Good dragons/bad dragons?

J

judyfromkansas

New member
Hi again! You know, in the book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when Edmund enters the Witch's courtyard and sees all the statues, a dragon is among them. So one must assume that that dragon was one of the good guys. Yet, in later Narnia books, dragons are always evil - they're ASSUMED to be evil, just like apes are assumed to be dishonest, etc. So what happened to the dragons in Narnia? Did they all just "go bad"?

Me, I'm partial to good dragons, like Falcor in The Neverending Story. But a really good evil dragon, like Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, certainly kicks tail!

If there are any future new Narnia books, I hope one of them features good dragons. That could be interesting...
 
That's an interesting observation, but the logic doesn't completely hold. All a creature had to do to be turned to stone was cross the Witch, and you didn't have to be good to do that. In fact, reality shows that there's more bickering between evil parties than between the evil and good ones. I doubt if Aslan breathed upon the dragon to resuscitate him!
 
Judy, the managers of the C.S. Lewis estate would rather die by slow torture than ever approve any officially-recognized new Narnian books. But in the unofficial market--all you have to do is click my tiger image, to see MY unofficial Narnian novel, whose action takes place when the Narnian world was new, thus long before Jadis ever conquered Narnia.

My story features something like a dragon, as you'll see if you read through.
 
And the book doesn't exactly say it WAS a dragon. It says that it was a "long lithe creature," and that Edmund THOUGHT it was a dragon. It could have been a lizard or some type of crocodile. It's Narnia we're talking about. There were many strange creatures in that country.
 
I agree with the others. There's also no mention of Aslan breathing on the "dragon", so perhaps he was just in the way of Jadis and she didn't like dragons.
 
In Narnia, dragons were neutral. Lewis never attributed them with positive or negative aspects. The only living dragons in the Chronicles were in VotDT when Eustace became one and watched as the other dragon died but he could not be seen as bad. The other dragons were the ones in TLB who devoured Narnia at the end, turning it into a barren landscape but those dragons were not bad, just performing a necessary task.

As for whether Aslan would have breathed on the dragon, I would say yes he would have. Aslan will not just go there and free only some of the prisoners, he is going to free everyone. The dragon can then decide for himself whether he is on Aslan's side. Why would Aslan deny him that privelege?

Why didn't Lewis mention the dragon during the awakening process? Well he may have forgoten about the dragon or just didn't feel like mentioning it.

MrBob
 
As I said before, the book doesn't say it WAS a dragon but if it had been a dragon, it would have been a good dragon. That's because when Aslan was breathing on the statues, he told everyone to look everywhere for "prisoners."
 
Also keep in mind that its never said "All dragons are evil." It just that the majority of them were, and therefore most Narnians would assume the worst if the encountered a dragon.

Its possible that some dragon was aiding the resistance in the time of the LWW, but we will probably never know as Lewis is dead and can't answer our questions.
 
There are good dragons, and there are bad dragons.We don't know if the creature Edmund saw in the courtyard WAS a dragon.I assume Jadis is so evil,she turned that evil creature(if it even was on her side!)to stone for some unknown reason. Narnia doesn't strike me as a place to have Dragons,i don't know why...it just doesn't.But maybe itv does have Dragons,who knows.My story will have a few Dragons,like the one named Ormr.He's good,and very wise.
 
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Well, I've always been of the opinion just because a living creature is a dragon, doesn't mean it's inherently evil.

It would have been interesting if Jadis had been able to turn one to stone, even as powerful as she was, a dragon would still be way out of her league. What with the flying, breathing fire, teeth, claws and tail. It would be kinda hard to tap a dragon with a small wand while dodging all of that.

I'm now getting a mental image of Jadis sneaking up on a sleeping dragon and hoping really hard it stays asleep!
 
The whole idea of the `evil race` that you freqently find in fantasy fiction rather bothers me.
I`d rather prefer to believe that there was the odd good Hag, werewolf or dragon around in Narnia even if their races as a whole had a tendancy towards following evil.
One other thing about Dragons, there is a tendancy nowadays to portray them as HUGE.
Illistrations in older books tend to show somewhat smaller creatures which, while large are nowhere near as big.
As for Jadis, I can see a Dragon diving and trying to flame her but she just stands, takes it then zaps it with her wand.
Her powers seem in the main to be in the realms of cold and ice, the direct opposite to that of a dragon.
 
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Don't forget the dragon that Eustace was able to send off in The Silver Chair. Either Eustace knew exactly what to say to the dragon since he had been one previously, or Eustace talked to the right dragon. I think it could be a little bit of both, but obviously more of the former.

Also, judging by VDT, the dragons in Narnia and the rest of the world appear to share a trait with Smaug in The Hobbit: A love for gold and treasure. I don't know anything about classic dragon mythology, but I'm guessing this is a common trait.
 
You should be aware that scene in Silver Chair is not in the book, they made it up for the tv series.

Aside from Eustace becoming a dragon, the topic is not really addressed one way or another.


Even if the dragon in question was not a particularly large one, it still would be hard to battle.

The main limitation of Jadis' wand is that you have to touch your enemy with it, you can't just aim and shoot off a magic spell. Even if Jadis used her ice powers to protect herself from the fire, that wouldn't do much good against a physical attack. Although the wand turns someone to stone pretty much instantly, imagine the momentum of a flying dragon at speed, she'd have been knocked flying at the very least.
 
"I don't know anything about classic dragon mythology, but I'm guessing this is a common trait."

It is General. Dragons of European mythology do tend to guard some treasure. They are extremely possessive and will kill those who try to steal from them.

However, in Chinese mythology, they are more harbingers of good and generally do not guard treasures. I think Lewis used the European dragon mythology when writing about them.

MrBob
 
There aren't many precendents in European culture for "good dragons".

As I stated in another thread, I believe this had more to do with political symbolism then actual mythic belief.

Dragons are symbolic in Welsh and Asian cultures, so if you use them as "propoganda targets", you can sway the masses through use of visual imagery. You know, the valiant knights slaying the evil dragons.

The Red Dragon is a powerful symbol in Welsh culture. Although I have limited knowledge, it's some kind of protector.

Conversely, the British used to have a White Dragon as their symbol.

The legends Mabinogion and Historia Britonum refer to this.

According to the notes I read, this is symbolic of the Welsh/British armed conflict at the time.

King Arthur's royal family is know as Pendragon or Pen Draig, literally Head Dragon or Chief Dragon.


Aside from that, we don't have many positive references to dragons.
 
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