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Our Dragons Are Different
alt title(s): Dragons

Moraelyn asked with a smile, "All right then, I've always wanted to know this - considering the shape of your mouth and teeth, how do dragons manage to speak the humanoid languages so clearly?"
Akatosh paused, and then carefully responded, "Why, in much the same way that we can fly, even though our wings are not naturally strong enough to support such heavy torsos."
King Edward Part XII.

Subtrope of Our Monsters Are Different. As you might expect, this one deals with big (maybe) strong (possibly) scaly (sometimes) flying (perhaps) fire-breathing (at times) lizard (usually) monsters (traditionally).

Nearly every culture has some sort of dragon myth. Naturally, none of them can agree on what exactly dragons are: How big are they? What do they look like? How many heads do they have? Do they breathe fire? Do some of them breathe ice? Do they fly? Are they dumb as planks, or superintelligent? Are they low reptilian pests, or as rare and ancient as the Earth itself? Most importantly, do they think we taste good with ketchup?

The answers to these questions generally fall within two traditions, Western and Eastern.

Western Dragons:
  • Are scaly and reptilian (outwardly, anyway), and usually serpentine.
  • Tend to be large.
  • Are usually antagonistic towards humans.
  • Breathe fire — a Medieval addition.
  • Kidnap damsels and/or hoard treasure.
  • Have a variable number of heads and legs, though one head and six limbs (four legs, and a pair of wings) is the most common configuration. More divergent types (no legs, multiple heads, etc) seem more likely to be brainless bestial monsters than the "basic" form.
    • The most popular variation recently has been the Wyvern, a dragon with a somewhat birdlike configuration: the forelimbs are bat-like wings and the rear limbs are their two legs. In some settings all dragons are Wyverns (some writers evidently prefer realistic flying, fire-breathing Uber-serpents). In other settings, Wyverns are not considered 'true' dragons at all, but a related, usually less powerful and intelligent species. Wyverns, when they are treated separately from dragons, often lack a breath weapon, but they have a poisonous stinger in their tails and viper-like fangs.
  • Either fly with bat-like wings, or they lack wings and don't fly.
  • Have varying levels of intelligence. Prior to Tolkien, they rarely spoke. After Tolkien, they are often portrayed as at least as clever as men, and frequently more so.
  • Often have some form of innate magic if intelligent.
  • Live for a very long time, if not actually immortal.
  • Are incredibly strong and hard to kill but usually have one or two fatal weak spots. This is traditionally under the chin, but post-Tolkien, it's more likely to be on the chest or belly, and the eye is popular too.
  • Sometimes have poisonous blood, breath, saliva, or some such. Often, this will kill you after you kill it.

Eastern dragons, on the other hand, come from totally different traditions and as such aren't technically dragons; Westerners who encountered stories and images of them just sprung on the superficial similarities to "their" dragons and couldn't think of anything better to call them. With that in mind, Eastern Dragons:

  • Are Mix And Match Critters:
    His horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow. (From The Other Wiki.)
  • Are benign, but capable of destructive force.
  • Are associated with water, or believed to have power over weather.
  • Breathe sheng chi, the essence of life.
  • Are intelligent.
  • Most often have one head and four legs.
  • Can fly via magic even if they lack wings, which they usually do.
    • When they do have wings, they are often birdlike.
  • Often have the ability to transform into other animals and may even assume human form.
  • May be an out and out Physical God.

Even within these traditions, however, there is much variability. This has increased in modern times, as Western and Eastern authors have blurred the traditions by mixing and matching attributes from both (benign Western Dragons are quite popular these days, for instance). Some authors invent completely new attributes to set their dragons apart from the crowd.

A more recent trend has been to try and make dragons that could actually exist in the real world. Naturally, these tend to either use Science Fiction concepts or be very different from traditional dragons. You'd think regular old dragons were boring or something.

Also common in later works is a tendency to form a life-long bond with any human or humanoid who is present when they hatch. This gives writers a way to give dragons unique psychology without having to come up with unique motivations for them. It also explains why humanoid riders can boss them around.

Compare Giant Flyer. Not to be confused with The Dragon, a position only sometimes held by a real dragon (while dragons themselves can just as easily be Big Bads). See also: Dinosaurs Are Dragons.

Examples

Anime
  • In The Slayers universe, the "demon race" and the "godly race" are vying for control of the world. The godly race usually take on the form of Western-style dragons, but can assume human form if they so wish. Filia, a character from the third season, is a Golden Dragon that apparently isn't much used to her form as a blonde human female — her pointed tail frequently pops out from under her dress whenever she's emotionally excited (which usually tends to happen when she's in the presence of the Trickster demon, Xellos).
    • Though technically, Filia isn't a god herself. The Shinzoku do often resemble dragons, but actual flesh-and-blood dragons like Filia are just a mortal race that serves them. Which explains why they're so much weaker than their supposed opposite numbers, the Mazoku...
    • I don't think you can say that they're much weaker. If compared with lesser Mazoku, Filia is actually quite powerful, and she's just a child by dragon standards. Comparing her to Xelloss isn't really fair, seeing as how you can count on one hand the number of Mazoku who are more powerful than he is.
      • True, but the novels themselves state that dragons are far, far outclassed by Mazoku. It's actually a minor plot point in the seventh novel.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh and it's attendant Collectible Card Game feature a number of dragons, most famously Kaiba's iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon.
  • As do Duel Masters and its CCG. Shobu's signature card is Bolshack Dragon. Worth noting is that there are four types of dragons, including zombie dragons, not to mention "wyverns" that look like dragons but don't count as them (uh...), "Dragonoid" lizardmen, and giant reptiles called Dune Geckos. This was a CCG that was fond of horrible, destructive, scaly things.
  • Record Of Lodoss War has at least three distinct "flavors" of dragons. Wyverns are small (read: elephant-sized), unintelligent, non-fiery, two-legged dragons that are domesticated and flown by knights. "Common" dragons are bestial, apparently wingless (we only ever see one so it's hard to judge all of them), huge fire-breathers. The Great Dragons, of which only five exist, are monsters the size of mountains with incredibly vast powers of intelligence and magical skill and close ties to the gods, who guard legendary treasures.
  • Dragon Half features Mink, a half-dragon girl with horns, tiny bat wings on her back (which somehow let her fly) and the ability to breathe fire. Her mother is portrayed as a shapeshifting white Western dragon.
  • Dragons in Naru Taru are about as different as they can get: baby planets shapeshifted into vaguely starfish-like flying immortal monsters with the power to duplicate any object they come in contact with who need to fuse with a human host then join with another dragon/human pairing to grow into an actual planet. And the series is still chock-full of traditional dragon lore symbolism.
  • In The Five Star Stories the word dragon is best read as "mysterious alien god". Despite looking more or less like typical European dragons with a few more Eastern influences & some vaguely insectoid characteristics & pretty much living like animals most of the time, they are superintelligent & telepathic (even being able to hack computers with their minds) & breathe quasars instead of fire. It is said they are actually a form of Organic Technology Superweapon created by a lost civilization. Luckily for the humans, it seems they just want to be left alone.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Friedrich, a silver dragon whelp that can grow to adult size when Caro unseals him, and Voltaire, a massive, humanoid, ancient black guardian dragon that can launch searing torrents of flame from its mouth and wing tips.

Comic Books
  • The dragons in Bone come in a variety of shapes (for example, the Great Red Dragon has rabbit-like ears and a goatee), but they're all large, intelligent fire-breathers who want what's best for humans. And then there's Mim, the Queen of the Dragons, who is part ouroboros, part living Cosmic Keystone. She's several miles long, and capable of single-handedly causing The End Of The World As We Know It.
  • The titular team in the comic Southern Knights included the character Dragon, who was originally conceived of as a person who could transform into a dragon. It was later decided that he was a dragon who could transform into a human. Either way, he was a good guy.
  • The Dragons in Gold Digger were originally genetically engineered by a long-extinct race called the Saurians. They come in four different flavors, Iron, Copper, Gold, and Platinum, who all look like Western Dragons with Platinums being the stand-out, having magical 'vents' instead of wings. Also hatching from dragon eggs are two sub-types, Wyrms and Drakes, who look like limbless dragons and two-legged two-winged (as opposed to the normal four-legged two-winged) dragons respectively and who get little rights in draconic society. All can turn into a human form, and all full dragons (not wyrms or drakes) can intuitively use draconic magic which not even they understand the mechanics of, just the usage. Dragons tend to be highly intelligent, but arrogant as heck. The oldest dragon Exthilion ironically looks like an oversized Wurm with a frill, but has all the talents and magics of all the true dragon varieties.
  • In the alternate history fantasy series Arrowsmith, the protagonist is an airman, a soldier who flies by magically transferring the flight ability of a dragonet (baby dragon) into himself. Each airman has his own dragonet companion who typically rides his shoulder, and he wears strips of skin shed by the dragonet's mother to help form a bond between them.
  • The Fantastic Four villain the Dragon Man was a hi-tech robot built in the image of a dragon, animated by alchemy. It breathes fire, flies, and is super-strong. Despite its name, it does not especially resemble a man any more than your typical dragon does.

Film
  • Star Wars has the Krayt Dragons: giant, nonsentient carnivorous lizards, and just about the nastiest monsters in the entire galaxy far, far away. Obi-wan scared the Sandpeople away from Luke by imitating the Krayt mating call. The skull and backbone behind C-3PO when he first sees the Jawa sandcrawler was that of a Greater Krayt. Krayt Dragons only appear directly in the Expanded Universe.
    • In the Prequel Trilogy, the planet Utapau is home to a wide variety of dragonlike creatures used as mounts. Western-style winged dragons are seen in the background, and Obi-Wan Kenobi rides on an Eastern-style dragon, complete with lionlike mane (in fact, several fans think that this creature is a smaller, friendlier variety of Krayt Dragon).
    • Also from the Expanded Universe: the Duinuogwuin, or Star Dragons, are sentient and (mostly) peaceful. Their bodies are centipede-like, and they are capable of fire-breathing (allegedly powered by cold fusion) and unassisted interstellar travel. I kid you not.
  • The Dragon from Shrek at first appears to be an old-fashioned unintelligent monstrous Western Dragon, but is soon revealed to be mute but sentient. And a girl. Although she isn't capable of human speech, per se, she's capable of grunts, growls, and other sounds that work as emotives, well enough for Donkey, at least, to understand.
  • The film Dragonslayer was mediocre at best, but featured an absolutely amazing stop-motion dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative. As in the typical scenario, the townsfolk fed her young virgins, though it appears they thought it up themselves to save their own hides rather than the dragon specifically demanding it. Vermithrax was nonsentient and lacked forelimbs, walking on the ground like a gigantic bat.
  • The dragons in Reign of Fire are pretty normal, though they follow Vermithrax's "giant bat" design (same studio, please note; Disney likes Wyverns), and they produce fire by spitting out two reactive chemicals. Oh, and they evidently eat ash and the entire worldwide population has only one male.
    • Didn't stop the filmmakers from claiming that it was a completely original design that they just came up with.
  • King Ghidorah of the Godzilla franchise is loosely based on the Yamata-No-Orochi (A dragon of Japanese folkore), albeit one with only three-heads instead of eight (This is Justified in GMK which explains that Ghidorah isn't fully-mature enough to have grown all eight heads. Likewise, Manda is loosely based upon a typical Eastern dragon.
  • Mushu in Mulan is an Eastern dragon reduced to being a Comic Relief Empathy Pet. His lack of powers may be due to his being demoted after failing as a family guardian. He claims that his small stature is intentional ("I'm travel-sized for your convenience"), but is most likely a bluff. He can breathe fire (a little), which comes in handy later on.

Literature
  • Smaug from The Hobbit broke from the Western tradition by being intelligent, magical, and capable of speech, and the author's depiction of him resembled a serpentine eastern dragon with wings. This was so successful a trendsetter that the older mindless, animalistic Western Dragon is now a decided minority (at least in fantasy literature). He did, however, hoard treasure, and was even enraged by the theft of a cup from his stockpile, just like the one that finished off Beowulf, presumably in order to keep the folkloric basis of the book prevalent.
  • The Chronicles Of Narnia had a few Western dragons:
    • Eustace sees a dragon die of age in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He then discovers the dragon's treasure hoard, and falls asleep on it, thinking "greedy, dragonish thoughts". The next morning, he finds himself transformed into a dragon.
    • In The Silver Chair, Eustace and Jill see dragons among the many creatures sleeping under the earth, waiting for the end of the world.
    • When the world ends in The Last Battle, these dragons and other creatures awake, eat all Narnia's trees, scorch the earth, then die.
  • The Neverending Story has Falcor the Luck Dragon, a white fur-covered Eastern dragon in an otherwise Western story. In The Film Of The Book, he looks quite a bit like a flying dog.
  • Anne McCaffrey is very firm in stating that her dragons are different. Anyone reading the Dragonriders Of Pern series will be constantly reminded that the empathic, symbiotic dragons are genetically engineered creatures, despite being "classic" Western dragons physically. Even the fire-breathing and telepathy have a scientific basis rather than a magical one. This attribute keeps the series firmly in the "sci-fi" section of book shops, rather than the "fantasy" shelves.
    • Of course, it is precisely this sort of thing that has caused most book shops to give up trying to separate the two genres. Which is why if you go to most libraries and bookstores, you will find the "sci-fi" and "fantasy" books on the same shelves. To the considerable annoyance of at least some of the fans of both genres.
  • Terry Pratchett features two types of dragons in his Discworld novels: noble dragons are typical Western dragons, but have to feed on high levels of magic to get away with their impossible physiology; as such, they are effectively extinct on the Discworld, having migrated to a pocket dimension. The far more common swamp dragons, on the other hand, are small, rather friendly Western dragons as they'd have to be without magic: rather than huge, majestic, and cunning monsters, they're small, ugly, and rather dim creatures that can barely fly, and are only dangerous because they tend to explode when ill or overexcited (due to the complicated internal chemistry set that allows them to breathe fire).
    • When the characters travel to the moon in The Last Hero, they find another kind of dragon, similar to the swamp dragons, but much more graceful in the low gravity, and with the fire coming out the other end as a rocket boost, much like Errol the swamp dragon from Guards! Guards!
    • There are also the dragon mounts of the Dragonriders of Wyrmberg (from The Colour of magic) that seem to be a type of wyvern and can apparently only survive in a high-mana area.
  • Janet and Isaac Asimov's Norby Chronicles have Jamyn dragons, intelligent beings bioengineered on another planet by the Precursors known as The Others; they fly using anti-grav collars.
  • Dragons in A Song Of Ice And Fire are mostly stereotypical Western dragons, although it is specified that they are a One Gender Race that reproduce by parthenogenesis and strengthen magic just by existing (or at least, Fire and Blood Magic; the magic of the Others and the Old Gods were shown to be operating fine before the dragons' rebirth). It remains to be seen just how intelligent they become. In addition, George R. R. Martin, has specified that they have only four limbs; that is, the forelegs are part of the wings.
  • Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar books have dragons which are unintelligent beasts for most of their lives, only becoming sentient in their final (gold) stage of life. Most dragons never make it that far, as they tend to get killed by humans long before then because they're giant flying fire-breathing pests. No one has seen a gold dragon for years, but this isn't because of the hunting: they gain Shape Shifting at the same time as intelligence, so they've all simply started living disguised as humans.
  • The Taltos stories have literal Dragons, huge creatures with triangular heads and prehensile tentacles which they can use to get psychic impressions of animals; and Dragons, a House of Dragaerans named for the animal. There are also Jheregs, who look like very small dragons with only two legs and a poisonous bite.
  • Ursula K. Le Guin's Earth Sea series has an interesting take on dragons. In the earliest books they resemble Smaug (intelligent, capricous Western Dragons), but gradually become more varied. They are highly magical, and indeed seem to be affected by the geographical limits to magic — magic in the West Reach, where dragons are huge, cunning, and rich, and rule both the skies and islands, is different from magic in the East Reach, where dragons are very small, unintelligent, and often domesticated as housepets. Only one dragon was wise enough to learn how to shapeshift, and only one wizard, Ged, was ever able to gain the dragon's respect.
  • Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy features human-built dragons made out of stone, imbued with human memories, that are used as allies in a war; her Liveship Traders trilogy, set in the same universe, has a backstory of near-extinct serpentine dragons. The climax of the Tawny Man trilogy has a battle between two real dragons and an animated stone one.
  • The Flight Of Dragons by Peter Dickinson is a "speculative natural history" book, explaining how dragons might have evolved, how everything about them from hoards of gold to breathing fire was based on their flight mechanism (they were essentially living dirigibles), and why there aren't any fossils (once they died, the complicated chemical processes they used to produce hydrogen dissolved their bones).
    • This vaguely inspired elements of the cartoon film of the same name (including the main character being named Peter Dickinson), although the plot was based on The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson (and wasn't much like that either).
  • The dragons in The Inheritance Trilogy Cycle have the same powers as your average Western dragon, and like many modern dragons they're highly intelligent. They can psychically talk to their masters and (excepting the wild ones) are quite friendly to humans.
  • Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey teamed up to write The Halfblood Chronicles, in which a half-elven girl is raised by a foster family made up of dragons. Together with her Dragon foster brother, the heroine fights for freedom and subverts almost every worn-out fantasy trope you can think of. The dragons are from another world, are evidently mammalian, have electricity-based powers and poisonous talons, and are supremely talented Shapehifters. Quite a few of them also seem to have the Xanatos Roulette power...
  • The Harry Potter setting has all sorts of dragons, which possess powerful magic but aren't especially bright. Most of these are European in design, except for the Chinese Fireball. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry also kills a Basilisk (here portrayed as a giant, vaguely-dragonish snake), and nearly dies of its venom. This may be a Shout Out to Beowulf, Carston, Sigurd, Thor, and many, many others.
    • On the other hand, J.K. Rowling is supposedly a fan of Graeco-Roman mythology, and basilisks as described by Pliny are so poisonous that when a man on horseback once killed one with a spear, the poison travelled up the spear, killing the rider and the horse as well.
  • There's only one dragon in the Belgariad, a female, who's all that's left after the two males killed each other during mating season. The dragon in that series is stupid, animalistic and has burning blood, but besides the blood is more of a shot at the Smaug-dragons of the twentieth century.
  • The Mithgar series has two types of dragons: the bad kind that breath gas and burn up in the sunlight like every bad thing, and the not-so-bad kind that's still unpleasant but not downright evil. They sleep for half-millenia and make a big mess whenever they wake up. And... oh... what was that other little thing... oh right, they breed with krakens.
  • Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt is an Affectionate Parody of Eastern dragons and the associated mythology, with an emphasis on a) their powers of weather control and b) their ability to take human (and other) forms. The reason the British summer is usually cancelled due to rain is that the main character is a dragon in human form, and doesn't have full control in that form. So it rains whenever she's annoyed. Which happens a lot. The plot concerns another dragon trapped in the form of a goldfish; the cover, naturally, shows a Western dragon crammed into a fishbowl.
  • Naomi Novik's Temeraire series involves an Alternate History version of the Napoleanic Wars in which Western dragons are real and have been domesticated since Roman times. Also contains variations on East and West, in that many Chinese dragons are shown to be markedly more powerful than their Western counterparts—it's hinted that modern dragon breeding techniques originated in China—and are treated as citizens equal to humans. The really valuable dragons, of course, are the rarest; the elite class, the Chinese-bred Celestials which the title dragon is discovered to be, can't even breed true.
  • Strabo from Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold! appears at first to be a typical Western dragon, but turns out to be quite intelligent (almost Genre Savvy at times) and sensitive, having a self-admitted soft spot for pretty girls. It appears that he's decided that since everyone assumes he's evil, he may as well make the most of it.
  • No actual dragons have yet appeared in The Wheel Of Time—"the Dragon (Reborn)" is a title used by The Chosen Ones. However, a dragon appears on his primary banner, and the name must've come from somewhere. (At one point Rand's previous incarnation/the insane voice in his head snarls that his enemies will learn what it means to "rouse the Dragon", which of course is an old proverb almost everywhere.) Given the cyclical nature of his world, the whole concept of "dragons" might even be a Stable Time Loop situation in which mythological dragons derive from the Dragon's behavior and his banner.
  • In Patricia Briggs' Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood, the dragons look like Western dragons. They're actually intelligent, magic-using shapeshifters and on at least one occasion have intermarried with humans. This ended badly.
  • Dragons in John Ringo's Concil War series were genetically engineered by, amusingly, Disney Genegeneers in the early 21st Century. They made two different varieties, the large, sentient Greater Dragons and the smaller Wyverns that were roughly equivelent to horses in intellegence. The only reason they're able to fly at all is because of muscles and bones made from increadibly stong and light 'bioextruded carbon-nanotube'.
  • The dragons in Diane Duane's Middle Kingdoms setting are essentially highly intelligent immigrants from outer space, having left their dying homeworld for greener pastures long ago (and apparently under their own power rather than via ships). They also practice a form of racial immortality by letting the spirits of their departed coinhabit the bodies of the living — which is a major plot point in The Door into Shadow when a dying dragon and all his ancestors end up in the body of the main human protagonist.
  • The dragons of Barbara Hambly's Winterlands series are telepathic, magically endowed, and fairly intelligent, if a little isolated and alien in mindset. They have an honest-to-goodness addiction to gold, which is why they tend to hoard it.
  • Juliet E. Mckenna's The Aldabreshin Compass novels feature western style dragons that are a Godzilla level threat. Even one can devestate a small nation. They are tied to one of the four classic elements Earth, Wind, Water or Fire (heart being too lame to be an element) and while they do hoard the gem associated with that element it is only so they can meld enough gems into a magic egg. True dragons have such a gem for their heart, illusory dragons summoned by only the most powerful wizards (or at least only by those who get page time) can become real and self aware if they rip out a true dragon's heart and eat it, remind you of anything?. An easy way to tell if there is a true dragon around is to look at the nearest wizard, if they exploded due to their powers going haywire, it's a real dragon.
  • The dragons in the Elric series are fairly standard for the "dumb animal" type Western Dragons... except that they don't actually breathe fire. This is a misinterpretation of their ability to spit a caustic venom that tends to burst into flame at the slightest provocation.
  • Seeing how "Dragons" are in every book title of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, she says quite a good deal about her dragons. Her dragons mostly fit the western stereotype as far as physical looks, but otherwise they act about as human as the rest of the characters. They speak, read, collect stuff, and have their own society and government. They fly and breathe fire, and can do magic because they are creatures born with magic inside (as opposed to the wizards, who must draw out magic from other sources). Dragons are generally more clever and wise than any of the other races, but there are several exceptions. They also die, age (albeit much slower than humans), shed their scales, and produce offspring.
    • Although, there are certain rules that require dragons to act in a noble manner. Because if they stop acting like dragons they turn into frogs.
  • Western type dragons in the myths of the world in The Name Of The Wind are based on a creature called a Draccus, which is more like a giant iron-scaled, fire-breathing, herbivorous lizard-cow. The iron comes from the absorption of minerals into the draccus's body from ground up gizzard stones, and the fire is caused by a buildup of methane gas that the draccus ignites as a mating display. They are normally harmless, though the one in the book isn't because it went crazy after swallowing some narcotic trees. (It Makes Sense In Context)
  • Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley is set in a world with no overt magic, so the dragons are natural animals. But they don't seem to be related to any other kinds of animals, and are rarely seen. And their remains (except for scales) decay very quickly so they can't be studied. They do breathe fire, but it comes from a fire-organ in their stomachs. And it turns out that they are intelligent, on the same level as humans. They have a language, which is very, very alien and based on what appears to be telepathy. But most people are uncomfortable with that idea, and say, "the T-word."
  • In MercedesLackey's SERRAted Edge series, there is a huge Western-style dragon with a vast, disorganized library, a love of Japanese, and the ability to shapeshift into a human. He wears Armani suits and loves popping popcorn. He also has a half-brother who is half human. His human apprentice and adopted son (even though he has a perfectly normal relationship with his parents proper) Tannim (meaning "son of Dragons") is the main protagonist of the book in which he first appears.
    • There's also another very antagonistic dragon who has a half kitsune daughter who becomes Tannim's SO.
  • Another Mercedes Lackey example is the Dragon Jousters quartet, which is set in something like Ancient Egypt. These dragons come in two Western-style types. One is the crocodilian "swamp dragon" which likes water, the other is the more brightly colored, larger "desert dragon". They're established to be as smart as a bright dog (and able to sense evil), can't breathe fire, and they imprint. Dragons taken from the wild as fledglings are forcibly trained to accept riders who treat them like flying chariots and have to be drugged; dragons raised from the egg are tame and fussed over by the ones who raise them. Riders mostly use them for patrols in which they make the enemy cautious and "joust" against enemy riders, knocking them out of the saddle to fall to their deaths. It's a major plot point that tame dragons can be trained to catch a falling man, and that another use is to pick out a human, snatch him up into the sky, and drop him.
  • Christopher Rowley's Bazil Broketail series contains flightless, wingless dragons with aquatic ancestry. They are integrated into human society and fight with swords and use tools. There are also wild winged dragons, but neither type breathes fire.
  • An interesting variation shows up in the novel The Iron Dragon's Daughter. The dragons in this world are completely mechanical, although sentient and sapient, and are used as the in-world equivalent of fighter jets.
  • Terek Domar of The Lonely Winds is a monster we are told once ravaged ancient lands that now, for some reason, spends time sitting around an abandoned warehouse in the city. This dragon fits many of the modern characteristics, being massive, highly intelligent, a user of potent magic and being a physical powerhouse, in addition to having a *very* short temper. Though in early installments the dragon seemed to be in some sort of bondage, more recent issues have had him do some pretty scary things. Another dragon, nicknamed “Cinder,” was a considerably more pleasant creature that was participating in a plan to essentially assassinate Terek Domar. It didn’t work out, as Terek Domar nearly tore Cinder to shreds in the process of killing him.

Live Action TV

Mythology
  • One of the dragons that Saint George fought was smart enough to try to kill him by carrying him high into the sky and dropping him. While older examples exist, this was the first well-known and really popular example of a dragon obsessed with devouring young maidens, and may be the Trope Maker.
  • The story of Saint Margaret and the dragon is usually dated to the same time as the more popular St. George legend; she's usually differentiated from the other canonized Margarets as "Saint Margaret the Virgin". She was swallowed whole by Satan in the form of a dragon and walked out alive. She's not quite as well known today, but at one point, there were nearly 300 churches dedicated to her in England alone, and the cult of Saint Margaret was quite widespread at the time the trope was probably first being forged.
  • Satan is described as a red dragon with seven heads in the Biblical book of Revelation. His tail knocks a third of the stars out of the sky, and he spews a river from his mouths.
  • the book of Job describes the Leviathan, a creature covered in air-tight sword/spear/arrow-proof scales, weilding fire breath, and with the ability to snap iron like it was straw. crocodile. Granted, it's a rather embellished account of one.
  • Beowulf kills a dragon and then dies of its venom, awoken after a servant steals a cup from its treasure hoard. There's also much confusion over whether Grendel and/or his mother are dragons, ogres, demons, monstrous humans, or something else entirely.
    • This troper remembers reading Beowulf and read that Grendel was a monster similar to a giant werewolf. His mother was likely a shape-shifting demon, who could choose the form of her offspring.
  • Nidhoggr from Norse Mythology gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil, waiting to be freed and wreak destruction come Ragnarok.
  • Fafnir, also from Norse myth, was a man (or dwarf, in some tellings) who turned himself into a dragon so that he could better guard an enormous pile of treasure. (Other versions of the story have him just be a dragon from the start, but the treasure is always there.) Sigurd (who is his nephew in the once-human versions of the story) killed him by stabbing him through the weak point under the chin, and narrowly missed being killed by poisonous blood. Most of the dragonslaying tropes derive from this chap.
    • And yet Sigurd also gained invulnerability from bathing in the blood (leaving an Achilles Heel on his shoulder), and the ability to comprehend all languages (or at least the language of birds) by tasting it... (the particular story I've read has him burn his finger while prodding the dragon's heart that he was cooking. After sticking his finger in his mouth, he began to hear birds talking about how he was to be betrayed by his greedy dwarf companion)...
  • Again from Norse myth, at Ragnarok, Thor is supposed to die after killing Jormungandr the World-Serpent from its poisonous breath.
  • The Mordiford Wyvern was killed by a convict named Carston in exchange for his freedom. Carston hid inside a barrel coated with spikes, and when the dragon tried to eat him, ended up impaling itself on all the spinities. However, its blood trickled in and poisoned Carston to death.
    • Note that there are at least four folk tales, very similar to this, from around the British Isles. For example, the Sockburn Wyrm (or Wyvern) was slain by John Conyers, who wore a set of spiky armour so that the Wyrm impaled itself while it was trying to crush him to death, and Conyers then hacked it to pieces with his falchion. The falchion with which he supposedly killed the Wyrm is still in the Durham Cathedral Treasury.
    • Then there's the Laidly Worm, where the princess is the dragon; the Lambton Worm, which grew from a creature no larger than your thumb and which laid a curse upon nine generations of its slayer's family; and the Linton Worm, whose death throes created the "Wormington".

Tabletop RPGs
  • Dungeons And Dragons, naturally, has a panoply of them. The most common kinds are divided into good and evil by color; the metallic dragons (gold, silver, bronze, copper, and brass) are good, and the chromatic dragons (red, black, blue, green, and white) are evil. There are also many weirder kinds, such as fairy dragons, gem dragons, planar dragons, and the extremely rare and powerful "epic" dragons. And, of course, some of these can not only shapeshift into humans, but breed with humans whilst transformed, giving us half-dragons. There's the dragon type, which features creatures with draconic traits that don't quite measure up to "true" dragons. And then there's the Eastern dragons... Let's just say that there's a reason that dragons get title billing second only to "Dungeons".
    • Dragons are also powerful spellcasters in D&D, to the extent where many "spontaneous" arcane casters—that is, those who don't have to study or prepare spells—are said to be descended from dragons, as dragon blood can influence a line for a thousand generations.
    • The queen of the evil chromatic dragons is Tiamat, who has five heads (one of each color) and a wyvern-like stinger. In the cartoon series, she was a secondary threat to Venger. The good dragons have Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, who of course sold more than a million copies. Neutral dragons have Chronepsis, the Anthropomorphic Personification of complete indifference.
      • And those are all descended from Io, the other True Neutral god of all dragons.
    • The Draconomicon is a Sourcebook for 3rd Edition D&D, dealing entirely with different types of dragons, dragon society, dragon characters, etc.
    • The Eberron campaign setting subverts Color Coded For Your Convenience—at least, the morality side of it. Whereas dragons all have "Always [Character Alignment]" in the core books, in Eberron this is changed to "usually" or "often". Surprise your party with a principled revolutionary red dragon fighting against a charming but tyrannical gold dragon!
      • Eberron's dragons are also uniformly obsessed with the Prophecy, which is long, conveniently obscure, drawn-out, and ridiculously complex. Between fighting off mad adventurers and hoarding wealth, they pore over old relics and occasionally share notes with their, er, colleagues.
  • Palladium's Rifts and related games feature almost as many dragons, based on Western, Eastern, and Mythological sources, plus their own imaginations, from Hydras to Chiang-Ku to Ogopogo to Crystal Dragons. Unfortunately for would-be heroes, these are not color-coded, although there are some species that tend to generally be nicer than others. It even allows you to have a young hatchling dragon as a playable character.
  • Shadowrun divides its dragons into "normal" and greater varieties. Regular dragons are simply incredibly powerful, yet vicious and feral, sentient beings, while greater ones are immortal Bad Asses with intelligence only matched by their power (both physical and magical), strange, alien motivations few can even hope to comprehend, and centuries-long Xanatos Gambits in play. Both varieties come in both Western and Eastern forms, as well as the feathered serpents common to Central American mythologies.
    • Oh, and one (of the Greater variety, of course) got elected President, but was assassinated before he could take office; the method of said assassination (blowing up his limo) only worked because the dragon was in his squishy human form, since any assassination attempt while he was in dragon form would have required anti-tank weaponry at the very least. Regardless, the dragon's death left a gigantic, mysterious rift in the astral plane. And, of course, it later turned out that his own death was just the crowning step in that particular dragon's Xanatos Gambit.
      • It's also been suggested that this dragon's death was part of everyone else's Xanatos Gambit. The writers really love those.
  • Dragons in the Iron Kingdoms resemble the traditional Western versions superficially, but cleave a little closer to Cosmic Horrors in the details. They aren't "alive" in the same sense as other creatures; instead, their life force is concentrated into a small, nigh-unbreakable stone located inside their heart, and unless that stone is consumed by another dragon, a "dead" dragon can simply resurrect itself (if it wants to — at least one dragon in the setting currently finds it more useful to remain in rock form and manipulate others into doing his bidding). If that weren't enough, exposure to a dragon's blood or body parts causes severe, painful mutations in the victims, and a dragon can also simply shed its own blood to create dragonspawn: blind, soulless monsters that only vaguely resemble the beast that spawned them.
  • Dragons in Warhammer are intelligent, though it is unclear exactly how intelligent, and whether they can speak. The setting also has wyverns, raised by Orcs. They are about as smart as horses and are smaller and less powerful than true dragons.
    • Warhammer 40000 has no true dragons in sight (besides name references, particularly among Eldar) but it's a big galaxy. Certain types of Tyranid and Daemons get close, and then there's the mysterious Eldritch Abomination known as the Void Dragon...
    • who gets a lot more coverage in the Horus Heresy book Mechanicum, fitting the trope very, very closely.
  • In the Old World Of Darkness, dragons were immensely powerful Mythicals which were variously described; while it is never clear, they appear to be either the (non-)Anthropomorphic Personification of everything humanity fears and/or doesn't understand, or avatars of deities outright. There are probably more than one type, but since only Changelings and the most powerful of archmages could ever encounter them (and even then often only realized it after the fact), the whole thing is shrouded in mystery even by White Wolf standards. The only dragon clearly shown is Pelé, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, who either lives in the volcano of the same name or is the volcano itself; she appears in human guise to warn a wandering group of Kithain of an imminent eruption, because she's trying to maneuver them into an encounter with the native faerie folk.
    • The Mokole werelizards from Werewolf:The Apocalypse are arguably dragons depending on how one defines them. They can shapeshift (obviously), have access to powerful magic, and have inspired dragon legends everywhere outside Europe (where they are rare).
    • In the new World of Darkness dragons are the legendary predecessar inhabitants of Atlantis, who left for parts unknown before humans came to inhabit the island. Items theorised to have been dragon bones are purported to have had the property of allowing one to attempt Awakening at will (as opposed to the period covered by known history, in which Awakening appears to be a mostly random process).
      • There's also a dragon written up for Changeling The Lost — Dzarumazh, one of the True Fae. His stats are ridiculous, completely up in the Villain Sue territory.
  • In Castle Falkenstein, dragons are evolutionary descendants of pteranadons and other ancient flying lizards, having gained immense magical powers along the way. While some still behave like classic dragons, demanding virgin sacrifices (albiet with a sexual twist) most are more civilized, using their magic to shapeshift and court human women. This goes over surprisingly well given their tremendous wealth, a decided virtue within the game's Victorian setting. As a side note, their evolutionary origins also gives them surprisingly brittle bones.

Video Games
  • Lunar dragons resemble Western dragons, but it's notable that young dragons look like small, winged cats. And apparently, they shit diamonds (At least the White one does. You might get Rubies/Sapphires/Onyx from the other three.).
  • Chrono Cross
  • Final Fantasy VI had eight legendary dragons in the World of Ruin (which were simply Palette Swapped versions of other enemy sprites). Beating all eight would unlock a powerful summon that deals a lot of unblockable damage to everyone on the battlefield, your party members included, which was otherwise unobtainable. Of course, you had to be near the very end of the game to beat all eight dragons anyway.
  • Final Fantasy XI has several distinct types. There's the small baby wyvern that Dragoons get as a pet (that have arms), much larger wyverns (that apparently shed their arms as they grew) that are often encountered as high level normal enemies, and dragons that often have some magic and are only ever bosses (and are ugly as sin). Finally, there are wyrms, which are huge western-looking dragons that wield magic and are highly intelligent, and mostly represent one of the game's basic elements. Wyrms can take anywhere from 18-36 people to kill. Bahamut, incidentally, is also known as the Wyrmking who, as the name implies, rules over the rest of the wyrms. There's a battlefield where you have to face him and other wyrms simultaneously.
  • Final Fantasy XII, meanwhile, classified all large reptiles as dragons, including the expected wyrms and wyverns, but also dinosaurs.
  • Almost all Final Fantasy games have Bahamut, one of the most reoccurring and strongest summons in the games. He's more western style.
  • Jade Empire is a Western game, but its world is a fantasy version of ancient China, so the dragon is wholly Eastern.
  • Pokemon considers "Dragon" to be one of the many elemental types that a Pokemon can have, but also features a few non-Dragon Pokemon who definitely fit the classical mold, namely Charizard◊ (Western) and Gyarados◊ (Eastern). And there's also some Dragon-type Pokemon who are very different (Altaria◊).
  • The Draic Kin of The Longest Journey. They resemble the Western variety physically (although they can disguise themselves as humans) but have the nature-spirit culture of the Eastern dragons. In fact, they are actually aliens with powers akin to God who lived on Earth for over twelve millenia and helped humans to split the planet in two. No Seriously.
  • War Craft dragons look Western, but the leader of each Dragonflight is called an Aspect. Each Aspect is charged by the gods with protecting a specific domain, like time, earth, magic, life, or dreams on the world of Azeroth. Some of the Dragonflights have become corrupted or mad over time.
    • Naturally, there is plenty of opportunity to fight dragons in World Of Warcraft, from whelps that are barely more than a annoying common enemy up to 40-man raid encounters.
    • An interesting variation are the dragonkin, which look more like lizards. They don't have wings but instead an extra set of limbs, exept a few that ahve 6 limbs and a pair of wings. According to the official RP Gs, they are former mortals who served the dragons so long that they took on their traits. They are usually found together with the whelp variety (adult dragons are fairly rare).
    • There's also wyverns, but they don't appear to be related to dragons in any way. They look like lions with batlike wings and a scorpion-like tail (your encyclopedia of mythology would identify these as traits more befitting a Manticore). They are apparently quite intelligent and used by the Horde as flying mounts.
    • Players can use some dragons as mounts: There are Nether Dragons in Outland, introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. These dragons descended from Black Dragonflight eggs that were caught up in the storm of energy that broke Draenor, and ended up with a strange physiology (almost shark-like heads, one-fingered wings like a pterodactyl, and a fin on the end of the tail). They are a faction that players can befriend, and after a lot of work, they can earn the right to ride one as a flying mount. In the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, players can win an Albino Drake mount after completing the achievement "Leading the Cavalry", which is given for owning a total of 50 mounts.
      • Proto-drakes also appear in Wrath of the Lich King; they are said to be the primitive ancestors of modern intelligent dragons. They look similar to wyverns (two legs and two wings). They are obtainable as mounts via completing certain achievements, or a single rare spawn in Northrend, that will always give the mount when killed.
  • Wild Arms dragons are very different. How different? Well for one thing, they're sentient robots that transform into jet fighters when they fly.
  • Runescape uses Western dragons, (Ice) Wyverns, a three-headed Black dragon (which has been shown to be sentient), and... Metal dragons!!!
  • In The Elder Scrolls universe, the Dragon is the symbol of the Tamrielic Empire. Interestingly, although the Empire itself is styled after the historical Roman one, the dragons are definitely of Eastern variety, to the point that the Imperial Throne of Tamriel is called "The Dragon Throne", just like the one in Imperial China. There are also western style dragons in the earlier games, Daggerfall featured baby dragons as high-level enemies, while Redguard had you fight a fully grown one. There's also a story featuring western dragons, but they're fictional.
  • Nethack's dragons are kind of western — huge (as defined by the game's size logic), flying, and equipped with a different breath depending on their colour... and they look like capital Ds.
  • The Might And Magic series does the Western variation almost by the book. In the Heroes of Might and Magic games, they tend to be among the most powerful creatures, and many factions have some sort of Dragon as their strongest (tier 7) creature, such as Green/Gold Dragons for Rampart, Red/Black Dragons for Dungeon, and Bone/Ghost Dragons for Necropolis. Some of the games had even stronger neutral dragons.
    • In Might and Magic VIII there were playable dragon characters and were a major race in the game.
    • In Dragon Rage the protagonist, Cael Cyndar, is a dragon.
    • Heroes of Might and Magic V, the latest in the series, features a pantheon of Dragon Gods. There's Asha, the Dragon of Order and creator of Ashan as well as the 8 Elemental Dragons, and her counterpart Urgash, Dragon of Chaos and creator of the demons. The Elemental Dragons are mainly worshiped by one of the remaining races, and are likely the reason for the (lesser) Dragons being a rather common tier 7 creature for most of the races.
  • Legend of Dragoon has some of the strangest variations of dragons imaginable, neither fitting Western or Eastern examples. These dragons vary from looking like giant insects, to giant catfish, to floating tanks. The only dragon that remotely resembles any more typical dragon at all would be the Divine Dragon, who is a massive, absolutely terrifying looking flying abomination that sacrifices traditional breath attacks for an extremely destructive cannon and missile like attacks.
  • Dragons in Tales Of Vesperia are members of the Entelixia race, who have developed a thorough dislike of humanity by the time the game begins. Given that their race's souls are used to power blastia, it's easy to see why.
  • Dragons in the Breath Of Fire series are shape-shifters who spend most of their time in human form, sometime unaware of their true nature. In the fourth game, they're also "Endless", the physical gods of that verse.
    • In Dragon Quarter the "D-Constructs" are apparently some kind of artificial life form.
  • Ridley from Metroid is a space dragon (and The Dragon in almost every game) that fits the Western definition on almost all points — he flies, he breathes fire, he seems to show up at least once per game regardless of how many times he's actually been killed (the series has a chronology and no Reset Button), follows the six-limbs morphology, is fairly large, possesses weak points on his chest and in his mouth, and is generally guarding or hoarding something, be it a new route or a new weapon.
    • Ridley only has a weak point in his chest in the 3d games. In 2d games he's actually the only boss without a weak spot (hit him anywhere but the tail and it harms him). He's still a very difficult boss, especially in Super Metroid, where he took an absurd amount of punishment, was very fast and flew around more or less randomly.
    • The prequel manga explains Ridley's tenacity as the result of a powerful Healing Factor which lets him absorb the biomass of creatures he eats... including Samus's parents.
  • In Puzzle Quest: Challenge of The Warlords, you're led through a realm populated by Western-style dragons. One of whom you can optionally add to your party. You can also capture a wyvern for a mount.
    • There are also dragon spiders. The only thing they have in common with normal dragons is the ability to breathe fire.
  • Bowser, The King of Koopas. Though shaped more like a turtle, he displays all sorts of dragony characteristics, down to the fiery breath.
    • There is also Yoshi, although he's more like a dinosaur horse at first glance. However, under certain conditions, he can spit fire and grow wings to fly. There are also other breeds of Yoshi, sporting different colors, that present different abilities, though the green is the most versatile.
  • The Legend Of Zelda has a handful of dragons as bosses. Both variants, no less. And some hybrids—Volvagia breathes fire and is a dangerous monster, and has a head like a Western dragon—but his body type and the way he flies suggest an Eastern dragon.
  • Don't forget the dragons of Panzer Dragoon, which tend to have the shape of dragons combined with an utterly alien physiology.
  • There's also Spyro The Dragon.
    • Expanding on that one, there's several breeds of dragon in this series. For example, in the Legend of Spyro trilogy, different colours tend to be representitive of a dragon's element (though not neccessarily, Malefor was apparently not a fire dragon, though this may be just the ancestors making an assumption based on his colour), and they are usually only privy to one. Spyro himself is an exception, as he is a purple dragon, which in themselves are extremely rare (there's only been two in that world's history, Malefor (AKA, the Big Bad) being the other one, though he claims that there have been many). Cynder is an exception due to being exposed to dark magic throughout her life. Her appearence is rather unique among dragons as well, though this may be just a gender thing, since she's the only female dragon seen in the trilogy.
  • Dragons are a staple of the Fire Emblem series and have appeared in every game. They are typically of the western variation but can take on human forms.
  • In the Monster Hunter franchise, most of the enemies you fight are actually wyverns - two legs, two wings, tail. In the original Play Station 2 game, the dragons were online-accessible only - this changed with the PSP port. The major distinguishing characteristics were that one dragon was so big that you were literally barely as big as one of its TOES. The other was also huge, and could damned well kill you with one of any sort, though it was smaller than the other dragon...who was running away from IT. The sequel added an additional 4 new dragons, two fire-breathing beasts that looked like lion-western dragon hybrids, one that looked like the traditional western dragon with a permanent wind aura, and one that is actually a giant chameleon with wings that spends most of its time kicking your ass...while invisible. Oh, and stealing your items. And poisoning you, making your defense non-existent, and sapping your stamina completely. Of course, they also considered the electric powered ki-rin to be a dragon in the latest portable incarnation, so make of that what you will.

Web Animation

Webcomics
  • Gunnerkrigg Court has Rogat Orjaks ("horned giants"), which are large, human-like lizard things. They're intelligent, benign, and keep to themselves. The passage formerly quoted at the top of the page implies that there were real dragons, until they were exterminated for showing off a bit too much:
    "We like to keep a low profile. Best not to draw attention to ourselves, unlike those [common dragons]. And where are they now, eh?" - Kos, Orjak.
  • Girl Genius features the Dragon King of Mars in one of the fictional Heterodyne Boys stories. He looks like a robotic Western dragon. Mars, in this story, seems to be inhabited by such robot dragons.
  • Kay The Cookie Jar Dragon is actually a miniature Cute Monster Girl. One of the characters hangs a lampshade on this, talking about all the things that dragons should be; Kay simply replies, "But I am a dragon", and this is taken as a perfectly good excuse.
  • Order Of The Stick, in its eternal quest to mock Dungeons And Dragons tropes to death, of course covered this, even giving us the term Color Coded For Your Convenience.
  • Llewellyn of Ozy And Millie is essentially a lovably eccentric Englishman — and a wise, kind-hearted adoptive father — in dragon form. Oh, and he's also Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
  • Sluggy Freelance featured a flower-breathing dragon that "terrorized" the Dimension of Pain for a while... until Reakk boinked it.
    • Aylee also took on a fire-breathing dragon form for a while, as a reaction to being stuck in cryo for months. Most of her forms after that and the one just before it were dragon-like.
  • Erfworld's "dwagons" are diffewent, resembling giant stuffed toys. However, in combat they seem to be about as tough and dangerous as traditional Western dragons.
  • This Penny Arcade comic shows involves a calling out out on essentially, a book's dragons being not-so-different.

Web Original

Western Animation
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