Editing Dragon (section)

==The topic of dragon riders==
A surprisingly common feature of dragons in fantasy is the "dragon rider," a warrior who, well, rides a dragon. It looks awesome, until you realize they're really just pussies that stay safe just pointing the dragon in the right direction and let it fight for them, occasionally dismounting to deliver a finishing blow or give a pompous bullshit speech, not to mention preventing the dragon from doing some more extreme flight maneuvers. Characters with magic, divine powers or ranged weapons get a pass by actually helping the dragon in a fight.

This works fine if the setting is one where dragons are unintelligent beasts that can be kept as pets, since in that instance the dragon benefits by being guided by a level of intelligence not otherwise available to it. However, in settings where dragons can talk, this relationship is unlikely. Most folks in such a world, dragons themselves especially, would immediately point out that a human having a pet dragon is like a fly having a pet human (or at minimum a [[/d/|human having another human as a pet]], depending on just how powerful the setting's dragons are). They would still benefit from having a number of archers (depending on the creature's size) ride them into battle, though; it's just that it'd be the dragon in charge, not the human(s).