*hands smack on both sides of her face * What?! All evil! For shame!

Dragons are often portrayed as evil, and that's okay. So long as we don't believe they are evil.

There might be a connection between the actual stories of fairy encounters and modern encounters with extraterrestrials. I think that demons are responsible for both. I got this idea from the book Alien Intrusion by Gary Bates. It is not a book for children though, and most of it is talking about fiction and debunking hoaxes.

You could make practically any creature intrinsically evil in your Otherworld. I am seriously thinking about making butterflies a sentient evil race. But I tend to not make any thing intrinsically one way or the other. I have no intrinsically good creatures, and so far only these intrinsically evil races:

Vampires
Fauns
Centaurs
Sexless humans
Elves


As a note: I like the legends and ancient pictures of dragons better than anything I have seen in literature today. Smaug, and especially Glaurung, are my favorites by far. They are Tolkien's dragons. All his dragons were evil creatures spawned by Morgoth.

I have dinosaurs, but I will give them my own names because their familiar names are used only in connection with modern literature, and are associated with all kinds of... other things.

Great work! Extremely beneficial!

Glad you thought so.

I use dragons. However, the dragons my books are not very nice. Some are small, hissing at you like kettles under rocks and in the knots of trees. These are prey for griffins. Then there are the other ones - huge, bringers of doom and destruction, apocalyptic terrors smashing through cities like Godzilla. These are prey for griffin-riders: trained warriors astride tamed griffins.

My story is not so much inspired by mythologies and fantasies as much as folk tales and the Arthurian legends. Here, dragons are always evil. This is why I portray them likewise: not because the Bible says dragons are evil.

The Bible also uses the dark to symbolize evil. He uses the serpent to symbolize death. However, there is nothing evil about the actual darkness (when you walk out at night, are you in darkness and in sin - literally?) nor serpents (THE Serpent is another story...).

Dragons are present in every culture. This is evidence that they existed at some point, though perhaps not in the form glorified in literature. Nonetheless, God is using the dragon - a creature that existed rather than a devilish symbol He made up - to characterize Lucifer. There is therefore no spiritual evil linked to the form of the dragon. It was just an animal. Lucifer was also called a raging lion, but there's nothing evil about lions. Otherwise, C.S. Lewis made a huge blunder.

Use your dragon however you like. God's smiling from heaven.

Deo Volente,
Pavalini

Thanks for the thoughts, Pavalini. I like the choices you've made for your book, even though I am a big fan of nice dragons.

So, out of curiosity, how does basing your dragons on folk lore, instead of fantasy, affect your portrayal of dragons? I know how it would affect my own writing, but I'm curious how you see that affecting your portrayal.

In one series I'm working on, dragons are not good or evil, they are just the same as any other animal. They can be tamed and friendly, like dogs, or wild and aggressive, like wolves. Not all domesticated dragons can be fully tamed, nor or all wild dragons dangerously aggressive. There are different species of dragons, each with their own traits.

In other words, what's special about dragons when they're based on folk-lore and Arthurian legends rather than pagan mythologies? Truth be told, the special thing is there's nothing special about them. They're just whopping big lizards. They breath fire, they are encrusted with (basically) impenetrable scales, typically male (why this is the case, I'm clueless....in the natural world, females are usually far bigger and nastier), rare but common enough to be pests and get slaughtered 24/7 without going extinct, have terrible breath in the morning, single, have a taste for lovely damsels and royalty (like cake is to bread), delight in scrooging gold, are constantly bothered from naps by silly knights trying to make names for themselves, and usually end up getting killed by some brat with a special weapon. Terribly borish life. Being ugly doesn't help. D.A.F.T. (Dragons Are Folk Too) is an elvish protesting group for dragon's rights. They like to picket on the castle drawbridge.

There's little magical about them. They are hunted for sport. They are hunted for glory. They are hunted for their treasure. They are hunted because they snore at night, keeping everyone in the village awake. They all look madly different from each other, and though you never see them guarding nests somehow their eggs show up in the oddest places as heirlooms, treasures, and delicious omelets (actually...I'm yet to see that one...ding: BOOK IDEA!). They like beds of outrageous piles of gold, maidens-over-easy (which seldom occurs...), dark damp dreary holes in a big rock (crispy hollow shells of armor for interior-design), a good cup of tea and warm fuzzy slippers on chilly mornings.

In short, nothing special at all. A lot like us, really.

Deo Volente,
Pavalini

P.S. I may have just called you a dragon.

*chuckles * Wow, that was one long sentence!

That's what I figured, just wanted to see what you would say.

@Jonathan: I like that portrayal of dragons too, Jonathan.

In my story dragons are considered guardians. A gift from God (The Creator) bestowed to the people to protect them and help them in the tasks of every day life. There are many dragons that range in size from small enough to rest in the palm of your hand to the size of a barn. There are listeners, Scouts, Guardians, Dragon Warriors, and more (still coming up with them ).
Mine aren't evil at all, but are, instead, loyal subjects to their Master who aim to please and honor.

That kind of goes along with my theme, Promised.

Agree with others here. Dragons are real and they can be a symbol. Arianna has written elegantly and thoroughly in her blogs about dragons. The old testament English versions that use the word dragon are "inferring" it from the various Hebrew terms as Arianna pointed out. There is no actual 'dragon' word.
In the NT, dragon is only mentioned in association with evil that is associated with Satan. But it is not speaking of all dragons.

The OT sometimes speaks of the serpents (translated dragons) hanging out or nesting with the owls...implying they are flying to high or remote locations. So we have the flying dragon image.

Even with the scriptures being inspired by God, the writers are describing things that people may not have seen or been familiar with. They use imagery people could understand. Dragons could also be an ancient machine or ship. I wonder what kind of dragon will be capable of wiping out stars with its tail. A pretty big or powerful one. More than we have access to, right now (unless you are Maj Samantha Carter blowing up a sun using a black hole and a stargate LOL)

Speaking of military: If you've seen and heard a bunch of helos or aircraft from afar, it can sound like bees or locusts buzzing. I suspect they could be thought of as bugs, too, if you didn't know what they were. Listen to the sound effects of old WWII movies, The aircraft look and sound like a bunch of locusts. We don't know for sure whether the authors were seeing an animal or a contraption that looked like an animal.

Personally, I like the animal version. I always like the God-developed animal over the copy-cat version of humans.

Not every image of the dragon in Scripture is associated with evil, if you draw on OT. They are associated with power. Power is not evil, but what you do with power that can be evil. IMO

Huh, I never thought of that before, Lyndsey, but you are right. Thanks for the observation.

My dragons are like Jonathan's- they're only animals.

They come in different shapes and sizes and can have different numbers of legs (wyverns, etc...) but all in the all they look like earth dragons except for one thing- they cannot breath fire naturally.

Though all of Murel has heard of them, dragons can only be found in the Eastern edge of the continent. Most of the tribes of humans that settled in there have learned to tame and ride them. The largest of those tribes is composed entirely of evil humans who have learned to "co-operate" with fallen angels in order to make dragons spew an "unearthly fire" from their mouths. The rites involved cause harm to the dragons and eventually kill them.

In my final battle at the end of the book, (I know I already have to many aspects similar to LotR. I'm working on that. ) dragons are used on the side of the fallen angels (though I might have a few on the good side *shrugs*).

That is a unique way to give dragons the ability to breathe fire.

Thank you

Nice. I agree with Jonathan, it's nice that it's not this intrinsic ability they have - makes them original

eru

Fascinating idea, Mark. Demonical ability as opposed to natural.

Thanks, both of you.

Very interesting concept for sure!

Very awesome. That's a unique take on dragons, and it allows for a lot of variety.

Thank you, Philadelphia. It should be fun to write.