It's coming across as if all these dragons in Skyrim embody angry wise old men but quite frequently in (realworld) folktale, myth and literature, dragons and other creatures are female (Scylla, Tiamat, Nessie, the Chimera, Harpies, the Sphinx, the Striga, etc.).

Even in tigers and other large animals it is the females who are the mostly deadly and most wild, females who will protect their young to the death. Female spiders will kill their male counterparts, and Shelob made for one brilliant female monster. This is quite a minor detail, I know, but there'd be something much more dark and potent about a spiky female dragoness than an old fart dragon. Apologies if there's a gaping hole in my knowledge of TES lore which would make this thread redundant but after seeing threads on how "TES is becoming like COD", I thought I'd throw something a bit fresh out there. Discuss.

Maybe TES dragons are unisix?

Does anyone knows what dragons in TES are? Are they living creatures or are they something like daedras or so?

I'm not sure, but some Daedra were certainly sixed e.g Xivilai were male and Spider Daedra were female.

Well, I think the dragons in Skyrim should be neutral to gender but their voices more male.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dragons



Thats all we really know about dragons. They could be male or female. But we may be seeing a lore retcon with skyrim, so take it with a grain of salt.

Thanks for that!

That's funny somehow: "(...) whereas the dragons in Vvardenfell were overrun by the invading cliff racers."
Cliff Racers against dragons . I'd love to see that.

Hmm not really a big thing to get worried about since it wouldn't affect the game at all if there were no differentiation of sixes on dragons. Basically it's such a minor detail for a monster it's not worth thinking about. They're not going to create different sixes for every creature its just unneeded detail.

Plus It's not like you're going to be checking their six in the middle of killing them...and if you are then you need help.

Its not like they have .. male organs anyway.

I remember that, in Dragon Age, female dragons were the only ones to reach the mature state. The males were smaller and wingless.

Well they may be able to change shape. What if you meet a comely elven lass in the bar, take her to your room. OMG SHE'S A DRAGON AHHHH!

You are called the dragonborn, someone had to make sixy time with a dragon at some point right?



It is assumed in fantasy, dragons are like other large reptiles. It is all internal.

hehe ofc they needn't worry about their gender as just creatures to fight, or including dragon genitals in the models for that matter, but when they begin to personify them as they inevitably will by giving them voices and key positions in the plot and boss battles, it's something they'll have to consider.

Well Saint Jiub drove the cliff racers from Morrowind... They had to go somewhere. :chaos:

Well that's a curve ball. I can't say I've ever given dragon gender much thought, for the same reasons that I haven't for, say, cliff racers. If Beth wants to give dragons some individual character development then I suppose this may be fleshed out, but really, I'd just expect them to be unisix baddies.

Aren't the dragons actually Akatosh's jills (lesser spirits in dragon form)? That'd make them essentially genderless.

[wanders off to the Lore forum]

Edit: Hmm, they're seemingly female spirits, or at least spirits who adopt feminine characteristics; and have also been compared to angels.

If cliff racers are in I'm definitely opening up the console with ` and pitching 20 of them against a dragon.

I have to say, I think that seeing as the dragons have been given so much character and such a key role in the game then unisix would be a bit of a cop out. I suppose also boils down to how much dragons are living, breathing creatures like the rest of them and how much they are divine and just spring from the sky without any animal needs so to speak.

They are called Jills.
I think they are all female.

It's never been said anywhere that all the dragons are male, not by anyone who is in a position to know that, actually, nothing has been said on their six one way or another. Now, I'm sure that in lore, there are female dragons, but will we see distinctions between the sixes? I don't know, we will see. Admitably, it might not be immediately obvious just by looking at them, but that doesn't mean we can't know their six, they could be distinguished by signs other than the obvious physical ones we'd use to determine the six of humans or other mammals, like how in Morrowind even though female Argonians lacked any feminine mammal traits, you could still tell they were female even if you didn't hear them speak (Their voices were naturally female.) Maybe female dragons have different colors from males, or maybe they're physique is different, maybe they have different shaped horns, smaller horns, or no horns, there are a lot of design choices you could make to allow us to tell the difference between the sixes other than the obvious ones, you'd just have to give us some indication that the differences represent different sixes first since otherwise one might not be able to tell.

Though I suspect that the only way to actually distinguish the sixes of dragons is to hear them speak or hear them referred to as either male or female, assuming we see female ones at all, I wouldn't be surprised if all dragons speak in your stereotypical deep masculine voice, and will be adressed as male if it's necessary to refer to them by any term that might indicate six.



I don't recall Bethesda ever said the dragons in Skyrim are Jills, one might speculate they are since they're dragons serving Alduin who is apparently also Akatosh, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the case, seeing as Skyrim already seems to have revealed some things about dragons that aren't the same as what we previously accepted as true about them, it may be that this aspect has been changed too, or maybe Akatosh/Alduin has other servents besides Jills, who can say at this time?

Aside from the dragon fetishists I don't see it bothering most people.

I don't think we'll have much time to check for gender when one appears anyway.

According to http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/18/dragonborn-again-bethesda-shows-skyrim-in-utah/:

"The Nord civil war is the last of a chain of events foretold by the Elder Scrolls, which also prophesied the return of the Nordic god of destruction, Alduin, who’s now taken the form of a dragon. Alduin has a group of black dragons, known as Jills. [...] Dovahkiin is a dragon hunter appointed by the gods to defeat Alduin and the Jills, and to protect Skyrim and Tamriel."

Whether that's something Todd said or speculation on the journalist's part, however, I can't say. But that is an obscure connection to make (the Jills are only lightly referenced in connection with dragon breaks, as they're tasked with putting Akatosh back together, and finding that Alduin is Akatosh requires a bit of looking, too).

It does seem far too obscure an element of the setting for a game journalist to come up with on his own; either because he didn't know TES lore, or because he wouldn't expect the vast majority of readers to. So I suspect that's from Bethesda, but who knows.

My own interpretation is that as Akatosh's jills are helper-spirits (whose efforts mended the timeline following Dragon Breaks) - "angels" of the Imperial time god, so are Alduin's jills helper-spirits (whose presence foreshadows the devouring of the world) - destroyer spirits of the Nordic world ender.

If I'm at least half-correct, that makes dragons fundamentally no more male or female than any other spirit/demon/god. I doubt the physiology of the physical beings will come into it, so any dragon could be male or female depending on its role, and/or the whim of Alduin. They've also been referred to as "matron jills" though, so I think the majority are at least metaphorically female.

Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about.

I doubt it will be immediately obvious. Shrek gave their dragon a cute little bow, and the dragon was of a pinkish tint.

In all honestly yes. yes i did assume they were all males.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-hatta-sphinxmoth-inquiry-tree
I'm confused :confused:

Anything that lays eggs is female in my opinion.

Just look for an ironing board in their lair lol...

Erm, I hope the question goes unanswered, because the thought that follows immediately is that someone will ask "can I ride a female dragon?" :lmao: