What can I say? The thought of a whole roomful of nobles - a queen's court! - singing and clapping along with those lyrics will be enough to keep me warm throughout this miserable winter. Can that be anything other than heroism?
Hah! Really, the smile alone was enough to make people underestimate a duke. There tends to be an assumption that friendliness and diplomacy are strictly tools of the weak and naive, mostly because your average jackass can't be bothered with them as soon as he's got enough power and arrogance to think they can be disposed of. No one expects those in a place of strength to actually care about them, and use them by choice. So when they confidently push you past the point where friendliness and diplomacy has failed, thinking there's nothing behind it...well, they tend to get nasty surprises.
I don't know if I'd use as strong a word as domesticated for wyverns, but they can certainly be tamed and ridden where I'm from. I know I was raised alongside mine from when he was first hatched! That level of longstanding personal connection with one's wyvern isn't necessarily standard in other countries, though. But we certainly do use them alongside horses, and pegasi too. Pegasi are fragile, but resistant to magic. Wyverns are hardy but weak to magic. So people who prefer flying mounts have their options.
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Hah! Really, the smile alone was enough to make people underestimate a duke. There tends to be an assumption that friendliness and diplomacy are strictly tools of the weak and naive, mostly because your average jackass can't be bothered with them as soon as he's got enough power and arrogance to think they can be disposed of. No one expects those in a place of strength to actually care about them, and use them by choice. So when they confidently push you past the point where friendliness and diplomacy has failed, thinking there's nothing behind it...well, they tend to get nasty surprises.
I don't know if I'd use as strong a word as domesticated for wyverns, but they can certainly be tamed and ridden where I'm from. I know I was raised alongside mine from when he was first hatched! That level of longstanding personal connection with one's wyvern isn't necessarily standard in other countries, though. But we certainly do use them alongside horses, and pegasi too. Pegasi are fragile, but resistant to magic. Wyverns are hardy but weak to magic. So people who prefer flying mounts have their options.