American Dragon: Jake Long/Headscratchers

• The Huntsclan's plot to destroy all magical beings... which would have the Huntsclan having nothing left to hunt.
  • Maybe that was why they started hunting magical creatures in the first place?
• Look, I know that New York, and basically the whole mortal world is supposed to suffer from Sunndydale Syndrome in this series, but... are everyone in New York blind or just retarded? THERE ARE UNICORNS IN CENTRAL PARK AT NIGHT! CENTRAL PARK IS NOT ABANDONED AT NIGHT!
  • "Officer, Officer! I just saw a bunch of unicorns by the lake!" "Sure, Drunky. Sure."
• Wait, so the Huntsclan gets destroyed and Rose is wished to never have been a part of the Huntsclan, but then she remembers everything when she sees the photo of her and Jake from a dance. How?
  • The Power of Love can conquer all, even alternate timelines.
  • In addition, we don't really know all that much about how the Aztec Skulls specifically work; it may be that retroactively altering the entire course of Rose's life was a bit beyond their power, and so to achieve the desired results their magicks took some "short-cuts" (including applying Laser-Guided Amnesia that was eventually broken by said Power of Love).
• The American Dragon is a new position? Were there simply no dragons in America for at least 200 years (assuming dragons exist only in the Old World). Surely there were other magical creatures there before hand. Why didn't anyone send a dragon earlier?
  • It seems to me they didn't "send" him, He was just the first to get there. The dragon family spreads to Korea, so we have a Korean dragon. One ends up in Canada, we have a Canadian dragon. Jake was the first to be born in America, so he's the American dragon.
    • The US has a reputation around the world as something of a young, upstart nation (both positively and negatively): the snubbing was probably an extension of that. Why there doesn't seem to have ever been a Native American dragon is another matter altogether.
    • Perhaps there were not Dragons in the New World. Maybe figures like Quetzecatual were based on another magical creature. Upstart nation I understand but I recall some mention of a Chilean Dragon. Chile had a dragon before the third largest nation in the world?
    • WMG: Jake Long may not actually be the first American Dragon, but rather the first that the Dragon Council is willing to officially recognize as such; we never learn, after all, which nation the Dark Dragon hails from.
• If the Dark Dragon is the "Number one Threat to the Magical World" why wasn't he given a bigger role in the show?
  • I agree with the above troper. The Dark Dragon isn't in that many episodes. He should be promoted to a title character, due to the fact that he is the most dangerous magical being. Instead of the Huntsman, who lies at position 2-4 on that scale.
    • Offering a different opinion here. I don't know why this is the case. However, I personally like that the #1 threat to the Magical World isn't that prominent in the series. Who's the main villain of the series instead? The #4 threat. Random position for the series' Big Bad.
    • Another different opinion. In a show where Status Quo Is God, the villain has to lose each episode. Having the Dark Dragon show up more often only to be defeated every single time would kind of dilute the "Number One Threat" image. Instead, he lies in wait and schemes, and the few times he does show up, he's legitimately threatening. There's only so many times an all-powerful evil dragon can suffer defeat at the hands of a high schooler and still maintain that image. Perhaps if the show had taken a different route - one where the villain had already pretty much taken over and the heroes were more a band of rebels rising against him rather than defenders of peace - then he could have shown up more often.
    • Another different opinion: the dragons considered the Dark Dragon and other three villains worse than the Huntsman because they didn't know that he was actually ABLE to destroy all magical creatures. After all, the Dark Dragon proved himself able to take over the magical world (and if not for Jake, in his final appearance he would have done so and make it look easy), while the Huntsclan showed the will but didn't had the ability until the Huntsman got all the Aztec Skulls. If THAT didn't up his threath level off-screen...
• Just wondering, why do they give Jake this 'gangsta' attitude? I know not all Asians are nerdy or fit a certain stereotype, but, frankly, I just think it's strange that the kid is acting like he's from a downgraded version of the ghetto. Considering-- especially-- that he's lived a very charmed life.
  • because that is how most teenage boys are,regradless of how they live.Jake just happens to be one of those boys.
  • Don't forget where he lives. He's in the middle of Manhattan, nearly every teenager there has that attitude
• Are the dragons, dragons that take on human form, or humans that can change into dragons?
  • One assumes humans that turn into dragons, considering Jake's natural form throughout is of his human version.
  • Well...not really. Many dragons stories from various parts of Asia have foxes/turtles/dragons/etc. spend most of their time in the story as a human. It's clear that in the same tradition as many of those stories, the dragons are shapeshifters, but are also explicitly stated to be dragons. That is what they self-identify themselves to be and are identified by other markers as well. Perhaps the dragons "default" to a human shape because that's the best way to blend in.
  • Their ability to breed with normal humans, and for the dragon gene to skip generations, makes it seem like humans that turn into dragons.
    • In one episode, though, a new principal creates a formula that would cause "any disguised dragon to revert to it's TRUE FORM", implying the other way. Still, it is unclear.
• If the Huntsclan never existed, why do their secret bases still exist?
  • Because the wish wasn't that the Huntsclan never existed, the wish was that all Huntsclan members would die.
• In The Academy, Jake and Spud's potion to give a dragon the temporary appearance of death blows up the laboratory and blows out of the roof of the academy itself. So...when Rose whipped up a second potion, how did no one notice?
• Jake's wish to destroy all of the Huntsclan, except for Rose who gets to (re)live her life as if it never existed. Even though most if not all the other members were just like Rose, having been kidnapped near birth and being more or less brainwashed in to being evil. Jake just murdered hundreds of (potentially) innocent people, which is apparently okay with everyone because they weren't magical people or anyone he knew.
  • Rose is the one who made the wish, not Jake.
• So how exactly does the dragons' weakness to sphinx hair work? In some cases it seems that merely being in the proximity of it weakens the dragon to the point where they can't even transform, but in other cases the dragon can be close to and even hold a sphinx hair net with no difficulty, as long as they're not the one caught in it.
  • Depending on the Writer, maybe?
  • While the above explanation is the most likely, it could also be a matter of concentration; the talisman the Strigoi use, for example, would presumably be made of pure Sphinx Hair and thus agonizingly debilitating to a dragon at close range, whereas the average Huntsclan net probably has just a few strands of Sphinx Hair weaved together with various other fibers (either because Sphinx Hair is too rare and expensive to distribute in high concentrations to every Huntsclan enclave around the world, or else because by itself it lacks the tensile strength necessary to form a sufficient net).
• why do characters say "dragon up" before transforming they can clearly transform without saying it?
  • Short answer, becuase it sounds cool.
• What was going on with Susan and Haley's subplot in "The Long Weekend"?
  • Care to elaborate?
    • Basically they were going to a health spa and got on the wrong bus. Nobody at the boot camp believed they were there by mistake. They tried to tough out, but couldn't stand the military diet and made a break for it.
• In this universe, how do dragons give birth? Does the baby switch between a humanoid and an egg depending on what form the mother is in?
  • Considering the base form of the Dragons in the universe is human, I don't think the fetus would switch to an egg. I'd imagine the female pregnant dragon-person would just remain pregnant. Reptiles aren't empty inside before they lay their eggs, you know.
• What kind of high school has a class on mythical creatures? Granted, it would be a pretty cool class to take, but still, what high school would have that?
  • A high school that has Mythology as an offered class, maybe? (A friend of This Troper took it in high school.) Considering the obsessions of the guy TEACHING said class, though, it would certainly explain why there's more focus on mythological CREATURES than the myths themselves...
• Why did the art style and character design change so drastically between seasons?
  • Change in management.
• The Huntsman is the Main Villain, but in "Ski Trip" Trixie and Spud say that Huntsgirl was Jake's archenemy, and somewhere along the way, i heard somewhere that Jake's Archenemy was the Dark Dragon. So, who is Jake's Arch-Foe?
  • I'd say Huntsman, to put it in comparison, if Jake were Batman, Huntsman would be the Joker (primary antagonist), Huntsgirl would be Catwoman/Harley Quinn, and the Dark Dragon would be Darkseid (Much more powerful than other antagonists, but doesn't show up as often).