History Fridge / ReignOfFire

* During the opening it is a young Quinn who first encounters the male after it wakes up from hibernation, then during the FinalBattle after Van Zan is killed and Alex is injured it is Quinn who manages to slay the Male using the explosive crossbow bolts, which makes him both the first and last human the male dragon lays eyes on.

* Quinn is both the first and last human the male dragon sees, during the opening it is a young Quinn who first encounters the male after it wakes up from hibernation, then during the FinalBattle after Van Zan is killed and Alex is injured it is Quinn who manages to slay the Male using the explosive crossbow bolts, which him being the last creature the male dragon sees before it dies.

*** Which makes for FridgeHorror if it turns out the species isn't going extinct after all, they're just going to have to wait for a female to finish switching over to male and then it can start all over again....

!!Fridge Brilliance
* Quinn is the first and last human the Male dragon sees.

!!FridgeBrillaince
* Quinn is the first human the Male dragon had ever seen after awaking from hibernation, who is the last human the Male dragon sees before dying? Quinn.

** they could of done a SequelHook with it too, maybe unfertilized eggs could of been what causes male dragons, hence the Alpha dragon made sure to fertilize all eggs and the smaller dragons we see him eat? his sons, btw the male unfertilized thing is an actual thing its called Haplodiploidy.
** We also don't know that the species as a whole has always had one male. The dragons we meet are the survivors of the original famine that ensured after they wiped out the dinosaurs. It could be this is the only colony that made it to the modern era.

** they could of done a SequelHook with it too, maybe unfertilized eggs could of been what causes male dragons, hence the Alpha dragon made sure to fertilize all eggs and the smaller dragons we see him eat? his sons, btw the male unfertilized thing is an actual thing its called Haplodiploidy.

* Having only one male in a species is kinda stupid - it's an obvious vulnerability. Except that's a perfect representation of how evolution actually works. Evolution doesn't plan for future threats - it just sticks with what's working until it doesn't. One male worked brilliantly for those millions of years when there was nothing around that could seriously threaten it. But as often happens, the world changed and the evolutionary strategy that had served well under different circumstances failed, resulting in extinction.

FridgeLogic: Quinn was 12 when this all started. Having grown up in a world with a dwindling number of aircraft you can imagine he hasn't flown much - but he seems perfectly calm and composed riding wing on a helicopter.

FridgeBrilliance: Having only one male in a species is kinda stupid - it's an obvious vulnerability. Except that's a perfect representation of how evolution actually works. Evolution doesn't plan for future threats - it just sticks with what's working until it doesn't. One male worked brilliantly for those millions of years when there was nothing around that could seriously threaten it. But as often happens, the world changed and the evolutionary strategy that had served well under different circumstances failed, resulting in extinction.

FridgeLogic: Quinn was 12 when this all started. Having grown up in a world with a dwindling number of aircraft you can imagine he hasn't flown much - but he seems perfectly calm and composed riding wing on a helicopter.

When I first saw this movie, the idea of a species with a single male seemed like evolution had made a pretty serious stuff up (and let's face it, it ''was'' there for plot reasons). But later it occurred to me: evolution is adaptive, not predictive. A single male is not actually a weakness if that male is immortal and nothing around can hurt it! Their species had been dominant for millions of years with that approach. It only became a liability when a new species evolved with the intelligence to use tactics to target the male, and develop weapons to fight back...
** One problem with this, evolution does not work that way. You see, one of the main goals of any organism is to reproduce ensuring the species (and more specifically the genes of that paticular generation to the next) survival. Evolution and reproductive survival don't become stagnant just because an organism is "immortal" (As a comparison, there's a species of jellyfish that's considered "immortal" since it doesn't age, but it still needs to reproduce to survive). Many organisms in RealLife have adaptations that allow them to reproduce should there not be a male (or, in some cases, a female) to breed (Some fish can change sex, certain lizards reproduce via Parthenogenesis (IE: Females produce young without the need for a male to fertilize the eggs), a worker bee larvae can become a queen if fed royal jelly, and so forth). As a comparison, the dragons in this film would've gone extinct long ago since they utterly '''lack''' any of these reproductive adaptations. A single male is a '''HUGE''' weakness and evolutionary flaw in the species since they lack an alternate form of reproduction should said single male die.
*** Not to mention another '''major''' problem with a single male dragon within the entire species. Basically, this would mean that not only is the Male Dragon breeding with his mates, but also his daughters, his daughters' daughters and so forth. That boils down to a ''lot'' of in-breeding. And, in-breeding causes a lot of genetic defects (Including weak immune systems, mental illness, physical deformation, and even sterility). To put it bluntly, by only a handful of generations, the dragons would've gone extinct in real-life from the numerous problems caused by having only one male. These dragons are so biologically impossible that the 1998 version of Godzilla (with all its biological problems) makes more sense.
**** In their defense: it's only a single male dragon breeding with his mates, daughters, and granddaughters if we assume that A: there only is one male dragon, and B: that no more male dragons can ever be introduced into the population. It might simply be that the ratios of births are really, really, really lopsided, but it's even addressed at the end of the movie that the Dragons might come back if there actually is more than one. Also keep in mind that having remotely equal gender ratios would be *disastrous*for a species like the Reign of Fire dragons, because while the females are expendable and short lived the Bulls are not. It's possible that they might have evolved ways to slow the birth of bulls or to practice some form of eugenics (where young bulls get beaten up or killed a la young male Gorillas when they reach a certain age) because it helps conserve resources better.
** It's not just that having one male and many females is setting the species up for failure, whether by inbreeding or loss of said one male; it's that evolutionary processes actively work ''against'' such a skewed sex ratio. Any female dragon that managed to produce a son rather than just daughters would immediately qualify as a potential grandmother to ''half the dragons on Earth'' (or possibly all of them, if the young Bull can defeat and supplant his sire), meaning a HUGE genetic payoff for abandoning the lone-male reproductive strategy. That's why the standard sex ratio at birth for nearly all vertebrates is 1:1, in the first place.
** It's possible that the male simply only allows a new bull to be born at the end of his lifespan, and otherwise kills the rest to ensure his position as Alpha. From what we see, the dragons only have ONE nest. This is all one group, they just happen to be juggernauts that can wipe out all life on Earth on their own so one group is more than enough. This would make a lot more sense biologically. Of course, that's assuming these things actually ''are'' a biologically evolved species and not straight up {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, which the film somewhat presents them as.

** It's not just that having one male and many females is setting the species up for failure, whether by inbreeding or loss of said one male; it's that evolutionary processes actively work ''against'' such a skewed sex ratio. Any female dragon that managed to produce a son rather than just daughters would immediately qualify as a potential grandmother to ''half the dragons on Earth'' (or possibly all of them, if the young Bull can defeat and supplant his sire), meaning a HUGE genetic payoff for abandoning the lone-male reproductive strategy. That's why the standard sex ratio at birth for nearly all vertebrates is 1:1, in the first place.

** It's not just that having one male and many females is setting the species up for failure, whether by inbreeding or loss of said one male; it's that evolutionary processes actively work ''against'' such a skewed sex ratio. Any female dragon that managed to produce a son rather than just daughters would immediately qualify as a potential grandmother to ''half the dragons on Earth'' (or possibly all of them, if the young Bull can defeat and supplant his sire), meaning a HUGE genetic payoff for abandoning the lone-male reproductive strategy. That's why the standard sex ratio for nearly all vertebrates is 1:1, in the first place.

**** In their defense: it's only a single male dragon breeding with his mates, daughters, and granddaughters if we assume that A: there only is one male dragon, and B: that no more male dragons can ever be introduced into the population. It might simply be that the ratios of births are really, really, really lopsided, but it's even addressed at the end of the movie that the Dragons might come back if there actually is more than one. Also keep in mind that having remotely equal gender ratios would be *disastrous*for a species like the Reign of Fire dragons, because while the females are expendable and short lived the Bulls are not. It's possible that they might have evolved ways to slow the birth of bulls or to practice some form of eugenics (where young bulls get beaten up or killed ala young male Gorillas when they reach a certain age) because it helps conserve resources better.

*** Not to mention another '''major''' problem with a single male dragon within the entire species. Basically, this would mean that not only is the Male Dragon breeding with his mates, but also his daughters, his daughters' daughters and so forth. That boils down to a ''lot'' of in-breeding. And, in-breeding causes a lot of genetic defects (Including weak immune systems, mental illness, physical deformation, and even sterility). To put it bluntly, by only a handful of generations, the dragons would've gone extinct in real-life from the numerous problems caused by having only one male. These dragons are so biologically impossible that the 1998 version of Godzilla (with all its biological problems) makes more sense.

** One problem with this, evolution does not work that way. You see, one of the main goals of any organism is to reproduce ensuring the species (and more specifically the genes of that paticular generation to the next) survival. Evolution and reproductive survival don't become stagnant just because an organism is "immortal" (As a comparison, there's a species of jellyfish that's considered "immortal" since it doesn't age, but it still needs to reproduce to survive). Many organisms in RealLife have adaptations that allow them to reproduce should there not be a male (or, in some cases, a female) to breed (Some fish can change sex, certain lizards reproduce via Parthenogenesis (IE: Females produce young without the need for a male to fertilize the eggs), a worker bee larvae can become a queen if fed royal jelly, and so forth). As a comparison, the dragons in this film would've gone extinct long ago since they utterly '''lack''' any of these reproductive adaptations. A single male is a '''HUGE''' weakness and evolutionary flaw in the species since they lack an alternate form of reproduction should said single male die.

** One problem with this, evolution does not work that way. You see, one of the main goals of any organism is to reproduce ensuring the species (and more specifically the genes of that paticular generation to the next) survival. Evolution and reproductive survival don't become stagnant just because an organism is "immortal" (As a comparison, there's a species of jellyfish that's considered "immortal" since it doesn't age, but it still needs to reproduce to survive). Many organisms in RealLife have adaptations that allow them to reproduce should there not be a male (or, in some cases, a female) to breed (Some fish can change sex, certain lizards reproduce via Parthenogenesis (IE: Females produce young without the need for a male to fertilize the eggs), a worker bee larvae can become a queen if fed royal jelly, and so forth). As a comparison, the dragons in this film would've gone extinct long ago since they utterly '''lack''' any of these reproductive adaptations.

When I first saw this movie, the idea of a species with a single male seemed like evolution had made a pretty serious stuff up (and let's face it, it ''was'' there for plot reasons). But later it occurred to me: evolution is adaptive, not predictive. A single male is not actually a weakness if that male is immortal and nothing around can hurt it! Their species had been dominant for millions of years with that approach. It only became a liability when a new species evolved with the intelligence to use tactics to target the male, and develop weapons to fight back...