, Barnabas suggests that Sorrel is prejudiced against him because he is a homunculus, but in fact she is just being as wary as she would be of anyone else who might be an enemy – [[JerkassHasAPoint and with good reason]].
** Both Twigleg and Sorrel are annoyed that most people don’t even recognise what they are – after all, homunculi aren’t exactly well-known compared to dragons or griffins, and Sorrel is a 'kobold' , a word so unfamiliar in English that the translator refers to her as a [[HouseFey brownie]] instead (mainly for the sake of a truly groanworthy pun towards the end of the first book), though a more obvious translation of ‘kobold’ might be [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblin]]. Generally, as Sorrel is furry, people assume that she is some kind of monkey or even a giant squirrel (though in the illustrations her face looks more cat- or lemur-like than anything else), and in ''A Griffin’s Feather'' Twigleg is repeatedly either asked what he is (mainly by creatures wondering whether he is edible) or referred to as a jenglot, which baffles him as he doesn’t recognise the word. (As the author comments, he might have been flattered if he knew that jenglots are vampire zombie dwarfs in Indonesian mythology, and very scary.)
* FatalFlaw: Nettlebrand's {{Pride}}.

* FeatheredFiend: The Giant Roc.
* FiveTokenBand: A dragon, a brownie, a TokenHuman, a homunculus, and a rat, in the first book. ''The Griffin’s Feather’’ adds a troll to this team.

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Averted – at least where fur, feathers or plumage of gold are concerned:
** Nettlebrand is evil and vain of his golden scales, while the real dragons have silver scales and much kindlier natures.
** Most of the older griffins in “The Griffin’s Feather” have sand-yellow plumage and fur, and are obsessed with hoarding golden treasure. A few have bright golden feathers, which they earn by doing heroic deeds – which, with inverted griffin morality, probably means deeds of extreme violence. By contrast, the young griffin Shrii has green feathers, and an appropriately green commitment to protecting animals from poachers.
** Sorrel probably has yellow fur, given that her name in the original German, Schwefelfell, means ‘Sulphur-Fur’. She is (basically) a good character, but far from a stereotypical sweet-natured heroine – while Ben, who has black hair, is endlessly forgiving, caring and sympathetic.
* [[spoiler: HappilyAdopted]]: Ben's eventual fate [[spoiler: adopted by the Greenblooms]], as shown by the ending. Twigleg joins him in this.
* HeroicBSOD: In ‘’The Griffin’s Feather’’, Twigleg repeatedly withdraws into a shell of intense depression, a combination of grief over the murder of his brothers 350 years earlier, and despair at the probability that he is the LastOfHisKind. Usually he recovers (for the time being) as soon as Ben shows him any affection, since his friendship with Ben is by far the most important relationship in his life. When Ben disappears, apparently captured by the servants of the griffins, Twigleg is briefly hysterical with grief, but then, impressively, manages to pull himself together, checking his pulse to establish that he is still alive, and reasoning that, as he will suffer DeathByDespair when Ben dies, the fact that he is still alive proves that Ben must be alive too, and that he needs to go and rescue him.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Nettlebrand's creator, devoured by his own creation]]. And Nettlebrand's obsession with his scales, as well as his [[KickTheDog abusing his servants]] also turns around to hit him where the sun don't shine.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: played with. In “Dragonrider” the verdict on humans seems similar to human stereotypes about dragons: Eastern human are beneficent, and Western humans are mostly ruthless, dangerous monsters, but there are some friendly ones. In “The Griffin’s Feather”, whether humans are monsters doesn’t have anything to do with race; Winston (Indonesian) is clearly a good guy, but the poachers, who come from a range of ethnicities and have become poachers for different reasons, from the ruthless big-game hunters to those who are simply trying to survive, are treated collectively as villains.
* InterchangeableAsianCultures: Although the village that Firedrake and his passengers reach on the far side of the Arabian Sea is expressly stated to be in Pakistan, and the monastery further up the Indus apparently is too, the culture of both seems to be influenced more by Hindu or Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation, and Chinese traditions of beneficent dragons, than Islam – despite the fact that Pakistan is predominantly Muslim and often intolerant of minority religions. Perhaps justified in that the village and the monastery had been regularly visited by dragons until 150 years ago, and that the monastery is high up in the mountains and probably far more concerned with its own traditions than with what country it is nominally part of and what the government says about religion.
* LastOfHisKind: Many of the characters in “The Griffin’s Feather” face this, which isn’t surprising given that the setting is a sanctuary for endangered mythological creatures. Twigleg is almost certainly this (though he is obsessed with searching the internet for any videos suggesting that there might be other homunculi); Anemos will be if his foals don’t hatch out; and a kraken whom Firedrake and Sorrel meet in Indonesia is thrilled to hear that Ben and Barnabas know another kraken and would be willing to introduce them.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Lola is a daredevil ActionGirl whose idea of a fun day is taunting hungry monsters while darting just out of reach of their fangs. Twigleg, by contrast, is timid, sensitive (both in the sense of being empathetic to other people’s moods, especially Ben’s, and in the sense of getting upset easily) and much more at home with books and computers than with having hair-raising adventures. However, he and Lola often have to work together (as he is the only other person small enough to fit into Lola’s miniature aeroplane) and they soon become close friends. Lola is highly protective of Twigleg, and willing to rescue him from any danger (real or perceived) from Nettlebrand to a curious monkey. In “The Griffin’s Feather”, after Twigleg had narrowly escaped being eaten by a griffin while Lola was trapped and unable to come to help him, Lola complains that she was disappointed to have missed all the fun. This is almost certainly true, but is also Lola’s way of consoling Twigleg, trying to help him feel that what he has been through wasn’t all that terrible.
* MeaningfulName: Both ‘Firedrake’ in English and ‘Lung’ (Firedrake’s name in the original) mean ‘dragon’, but Lung is the Chinese word for dragon, hinting at his oriental origins.
** Greenbloom, or Wiesengrund (Barnabas’s surname in the original, literally ‘meadow-ground’) suggest a gentle, natural approach to life, contrasted with his colleague Schwertling (‘little sword’). His first name means ‘Son of Encouragement’. When Anemos considers naming one of his foals after Barnabas, Barnabas laughs it off, but arguably ‘Son of Encouragement’ would be a good name for the young of an endangered species which has survived against all the odds.
** ‘Twigleg’ gives a clear picture of the character’s fragile, spindly build, but his name in the original, Fliegenbein (‘fly-leg’), goes further, hinting at his origins (since he was created from some kind of insect).
* MeetTheNewBoss: Kraa in “The Griffin’s Feather’’ is very much the same style of villain as Nettlebrand in “Dragonrider’’: vain, pitiless, tyrannical and paranoid, and growing old and lazy. There’s one major difference: while Nettlebrand was a synthetic monster created to eat dragons, Kraa is one of the few surviving members of a critically endangered species, and Barnabas can’t help feeling that to let Kraa die would be absolutely tragic. [[spoiler: But it happens anyway.]]

* OurHomunculiAreDifferent: Twigleg is a homunculus created by an alchemist. [[spoiler: Turns out the alchemist couldn't actually create life - only "borrow" it from other creatures. Thus, Twigleg was probably created from a spider or a beetle.]]
* OurGryphonsAreDifferent And Shrii is more different than most.
* {{Pegasus}} Pegasi are intelligent and can [[TalkingAnimal talk]]. They are descended from the original Pegasus who sprung from the blood of a gorgon, and are now a critically endangered species, with an unusual life-cycle. They are oviparous, laying eggs which are initially no bigger than a hen’s egg, which the mother pegasus has to lick to enable the eggs to grow (ultimately to ostrich-size), so that the foals within them can develop up to the point of hatching (when they are the size of a hen).

* RedBaron: Nettlebrand is known as "The Golden One."

* SuperPersistentPredator: Nettlebrand ''is'' this trope.

* TokenAdult To some extent Twigleg could be seen as this in the first book – and Barnabas avoids being it by only keeping out of the way of Ben and his friends for most of the story. In ''A Griffin’s Feather'', now that Ben and Guinevere are teenagers and are treated as equal members of the team at Mimameiđr, distinctions between generations don’t seem to apply. Indeed, even though Twigleg is now Ben and Guinevere’s teacher, he is so obviously vulnerable (both physically and emotionally) that Ben is almost a ParentalSubstitute for Twigleg rather than the other way round. (Twigleg reflects ruefully at one point that the abusive alchemist who created him was the nearest thing he had ever had to a father.)

* ThemeNaming: In the German version, Twigleg's and all of his brothers' known names are taken from various bugs. Aside from Fliegenbein ('fly's leg'), ''Griffin's Feather'' revealed: Spinnerich ('Spinne' = 'spider'), Brummer (iterally 'buzzer', refers to large, loud insects, usually flys or beetles), Libello ('Libelle' = 'dragonfly'), Wasserläufer ('water strider'), Käferling ('Käfer' = 'beetle', 'bug'), Hummel ('bumble bee'), and Floh (literally 'flea', but is actually a real given name, too)
** This also ties into the MeaningfulName trope, as according to Twigleg, they were likely all created from bugs.
* TheMole: Twigleg, although this isn't revealed (to the other characters, at least) for a good portion of the book. And after his relatively early HeelFaceTurn/MookFaceTurn, Gravelbeard takes his place.
* TookALevelInKindness: In ''Dragonrider'', Twigleg starts off entirely self-centred, simply focused on trying to survive by not offending Nettlebrand. In time, he comes to care about Ben, but not, at first, about anyone else (while he is horrified when he realises that Nettlebrand is planning to eat Ben as well as Firedrake and Sorrel, he doesn't seem worried about having put Barnabas in danger, despite the fact that Barnabas had been friendly and welcoming to him). By ''A Griffin's Feather'', he has become much more caring and empathetic, presumably as a result of Ben's influence on him, to the point where he is able to persuade Me-Rah to join them precisely because he knows how frightened and miserable she feels (and in spite of the fact that he had wished they wouldn't be able to find a guide, so that they could just go home). The flip-side of this is that he now believes that it is wickedly [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish]] to think about his own problems at all, and so [[AllOrNothing feels guilty about ever thinking about himself]].
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Sorrel really, really loves mushrooms. In “Dragonrider” she is willing to eat other things, from roots and leaves to biscuits and chickpea soup (pretty much anything vegetarian, which is odd considering her catlike appearance). By “The Griffin’s Feather”, her love of mushrooms is becoming something of an obsession – probably because she is frustrated that her favourite varieties don’t grow in the Himalayas.
* TranslatorMicrobes: Fantastic beings can [[AnimalTalk communicate effortlessly with each other]] and also with any human – even if the humans are from different countries and cannot understand each other. The presence of a fantastic being also sometimes enables humans to understand what [[TalkingAnimal animals are saying]], though this doesn’t always work the same way: for example, in “The Griffin’s Feather”, Winston realises that he can understand what his tarsier friend Berulu is saying, but nobody else seems to be able to hear Berulu. The magic only seems to work for fantastic beings that have evolved naturally – Twigleg doesn’t have these abilities, but has just [[CunningLinguist studied a phenomenal number of languages]]. Also, the language abilities of [[TheFairFolk elves and fairies]] are zig-zagged – the ones which try to waylay Firedrake and his passengers in Arabia can talk to humans (even if they do this only to confuse them), but in the last chapter, Twigleg grumbles about Ben and Guinever wanting him to translate what the fairies in the garden are saying even though they just talk nonsense. Probably TheFairFolk just do whichever they think will be more annoying.

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Intentionally invoked, as [[spoiler: Lola Graytail fakes the mapping information to her uncle, so nobody will find the Rim of Heaven]].
* YouDirtyRat: Averted – though it is made clear that Lola and her family are very unusual rats, and almost certainly have some magical creatures in their ancestry. Twigleg reflects that in the past, he had always experienced rats as dangerous predators, and would never have expected to be friends with one before he met Lola. Before he met Ben, he probably felt much the same way about humans, too.

A series by German author Creator/CorneliaFunke, in which the first book follows a dragon, a Brownie, and an unassuming human orphan (and eventually a few more partners) as they travel from one end of the earth to the other searching for the Rim of Heaven - the only true sanctuary left for the dragons, now that humans are building over all the others. On the way, they'll encounter an assortment of magical creatures both good and bad and travel through exotic locations, all while trying to keep themselves out of reach of a very persistent beast with a hunger for dragon flesh.

The sequel, ''The Griffin's Feather'' picks up the story two years later. The dragons and the brownies are happily settled in the Himalayas, while Ben and his adoptive family are now living in Norway and working at a sanctuary for endangered magical creatures. Life hasn't worked out as smoothly as intended for anyone, particularly Ben, who dearly loves his new family, but misses his dragon friend Firedrake. But everyone has new difficulties to deal with, when the problems of hand-rearing Pegasus foals send Ben and his father across the world in search of griffins.

A third book, ''The Aurelia Curse'', is expected to be on released October 7, 2021.