Was there a Dragon in Changes?

[Mr. Death]

The Ley lines come from literal creatures trapped in Dr... proof body heat can create a ley line.

We know that for a fact?

Harry doesn't say anything about the old chapel and circle of tree's in Marcone's yard being the same mixture of Christianity and Celtic religion that Arthur ruled his throne with. Apparently you have to find the hints and interpret them yourself? Go figure right?

I honestly don't know what you're talking about.

Vadd doesn't generally offer such info without a price.. How much did he even really offer on DR?

Considering by the time he was talking to Harry, Harry had already taken DR, and the subject they were talking about had nothing to do with DR, why on Earth would he say anything about DR?

By contrast, he was freely giving Harry information about Chichen Itza, the kinds of things he was likely to find and have to combat at Chichen Itza, and he himself was going to be at Chichen Itza.

Kiiiiiiiiiinda seems like that'd be the time to mention a Dragon at Chichen Itza.

Sleeping dragon who only comes out for purpose awakens and rages because a ley line was accessed? It's his body heat, not pulling out his soul and drinking it down to fuel your spell,

It's his power. Why would a creature who leaves a death curse on its hoard such that nobody will even dare touch it be blase about someone literally leeching his power directly from the source?

"Nobody can have my baubles, not even over my dead body! I curse it with my last breath forever!"

"Eeeh, sure, go ahead, random wizard, just drain my energy to attack my own territory, NBD."

Do those sentences really sound like they'd come from the same type of creature?

Also Harry knows what the Ley lines on DR come from, didn't stop him in CD, friends did. Looking at or feeling or even using a power doesn't give you a direct link with it's source, a hint at it certainly.

DR is largely irrelevant. How on earth would using power from something not link you to its source? Considering Harry keeps being told not to use the power at DR for exactly that reason?

Harry describes a power that almost has a kind of awareness because it's old. That doesn't mean Dragon. If anything, a Dragon's power would be more volatile and obvious that it has an actual will.

[jonas]

We know that for a fact?

Yes, Harry intuits it, DR itself doesn't argue with it, GK an Vadderrung agree with it's dark nature. The ley lines aren't the island/prison. Harry uses power from that everytime he's on DR via subsidizing it, He's directly linked to that, not the ley lines power.

I honestly don't know what you're talking about.

Exactly, and neither of us saw what the OP saw. But both things are there and unnoticed by Harry himself.

Considering by the time he was talking to Harry, Harry had already taken DR, and the subject they were talking about had nothing to do with DR, why on Earth would he say anything about DR?

The whole key of CD's plot was the island dude He didn't exactly offer up extra info, and he was paid there...

By contrast, he was freely giving Harry information about Chichen Itza, the kinds of things he was likely to find and have to combat at Chichen Itza, and he himself was going to be at Chichen Itza.

Kiiiiiiiiiinda seems like that'd be the time to mention a Dragon at Chichen Itza.

Because the sleeping dragon who source a ley line is important because? Did it come into play directly? Did it effect victory?
Here's an idea Kulkan supposedly fed upon/replaced the original right? Maybe he sacrificed Quetzalcoatl on his source of power to create Chicken Pizza in the first placed, meaning the energy literally came from a Dragon that's now not a Dragon, but still has the memetic value of a dragon?

It's his power. Why would a creature who leaves a death curse on its hoard such that nobody will even dare touch it be blase about someone literally leeching his power directly from the source?

See above, also, it's his aura, Aura's bleed off and spread out, get channeled into the magic flows of the world... Why is the dragon suddenly finding reasons to awaken when he's probably been there from before they arrived?

"Nobody can have my baubles, not even over my dead body! I curse it with my last breath forever!"

"Eeeh, sure, go ahead, random wizard, just drain my energy to attack my own territory, NBD."

Do those sentences really sound like they'd come from the same type of creature?
DR is largely irrelevant. How on earth would using power from something not link you to its source? Considering Harry keeps being told not to use the power at DR for exactly that reason?

These questions are illrevent, and it's cause the power would change him, and effectively be a boatload of tainted magic. Why do you think Merlin collected those things?

Harry describes a power that almost has a kind of awareness because it's old. That doesn't mean Dragon. If anything, a Dragon's power would be more volatile and obvious that it has an actual will.

See above... also, you can't unmake what's there by supplying an opinion. DR again, has no volatile will to it's ley lines, which isn't illrelevent, as it's a direct parallel with nothing which you describe.

[Mr. Death]

There's nothing in the passage that indicates Dragon. There's nobody -- not even the person who gives a huge infodump about the whole nature of the place and everything Harry's going to face there -- that ever mentions a Dragon.

The idea that a huge apocalyptic battle and a spell like that could go off right over a Dragon's head without it noticing makes no sense to me. That there could be a Dragon there and Vadderung wouldn't even bother to mention the possibility makes no sense to me.

The idea that a Dragon would let something else claim its territory as theirs doesn't fit with what we know of Dragons, especially not one that supposedly supplies enough bleed off power to create its own leyline. They hoard things, and jealously guard them. They're so jealous in their guarding that they'll use their death curses to make sure nobody steals what's theirs even after they're long dead. That completely goes against the idea that one would let another supernatural nation just squat on its home and claim it as their ancient seat of power.

It's not that I'm trying to "unmake what's there." It's that there's nothing there.

[Mr. Death]

These were the parts that jumped out at me:

"...and the one beneath us was an enormous current of raw earth magic...I was immediately overwhelmed with a rush of images and alien sensations, contacting a power so intense and coherent that it nearly had its own awareness.  In a single moment, I saw the ponderous dance of continents clashing against one another to form mountains, felt the slow sleepiness of the earth, its dreaming shivers felt as disasters by the ephemeral things that lived upon it's skin...gold and silver flowing hot in rivers...  I was a frail wisp of mortality beside that energy that could, quite literally, have moved mountains, leveled cities, shifted the course of rivers, and stirred oceans in their beds."   

Just sounded very much like a Dragon's job description to me.   Or I could have fallen for another of Master Jim's red herrings LOL 

I think you were bolding the wrong parts.

For a start, Harry identifies it as "raw earth magic." He's not speculating there -- he's stating what it is. It's not a mysterious source, he recognizes it as earth magic.

He says it's so old it nearly has awareness. Not that it's from something that has actual awareness.

What he's describing is time. Like an earth leyline's "memory" of things condensed. He's not saying it has the raw power and will to reshape things at whim. He's more likely saying the energy is built up from billions of years of the motion of the earth.

[jonas]

And Hades voice is like tectonic plates and his handshake like a mountain. imagery, pure imagery.

[Mr. Death]

Harry isn't using a simile. He outright says it's a leyline of raw earth magic and is describing the images he gets from that. He's not saying it's "like" those things, he's saying it is those things.

[raidem]

I agree with Mr. Death in that it isn't a dragon.  I believe it's a source of great power and has its own potential genus loci, but its status in my mind would be asleep.
That said, I still believe a dragon's curse played out in chichen itza that was related to the reds pilfering a Dragon's horde and/or using its location to protect and maintain their gear.
I like to think that the red court, arrogant in their power, crossed the wrong dead Dragon, and they were struck by a long term, insidious, death curse that was aimed at there extermination.

[jonas]

Yea, he's interpreting things in both cases, obviously he's getting the sensations interpreted from how he feels it

but its status in my mind would be asleep.

Interesting, almost like a hibernating Dragon? Or a sleeper?

Then there are the dragons that slumber for centuries,
 usually in the depths of some mountain, to awaken at a time
 of world cataclysm to either wreak havoc or rescue the
 world, depending on the story.

Cthulhu's appearance is described as looking like an octopus, a dragon, and a caricature of human form.

Orpheus played a vital role during the expedition because, playing his music, he put to sleep the "sleepless dragon" that was guarding the Golden Fleece

And his story his heavily tied up with hades and Persephone so he's a likely 'real' person. as well as countess others. hence the saying about tickling a sleeping dragon, kinda known for it, like bears.

[Mr. Death]

He's not describing an interpretation.

He's describing directly the images that were in his mind. Those are his words: "I was immediately overwhelmed with a rush of images" "I saw the ponderous dance ..."

Images that he saw. Not interpretations of sensations, but images he saw.

He describes it explicitly as "raw earth magic." If there was a power there he couldn't attribute or describe, he would have said that, but he didn't. He said it was magic that he positively recognized and identified.

When he faces off with Vadderung and is held down by his will, Harry is able to confidently say it's not earth magic holding him down. So, clearly, Harry knows what earth magic is and feels like.

You're attributing ambiguity to the passage when there really isn't any. He's not guessing. He's not speculating. He's saying, "This is what it is. This is what I saw."

[jonas]

Yep, this is what I saw. His perspective as he clearly see's the Outer Gates, I mean, that's not an interpretation.... oh, wait, and he straight up experienced that. An there's nothing in the dark necro lines that allude to the fact they are Body heat from dark gods and nameless beasts. Nobody, even the wardens clearly familiar with the lines themselves seem to know anything about it.
Your trying to enforce your same stubborn I don't wanna see anything outside of my perspective opinion on everything, on everyone else. Least the perspective I wish to enforce is to simply be open freakin minded about stuff instead of arguing to be right all the time. Especially a negative affirmation.
*sigh* and this is why nobody see's the supernatural in the DF, they plain don't wanna.

[Mr. Death]

You keep bringing in totally unrelated things.

What does the Outer Gates have to do with anything?

Harry not sensing the presence of the dark gods at DR is irrelevant, because he's never drawn power from those ley lines. You're comparing two different experiences. We've seen no other Wardens of DR, so your assertion that "even the wardens clearly familiar with the lines" don't know anything means nothing, because we haven't seen any Wardens of DR before Harry.

I'm not trying to "enforce" anything. I'm just pointing out that what isn't there isn't there.

What does there being a dragon there do for the setting, the book, or the conflict in that book?

Nobody sees it. Nobody hears it. It doesn't make itself known. It has zero presence in the huge, climactic, apocalyptic battle happening supposedly right over its head. Nobody who says anything about the site even remotely hints at the possibility of a Dragon. The one supposed "contribution" in the ley line is something that could be (and is) easily and acceptably explained by something else.

In short, if you have a Dragon that has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the one event that happens in the place, there's no point in there being a Dragon there at all.

Just because I don't buy into all of the dart-board-word-association theories on the boards doesn't mean I'm trying to "enforce" anything. The OP posed a question -- he wondered if there was a Dragon there. I say no, and I'm well within my rights to explain my reasoning.

[raidem]

Again, I agree with Mr. Death.  There is an absence of Dragon references in the excerpt that was included.  I will now include what I say are real dragon references that support my idea that the Red Court placed their warehouse at the site of a Dragon hoard.

We went deeper into the facility. The caves ran very deep back into the stone, and we’d gone down maybe a hundred yards after moving about four hundred yards forward on a spiraling ramp. The air grew colder, to the ambient underground average.
More than that, though, it gained a definite spiritual chill. Malevolent energy hovered around us, slow and thick like half- frozen honey. There was a gloating, miserly quality to it, bringing to my mind images of old Smaug lying in covetous slumber upon his bed of treasure. That, then, was the reason the Red Court had hidden its dark treasures here. Ambient energy like this wasn’t directly dangerous to anyone—but with only the mildest of efforts it would protect and preserve the magical implements jealously against the passing of time.

There is no denying that excerpt screams Dragon. 
I also agree with Jonas as I too believe there is a dormant power at Chichen Itza, the disagreement is of what kind. 

[Mr. Death]

Considering Harry literally names one, yeah, I'll say there's a lot more suggesting there was or had been a dragon there than at Chichen Itza.

[raidem]

It, in addition to the WOJ about Dragon death curses, is why I believe the Red Court got tripped up on one.  They desecrated/appropriated in some way a site of a hoard of a dead Dragon.

1) What ever happened to Siriothrax's hoard? Did any of the magical powerups in the series we've seen so far originate there?
1) Heh, it's still right where it was. NO ONE wants to pick up anything from a Dragon's hoard. Talk about Death Curses...

[jonas]

It supplants a nice connection on where ley lines all come from and why they exist. It's actually a highly logical idea the 'winged serpent' became part of such a power base that it could power 12 lesser gods. Sorry your perspective is too limiting to see anything not there directly. Must suck for you trying to play clue. Out of your element, no?

You keep bringing in totally unrelated things.

What does the Outer Gates have to do with anything?

Because he directly 'witnessed' that with his own senses and yet according to Woj it was ALL interpreted, which means what he 'felt' over imagined has no relevance here, the two are one and the same. He also felt things in FM, difference being he knew it was a hallucination then.

Again, I agree with Mr. Death.

Once is generally enough unless you wish to disavow something with your opinion.
Ya'll realize this ain't even my theory? I just refuse to allow you to shit on it based solely on your disagreeing.
ppl shouldn't lack such respect for others opinions and perspectives, the inability to do so is the direct cause of divisions and 'othering'.
the sentence smacks of a dragon's purpose just as the other place alludes to his aura of malcontent.
Quite frankly Rai, that colludes with them having a dragons power as their base more than detracts from it. bit's of dragony references abound.