Dragons: Why do they permeate fantasy fiction, and moreover, what are they supposed to be? Despite the varied literature in which they appear, the appearance of a dragon—with a little room for the writer’s own aesthetic—has not changed. Even the noble vampire has a wealth of different faces, as does the cunning werewolf; yet not the dragon.

The fact that dragons appear the same in each of their casting roles could imply to someone not of our world that these giant lizards are as such in our stories, because that’s truly what they looked like. Of course, this can’t be true. Taking the realists’ view here: dragons don’t exist. In fact, it begs the same mystery as to why across the globe, at various archaeological sites, murals of different skinned men have been plastered across the walls of caves and temples, dating back to times when inter-cultural mingling between the world’s people was impossible.

But whatever the reason, the mighty dragon is as s/he does. It’s no great wonder that, dating back to years that have only three numbers, and featuring throughout world mythology, the dragon finds itself as a stock fantastic beast in our fantasy literature. From the biblical leviathan, the unnamed dragon in Beowulf, and Sir Gawain’s “worms”, to The Hobbit’s Smaug, and Harry Potter’s Hungarian Horntail adversary, it’s clear dragons aren’t about to be replaced soon. On the contrary, they’ve always been here. Never as much as now.

Dungeons & Dragons Cover

Initially the beasties were antagonists, laying in wait to merely do away with our heroes with the idle swipe of a wing, or deft claw. Then, likely wakening to the idea of wise and benevolent dragons, as in Chinese mythology, the great wyrms became advisors, symbols of great wisdom. Though still feared—or more, respected now?—even these dragons never took centre stage. They remained monstrous figures, dominating only the background and subplots.

Before we talk about dragons in an immediate sense in fantasy fiction, let’s consider the question again: What are they supposed to be?

Etymologically speaking, dating back to the classics, the words for ‘dragon’ and ‘serpent’ (or ‘snake’) were synonymous at times. So are dragons a fantastic evolution of the humble serpent? Depending on their depiction, their likeness to the slithering fiends alters, although elements of their reception and supposed personalities remain throughout. Fork-tongued, devious and vicious; snakes and dragons could be brethren. Although when offered the most common image of a dragon—appearing even on the Welsh flag—proffering armoured scales, monstrous, agile wings, and great heads housing greater teeth, they appear as little more than second or third cousins to whatever serpent they might be compared with.

Dragon SkeletonSo let us agree that dragons are large lizards, bewinged and bescaled. They may or may not breathe fire—or ice, or electricity, if you like!—but it’s more fun if they do. Let us then decide that they have differing personalities, goals and ambitions, and that their main occupation isn’t always to sit idly upon hoards of glittering gold, merely awaiting plucky interlopers. Those dragons are boring.

Not only boring, but so outdated that the notion belongs in a museum next to a skeleton of a ferocious tyrannosaurus, where the two ancient things might yawn away the hours, covered slowly by a layer of time and dust.

The dragons in fantasy right now are far more interesting. Take Stephen Deas’ The Memory of Flames beasts—now they’re fun. When they’re at their best, they’ll smash you to bits, tear your arms off and gobble you up, as soon as look at you. I said “interesting”, not “nice”.

The Memory of Flames series is all about its dragons. It highly regards its political struggle, too, and gives much thought to the machinations of each and every character. But really, it’s about dragons.

Furthermore, these gargantuan beasties aren’t as thick as the trunk of an oak tree—oh no!—that would be too easy, too safe. If you can outsmart it, you can overcome it, right? Humans like to believe that. Deas’ dragons are intelligent, quick and you’ll quickly learn that when they’re awakened to their full intelligence, they can speak in your mind. In the world Deas presents, Prince Jehal and the rest of the lazy, fat empire’s royals, fighting as they like over power and dragons, little do they know that one slip, one change in the status quo and them and their palaces will be reduced to little more than food and kindling. That is, of course, if they don’t destroy themselves first and save the dragons the trouble, leaving behind only the meat for them to gnaw on amidst the rubble.

At first look, it’s easy to accuse Deas of following the act of other writers, his dragons being the monstrous fiends they are. However, in this story, no matter what transpires between and around the main cast, the dragons are never far away; plotting and lurking, planning a return to a time when the world was bathed in fire and humans offered only sustenance.

The Order of the Scales (cover)Despite these appearances, lurking beneath the surface and likely not acknowledged until the third and final book (The Order of the Scales, due 19th May 2011) might well be a twist that does even more to make this series a very different outing for dragons. Purely conjecture, supported only by the preview of the front cover for The Order of the Scales, but we appear to be in for an exciting ride. Dragons fighting amongst themselves is what this cover says to me, but we will have to endure the wait. Either way, I doubt they’ll forget to crunch on a few humans along the way.

Of course, other writers have striven to break the image of dragons lurking at the edges of our protagonists’ lives. Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series painted our scaly friends differently, having it that humans and dragons once lived together. Subsequently, their essences mingled, creating two half-races on either side of the gene pool. A new and exciting idea to make the imaginations of even the most ardent of dragon fans tingle. Since then, whether they’ve been ridden, or slain, or even heralded as deities, the majestic dragon still hasn’t had its day in the true limelight.

Even if we start talking about Eragon and Pern’s mounts, the dragons are merely devices; the story is not necessarily about the dragons, rather, the characters. In The Memory of Flames, the dragons are characters.

Whether you like your dragons to steal the thunder from whatever humanesque characters they coexist with, to be guides, deities and harbingers of wisdom, or to remain as evil beasties existing within the plot solely to be dispatched by sword and nerve, the flapping lizards are here abundant enough that you’ll find precisely what you’re looking for. Majestic and regal, or monstrous and terrible, dragons in fantasy aren’t about to be dispatched.

The subject of dragons is far too deep and varied to fully discuss in one sitting; there are many more paths any form of exploration can go down. Not least of all, types of dragon—which should prove to be the most interesting part!

So let’s call this an “introduction to the dragon in fantasy”, with the promise of a more detailed exposé to come.

You can read more of this series here:
Dragon Classifications
Chinese Dragons
European Dragons

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By Leo Elijah Cristea

Leo Cristea is a disabled, panromantic, asexual, male-shaped thing with teal hair, loud opinions and a rather lovely altar to the Morrigan on his desk, where he spends 70% of his time writing, 20% of it conducting imaginary metal orchestras with headphones on, and 10% of it dislodging one of his five feline familiars. He reads and writes mostly YA fantasy and science fiction and constantly presses for wider and better diverse inclusivity in books, and he will apologise for neither of these things. When he’s not writing or reading he’s probably romancing yet another love interest in the Dragon Age games or burying himself under too much work trying to learn every language in the world all at once. He is a Creative Writing graduate and the laconic is something he will never master (and isn’t really trying, either), though since he likes words very, very much, this isn’t currently a problem. His favourite authors are all women and this is perfectly fine with him. When he remembers to, he blogs. (Occasionally. When the planets align.) Usually found wearing black.

18 thoughts on “Dragons: An Introduction”
  1. Wonderful article Leo – really impressed with the amount of detail you will be going into throughout this series and you have a wonderful grasp on the Fantasy genre. I can’t wait to share this series with our readers and I thank you again for joining the staff here at Fantasy-Faction.

    It’s certainly interesting to see the evolution of Dragons through Fantasy literature 😀

    1. Hi, I enjoyed reading the article and just want to throw a point into the mix here. I know they aren’t very big, they are probably more YA Fantasy but the Temeraire Series focus on Dragons in an Alternate History during the Napoleonic War, very interestingly, the dragons can talk to humans and act as an Airforce along side the Navy and Army and does focus and build the Dragons Characters Well.

      I enjoyed the series and would recommended them to anyone with a love for Dragons.

  2. Well noted Black Dow. Temeraire is a great series and I hope Peter Jackson and his boys at WETA make a great film from the first book! (They have the rights and are in development…)

    I hope that Leo chooses to cover Chinese dragons in a future article, they are a nice counterpoint to the medieval western view of dragons (from which most fantasy treatments of dragons came).

    Good article Leo, I’m waiting for the next.

  3. Cool article! 🙂 A good YA Fantasy series with dragons as some of the main characters is Dealing with Dragons. Dragons in this series are perceived to the world as the typical “steals princesses and sleeps on large pile of gold’ dragons, but really they run a kingdom just like any other, with a king, political intrigue and other such human trappings. It’s a good read, even if you’re not a young adult. Very interesting series. 🙂

  4. I like Temeraire but I can’t stand the “my dear”s. Also, that cover is awesome, and thanks again for a great article! I’ve never heard of “Dealing with Dragons,” so if I ever find time to myself I’ll try to check it out.

  5. Everyone seems to be wanting to throw Temeraire in there since it definitely is a different way of having Dragon’s portrayed. I wrote the review on the first of the Temeraire series and while I love to think that it is different, I can also see the fact that the dragons are being used as a tool to show Laurence growing and his ideas widening from what he has known. The use of Temeraire in the stories is more of a soundboard for what Laurence is thinking and feeling and sometimes is used as his scapegoat for doing things that he would like to do but does not feel it would be proper. In doing so, Temeraire is no longer a character in the book, but rather a device which Naomi Novik is using. Again, sorry fans, i would love to believe that the Temeraire books were different from others, but I cannot say they are. I hope that Leo does do a write-up comparing the Eastern and Western dragons since then I think we may see a change.

  6. I was thinking about the dragons in David Weber/Linda Evans Hell’s Gate, where two societies clash across dimensional gates, one science and psionics, the other magic. The magic culture has three kinds of dragons. Lightning breathing are air superiority fighters, fireball breathing are multipurpose, and chlorine cloud breathing are ground support. They are not truly intelligent, and they do badly attacking a fort armed with Gatling cannon. I am going to be putting out a series called Refuge in which humans (in the millions) are transported to another dimension which is the world of our archetypes. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls exist and are actually evolutionary offshoots of humans. And of course there are dragons. Big flying monsters of all colors and sizes and temperaments, all with breath weapons of various types. I use them as ground support for the armies, and of course as aerial targets for the F22 raptors that come screaming through the dimensional gates in the middle of a battle. They are descended from Dinosaurs in a world in which magic works. In fact flight is a magical act, there being no natural way to get something so big into the sky, and if a dragon goes through one of the randomly opening gates it is really in a world of hurt, unable to get off the ground and possessing no breath weapon.

  7. No mention of Dickson’s “The Dragon and the George” series (and, of course, the absolutely wonderful short story which started it all?)

  8. Nice article! Although a little disappointed you posed a really interesting question about why all dragons appear alike (not to mention the fact that writers generally don’t have room to add their own aesthetic), then breezed past it. Was hoping for some kind of Prometheus-style revelation… (Dragon engineers?). ;o)

  9. Very well-written article! I’ve been thinking of writing a history of dragons for our website at Windstone Editions, and this is the sort of inpsiration I needed to get me going. Thanks.

    1. You’re very welcome! Leo has done a bunch of articles on different mythological creatures. The dragon series is my favorite. 🙂 I love your statues by the way; my husband has ruby and peacock fledgling dragons in honor of our twins. 🙂

      Jennie
      Autumn2May
      Assistant Editor | Forum Mod

  10. Appears a bit harsh on Tolkein, based on his depiction of Smaug. But compare with Glaurung, in the Silmarillion! He kills Middle Earth’s magic streams and rivers by ‘befouling’ them!

  11. […] Last time we considered dragons as a general species, to introduce their role in fantasy fiction, giving introductory examples of their usual staging and appearances in the stories we relish. Whether a giddy groupie or an ardent loather of the (most of the time) bewinged beasts it’s always good to know your dragons: whether to determine your favourite fiend, or to simply know thine enemy. […]

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