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The Beast Brief: Dragons, Dragons, and More Dragons
by Crystalink
When it was announced that Summer Camp was going to be dragon-themed, the consulting magizoologist in me perked up at the idea. I'd been running low on Beast Brief content because of the lack of Care of Magical Creatures drama, so I thought it would be a perfect way to 1) not be fired for a lack of articles and 2) get paid. However, upon further inspection, not all of the summer camp was actually themed after actual dragons. I was initially disappointed, but decided to keep my head up and mine camp for content anyway by analysing how magizoolistically accurate the dragon-themed names and activities are, and what media they referenced if not. (Bonus points for guessing what the title of this article is referring to.)
There are three cabins this year, each representing a different dragon. The first cabin, called Norberta, is named after a Norwegian Ridgeback hatched in 1992, and the only cabin to be named after an actual wizarding world dragon. The second cabin, Smaug, is named after the dragon and main antagonist from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The last cabin is named after Toothless from the How To Train Your Dragon franchise.
The Coffee Shop area is called The Cavern, after dragons that reside in caverns. However, the only breed of dragon that lives in caverns is the Ukrainian Ironbelly - most dragons reside in mountains. It seems more likely that The Cavern is taken from other forms of media.
Many games inside The Cavern are dragon-themed as well. Fireman is a dragon-themed version of Hangman, depicting a fire-breathing dragon burning a man to a crisp rather than drawing him limb by limb. Many dragons breathe fire, both in the media and in the wizarding world. Another game, called Stealing the Golden Egg, references the first event of the 1994 Triwizard Tournament. Two of the games involve the mascots of the three cabins.
The themed activity arena is called The Isle of Draco, which is an island from a television show called American Dragon Jake Long. The activity in the themed activity arena involves the mascots as well, making it only 33% accurate to wizarding world dragons.
Despite the shortcomings in accuracy of the cabins, the coffee shop, and the themed activity arena, the general activity arena, duelling arena, and Quidditch teams are all very accurate in their team names/arena themes. The general activity arena teams and duelling arenas are named after actual dragon breeds, while the Quidditch team names and RTQ team names are puns based off breed names.
That's it for this issue's Beast Brief. See you next issue, and don't forget to PM any creature-y conspiracies to Crystalink!
Invincible Dragons
by: Harmony203
It seems rather inevitable that when so many dragons are kept in close proximity to each other, like in the Magnolia Park Campsite, here will be fights for dominance occurring. Luckily, we witnessed a rather civilized bid for dominance this summer with dragons fighting for points rather than nesting space. As per usual, there were several spaces that dragons could fight for points:
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1) Quiz Hut
It seems that Quiz Hut was rather popular this summer, with Cabin Toothless gaining over 200 points from this one activity alone, significantly more than either of the other cabins managed to procure. Perhaps it was simply that the cabin's infamous lack of teeth required more teamwork in order to catch prey and so, there was less internal debate and fighting than the other cabins.
2) Summer Activities
In a curious turn of events, the summer co-ordinators this year decided to group together the summer activities Tug of War, Bludger Pong, and Water Polo into one area. While it did make it easier for dragons to find their way to the appropriate topic to play their opponents, perhaps working in such large groups made the games too easy. Tug of War was over in a matter of days as one team quickly dominated and yanked the other team straight into the Mud Pit and miraculously, no Bludger Pong players were injured over the entire course of the game! Water Polo was a similar story with the Nymph caught so quickly, I wasn't sure that the dragons had truly seen the Nymph and not some stray lizard.
3) Duelling
Summer duelling was another quick fire way for dragons to quickly rack up points, with Cabin Smaug earning almost 100 points for their team in this arena. I must admit, it was rather disconcerting to see duelling arenas named after dragons... I was worried that there would be spoils of war from battles with dragons decorating the walls but I was greatly relieved to see that the camp counsellors were a lot more sensible than that.
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4) Quidditch...
Well, I don't have much to say about Quidditch. As always, RTQ was so quick, I'm astonished that some dragons didn't spontaneously combust... wait, wrong universe. Anyways, Quidditch was another great team builder with dragons working well together regardless of species and colour ;) .
All in all, it was a great year for the invincible dragons! I won't spoil the surprise, but if you want to find out which cabin won the Summer Cup, check out the Noticeboard!
Adopt, Don't Shop!
by Elara Lufkin
Many of you may be inspired by our summer camp to go out and find yourself a pet dragon. However, aside from the legal issues of owning a dragon (FYI dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709), if you were able to acquire an egg in Knockturn Alley or the Hogs' Head it would be a challenge to keep the dragon, your safety aside when caring for a known wizard killer, it’s nearly impossible to hide a massive, flying fire-breathing lizard.
So why not save yourself the trouble? At the Cymru Dragon reserve you can sponsor the care of your very own dragon, you may even be able to secure the chance to name a new hatchling! Every year, during summer and interim, new dragons and eggs become available. So if you are keen to follow up on a new found love, now might be the perfect time.
While you’re there you really should take the opportunity to look around and see these magnificent creatures in person (students don’t have this opportunity during school times). Go see the reserve and ask the helpful magizoologists plenty of dragon related questions.
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