Hello!
Welcome to the very first edition of The Pursuit of Fascination. That’s going to be the extent of my preamble for this first edition. Let’s jump right in.
When you think of dragons, what first comes to mind? Given they aren’t real (sadly – although maybe for the best) the image you hold in your mind must be based on some interpretation or other. Maybe Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion from Game of Thrones or maybe Smaug if you’ve read The Hobbit. Probably Saint George and the dragon he vanquished if you’re Christian. Maybe you think of a Chinese dragon, of dragons from the Triwizard tournament in Harry Potter, of Charizard (not technically a dragon) or of dragons from Earthsea. If you’re Welsh it’s probably the Welsh Dragon that proudly adorns the national flag.
Regardless of which one of those – or other – provides your frame of reference for dragons, they are all similar enough to converge in roughly the same place. Giant, hulking beasts, with wings and a ferocious ability to breathe fire. It’s no wonder that such a creature so strongly captures the imagination. And more so, I’d argue, than any other mythical creature. The unicorn has found its niche at birthday parties and in fancy dress outfits, mermaids too closely resemble humans and the yeti lingers in the background, always lurking in the shadows, out of sight. But not dragons, they’re bold and pointedly conspicuous, demanding the attention of the world as they tear it to shreds around you. There’s a reason maps of old were labelled with ‘Here be dragons’ epitaphs, warning would-be travellers of the potential dangers awaiting in unmapped territory. Dragons occupy the sweet spot between possible and fantastical, which allows the creators - you, me and everyone else - to craft them any which way we desire. So here I want to explore the world of dragons, delving into the wonderful imagination that has created such rich lore and stories around these enthralling beasts.
The Origins of the Dragon
As is evident from the collection of dragons mentioned in the introduction above, dragons are a feature of human culture all across the world, and have been for centuries. The mythological beasts are said to have emerged in both Europe and Asia independently and likely in other regions of the world too. That makes it very difficult to pinpoint any specific genesis for the ‘birth’ of the first dragons, but it’s not hard to see where the idea might have spawned from. The world around us is full of inspiration that might lead to such fanciful creation.
The obvious place to start is the living natural world. Have you ever seen a crocodile? All 20 thrashing feet of one tearing its prey to shreds? You’re already well on the way to a dragon. Now imagine it’s 1000 BCE and you’ve just encountered a crocodile for the first time, or a Komodo dragon or any other species of monitor lizard. It’s 1000 BCE, so you have no notion of what else exists in the wider world beyond the confines of your local community. In such a scenario it doesn’t take much of a meandering imagination to speculate on what other terrifying creatures might exist ‘out there’. Add wings to make it truly mobile and add in the ability to breathe fire and you’ve created the ultimate monster, a beast entirely capable of destroying the world as you know it.
The existence of real, living animals on a grand scale like elephants and whales would also clearly help provide a framework for the monstrous size of imagined monsters. Better yet, the discovery of dinosaur fossils and bones, actual evidence of the existence of animals that far surpass any known animal in size, obviously provides fertile ground for speculation and belief. And they wouldn’t have been far wrong – a good number of the dinosaurs were downright draconic in appearance and size (see in particular the Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx).
Key Features of the Dragon
General Appearance
Beyond their prodigious size, their wings and their ability to breathe fire, the other defining feature of dragons is their reptilian nature. Scales, claws and the fact that they lay eggs are all inherently reptilian. Like reptiles, they also have four legs (snakes too are classified as reptiles despite being limb-less, as they descended from four-limbed ancestors), making them just as proficient and deadly on land as they are in the sky (four legs and wings are my definitions of a dragon for the purposes of this piece).
Dragons aren’t just immense, fearsome predators though. Their impenetrable scales also give them a defensive covering that makes them ridiculously difficult to harm. But, of course, they do have one key vulnerability – an exposed underbelly, devoid of scales - otherwise they’d make for terrible foils against which to pit heroic humans and other righteous warriors. It’s this vulnerability that is, in part, attributed to their lust for treasure, as Smaug so perfectly illustrates in The Hobbit. During his 171 year slumber on top of his colossal treasure pile hoarded away inside the Lonely Mountain, the collected riches form an encrusted layer of protection on his underside – his “waistcoat of fine diamonds”. It’s also said that some dragons work to build an elaborate nest of treasure as a way to win favour in their courting of a mate.
Whether or not the colour of their scales also aids in courtship, dragons possess the benefit of existing exclusively in the imagination and are thus unrestrained by the realities of Mother Nature’s colour palette anyway. As a result, there’s a glorious array of colours amongst the dragon population - almost every shade you can imagine has already been imagined. Dungeons and Dragons employs colour as the distinguishing feature between different types of dragon; red, blue, green, purple, white, black, brown and grey are the evil Chromatic dragons (and each colour possesses different character traits, abilities and physiologies), whilst the righteous Metallic dragons exist in shades of gold, silver, bronze, copper, brass and steel. If we head to Westeros we can find a pink-scaled dragon and a yellow-scaled dragon courtesy of George R. R. Martin, as well as more precise and expressive descriptions of colour such as olive green, jade, morning mist, pearlescent white and ugly mud brown. Rebecca Yarros, in her Empyrean series, adds a wonderfully vivid array of shades of orange to the mix, with her description of “orange dragons, coming in various shades of apricot to carrot”. It’s so simple, but it really captured my imagination. The final word on colour goes to Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, where Mimring’s scales turned as clear as diamonds after he flew too close to the sun – not even a dragon can escape Icarian fate when meddling with the sun.
Whilst predominantly reptilian in nature, one key feature of dragons is distinctly non-reptilian, however. Flight.
Flight
Dragons, despite their large bat-like wings, are just too heavy for flight. Their weight relative to their wing sizes should make them unfit for flight (according to typical means of aviation), but that doesn’t stop bees, and there’s no damn chance it’ll stop dragons. In fact, dragons make a mockery of the laws of physics, none more so than the gentle orange giant, Dragonite. Dragonite can’t just fly – hefting it’s 200kg bulk through the clouds on tiny, incapable-looking wings would be impressive enough - Dragonite can circle the globe in sixteen hours. If you’re wondering just how fast that is, it’s faster than the speed of sound.
It's not just god-like feats of speed endurance like Dragonite’s that can give a dragon the edge it needs to rule the skies though. Sticking with the world of Pokémon, and with orange dragons, Charizard, when evolved into Mega Charizard Y, gains an additional set of small wings as an extension of its arms, that provide enhanced mobility and manoeuvrability. Another dragon with four wings is How to Train Your Dragon’s star dragon, Toothless, a Night Fury, who demonstrates unrivalled levels of aerial prowess in the films. That is until Toothless breaks his tail fin and then he cannot fly at all, so fundamental are his tail fins to flight (don’t worry, the hero (and culprit) Hiccup has a solution).
The tail is rarely pivotal for flight and isn’t always the most noteworthy feature of a dragon though, but sometimes, just sometimes, it can be. Rebecca Yarros made the tail the defining feature of her dragons, with each breed self-explanatorily named after its tail; swordtails, clubtails, morningstartails, daggertails, feathertails and scorpiontails. That’ll make you keep an eye on both ends!
The other standout for its tail is Charizard; a perpetual flame burns at the tip of its tail, that even keeps burning underwater – because yes, Charizard is a great swimmer too! As is Spyro, as are the Black Chromatic dragons in Dungeons and Dragons, as are the tidal class of dragons in How to Train Your Dragon.
Breathing Fire
As terrifying as the tail, claws or physical appearance may be, everyone knows the primary weapon of the dragon; fire. Typically this manifests in the ability to breathe a projected stream of fire capable of incinerating anything and everything in its path. But how do they do it? Everything else about dragons seems at least faintly within the realms of possibility, but here’s where things veer into the fantastical. How can a living being possibly breathe fire?
Leaving aside anything fuelled by magic, the explanations for dragon fire typically coalesce around the real-life requirements for creating a fire; something flammable and a spark.
For dragons, the flammable element is typically either methane, another flammable gas or some form of venom. The gases can be produced in a number of different ways, such as glands that secrete said gases, a digestive system that produces the gases through fermentation or through a diet of combustible foods such as coal, sulfur or other metals. To turn these flammable elements into fire, it just then requires a spark for ignition, which is variably produced by either the clicking of teeth, the production of friction in the throat, special organs designed for the job or through the swallowing of ‘sparking objects’, like rocks or gemstones – perhaps another reason dragons have an unshakable lust for treasure? If the gases are being released or the venom being secreted into the mouth (like with venomous snakes), all it then needs is a well-timed spark to combust and then an exhalation to propel the flames externally.
But this isn’t the only way. Dragons like Smaug instead operate like a furnace. Smaug burns with a constant fire smouldering from within, perpetually emitting smoke from his jaws and nostrils, as is beautifully depicted on the cover of The Hobbit. While clearly a far more outlandish way to gift fire to a dragon, it’s certainly more entertaining and adds a humorous charm to the imagining.
And of course, there are also dragons that either cannot breathe fire, or more interestingly, those that have other abilities. Those that are aligned with the cold and can breathe frost instead are a wonderful prospect, and there are also those that have electrical breath or can breathe poisonous gas. The thought of a dragon seeking out a thunderstorm to ‘charge’ itself like Zapdos does, and then unleashing the terror of projectile electric currents on its enemies is truly terrifying.
I’ll leave you with that image.
“But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”
Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Breathing fire actually does happen in real life! (Sort of.) Look up bombardier beetles.
I really enjoy it when people take such a detailed approach to fictional creatures. This was a great article. The flight part seems the most unrealistic to me, and I've noticed that most authors don't even try to explain it. Haha