Why Dragons?

Long before I wrote a single word of fiction, I was hard at work as a psychologist. Because it sang to me, I gravitated toward Jungian analysis. Humans have common experiences accessed through the dreamscape. It’s why we have Deja Vu experiences where we are certain we’ve been a certain place before. Or met a person who should be new to us. Or a dragon.

In my writer’s heart, I would love to be hanging out in a turret or a huge, old tree watching dragons bugle and swoop and dive. Lovely colors merging and scales clanking as they engage in a delicate aerial ballet. Dragons are quite the communicators. Still within my imaginal word, first one and then another stops to breathe steam all over me—their way of showing love.

I’m careful, though. Dragons can be short-tempered. If I’m not on top of my game, they are as likely to blanket me with smoke and ash as steam. Means keeping my thoughts joyous and positive since they feed off nearby emotions. It’s far from accidental they keep popping up in my books, both as shifters and as pure dragon energy.

Dragons will always have a special place in my writer’s heart. They represent a collage of the crucial attributes of ultimate predators: wings of large birds of prey, jaws and claws of big cats, and the winding bodies of snakes. The dragon symbol is one of the basic images people recognize without being taught. Somehow, it’s hardwired into every culture on Earth. They don’t always look exactly the same, but there’s a link between sea serpents (think Nessie) and dragons.

Whatever the mechanism, dragons are creatures fresh out of myth and legend. They’ve had somewhat better endurance than other mythical creatures like unicorns, gryphons, and the Minotaur. There are good reasons for that. Unlike unicorns, who are oftentimes fluffy and good (think of the girl’s toy, My Little Unicorn, that was popular quite a while back), dragons have access to the full range of human emotion. They express fury and pain but are also capable of love and loyalty.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules. In one of my series, unicorns are Faery’s assassins. (Yeah, don’t ask how that happened…) In another, my female main character is bonded to a gryphon.

Nearly every culture holds sacred myths revolving around dragons. There’s an oriental dragon with a much more slender body, at least in artists’ depictions of it. There’s a Norse dragon, Nidhogg, and Dewi, the red, Celtic dragon goddess. One myth I read suggested the salvation of Earth lies in dragons because they purify wickedness. At least that might explain why the world is in such dire straits. No one’s seen a dragon for millennia! (Not counting the ones populating my dreams.)

On a slightly different track, wisdom has to be earned, as does just about everything else. The human leads in many of my dragon shifter series forsook much to purify themselves and hone their magic, so a dragon would want to bond with them. How they see the world is shaped in large measure by their bonds with their dragons. If any old human could find their way to Fire Mountain (the dragons’ ancestral home in many of my fantasy series) in search of a dragon, the bond wouldn’t be worth very much.

People have occasionally said to me, “Oh, it must be easy to write fantasy because you can take the story anywhere you want to.” My reply is always that magic systems have to be thought out and congruent. Magic has a price. Heroes and heroines, even those with magic, are still bound by certain rules. They can’t do everything with magic. If they expend too much, they run the well dry.

Heroes and heroines can certainly hedge their bets by bonding with a dragon. Because of their sheer bulk, fire-breathing capacity, and loyalty, dragons are worthy companions. Far better to have them on your side than not. Let’s not forget their affinity for gold and precious gems. In many myths, when dragons cry, their tears turn to precious stones before hitting the ground.

Are dragons special to you too? I’d love to hear your thoughts.