Dragons R Us

Dragons are a central part of the fantasy world of both books and movies. If you know fantasy at all, you know dragons and the myriad forms they come in. Geographically, dragons can be found in lore all over the freaking world from every point of the compass. Big small, kind, intelligent, ugly, beautiful, vicious.

There is not a single facet of dragons that hasn’t been explored in books, movies or legends. And yet still, we humans are fascinated by them. To the point where we seek them out, in an attempt to uncover a hidden magical place, somewhere in this world, that contains within it a dragon or two.

Take the shows Monster Quest or Destination Truth as examples of this. They both look into supposed sightings of legendary creatures, dragons included, all over the world. Why? I think it’s because we WANT to believe that they are somewhere out there (Had a Disney moment, sorry) and that they are just waiting for us to find them.

I’m not even going to list the number of books written about that slave, lowly stable boy, milk maid, nobody who turns out to be the one to DISCOVER a dragon, becomes its friend, and swoop through the skies while clutching to its pearlescent scales; reign down fire on the wicked ones, and save the world from certain captivity from evil overlords. Sound familiar? It again is this desire to be what a dragon encompasses with the best of the qualities we have given them. Honour, bravery, intelligence, the ability to protect those we love.

Magic.

Then there are those that think it’s a genetic twist that kept REAL dragons from walking among us. You know, the whole dinosaur dying out business? You’ve got to admit, some of those are pretty draconian. From the research I’ve done (okay, I Googled it) there is the thought that PERHAPS we did share some turf with the last of the dino’s (okay, maybe I just made that up but go with me here). Maybe that left a lasting impression, one passed through our DNA that has made us both fascinated, frightened and entranced by large, lizard like creatures.

I mean, some people are going so far as to make a dinosaur a la Jurassic Park. Oh yes, they are.

What I’m trying to get at here is that our desire to read about, watch movies of, dream and write stories that center around dragons seems to be undeniable. And that is really all we need to know. No matter how many stories there are, there will always be more when it comes to dragons.

Do I believe in dragons? Well, if I told you, you might laugh, because I’m a grown woman. But until that logical side of me is proven wrong, I will have to satisfy my cravings of riding the wind on the back of my dragon with the books I read, or better yet, the books I write.

Now the real question is, do you believe in the creatures that line our fantasy worlds?