Discussion Main / ElementalBaggage

Removed the following from the Frozone entry. It's pointless natter and unbelievably dumb-sounding.

• On further consideration, however, the primary waste produced by burning organic compounds is CO2 and H2O, so the burning building should have actually had more water, but maybe it was to hot for him to use his powers. After all, his power is freezing the water vapor and if the vapor he freezes evaporates instantly it's as if he didn't do anything at all, and maybe when he was in the bank he could have used his powers already and was just thirsty.

• Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics has this for Reign Of Fire. It calls this "the milkshake problem" — without anything flammable in the air, in order to produce enough energy for one flame blast, a dragon would need an energy intake equivalent to thousands of milkshakes.
  • Made worse by the fact that they feed on some of the least energetic stuff around, namely the burnt ash of their victims.
  • IIRC, they were stated to have large gas-sacs inside them and small nub in their mouth capable of generating a small electric spark. They exhale the flammable gas while igniting the spark and viola: instant fire-breath. I think the gas-sacs were also supposed to be part of how they fly, big buoyancy pockets inside them let them use their wings to fly (which otherwise would be insufficient to carry their large frames)
    • I think it's a completely different work where this is the case.
    • Um, ok. The problem is that the chemical energy of that flammable gas has to come from somewhere. The dragons simply can't consume nearly enough calories (especially by eating calorie-depleted ashes) to produce such a flammable substance in such large quantities.
  • This could be explained as him simply spreading the flames via the flammable gasses in the air.
  • And then there are the cartoons where the flame creatures even have sound effects (birds roar, horses gallop and whinny, etc.)

I think this entry needs to be cleaned up and made less like a discussion, but I'm not too sure how to go about that at the moment.

The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson and its Spiritual Successor Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real address dragon flight and fire, among other things. Peter doped it out, Dragon's World took Science Marches On and applied it -awesomely. But I'm not sure either belongs in this particular entry.

Also, would the Liquidator from Darkwing Duck apply?

Water is evaporating into the air that Frozone is complaining lacks water.

I added a little footnote... I hope no one minds?