The Dragon - Television Tropes & Idioms

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alt title(s): Dragon

In classic Fairy Tales and folklore, the hero must often slay a dragon, or other semi-intelligent monster, before he can confront the intelligent (but weaker) master villain.

The Dragon is the second-biggest Big Bad, posing the greatest physical challenge to a hero. The hero must vanquish the Dragon before they can defeat the Big Bad.

The Dragon is one of the Evil Minions, generally second-in-command or at least the second greatest challenge to the hero. The Dragon is an integral part of the Five Bad Band dynamic. If there's a Quirky Miniboss Squad, the Dragon is often the unofficial leader.

See also: The Man Behind The Man, The Radar, Psycho For Hire. When The Dragon is not doing their job properly, see Dragon Their Feet.

For literal dragons and their permutations, see Our Dragons Are Different. Not be confused with Dragon Lady, who is more like a Big Bad than The Dragon.

Examples

Anime

In every Sailor Moon season except the last one, the first villain whom the audience believed to be the Big Bad was not, and was paving the way for an even more powerful Big Bad. And even in the fifth season, although the Dragon (Nehellenia) was shown being manipulated by an even more powerful evil from the start, it was not until she was defeated that the true Big Bad (Galaxia) was shown; until then, she appeared as a disembodied voice. Though it may be said that Galaxia was also a Dragon of sorts, as she was possessed by Chaos, the Big Bad of the universe.
Soukou No Strain puts a twist on the situation. At first, it sets Medlock up as Ralph's superior; we're almost certain that he's going to overtake her as The Man Behind The Man because of Sara's personal motivation, and he does, but then he holds her hostage; she does a Heel Face Turn and suffers for it.
Legato Bluesummers in Trigun. Oddly, his physical strength is in fact below average, and his primary strength is his mind-control ability.
Debonair/Kiishim in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle serves as The Dragon during one of the first missions though in a triple subversion of the trope, she is both smarter than her boss, is being made to serve him via mind control, and is in the end the one who gives him what's coming to him.
Chloe in Noir can be seen as The Dragon to her mother figure/boss Altena, and whether this was in fact part of Altena's plan is hotly debated among fans.
Psycho For Hire Roberto in Monster is Johan Liebert's dragon and Battle Butler.
Ace Pilot Kallen in Code Geass is arguably The Dragon to Villain Protagonist Lelouch.
- The Big Bad proper, Charles zi Brittania, has Sir Bismark Waldstein, the Knight of One. And in episode 21 of R2, Suzaku has become Emperor Lelouch's Knight of Zero aka his Dragon.
Amshel in Blood Plus can be seen as The Dragon for the Big Bad, Diva. At the same time, he exudes The Man Behind The Man qualities. Which is fitting, as Diva is not exactly the plotting type.
Fate Testarossa in the first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is The Dragon to her mother, Mad Scientist Precia. Her status as The Woobie, Love Martyr, and Mad Scientists Beautiful Daughter didn't stop her from being a formidable threat.
Mouri Kouran of Flame of Recca has two, arranged neatly along the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil, with Kurei serving for the first two story arcs, until his Heel Face Turn to Noble Demon and replacement by Psychopathic Manchild Renge.

Comic Books

The Batman villain Ra's al Ghul is usually accompanied by an extremely large thug named Ubu. Apparently this is a title, rather than a name; he tends to replace Ubus fairly frequently. Ubu was absent from the film, but Ken Watanabe's fake Ra's could be said to fulfill this function.
- This editor inferred that Ken Watanabe was not the 'fake' Ra's. Upon his death, Liam Neeson became the new Ra's - in this way Christopher Nolan's vision of the persona Ra's al Ghul is functionally, though not semantically, as immortal as his comic book counterpart.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, Elektra serves as the Dragon to the Kingpin of Crime. Not that the Kingpin isn't capable of quality violence in his own right...
- In the same universe, the Ultimate X-Men have to deal with the Weapon X project, led by a human military officer named John Wraith. He isn't particularly tough, but his personal Dragon is the gigantic mutant killing machine Sabretooth.
In most appearances, DeSaad is The Dragon to Darkseid. Strangely, Darkseid leaves all torturework to him, as he is not amused by one-sided displays of brutality.
Colonel Olrik from Blake And Mortimer often serves as The Dragon to each adventure's temporary Big Bad, despite him being the titular heroes' Arch Enemy.

Film

In the movie Die Hard, John McClane is hunted by Karl, The Dragon, and must defeat him before he can defeat Hans Gruber, the Big Bad. Technically Karl does not die until the end, but Mc Clane leaves him bloody and beaten before throwing Gruber off the building. Karl then emerges for round two, only to be gunned down by Al.
- This is actually the case in all the Die Hard movies. Die Hard 2 had Face Heel Turn bad guy that got thrown into a jet engine. Die Hard With a Vengeance had Torgo, who John managed to beat to almost death before this particular Dragon was then killed by his boss. And Live Free or Die Hard had Mai, who was rather conspiciously killed about halfway through the film, making her a tough but rather quickly killed Dragon.
James Bond villains often have a Dragon: Oddjob in Goldfinger, Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me, etc.
- Interestingly, in the movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" the Big Bad is killed first and Bond has to prevent The Dragon from killing him afterwards.
- Although Largo in Thunderball arguably is Blofeld's Dragon, he's the main villain in the film. Bond battles Blofeld proper in You Only Live Twice.
In Enter the Dragon, Bolo is The Dragon for Mr. Han, the Big Bad. Oddly, killing The Dragon falls to Roper the Con Man rather than Lee the Hero (who goes straight for Han as soon as Bolo is defeated, and who is The Dragon but not The Dragon).
In Layer Cake, the evil Serbian warlord has a Dragon hitman named, appropriately enough, Dragan. He makes constant threats to decapitate Daniel Craig's character.
In the Star Wars movies IV-VI, Darth Vader is The Dragon between the heroes and the Emperor. In I-III it's Darth Maul and later General Grievous. Darth Tyrannus doesn't quite fit the mold.
- Tyrannus does, however, have quite a few of his own Dragons: Jango Fett and Grievous (again), and in the Expanded Universe, Durge and Asajj Ventress, along with various other "Dark Acolytes" (yes, this editor is aware how corny that sounds).
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade serves as a nice comparison of the roles The Dragon and the Big Bad. The Dragon, Colonel Vogel, fights Indy in a climactic battle atop an Egyptian tank. The main villain, Walter Donovan, goes against our hero in a battle of wits to locate the true Holy Grail.
In Mystery Men, Tony P winds up playing right-hand-man to Casanova Frankenstein. Tony P, in turn, has a Dragon of his own in Tony C.
Almost every single Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie has a Dragon, typically played by stuntman Bolo Yeung, defending a swarmy white or Asian criminal mastermind.
O-Ren Ishii, in Kill Bill, seems to collect them, having two chief bodyguards (Johnny Mo, leader of the Crazy 88, and of course Psycho For Hire Gogo Yubari) and a right-hand woman (Sofie Fatale) besides.
Parodied and averted in The Running Man. Damien's huge bodyguard Sven seems to serve no meaningful role in the movie except as someone for Arnold Schwarzenegger to have the big climactic fight with. At the climax of the film, it looks like the two are about to fight, but Sven simply walks off (due to Damien's verbal abuse of him), leaving Schwarzenegger to crush the helpless Damien.
Prince Nuada of Hellboy II: The Golden Army has a few dragons: Mr. Wink, the Elemental, and arguably, the Golden Army, as they are FAR more durable than most Mecha Mooks.
Paul Yau (the assassin with the shades), is Johnny Weng's Dragon from John Woo's The Killer. He gives both heroes of the movie a hell of a fight, especially during the church shootout, before being taken hostage in an attempt to break the Put Down Your Gun And Step Away situation with Johnny and the Killer's girlfriend and getting one put through his skull by Johnny himself.
Mad Dog was Johnny Wong's Dragon from the John Woo movie Hard Boiled. Like Paul, he gives Tequila and Alan a hell of a fight when the three clash and during the big hospital shootout, before he does a Heel Face Turn and blows the gun out of Johnny's hands to put an end to Johnny's psychotic massacre of the patients he had agreed to let pass. He gets killed by Johnny soon after.
Tatsu is the Shredder's Dragon in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. In the first movie, Casey Jones is the one to take him on, while in the second movie, the Turtles themselves dispatch him with a "Wishbone Crunch" that consists of sandwiching him between all four of their shells simultaneously.
In The Long Kiss Goodnight, the film's main villain Timothy is actually the Dragon: the Big Bad is the mostly-unseen Daedalus who is killed halfway through the film, after which Timothy replaces him as the Big Bad.
Count Rugen in The Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya kills him before Westley deals with Prince Humperdinck.
V For Vendetta: After being a minor character in the original novel, Creedy was upgraded to this status in the film adaptation, then somehow graduated to "main antagonist" before the movie was over.

Literature

Although Morgoth's minions in The Silmarillion include actual dragons such as Glaurung, Sauron most clearly fulfills this role, particularly in the story of Beren and Luthien.
- Sauron's own Dragon in the Lord Of The Rings saga is none other than the Witch King of Angmar, though Saruman also plays a Dragon role in the movie (though in the books, he was by no means a servant of him).
Walter o'Dim in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series serves the enigmatic Crimson King.
Bellatrix Lestrange - the ruthless and devoted lieutenant to Lord Voldemort.
Basta, the knife-wielding henchman to Capricorn in The Inkworld Trilogy, who runs all his errands and does most of his dirty work.
If Lord Vetinari is a subversion of the Evil Overlord, then Samuel Vimes would be his subversion of The Dragon. Vimes is often said to be Vetinari's enforcer, often unwittingly or unwillingly, but is the protagonist of all the Watch books.

Live Action TV

In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, the Jem'Hadar served as a collective Dragon for that show's collective Big Bad, the Founders.
In Star Trek Voyager, Seska straddled the line between this and Big Bad. She acted in Culluh's employ, doing a great deal of his dirty work, but also consistently showed herself to be a far more cunning and dangerous planner.
On Buffy The Vampire Slayer:
- In Season 1, Darla was The Dragon for the Master.
- In Season 2, Drusilla was The Dragon for Angelus.
- In Season 3, Faith was The Dragon for the Mayor.
- In Season 7, Caleb was The Dragon for The First Evil.
On Buffy's spin-off Angel, the series finale featured Adam Baldwin as Hamilton, The Dragon for the series' Big Bad "The Senior Partners", who are never faced directly by Angel or his friends. (With one exception).
On Supernatural, Meg is the Dragon for her father Azazel in Season 1. Jake is briefly the Dragon in the Season 2 finale.
In 24 Season Five, Christopher Henderson is The Dragon to Charles Logan.
In most versions of the Robin Hood legend, The Sheriff of Nottingham is The Dragon to Prince John.
- In the current BBC Series, The Sheriff is the Big Bad, and Sir Guy is his Dragon.
Lampshaded (kind of) in Sea Quest DSV 2032; first episode, 3rd season. The Big Bad is Alexander Born, his general uses the callsign 'Dragon' when calling in the attack.
In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Goldar fills this role to a T. The Big Bads of later seasons would also usually have a Dragon in their employ, but Goldar is probably the most iconic.

Music

In Rhapsody (of Fire)'s musically-told-fantasy-epic, the Algalord Saga, Akron the Black King, prone to ravaging every proverbial puppy in the story is served loyally by The Dragon Dargor, a fearless and honourable half-demon warrior prince, who is apparently so awesome as to warrant an entire song of his own (with two variations!). All of this is a fairly transparent foreshadowing of Dargor's Heel Face Turn at the climax of the story. And HOW!

Radio

Adventures In Odyssey: During the Novacom Saga, Mr. Charles is assumed to be to the Big Bad; it's eventually revealed that he's only second-in-command, and the real mastermind is someone who's often referenced but never appears until the finale, "The Chairman."

Video Games

During the Street Fighter Alpha series, Sagat is often portrayed as the dragon for M. Bison. This is toned down more and more during the SFII series, when his motive turns into a clean rematch with Ryu.
- Street Fighter III gives us Urien, The Dragon toward his older brother Gill, in every game in that series.
In the original Mortal Kombat, Goro acts as the dragon for Shang Tsung. (In fact Goro is described as a "half human dragon.")
- Shang Tsung himself later becomes a cross between The Dragon and The Starscream to Shao Kahn's Big Bad, though in MKII and MK3, you have to fight Kintaro, another Goro-like Shokan warrior, and Motaro, an incredibly tough centaurian, before reaching Shao Kahn.
In the Metroid series of games, the fairly dragon-like Ridley often functions as The Dragon for something more sinister, including the Mother Brain, Dark Samus and Metroid Prime itself. It is worthy of note that, with the exception of Mother Brain, Ridley is actually unaffiliated with the Big Bads, making the application of this trope a bit unclear. He does show an uncanny timing for appearing right before the actual final bosses, though.
- In most cases, Ridley's timing is somewhat fortuitous, but can be explained. Metroid and Super Metroid, and by extension Metroid Zero Mission are obvious: he's protecting Mother Brain and the Space Pirate operations. In Metroid Fusion, it's just an X parasite clone. In Metroid Prime, well... somehow he decides only to show up for the second time after Samus collects her Plot Coupons. Finally, in Metroid Prime 3 Ridley is entirely under the control of Phaaze, which probably regards Samus as the biggest threat to its existence, and so simply orders Ridley to hunt her down, first at the beginning when he's dropped into a planet core, and then at the end, when Samus finds him in the Space Pirate Leviathan Seed.
In Jade Empire, while initially thought to be the Big Bad, Death's Hand is in fact the Dragon for two successive Men Behind The Man. Oh, and there's also an actual dragon, but it's not The Dragon.
In the original Fatal Fury, the game would have you believe that Billy Kane, Geese Howard's right hand man, is the final fight, but not long after the game starts, it becomes fairly obvious that Billy is only The Dragon, and that Geese Howard, the Big Bad, is the true final boss. Subverted later on in Fatal Fury 3, where Billy is defeated in story but not in-game, Geese is apparently The Dragon, with Yamazaki seeming to be the Big Bad, until Yamazaki's defeat reveals the Jin Twins, the true Big Bads of the game.
- Also in the Fatal Fury series: Lawrence Blood is Wolfgang Krauser's Dragon, and Grant is Kain R. Heinlein's.
Death in the Castlevania games almost always plays The Dragon for Dracula himself, and is occasionally referred to as Dracula's most loyal servant.
Final Fantasy VIII has a chain of dragons: Raijin and Fujin act as Dragons for Seifer, Seifer is Dragon to Sorceress Edea.
Final Fantasy IV's Golbez, who is very much a Darth Vader figure, turns out to be Dragon to Zemus.
The Time Crisis series has mercenary terrorist Wild Dog. In every single game. And yes, you do get to kill him every time. Interestingly enough, the first game had you offing the Big Bad at the end of the second act, saving Wild Dog for the finale.
- The first two titles in the main series have him forming close relations with each title's Big Bad. In the third and fourth games, however, he seems to serve no connection to the Big Bad of either respective game; he's just there to get his revenge on the VSSE.
Lord Recluse, Big Bad of the City Of Heroes games, has four Dragons: Scirocco, Ghost Widow, Black Scorpion, and Captain Mako. (It may be more accurate to call them a Quirky Miniboss Squad, but they have far more independence and characterization then a true QMS.) Each of these lower ranking Arachnos members have a Dragon of their own, namely Ice Mistral, Wretch, Silver Mantis, and Barracuda, respectively.
The Black Knight serves as the Dragon for the Fire Emblem games Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. In the first, he serves the Big Bad Ashnard as a member of the Four Riders. He does this in conquering Crimea and searching for Lehran's Medallion, not to mention killing the main protagnist Ike's father. This eventually leads to a Duel Boss fight between him and Ike. (Although Ike's sister Mist can help with healing Ike).
- In Radiant Dawn, he turns to serve as the Dragon for his true master Sephiran under his true identity of Zelgius, the noble leader of the Begnion Central Army. There he has a true Duel Boss fight with Ike by creating a magical barrier that separates the two of them from their respective forces.
  - Of course Sephiran can be considered a Dragon as well, as he must be fought and defeated so the party can reach the goddess Ashera, whom he serves.
  - Every game in the series seems to have one of these. Particularly bizarre in the first game where a priest takes this role for a literal Dragon.
  - An even more bizarre example happens in Fire Emblem 6: An actual dragon named Idoun can be the Dragon to Big Bad Zephiel, but if you get all the Infinity Plus One Sword-esc weapons, you actually get to have an extended story where the dragon is acually the Dragon to Zephiel... who really is the Dragon to the exact same dragon. To make it even more confusing, said dragon can have another dragon, Yahn, who is her Dragon. Try to wrap your brain around that one.
  - In FE 7 Limstella is The Dragon to Big bad Nergal and In FE 8 Riev is the Dragon to Prince Lyon who is in turn is the Dragon to the Demon King.
Inuart, after suffering from mind-bending torture, becomes The Dragon to the Big Bad in Drakengard
Barbatos Goetia from Tales Of Destiny 2 exemplifies this trope, being The Dragon of 'Holy Woman' Elraine.
Super Robot Wars Original Generation has a lot of these.
- In the first OG, we had Ingram Prissken who acts like The Dragon for Levi Tolar (unwillingly, actually)
  - Shu Shirakawa also served as this role, to an extent, to Bian Zoldark in both Original Generation and the original Super Robot Wars 2.
- In the second OG, we have lots of them:
  - Axel Almer acts like The Dragon for Vindel Mauser
  - Alfimi is like The Dragon for (Stern) Neue Regisseur
  - Strange that both The Dragons end up joining you in OG Gaiden
  - Oh, and Mekibos is actually The Dragon for Wendolo, as he seemed to lead the rest of the Quirky Miniboss Squad the Inspectors. And he joins you too, temporarily before he's offed. He may be back, though, if the SRW 4 story is to get implemented to the Original Generation
- In OG Gaiden, Duminuss is The Dragon for Dark Brain. It's also arguable that Wilhelm von Juergen is unknowingly playing The Dragon part for Duminuss.
The Wing Commander series has an interesting variation of this trope - The Dragon is an ace pilot you must dogfight with before destroying the real bad guy (whose death is in a Cutscene, not directly killed by the player). Prince Thrakhath plays The Dragon to the Wing Commander III Big Bad, the Kilrathi emperor; Seether plays The Dragon to WC 4's Big Bad Tolwyn.
- For extra value, Seether flies a fighter commonly called the Dragon, in the final flight mission.
Ramirez from Skies Of Arcadia is The Dragon of Galcian. He's also the last boss because the heroes, in adherence to the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil, destroy the weaker Galcian first. Ramirez does not take that well.
In Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines, Prince LaCroix of Los Angeles has a gigantic, mute Nagloper vampire as his right-hand henchman and Sheriff (basically the one responsible for enforcing Camarilla law in the prince's territory). The Sheriff is, in all but one ending, the game's final boss — LaCroix himself does not put up much of a fight.
While it's open to interpretation, like many other things in the game, this troper has always seen Metal Mario as the Dragon for Master Hand in the Super Smash Bros universe.
In Kingdom Hearts II, who the Dragon is in Organization XIII (or if there even is one) has had some mild debate, even on this wiki. The general consensus seems to be between Xigbar, who actually is Number II, has a bit of a backstory, and has the most battle prowess, and Saix, who acts in a possition of authority, gets more screentime, and is actually the boss fight before the final boss.
Each of the three Big Bads in Seiken Densetsu 3 has their own pair of Dragons: the Darkshine Knight and Koren, the Wizard of the Red Lotus; Jagan and Bigieu; Deathjester and Heath.
In Ratchet And Clank, Captain Qwark is The Dragon for Big Bad Chairman Drek. "Deadlocked" has another example, with Ace Hardlight serving as Dragon for Gleeman Vox.
Sonic The Hedgehog's Metal Sonic, in all his myriad versions, names and incarnations, has often wound up playing this role to Robotnik.
- Except in Sonic Heroes, of course, where he Took A Level In Badass, locked up Eggman, and masqueraded as him in order to actually see to the end of Sonic by his own hands as that game's Big Bad. He failed, of course, and Eggman had to wipe his mind clean as a result.
Axel Gear, the Evil Counterpart from the Rocket Knight Adventures series, serves as the Dragon in all three games. Despite the fact that each of them involves an entirely different invading empire, of a different species to boot, Axle Gear is the Dragon to each successive Evil Overlord. It seems that repeatedly losing to the hero has not damaged his resume.
In Chrono Trigger, Queen Zeal takes this role next to Lavos. What's interesting is that the game seems to suggest that Lavos doesn't seem to really care one way or another about her.
Several Quest For Glory villains have one Dragon or another on their side, using both the "intelligent sidekick" variety and dumb, physically powerful monsters.
- In the first game, So You Want to Be a Hero, the Brigand Leader is guarded by the Brigand Warlock. As it later turns out, though, there's a funny twist to the setup...
- Trial By Fire gives us Khaveen, captain of the guard in the corrupt city of Raseir and right hand to the maniacal Ad Avis. Come the endgame, while the Fighter faces him in a straight-up duel to the death and the Magic User doesn't interact with him much at all, the Thief engages in a more creative "showdown" with the corrupt captain by breaking into his house.
- Ironically enough, the villain of Dragon Fire is actually trying to summon a dragon. In the meantime, he has to settle for The Assassin. His identity is a mystery for much of the game, ultimately turning out to be a throwback to the series' first installment.
The Dungeons And Dragons game Demon Stone is worth a mention here, as the game's Dragon is an actual dragon... and it's frickin' huge to boot.
Mr. Big posed as the Big Bad in the first Art Of Fighting, but took his rightful place in the second game when Geese Howard came back to Southtown. In Art Of Fighting 3, Sinclair was Wyler's dragon.
The Legend Of Zelda is filled with these, mostly serving as pawns for Ganon/Ganondorf. Most of the time, the plots end up Hijacked By Ganon.
- Agahnim in A Link to the Past, although he actually turns out to be Ganon's alter-ego.
- Brainwashed And Crazy Nabooru to Twinrova in Ocarina of Time.
- Onox in Oracle of Seasons and Veran in Oracle of Ages. are The Dragon to Twinrova, who are The Dragon to Ganon this time.
- Vaati in Four Swords Adventures.
- Zant in Twilight Princess.
Imperishable Night particularly has this subverted with a touch in gameplay. Kaguya Houraisan is a powerful Lunarian and has a powerful Battle Butler Eirin Yagokoro. Canon-wise, Kaguya is definitely more powerful (she is immortal after all), but gameplay-wise Eirin is more difficult to defeat than her boss. Thus Eirin is somehow Kaguya's Dragon and this leads to a Stupid Statement Dance Mix: "HELP ME, EIRIIIIN!!!!"
Subverted in Final Fantasy VI, where Kefka, who had appeared as The Dragon up to that point, pulls a Starscream halfway through the game and becomes the Big Bad himself.
In Saints Row and it's sequel each rival gang has a Dragon.
- In Saints Row 1:
  - The Dragon to Benjamin King; Leader of the Vice kings is Anthony "Big Tony" Green.
  - The Dragon to Hector Lopez of Los Carnales and once he dies his younger brother Angelo is Victor Rodriquez.
  - The Dragon to William Sharp, the secret leader of the Westside Rollerz is his Nephew Joseph Price.
  - The Dragon to Alderman Hughs, the corrupt politician is Corrupt Police Chief Monroe.
- In Saints Row 2:
  - Mr.Sunshine is The Dragon to The General.
  - Jyunichi is The Dragon to Shogo Akuji and later to Shogo's father Kazuo once he comes to Stilwater
  - The closest thing Maero has to a Dragon is Matt, his best friend and right hand. But since Maero is a 7-foot tall musclebound thug he never actually uses Matt to do anything except tatoo him.
Misery serves is a Dragon to The Doctor, although she doesn't have any real loyalty towards the man; she and Balrog are bound to serve the wearer of the Demon Crown, and she sends Balrog to save Quote and Curly from certain death after they destroy the source of the Crown's power.
In Kingdom of Loathing, there appear to be a number of dragons to the final boss the Naughty Sorceress. The most obvious would be the fight with your shadow. Although, the Sorceress' tower could be seen as a dragon in and of itself. Then there are a number of required minibosses, such as the Goblin King, the Boss Bat, and either the Man, the Big Wisniewski, or both.
In The Witcher, Azar Javed is a Dragon to the big bad Jaques de Aldersberg, head of the Order of the Burning Rose.
Mass Effect's rogue Spectre Saren, turns out a mere Dragon to his own ship which happens to be The Sovereign, one of the famed Reapers.

Webcomics

In Erfworld, the color-coded Evil Overlord's second-in-command is a powerful Croakamancer and far smarter than her boss. However, he has a divine artifact, indulges her hobbies — and she knows how to "arrange it so that he thinks it was his idea."
In Order Of The Stick, Redcloak is The Dragon and right-hand man (right-hand goblin?) to Xykon, as is the Monster In The Shadows. Recently, Tsukiko could be considered yet another Dragon for Xykon.
- For a while, Miko appeared to be The Dragon to Lord Shojo, but it turned out that he was actually a good guy, and Miko was just a little overzealous.
- Therkla the ninja serves as the Dragon to the corrupt Lord Kubota. ...or did, until he killed her.
- A prequel book (Start Of Darkness) shows that Xykon was, at one point, the dragon to Redcloak before becoming more powerful and carrying out a rather nasty gambit which involved making Redcloak kill his brother and then ordering him to turn the corpse into a zombie.
- Thog is a sort of Dragon for Nale; although Nale is not lacking in martial prowess himself, he is certainly much smarter than Thog.
Ysengrin is Coyote's dragon in Gunnerkrigg Court.
In Evil Overlords United, the second in command is literally a dragon. He's also not overly bright and seems to have a thing for human females.
Goblins has had two major Dragons so far - one for each major plot arc. Saral Caine was ("was" being the operative word) Dragon for Dellyn Goblinslayer in the Brassmoon Arc. Grem (until his Heel Face Turn) and Riss were Dragons to Duv in Well of Darkness Arc. Not that Duv really needs a Dragon. She's more than Badass enough on her own...
Sluggy Freelance has had several Dragons in its long run. Most of them (Killum, Aylee, Kusari) have worked for the Hereti Corporation's OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness. Other notables include Lord Grater (Dragon to Zorgon Gala in the Punyverse arc) and Nash Straw (Dragon to Dastard Dickly in the "Phoenix Rising" arc).
Karnak from Dominic Deegan seems to have acquired a Dragon himself, in the form of Siegfried. He doesn't seem to be particularly loyal to Karnak, though, as Karnak appears to have some kind of hold over him, and even then has to smack him around a bit to make him do his bidding.
- Also, Helixa seemed to be The Dragon to the leaders of The Chosen, first serving Raf MaLiksh, then to Caylin Bren (though it might've been the other way around for the latter, considering Helixa was pretty much second-in-command to MaLiksh himself before his death). She could also be viewed as The Dragon to Celesto Morgan after he joined the organization as well.

Web Original

In Survival Of The Fittest, the main Dragon to Danya (although he has a number of prominent henchmen) is Steve Wilson, whom his boss relied on to effectively orchestrate a whole slew of the kidnappings which comprised Version 2 of SOTF. However, the three other members of the so-called 'Big Four'; Jim Greynolds, Melvin Carter and Sonia Nguyen could each be considered a dragon in their own right - it's up to interpretation who is the official right hand man.

Western Animation

On Transformers Animated, the Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits manage barely against the two Brutes because of Blitzwing's uncontrollable temper and Lugnut being just the sort of big, tactless idiot that would be named "Lugnut". But The Dragon, Starscream, is an intelligence and focused force that towers over all the Autobots, save Optimus himself. He even takes out Optimus' commander in one shot. Scarier still is how this foreshadows Megatron, who is bigger than both Starscream and Optimus and Starscream can't put a dent in Megatron to literally save his life. Who knows what horrors await in Season 3 now that Starscream has cloned himself 4 times.
On Kim Possible, Shego is the dragon for Doctor Drakken. She is a good deal more practical and clever than he, even if she can't build doomsday devices. In the Bad Future Movie, she takes over the world on her own, upstaging all the other bad guys.... and transforming Drakken into her own personal Dragon.
Princess Azula to her father, Fire Lord Ozai, in Avatar The Last Airbender. As Ozai had never left his imperial castle for the entire series, while Azula fought the heroes constantly and won, it was even entertained by fans that Azula was the real Big Bad of the show who would upstage her dad, but no.
In the animated film The Flight Of Dragons, the evil red wizard Omaddon has an actual dragon as his bodyguard, the devilish Bryaugh. Bryaugh is strong enough to decimate the entire crew of good guys alone, but falls before Sir Orin who uses his own fire against him; he allows himself to become engulfed in it before tossing his flaming sword right into Bryaugh's heart, burning him from the inside and finally killing him despite sacrificing his own life beside his comrades. Omaddon then appears only to be challenged by the story's true hero, Sir Peter.
From Jem episodes: "The Beginning" to "Hot Time In Hawaii", Zipper is the Dragon for Eric Raymond. Zipper is arrested by the Holograms. In the same cartoon, Techrat & "The Stingers" could be considered Dragons to Eric.
In Teen Titans, Terra is The Dragon for the Big Bad, Slade. Slade himself becomes The Dragon to Trigon later on. Both involve The Dragon turning on their master, to varying degrees of effectiveness. In the fifth season, a new Big Bad was introduced in the form of The Brain; he had a Dragon (part of his Quirky Miniboss Squad) in the form of an intelligent gorilla named Monsieur Mallah.
In Superman The Animated Series, Darkseid's son, Kalibak, functions as his Dragon - only for it to turn out that Darkseid himself is even stronger.
- Mercy Graves probably counts as Lex Luthor's Dragon, but outside of her memorable Cat Fight with Harley Quinn in the "World's Finest" crossover, she never got to do much Dragon-ing. (After all, when your main adversary is Superman...)
The premiere of Batman Beyond has Mr. Fixx as Derek Powers' bodyguard, hit man, and all-around Dragon. He is killed off by the time it's over, but that's okay - a little dose of I Love Nuclear Power, and Mr. Powers is set for the season.
In The Spectacular Spider Man Hammerhead is the Dragon for Big Bad the Big Man.
Cedric for Prince Phobos in WITCH. In the original comics he managed to pull this off while maintaining a personality of his own. In the TV show, his position ''is'' his personality.
Code Lyoko features Season 2 newcomer William Dunbar as the unwilling Dragon for an immaterial Big Bad. Ironically, while William is "resurrected" numerous times after the heroes "destroy" him, his appearances are never treated only as annoyances, but instead are considered a real threat every time, thus keeping him from entering Mook territory.
In many adaptations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder, though he is the Turtles' archenemy, is frequently the Dragon for a bigger Big Bad.
Gobots - Crasher is Cy-Kill's giggling, psychotic henchwoman and is genuinely more powerful, more threatening and above all else, scarier then he is.
Fright Knight from Danny Phantom acted as one to both Pariah Dark and Dark Danny. It seems he would have played the same for Vlad, but their alliance is left ambiguous due to the original writer leaving.
It seems that the dragons of Gargoyles are an unusual breed, all of whom are prone to betrayal. Demona, Goliath's Dragon, became Xanatos's and the Archmage's dragon, similarly abandoning all three for her own means. She gets a dragon in the three part season 2 finale, who betrays her. Like wise, Anton Severious, The Mutates, and Thailog all filled Demona's gap on Xanatos's side before jumping ship for various reasons (money, morals, and power resepctively.). Oberon's various Dragons (the weird sisters, puck, and Titania) all fell out of his favor or broke off obeying him. The weird sisters wanted revenge on the Magus for defeating them, Puck was actually Xanatos's Battle Butler Owen Bennett and Titania never really agreed with her husband but, as she put it, Oberon was always right, except when he was married.
Allan in Tintin is the closest the series has to a Dragon. First he's an associate of Omar Ben Salaad, then ultimate Big Bad Rastapopoulos. A bullying, volatile, aggressive creep, the only person he kowtows to is his boss of the time, although he doesn't always respect him. His longstanding relationship with the Captain means he's good at mental cruelty too.

Other

On the Neopets website, Doctor Sloth's Dragon is Commander Garoo, although he hasn't enjoyed much screen time.
In the Madness Combat series of Flash animations, Jebus/Joe/the one with the halo was originally The Dragon for The Sheriff, but he has since taken over as Hank's arch-nemesis.
In chess, the queen is arguably the Dragon of the king.

Real Life

Sea Captains often have their first mate as The Dragon. This would include nearly all Pirate Captains, though many of their names have been lost to antiquity.

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