jvj

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... I've read lots and lots of fantasy stories without dragons. I don't think it's a requirement, and I prefer stories without them, usually, unless they're done in a really unheard of style or something.

I have often wondered why writers of fantasy feel the need to incorporate dragons into their stories. Granted, they can be cool if they are used in a new or interesting way such as in G.R.R. Martin's ASoIaF books or in Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy. Others, however, are just damn cheesy and arbitrarily thrown in to the mix. While I am no longer an avid Wheel of Time fan (may James Oliver Rigney Jr. RIP), I always thought Jordan used the dragon in a new way. When I first encountered a dragon in Steven Erikson's Malazan books, I thought they seemed way out of place. The story did not really need it or use it in any interesting way. Oh, well. I suppose there will always be dragons on most fantasy book covers and between them.

I think dragons fascinate people. Something about a big, winged scaled beast with firey breath. I personally don't care for the portrayal of a dragon as mindless critter. Take a random wildlife for that.
Seeing dragons as intrigant, string pulling masterminds, being endlessly amused by those tiny twoleggers that roam their world and as such using them for their own needs (without them realizing it) is more up my alley.

All in all, I really don't mind dragons at all..just have to know how to use them and where to place them. They're not some every-day cannonfodder.

I think the answer is really simple. Some of the best fantasy-stories in the world have dragons in them, and this may lead people to believe that a story cannot be good fantasy if it does not have a dragon in it.

I really liked the dragon in The Hobbit. I also liked how they were used in the Xanth books. I would be against J. V. Jones using a dragon in her current series. it just wouldn't fit unless it was an unmade dragon.

If I were to write a book i would use them like they are in the Xanth books. They would become in many shapes and sizes and they would be stupid like lizards are. But they would not shoot fire from their mouths. The largest dragons would be sea monsters that attack ships.

I have noticed lots of fantasy with humans, elves, and dwarfs too. The humans are always the largest group by far. It think it would be nice if a diffent set of races were used and if humans could my a small minority group amoung other races who dominated over them. This is an idea have had for a while.

I like dragons if they're done well. Of course, the same could be said for ANY element of a fantasy story. As long as the writer does what they do well, I am fine with it. I can't dislike a story JUST because it has dragons anymore than I can like it JUST because it has dragons.

Dragons have been part of mythology for 4,000 years--that we are aware of--so there's something about them that resonates with humans. Fire was a great and important mystery to our ancestors. It was the difference between life and death. It scared predators, brought warmth and light, cooked food, yet it was also destructive. And at times uncontrollable.

Dragons represent fire, and the good and bad it brings, and I think that's part of the reason we like reading about them.

I caught a quote on TV the other morning. Some chap (God bless him whoever he is) said "If there were never any dragons in this world, then there really should have been."

I like the way he thinks.

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One of the things I hate about some authors is their clichés. As a writer you should write what you want but if you just rehash something its lame. Look at your characters like real life people. Fantasy doesn't need to be the epic quest to destroy total evil. What if your character is grey? Grey is so much more interesting than black and white.
Your the third son of a noble, you will never inherit. Your brothers bully you constantly. You accidentally kill one in a fight unintentionally. Your other brother lies to have you killed and taken out of your inheritance. At fourteen you run off afraid of what your father will do. You stay off the road and wander into the woods. You meet up with a group of unsavory characters; you don’t like them but your hungry and have no choice about it. They are holding a female hostage for ransom and you get caught up in their plot. They kill a knight and his men that have come searching. Feeling even guiltier you escape with the prisoner and free her you still have the knights sword. You wander the road and meet with a mercenary troop en-route to war. You join them. You fight a few campaigns and gain the attention of a nobleman of a foreign land. You become one of his select men. Someone at court notices the knight’s sword and recognizes it. You meet new men and make allies and enemies in the foreign court. You gain fame by killing a vicious murderer who is terrorizing the countryside. A noblewoman of status becomes your lover, although she has a bastard son of her own through a rape years ago, you bond with the child. Her father takes a liking to you because no one wants to marry a woman with a rape bastard. An entourage arrives from your father’s lands and demands to know where you got your sword. Your brother is in the group of knights come to arrest you. The knight was a famous hero. You explain. Your brother demands you come home to face charges. Your new lord refuses. And asks for a duel instead. You fight your brother and you disarm and wound him but do not kill him. You give him the knight’s sword to return it to his family. He goes home with his tale between his legs. The noblewoman you rescued from the neighboring lands testifies what you did and absolves you of charges. Your father still wants you to stand trial for your brother’s death. You continue courting the noblewoman and you marry. Your father dies and your brother absolves you and asks for forgiveness. Your wife gives you three children all boys. She dies after the third is born. You become a marshal in service to your lord. You retake a castle from a bandit lord who murdered its occupants years ago but failed to retake it due to the violent natives in the area. Your family settles there and you are promoted to Baron for your efforts. You take a lover a woes woman and witch. She teaches you the ways of her people; she bears you another son and a daughter. Your sons grow and become knights in their own rights. The locals worship old gods and they are of an older race. You have many problems suppressing their rebellious ways. The son of the knight you killed and his men come and challenge you after finding you in the forest hunting. He kills your son and wounds you. You kill him. The wound festers and you die. Your other sons become great knights with their own stories. But that is a tale for another time. Someday I'll write my own book.

Some interesting ideas, but not really on topic Ceranko!

Dragons, eh? Sumigo is right that they are perhaps overused, in some respects. I think this is in part because they seem to represent the "ultimate" in natural power. If you take angels, demons and other semi-divine beings out of the equation, few creatures seem to rival the power of a dragon. Griffons, hippogriffs, pegasi, trolls, cyclops, hydra etc... Don't all of these seem to be lesser? So in that sense, I think dragons fit the bill.

I would argue that another element is their serpentine nature. Dragons are like snakes, scaly and inhuman. Snakes have long held a pre-eminent place in Western symbolism (ie the bible), and I think dragons are an extension of that. I can't really reason it out thoroughly, but dragons are also held to live a long time, like snakes that hibernate. In the context of epic fantasy, it's very convenient to be able to call up an irate dragon that perhaps no one knew existed. Other 'monsters' might have to live in a colony, catch prey and be obvious to the outside world, rather than being more elusive. Is that convincing?

Plus, unlike the other creatures I've mentioned, dragons are obvious. Everyone has an idea of what a dragon looks like, so an author only has to spin their own interpretation. By contrast, few people might readily be able to distinguish a Griffin from a Hippogriff . I'm not sure I could either.

I can't have an objective view on this seeing as my favourite subject for years was Beowulf - and you can't say that use of a dragon was unoriginal, really. There's always got to be a monster to fight, an embodiment of animalistic evil, or else of animalistic power. Phobos points out that they're set apart from Christian imagery and also that the image of a dragon comes easily to mind, and he's right. We're probably overly steeped in the mythology of dragons, so they're easy to conjure up.

I reckon, seeing as dragon myths are usually based in part on the discovery of the bones of dinosaurs, that there's an element of prehistory about dragons that you don't get so much with other monsters. Dinosaurs predate everything we know and existed when the world was completely different to what we live in now - and they were living things on a scale totally unfamiliar to us. I think the fantasy fascination with dragons has as much to do with a link to some ancient, unknowable history as anything else. Other monsters don't have so much of a real, definite link to the past, and are usually completely made up*, whereas dragons are a might-have-been.

It also helps, if you're in need of an evil monster thing, that they aren't in any way humanoid. Unlike, say, cave trolls - think of the one in LotR, in the first film, where we're made to feel almost sorry for him.

And as for writing dragons into a story - if there's no point to them, why bother? I have something dragon-like in what I'm writing at the moment, purely because I need something with that grand menace, and an ability to breathe fire. If I can find an alternative I'm happy with I'll use it, but dragons are a bit like a big melty toasted cheese sandwich - way too much of it to be good for you, but it's filling, and satisfies.

* Giant snakes are one thing, anaconda is another. And anyway, "wyrm" is used interchangeably with "dragon" in a few Anglo-Saxon translations, so who knows.