I was thinking about this this evening, while watching my live D&D game ion twitch. Dragons are so prevalent in literature, myths, and even video games. Their lore varies greatly. I was just wondering what you folks fascinating or what is your favorite portrayal of them, so far.

1) For me, the definitive source is Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern. Being bioengineered from their diminutive brethren, the fire lozards, they have a playful, cuddly feel about them. Their dependance on their emotionally linked riders makes them great, in my mind. They are docile, playful, unknowing of their effect on humans, and lovable. However, thanks to Ms. McCaffrey, a lot Dragons since her first book in 1969(?), many other authors' dragons enjoy a good eye-ridge scratching

2) Elizabeth Kerner's "Song of Silence" trilogy portrays them well, too. Again, they are docile creatures whose sole purpose is kill all demons on sight. In her world, Dragon Gold comes from the scales they grow out of. Then they use that gold to line their cave dwellings. In this world, Dragons are the on the side of good, Demons are evil, and humans are in the middle, free to choose their own path.

3) Smaug of Tolkein's world was a terrible being. He was evil and knew fully well he was. If not for a "chink" in his indomitable armor, he'd be alive still. This was my first intro to dragons and still holds a place in my heart

4) Chinese have many myths about dragons and they "seem" different from the usual "western myth" dragons, being long and slender, almost snakelike in their appearance. I read a book as a child about a Chinese myth and that dragon intrigued me.

5) I can't help but mention Skyrim's attempt here. Lore, books, people talking make them sound horrible and terrifying. In (vanilla) gameplay, though, I find them very lacking in "oomph!" By the end of my playthroughs where I am quite powerful, I can stand toe to toe with any I meet. That just doesn't seem quite right to me.

That's just a handful of examples. What do you have to add? What "trips your trigger", as they say, about Dragons you've read/heard about, seen in films, or encountered in video games?

When I was a child (born in '83) I was always drawing dragons and dinosaurs (until I played Super Castlevania IV in the early 90's and became obsessed with undead things and monsters; Stage 4 boss of that game was right up my alley though, lol). I also saw a documentary once that suggested ancient peoples saw exposed dinosaur bones and their imaginations turned them into dragons. Favorite depiction of dragons? Tough one. I guess the first example from my earliest memories is probably Maleficent from the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty. When she turned into the dragon left a strong impression. Now I think I'll go with the tale of Beowulf versus the Dragon. Usually in tales of heroes versus dragons the hero always wins. I liked the fact that while Beowulf defeated the dragon, he paid the price and was mortally wounded in the process. When I read the story in school it was refreshing to read a story in which the dragon doesn't die like a chump, lol.


*Edit* Addendum:

One of the most fun dragon fights in a video game: Volvagia, the subterranean lava dragon, and boss of the Fire Temple in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was like a game of whack a mole with a fire breathing dragon as the mole! Lol

Valoo the dragon in Wind Waker really put me in awe when I was young. Massive, angry, and spurting fire on the top of an island mountain.


Curiously enough, he's sort of a blend of eastern and western takes on dragons. He breathes fire and is terrifying, yet he is benevolent, and his head and and neck make him look like similar to a typical eastern snake dragon.

http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Valoo?file=Valoo.png


According to lore, he gave the Rito people the power to fly long ago, and every young Rito must meet him when they come of age to receive their wings. He speaks an ancient language, and is bent in anger against all that is evil.


His tail gets stuck in a chamber below him, and you must prevent an evil claw monster from tormenting him from below.


He also has really tiny wings for his size which makes him funny and yet grand in a way.


So many more dragons, but that one always stuck out for me.

For me it has to be Dragonlance, they were my original introduction to all things involving dragons. Wasn't really until I started reading Forgotten Realms that I started to see that dragons could be more then just evil creatures, with personalities ranging all the way from Paladin like goodness(and even more stringent!), to funny trickster, to downright "Going to conquer the entire world" evil.

I actually found Skyrims depiction to be amazing. I loved reading all about the lore on dragons and the various traits and characterization of different dragons.

Western six limb dragons are my favorite and my favorite of all western dragons is the last boss grigori from dragons dogma he's the size of a football stadium...(the football field not the whole stadium) he has a badass voice he can cast magic spells and he can breath badass devastating fire attacks! He was pne tough opponent!

I thought Skyrim's dragons were pretty awesome, though they could have done with a separate difficulty slider. I had my thief character do just enough of the main quest to trigger their appearance and then have her decide to go back to life of petty larceny instead of all that heroic stuff, taking advantage of all the mayhem to nick even more valuables.

In film, Reign of Fire had some pretty mean dragons rather like Skyrim's but the best for me was Dragonslayer - that dragon was truly fearsome and the effects incredibly well done for 1981.

Alan Dean Foster wrote a series of novels where someone had an empathic/telepathic poison spitting mini-dragon (Pip the mini-drag) as a companion that perches on their shoulder - always wanted one of those.

My first exposure was Smaug when I read The Hobbit in the very early 70s. I loved him. The thought that he was the last of his line was amazing.

Liked Glorantha's dragons. The Dragonkill War was named for what the dragons did to their attackers, not the other way round.

Dragons in Glorantha were vast army eating monsters, mostly sleeping, they were often mistaken for mountains. The draconic creature most often encountered by adventurers were dream dragons, the dreams of a dragon that had taken physical form and were similar to traditional western dragons. There were other draconic creatures too like wyrms (wingless serpents created by the Empire of the Wyrms Friends) and dragonewts (the progeny of immature dragons mating, who were seeking to evolve into true dragons over many lifetimes).

Chinese dragons are interesting... Flood, rain, 6 toed 9 armed, blah blah. Mostly read about them in Wuxia


Coiling Dragon has a complete translation.. I Shall Seal the Heavens still in translation mentions various Chinese dragons or korean

If you are English or Welsh, you are introduced to dragons at an early age.

So here are, what could be described as entry level dragons.

Grolliffe the friendly Ice dragon from Noggin the Nog.

The Soup dragon from The Clangers.

Taragon from The Herbs.

Ha pointing at Amazon

Anyway Smaug was my first (my love of fantasy Is well all from my mother reading Where the wild things are to me as a young grasshopper) I do well feel a tad sad that many's first taste of oversized reptile will be from the Game of thrones (tV)... Nothing against it just seems well not the coolest version but whatever makes more of us.... hehheh

ehh

Vermithaxus (spelling) i seem to remember as damned cool for the time

edit--- Vermithrax Pejorative (movie Dragonslayer)

God, which irresponsible parents are letting their kids watch GoT?!


I think dragons in the ASoI&F books are portrayed well. A shame the show only uses them for shock and awe value (see last week's episode when )

That's a great addition! I liked DragonLance, too

Wow! I totally missed out on that lore! I'll try to make it a point to read up on them

Ah, yes... Dragonslayer was a great movie. Laughable effects for 2016 now, but back in '81 (like you mentioned), awesome stuff. My High School D&D group saw that movie together when it came out

Also: Pete's Dragon! I saw a trailer for a movie recently. [YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Oz0X37Qsg]

My first memory of a dragon was in a story book. The image covered two pages,the dragon crouched in a corner, its tail extended

around the edges of the pages ending in a point, between the tail-point and the dragons head stood a knight, standing behind the head of

the dragon was a princess. The princess was stroking the dragons ears like you would a dog's. The dragon I remember had upturned fangs.

Since it was a friendly dragon I imagine the book to have been an anthology of Victorian or Edwardian children's tales.

The incongruence of that image has stayed with me.