Basic Trope: Dinosaurs are being portrayed as either dragons or as having draconic traits.
- Straight: Bob encounters a dinosaur while time traveling. It has a horn and breathes fire and otherwise has dragon-like traits the real thing didn't have.
- Exaggerated:
- What is described to Bob in story as a dinosaur, has batlike wings, horns, breathes fire, kidnaps princesses and hoards treasures.
- The "dinosaur" Bob encounters is a dinosaur only in name. It is completely a dragon otherwise.
- Downplayed: Bob encounters a theropod dinosaur. It has a horn and vaguely resembles classic dragon art (think Ceratosaurus or Carnotaurus), but otherwise is depicted as a normal animal.
- Justified:
- The creature is actually a magical being that just resembles a dinosaur. Thus, it really is a dragon.
- Bob is in an Alternate Universe where dragons take the place of our universe's dinosaurs.
- The dragons that Bob encounters are revealed to have branched off from Saurischia millions of years ago, meaning that they are taxonomically dinosaurs.
- Inverted: Bob, while traveling time, encounters a T. rex in medieval Europe. Its not portrayed as different from the real animal, but its still called a dragon by the locals.
- Subverted: The creature, while appearing to be a dragon, is just a genetically modified dinosaur and not a dragon at all.
- Double Subverted: It can still breathe fire somehow.
- Parodied: Bob goes back in time and sees an obvious European styled dragon hunting dinosaurs. Everyone acts like it's just another dinosaur
- Zig Zagged: Bob encounters a dinosaur that looks like a dragon... but it is just genetically engineered... but then it breathes fire inexplicably... but then it turns out it had a hidden pyrotechnic device on it... but then it sprouts wings and flies off.
- Averted: Any dinosaur in the work is portrayed as a mundane animal.
- Enforced: "Dinosaurs are cool and all, but you know what's even cooler? Dragons! make the dinosaur a dragon too."
- Lampshaded: "I didn't know dinosaurs could breathe fire..."
- Invoked: A Mad Scientist takes a Tyrannosaurus rex and gives it a pyrosac to make it a fire-breathing dragon.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Someone confuses the dinosaur for a dragon, but Bob explains that it's not, and not really like one at all.
- Discussed:???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Dinosaurs Are Dragons
