Consider this, you see polls on a daily basis here where people are saying that evil dragons are a cliché but I beg to differ, I say good dragons are a cliché! Having these huge creatures practically designed to go on a murderous rampage (heck it′s not like they developed thumbs yet they got claws) yet they are made so good all the time. I don′t have many winters under my belt but I think I′ve seen enough dragons to be able to decide if it′s cliché or not to have them be good or evil, so let′s look at a few examples.

D&D: Here dragons are both Good (metallic) and Evil (chromatic), 1 point to both.
TES: Updated: Since I′ve got more than 3 wishing for me to give dragons the good stamp too. 1 point to both.
Tolkein: He made dragons be evil. 1 point to evil.
Eragon: Dragons are ultimately good, only seem to sway on the evil side because of evil riders. 1 point to good.
Harry Potter: Dragons are just stupid, calling them evil would be like calling a fox or a wolf evil, 0 points to either side.
Broken Sky (short novels): Dragons are good. 1 point to good.
Fable: I know Jack of Blades took on the form of a dragon but I don′t remember any indications of them being good or evil by nature, 0 points to either.
Heroes of Might & Magic: There are dragons both on good and evil sides, 1 point to both.
Warcraft: Dragons are good, any evil dragons are such because of corrupting influences but not by nature. 1 point to good.
Old European & Western myths: Dragons are generally evil here. 1 point to evil.
Old Asian myths: Here dragons are often guardians and mostly good. 1 point to good.
Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks... ect: For every dragon they make evil they make a dragon of the sort you see in Mulan (more of a lizard but... nwm), Shrek and How to train your dragon. 1 to both.
Anime: There is a tendency to make good character ride dragons or for dragons to be guardian spirits, I can′t say I see enough dragons in anime though but I′m giving that catagory to the good side. 1 point to good.
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Dragonheart: From what I understand after reading up on the movie the dragon was good. 1 point to good.
Halfblood chronicles: Dragons are members of a civilized race of which some are good, mostly indifferent, and a few are bad. 1 point to Both.
Dragonlance: Good and bad dragons as far as I understand. 1 point to both.
Dragon Age: Dragons are unintelligent like in Harry Potter from what I read here. 0 points to both.
--reserved for future dragons--
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So going by my current count I have 8 +4 added = 12 good dragons and 6 +2 = 8 evil dragons. (This line is open for editing later on)

Ofc I have only experienced so much but I think I have a fair count, but as you see just above I have space where I will add any dragons from myth you guys can think of, but do try to be fair if you both know cases of good and bad dragons then tell both but not just the bad dragons, and if you think I′m incorrect on any of my own dragon statements feel free to argue with me about it and quite possible persuade me to change my mind, I won′t ignore any sound facts.

So, when you ponder dragons being evil in TES compared to other series, do you really think it would be cliché to make them evil ?

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1164775-why-are-all-the-dragons-evilenemies/

We already have a topic for pretty much exactly this.

No matter what you say about dragons, people will always call them cliche. And they are, but who cares? Dragons are almost always good, plus I'm sure bethesda is putting their own twist on them.

I don't recall Bethesda ever explicitly stating that all dragons in Skyrim will be evil. As far as we know, only the ones that have thrown their lot in with Alduin are. I won't be at all surprised if we run into a dragon or two that isn't in cahoots with Alduin.

True, but I wanted to make this one since the other one already assumes evil dragons are cliché and it asks you what you like more but not if you really consider it cliché or not, personally I like evil dragons more but I voted for neither being cliché in this post, just to clarify the difference a bit.



Yeah thus I wrote "let′s just assume they are evil" to give evil dragons a extra point in this thread, if more point out that dragons can be good in TES I will change it and up the score for good dragons by one.

Actually, you've got about as many bad dragons as good dragons out in fiction.

Indeed, the only cliche route gamesas can go with Dragons is make them bestial (i.e. nonsentient), terrorize cattle herds, and have them sit on a hoard of treasure.

And I seriously doubt that they'll be taking that route in Skyrim.

As for additional dragons... you may want to think about each D&D realm seperately (you DID know there's various campaigns, correct?) For instance, in Eberron, a dragon's status as Chromatic or Metallic doesn't make them good or evil, so you can get a Lawful Good Black Dragon and a Chaotic Evil Gold Dragon (both of which are opposite alignments in "default" D&D.) I'm not so sure about the Dragonlance setting, but Dragons are treated akin to Eragon in the sense of people riding dragons. I'm not sure if they're sentient or simply beasts.

... I've never seen unintelligent Dragons.

No I did not know, and that′s partially the point, the more people tell me the more detailed I can make this post, so thank you But you just clarified it further that we can have good and evil dragons around within the D&D universe so the score there does no change, but I do appreciate you pointing this out.



Well they are like that in Harry Potter if you judge from the behaviors of the dragons in "The Goblet of Fire" and the dragon Hagrid had, Gilbert was not really evil by nature and the ones in the arena did not show intelligence but more the type of behavior you′d except from a hungry cougar at the Colosseum in ancient Rome.

For some reason I always think of the dragon from Dragonheart. I need to watch that movie again, it has been years. Not only was it awesome, it was good.

I kind of like the idea someone was telling me the other day about how the dragons are "evil" to us because of such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to Alduin, and nice red uniforms. It seems more like they a raging fanatics, with a singular purpose in mind. They're evil, but they're interesting evil. And yet, they still want to destroy the world. <_<

Dragons aren't evil, they are just doing their job. Their job just happens to be bringing about the end of the world.

I think it's pretty balanced.

The only thing I see as overused in the Skyrim storyline is that they call Alduin (The big bad dragon) the "world eater" and that he will basically consume the entire world and destroy it and all life on it.

Sounds a bit familiar doesn't it?

Guild wars 2 storyline is all about a massive dragon who is out to destroy and reshape the world

World of warcraft catclysm is all about a massive dragon who is out to destroy and reshape the world

So I'm a tad sick of the "Big dragon gunna eat up/destroy the entire planet" thing

Also see above my post, evil and good is such a silly concept. Dragons would see us as evil where as we see them as evil.. it all just depends on your point of view.

Good & Evil = Stupid as heck.

And even more so, Alduin in Elderscrolls Skyrim isn't evil at ALL and shouldn't be from any point of view.

Yes he wants to destroy the world and all life on it to reshape it but have you asked WHY? Well if your a lore geek like me you have researched this question and it's so he can REMAKE the world just as he created the world in it's current state.(Long ago Alduin destroyed the world as it was originally created and created the world as it is now)

Nothing wrong with him starting things over because the current races seem to have stuffed things up BIG TIME.

Evil dragons, good dragons, ancient rare mystic dragons, teacher dragons, dragons as random creatures, hoarding dragons, dragons bound to a human, it's all been done. It's impossible to avoid cliche completely with them.

How about a dragon that is neither good nor evil, but flies out after he's been drinking ale one night and burns the local village, and then feels sorry about it in the morning?

I think dragons are cliche all by themselves lol.

Dragons are animals, if they are huge and breath fire they may very well terrorize a village or two. If you put a bear in the middle of a mall and it goes on a buffet frenzy is it evil?

When you get right down to it, every story is basically the same. Check out the concept of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth.

So what if having dragons in a fantasy game is cliche? Just because something's been done previously doesn't mean it can't be done well again.

Why would a good dragon not want to kill us?

To avoid dragons being cliche.. how about when they lie their nose grows.. and make sure they cant fly, but they can jump really high. Their diet consists of rice and cheeseburgers.

Evil dragons as cliche? As opposed to what, Teddy Bear Dragons?

Huge wings, fierce venemous fangs, daggerous talons, armor-plated platinum scales for defense, spell-use, FIRE-BREATHING ... and yet what, you're supposed to be able to lie down and spoon with one?

Hahahaha.... this Poll is ludicrous! And very funny to boot! Hahahahaa...

If anyone thinks evil dragons are cliche, then wait to see for yourself when Peter Jackson's new "The Hobbit" movies come to the screen. It's going to be probably the most awesome dragon to ever grace the screen, and you can judge then if you think it's cliche, I mean these things were bred for one purpose: evil and destruction and insatiable hunger and thievery!

(Technically that not's one thing, but who's counting?) wink wink

Good dragons are cliche.

Evil dragons are just what dragons are, from a folklore/mythology point of view. Good dragons are just a thing Hollywood does.

Halfblood chronicles: Dragons are members of a civilized race of which some are good, mostly indifferent, and a few are bad.

Dragon Age's dragons are unintelligent animals (the Archdemon not withstanding, since that's due to the corruptive hive-mind nature of the Blight).

I say just having dragons in itself is cliche. It doesn't matter if you make them good or evil, they've been done so many times that you'd be pretty hard-pressed to have them in your story without making them cliche. But that's not the point here, as much as I like stories that try to avoid cliches whenever possible, if you refuse to do everything that could possibly be seen as cliche, you won't have much material to work with. Sometimes, you just have to accept that you're going to use a few things other people have done before

Evil dragons in itself isn't any more cliche than good dragons, I'd say, though portraying ANY race as unquestionably evil is a cliche that needs to go the way of the dodo, but making traditionally evil races out to be unquestionably good or saying we just think they're evil because they're "misunderstood" is also cliche. I just want my dragons and my orcs and my goblins to have equal oportunities for villainy or heroism, just like all the other races. And D&D's "metallic dragons are good, other dragons are evil" thing doesn't count. Because you're still defining their morality by race, it doesn't matter if you tell me some dragons are good and others are evil, they're still born that way. They don't choose to do evil because they're misguided and think it's the only way to build a better world or because they're just ambitious or they had a troubled childhood. They do evil by their very nature because they were just born evil. And it creates the boring cliche where you can tell if a character is good or evil by how that character looks, rather than needing to judge yourself from the character's behavior.



Sounds like we need more dragons like that. Though Skyrim probably isn't the place to look for them, since the dragons are servants of Alduin, in this case, I can give them a free pass for wanting to destroy the world without question since it's what they're master intends to accomplish, it's the same as how I wasn't bothered by not seeing any Sixth House priests that were on my side in Morrowind.



I don't know, when you think about it from the perspective of the inhabitants of Tamriel, which you should be doing, since you're playing as one of them, it's pretty hard to sympethize with someone who wants to destroy the world, no matter what kind of metaphysical bull droppings you use to justify it.



I beg to differ, honestly, the obssession with avoiding that at any cost is starting to become a horrible cliche. That's the kind of logic that leads to unlikable protagonists and antagonists that your audiences end up rooting for when it's the protagonists you're supposed to want to win. Now, of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to make villains with better motives than just "I'm evil", but sometimes, you just have to come to a point where you say "This guy is the bad guy, and I'm going to make it clear why our heroes want to stop him." Sometimes, I just WANT some good, old fashioned good versus evil.

Obviously, Dragonlance dragons are the best.

:P