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Basic Trope: A literal or metaphorical dragon who runs a business/corporation.

  • Straight: In an Urban Fantasy work, Haldor is a literal dragon who runs a big corporation and freely gets involved in all kinds of illegal activities.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Downplayed:
    • Haldor is more of a middle manager or spokesdragon, and doesn't make any of the big business decisions — not yet, at least.
    • Haldor owns his own small business, rather than presiding over a large corporation.
  • Justified: Haldor has built his massive company over multiple centuries, starting with his already significant Dragon Hoard.
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
    • Haldor is the face of his company, but in reality more of a Pen-Pushing President who doesn't have much real power.
    • In a subversion of dragons as representation of Greed, Haldor turns out to be more of a Honest Corporate Executive than most other businessmen in the story.
  • Double Subverted:
    • However, an organizational shakeup suddenly lets him have much more direct control over the company's affairs.
    • However, he was only pretending to be a honest executive — and in reality looks out only for himself and his Dragon Hoard.
    • However, as much as he tried to be a honest executive, he let his greed get the better of him and — metaphorically speaking — fell Off the Wagon.
  • Parodied:
  • Zig-Zagged: Haldor sometimes allies with the corporations, and sometimes fights against them, to further his own mysterious agenda.
  • Averted: The work is Urban Fantasy through-and-through, but of the few dragons who show up, none are anywhere close to businesses and corporations.
    • While Haldor could make more profit by running business his wealth-hoarding instincts are too strong to actually put his treasure to use.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "Don't worry, if anyone tries to pull a hostile takeover on us, it's going nowhere. Our boss has claws! And razor-sharp teeth. And he also breathes fire."
  • Invoked: Living in a modern world, Haldor quickly realizes that he can grow his Dragon Hoard much faster via business activities (legal or not), and starts a company of his own.
  • Exploited: Haldor's nature as a head of a major corporation means there are a lot of people he stepped on when going after riches, and thus any Dragon Slayer willing to take him on is going to get a lot of popular support for their mission.
  • Defied:
    • Haldor isn't particularly interested in riches, and would rather hoard all the interesting stuff that can be found in the modern world — so he never even thinks of running a corporation, and instead becomes The Collector of the Strange.
    • Haldor deliberately decides to go against dragon stereotypes to the fullest possible extent, and spends most of his time and effort on charitable causes instead of trying to hoard wealth.
  • Discussed:
    Alice: So is it an unwritten rule every dragon has to be the head of a corrupt transnational conglomerate?
    Bob: No, it's not. I know one dragon down in Cincinnati who runs a historical museum of typography and print.
  • Conversed: ???
  • Implied: In an Urban Fantasy work, a boss is stated to have fearsome claws, a heated breath, and a Mighty Roar, all of which are qualities of a dragon, but in-story, he remains as He Who Must Not Be Seen.
  • Deconstructed: It turns out that having a dragon as a company head can be a massive pain, due to said dragon being enigmatic, arrogant, lazy, downright dangerous, or any other number of things.
  • Reconstructed: The reason the company is able to stay afloat in the first place is because its dragon CEO and president uses his/her wisdom and mystical powers to remain competitive.
  • Played for Laughs: Haldor is a Shoulder-Sized Dragon, who nontheless runs a massive business conglomerate. His desk has a plaque that says: "Size Matters Not."
  • Played for Drama: Haldor is a Corrupt Corporate Executive and near-unbeatable main antagonist of the entire story — or an honest one who is fighting a near-impossible battle to reform the system from within.
  • Played for Horror: Haldor is a Draconic Abomination born of pure avarice, and one of the worst threats to an Urban Fantasy world he resides in; there is nothing he will not do to the world and its people to advance his Get Rich Quick schemes.

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