I was pondering the philosophy of fantasy stories, and it occurred to me that if there were actually dragons in our world—if you could go down to the zoo, or even to a distant mountain, and meet a fire-breathing dragon—while nobody had ever actually seen a zebra, then our fantasy stories would contain zebras aplenty, while dragons would be unexciting.
You don’t seriously think that, do you???
Dragons: fly, breathe fire, ginormous | Zebras: gallop, have stripes
Dragons >> zebras. In no world would zebras feature more prominently in fiction than dragons, regardless of which was real. I get the general point, that nonexistence breeds excitement, but this was a horrible example.
Unicorns are often depicted with their own share of powers that would make them more appealing than zebras even if both were real. To make the comparison fair, we would need something from our world which is as awesome as the fictional counterpart, but often overlooked...
You don’t seriously think that, do you???
Dragons: fly, breathe fire, ginormous | Zebras: gallop, have stripes
Dragons >> zebras. In no world would zebras feature more prominently in fiction than dragons, regardless of which was real. I get the general point, that nonexistence breeds excitement, but this was a horrible example.
Zebras vs Unicorns probably would be better.
Unicorns are often depicted with their own share of powers that would make them more appealing than zebras even if both were real. To make the comparison fair, we would need something from our world which is as awesome as the fictional counterpart, but often overlooked...
How about dragons vs airplanes?