What is the most iconic representation of dragons in literature?

Falkor from The Neverending Story?

Probably Draco from Dragonheart actually, though that's not literature.

edited 9th Jan '12 3:04:18 AM by NoirGrimoir

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland implies that they were all over the place by the time of writing (1996), stating they tended to bond with female characters and have their own separate island, but I guess the publication bar was probably a lot lower before Harry Potter and the Lord Of The Rings films, and it's probably okay that nobody here remembers these tropes.

But yeah, I think Noir Grimoir is probably right, as far as fiction for the English-speaking is concerned.

The most archetypal good dragon would be the Azure Dragon of The Four Gods in eastern mythology, except that it (nor the other three) seem to be found in literature (The Four Gods trope doesn't have any literature examples).

Bad? Definately Smaug, or similarly the Beowulf Dragon. Good? Hmmm. Errol.

edited 10th Jan '12 8:34:05 AM by GreatGodPan

I agree with the poster who said Smaug and the Dragonriders of Pern, though i suppose Smaug was basically an updated version of the western folkloric dragon. I think most dragons in western fiction these days fits into either the evil, hoarding, Smaug-type dragon or the bond-with-human-companion Pern dragon types.

To be fair, I think the Harry Potter dragons do have a few things going for them in the race for fame. Sure, they're not all that common in the books, and they're far from its most prominent aspect, but many people are familiar with the series, and dragons' depiction there is fairly traditional.

And since my motives appear to be in question for whatever reason, the reason I'm looking for the most iconic fictional dragons is because I'm designing a series of mascots for my local library, and they're all based on famous books. I wanted to do a dragon-type mascot because of how frequently we associate stories with dragons, but I didn't want it to be just a dragon, I wanted it to be a dragon based on a famous book of some kind (so the display that used the character could have the book next to it). You dig?

If Peter S Beagle's "I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons" ever gets published*

edited 10th Jan '12 10:32:24 AM by Bur

I guess I'm going to show my age here. The Hobbit was a relatively unknown book when I was a kid (This was before its resurgence in the late 60's). The first Pern books hadn't been written yet.

The image that gave me my lasting concept of what a dragon should look like was Maleficent, in her dragon form◊ from Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

edited 10th Jan '12 1:06:22 PM by Madrugada

Come to think of it, that's probably where I saw what a dragon relatively looks like for the first time too. Unfortunately, I was very little when I did, and I had no idea what she turned herself into. I didn't yet know people called those dragons.

Harry Potter dragons are a good example of a third type, other than the hording and bonding type: Dragons as just animals.

Maleficent in her dragon form is a good example of an evil dragon, it's kind of iconic. I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't know what a dragon was so I can't say what my first dragon was.

I don't know if the books themselves are well known enough to be cited themselves as the example, but I'd argue that the Earthsea books are probably the way most neutral or good dragons would be portrayed in Western fiction: Intelligent, alien, dangerous and proud, but not entirely unreasonable.

Maleficent is indeed how I learned what a dragon was, probably. She's the iconic one, though the iconic literature one is still probably Smaug, if not by name.

Well, my first dragon was Zantor from the children's series called The Dragonling. Very good children's fantasy books but sadly out of print in their individual form. A Collector's Edition however is availible (basically the first three and second three volumes in a set of two books). Totally deserves a Trope page in my opinion as it was just dark and edgy enough in some respects to almost qualify as a young adult book. The illustrations were also very fun to look at.

As far as my other favorite literary dragons go... Smaug from The Hobbit Saphira, Thorn, Shruikan, Glaedr and Arya's green dragon from the Inheritance Cycle Any of the dragons from the Dragonriders of Pern series.

edited 28th Jan '12 12:48:30 PM by Dragonessa

Pern books. Obviously. Anne Mc Caffrey did it better than anyone else in my opinion.

Anne Mccaffrey was good, I'll give you that...but I don't know if she was necessarily the best at writing dragons. Certainly one of the greats though. Oh, and for a non-literary dragon, I particulary loved Draco from Dragonheart who was my first cinematic dragon and the beastie that got me hooked on dragons in general.

Oh hey someone else who read The Dragonling. I have a copy of it and I have fond memories of it. And the wronk.

Actually, now that I think about it, the most iconic representation of dragons for me would be children's books I read when I was younger; although I can't even think of what those books were (except for two George and the Dragon ones, with one of them having George as a mouse and the dragon as a dragon who's scared of mice), they've definitely shaped how I defaultly view dragons.

Daaaaaa Hobbit.

Most people aren't familiar with dragons on account of any one particular piece of fiction - and certainly not from the dreadfully obscure fantasy series some of you people are referring to here - but rather just because they're a staple of mythology, the Bible, Arthurian legend, and all of that cultural sort of sphere. I don't think anyone bases their idea of what a dragon 'looks like' on any one single thing they've read, but rather a vague approximation based on lots and lots of stuff they've either read or understand through Pop-Cultural Osmosis.

Judging by how they're depicted in Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons, I'd say Smaug and Tolkien's work in general is highly influential on our modern perception of dragons (just as it is with pretty much everything high fantasy). They even included the bit about the reason dragons sleep on piles of jewelry being to form crusts to protect their underbellies.

edited 29th Apr '12 1:32:32 PM by HibernoBrony

@Freezair, you said you want examples from "fiction, not mythology", though I am not sure why one should exclude the other; when people talk about "mythology", they usually talk about certain works of fiction.

I say this because I would nominate Fafnir, the dragon from Völsunga saga and the Poetic Edda. Fafnir is the prototype for a sapient dragon that can talk; I don't know of any other dragon of old literature who could do this. It seems up to Fafnir, dragons were only beasts, never intelligent beings.

Smaug from The Hobbit is essentially a synthesis of Fafnir and the Beowulf dragon; from Fafnir he has the size, the intelligence, and the ability to talk; from the Beowulf dragon the fire and the wings (two things that Fafnir lacked).

That's a pretty good way to describe pretty much everything about Tolkien's legendarium, really.

A big mish-mash of things from various Eurasian mythologies (Germanic mythology in this case).

I still like Mc Caffrey's interpretation of dragons more than Tolkien's. And of those who ride them. The only one who came close to getting to her level in my view was the late Chris Bunch, in his Dragonmaster trilogy, and they were completely different in their portrayal of what dragons are, what they are for, and why men and women master them in the first place.