Dragon is meant to be a destructive force of nature & something to fight with a callous ire. Todays ides of dragon as you said is a lizard ''dog'' as in tamed & made mundane. I want to see the unrelenting force fire spewing flying tank of scales, flesh & bone. People wanting everything to be safe makes everything dull today. More so the issue is not the idea of dragon you have issue with it that Anglo dragon has been diluted by those that have to include everyone else's mythos that was already tame. It doesn't work into the European & Abrahamic mythos. A Chinese Lóng should be a Lóng but no one would be interested with out dragon associated at it is not a creature of might destruction & awe as present in the west mythos. Revisionism of todays socialists to accommodate for other cultures always makes much of the core of a subject get diluted till it no longer represents the subject in any shape or form at it fundamentals. You must exclude to keep the intrinsic idea or it becomes a jumbled mess of nothing!
West a dragon is a primordial entity against Christendom while the mythic reptile like creatures of other cultures shared nothing in common but vague appearance. Crusaders did not upset & put dragon on other cultures. Socialists did in the 19th century to date. The world for the lonest time was a pretty seperate place not as we think f it today. Information transfer was far lower & gradual meaning the parts that worked were incorporated organically but now in the Information age most certainly all is in incorporated with no scrutiny rill it is a mess & blind acceptance of that we should all include each other rather then do our own thing makes 1 massive pile of sh!t. ''A camel is a Horse made by committee'' is what comes to my mind of todays issue with much & not only ''dragons''.
The original _How to Train Your Dragon_ books were pretty good at having dragons that were both friendly companions and ferocious beasts. On one end of the spectrum, you've got the little green Common-or-Garden that looks exactly like the generic idea of a "dragon"; on the other end, you've got stuff like the octopus-like Monstrous Strangulator and the Woden's Nightmare that has literal laser eyes and the borderline invincible, impossibly massive Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus that experiences the past present and future simultaneously.
Even the more traditional dragons have plenty of scary examples. Sharkworms and Skullions are both feral predators who are considered absolute "Do not fight this", and the Venomous Vorpent is nothing but sadistic and evil. All three still look like pretty standard Dragons.
I also really love the amount of variety in the different types of dragons, with different sizes (going from bug-sized to mountain-sized) and natural habitats (caves, oceans, volcanoes, etc (even space!)). And the varying levels of intelligence. Some dragons are very animalistic, while others are just as intelligent as humans, while still having animalistic traits that keep them from feeling entirely human. And the designs are so good! One of my favorites is the Monster of the Amber Slavelands, because it's just really unique and strange. I'm also a big fan of the dragons that are kind of incomprehensible, like the Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus and the Dragon Guardians
Yess they were wonderful! And even the small little ones retained their ‘wild and selfish’ side. Aside from a select few species which were too stupid or passive to be ferocious, all of them felt like animals. And the bigger or more ferocious ones did feel really high stakes and scary to encounter
To be fair to HTTYD, the expanded universe has more dragon varietys than you can count of various sizes and shapes, including ones big enough to be mistaken as islands.
HTTYD also makes a point that there are dragons that might as well be monsters. They're just also wild animals and should be respected. Toothless wasn't a house cat. He was a jaguar stealth bomber that was downed and forced to cooperate with a human for food until they became companions. Toothless is also one of the only dragons to have a confirmed kill, and it's one of the only ones to happen on screen, and it's a character we follow and root for. Toothless is an aggressive, territorial predator that is also the best friend of a guy that is allowed to see his calmer, sillier side.
@@muntu1221 Thank you! One thing I felt HTTYD did really well was giving dragons different personailties. The Red Death forces all the dragons under its control to feed it while it does nothing except kill any that don't. The Green Death (same species) is self-sufficient and just wants to be left alone, which doesn't make it any less terrifying when you accidentally draw its ire by tresspassing. As you mentioned, Toothless only behaves like a giant kitten when around Hiccup because that is an environment he feels safe in, but as soon as any immenent danger presents itself, he's back to being the jaguar stealth bomber. Basically what Hiccup discovered was that it is possible to become part of a dragon's 'pack' or 'family' but in an interesting double-subversion, he is also regularly proven wrong in that not all dragons are interested in having humans in their pack.
@renatoe9648 To a degree, many follow a certain set of rules, though some of these rules are just that they have some degree of a rule in that area. For example, shot limits are different between species, and some don't have them either due to lacking a breath attack or simply having an unending supply of one.
Skyrim is 100% NOT telling you heres dragons they’re youre friends. Skyrims dragons are very much more than just dragon breathe fire fly around. They have an entire culture built around them, they controlled all of tamriel and had their own “cult leaders” called dragon priests. Not to mention the literal DRAGONBORN the main character in the game.
Yeah, they did get Skyrim pretty damn off lmao But then again I've watched many Elderscrolls lore videos from multiple channels, and it can be a bit convoluted at times. Still, the most common interaction you have with a dragon is killing one and absorbing its soul making it permanently dead. Parthurnax (probably spelled wrong) isn't your friend really, but at the end of the day he decides to help you stop Alduin. So like- I'd think they'd at least get the dragon killing is the most common interaction part right. Definitely get the feeling though that no one who has seriously played Skyrim was involved in the making of this video tho lmao
In the actual game they are more of an annoyance than anything else. You can see it if you look at someone who played the game long enough: there's a roar and the player sighs and looks to the sky to see if this particular dragon is here to waste your time some more or he'll fly away as they do sometimes. That "culture" is so hidden and the dragon shouts can be found at the end of almost any odd cave. So I am disagreeing with the take that there's more to them. They mostly are just annoying bats that breathe fire/ice at you. They had much potential to be something more, but Bethesda did not go deep enough. There's a few very interesting encounters where you see Alduin resurrecting a dragon from the grave and it's cool, but I only saw this once beside the main story mission. And I have 400 hours in that game
@@AlleonoriCat two of the dragons in the game can become kind of your buddies: after their quest you can summon them to ride around on and help you out.
@@AlleonoriCat I don't think OP or I are arguing Skyrim is very deep 99.99999% of the time lol But even if they don't go as far with it as they could, they still did do their own thing. I have mixed feelings about you saying lore is "hidden". There's a lot about dragons you learn just by playing the main quest (for the few who do) and lots of games have hidden lore. That's kind of the whole point of lore, it isn't shoved in your face. And sure, a lot of it is extremely gamified, and most of the time the most interesting stuff isn't very important, unfortunately, but it IS still there. I feel your sentiment tho, even if I don't share it. Also ayyyy fellow multiple hundreds of hours in Skyrim player hello there ^.^
Not just western, but also fairly narrow, focusing on the most generic depictions in pop culture while ignoring the countless others that are still depicting western style dragons in the "traditional" way.
Dragons have a complicated history. There is only so much you can fit in a 20 minute video. That being said, his concerns about them being turned into pets so they can sold for merchandise are still valid.
I agree that it seems like this, but "Western viewpoint of Dragons" is an oxymoron. Dragons *are and always were* a Western concept. Do not be deceived by the fact that today we also call many non-Western creatures "dragons" too - we do it to avoid making up new useless words, not because they are Dragons. Lamenting about Western centrism on such topic is like lamenting that fantasy is always set in European middle ages - duh, it was created to reflect the European middle ages, and all other settings came into the genre because the foreigners were so fascinated with the genre in the first place.
@BelaFox-vt5xu That it Western Centrism as Eastern hemisphere countries/cultures have had their dragons such as Chinese, Mesopotamian, & African to name only but a few. Don't even try to pull that bullshit.
On the note of "dragon" being retroactively applied to various reptilian monsters across the world, this happens honestly in a lot of places. Things like vampires, demons and fairies in English are considered types of "youkai" in Japan, and likewise, youkai are often called fairies, demons or ogres when English speakers portray them for other English speakers. (I don't know as much about other cultures, but it seems pretty common from what I have seen.) Humans like to group things that remind them of things they already know, even if those aren't really the same things.
There was a great Curious Archive video talking about "The Problem with Goblins" are essentially defined Goblins as; small, green-skinned, and mischievious. Despite the fact there is no one clear-cut idea of what a Goblin is the idea anything remotely "goblin-like" getting grouped together is similar to how you're describing the catch-all way of linking different things because of how they're seen as similar
@@jacktheomnithere2127 It's not even really the same concept though. It would be like calling Buddhas Angels - like, sure, it's a man-shaped thing that's holy and wise but isn't a god, but grouping them together misses so much nuance as to be kind of irresponsible. Or maybe Angels, Harpies and Sirens are the better comparison - they've got aesthetic similarities but that's about it (at a stretch you could argue that "be not afraid, go to Bethlehem" is comparable to Sirens using their voice to appear non-threatening and compel people to go somewhere). There are some examples of cross-cultural monster categories, like the "make sure to bury people properly"-monster, the "don't wander off into the wilderness"-monster or, unfortunately the "women with agency are spooky"-monster, but we tend to group monsters by how they look or how they function rather than what they represent - the Manananggal is a spooky-women-monster but gets grouped with Vampires (either a properly-bury-your-dead-monster, a rich-people-are-evil-monster or any number of other groups depending on when and where you're looking) because she has bat wings and feeds by sucking.
Turning vicious monsters that haunt the night into friends is something we humans do as a species. also Monster Hunter is still going strong for dragons as speculative biology. and some are reserved as terrifying living apocalypses with grudges, but are ultimately unknowable. like Fatalis.
The dragon as scary monster beyond understanding and reflective of cultural fears also survives in the Kaiju genre. What else is Godzilla but a dragon that spews radiation instead of fire? The fact he comes from the sea and cannot fly is no obstacle here given the history of the myth and it's connection to water monsters of snake like description.
@@formlessone8246 Not to mention we've got creatures like King Ghidorah, who is a 3 headed, flying, fire breathing dragon in literally everything but name.
@@secretagentkarve9431 you do realize that the video already addresses how dragons are typically depicted as chimeras of multiple predators, right? Plus, point to any real dinosaur that matches the description of Godzilla. I know you can't because Godzilla is completely fictional, not based on a tyrannosaurus or any other kind of prehistoric reptile. He's a dinosaur only insofar as the writers claim he is, but that doesn't change the clear influence of dragons on his design and even mythology since the very first movie.
I’m a little disappointed that the ‘Dragons were meant to be feared’ angle was the only one talked about in the majority of the video when you breezed over another reason dragons are so revered, ‘they are symbols of wisdom.’ Sure they were scary in Europe, but in Asia dragons were often depicted as benevolent and wise, something for humans to learn from. Why wouldn’t humans be enamored with an idea like that?
Completely different mythical creatures though. They were just called dragons because of European syncretism, but Western and Eastern dragons have nothing to do with each other beyond some surface-level reptilian traits.
The western concept of dragons are usually some sort of antedeluvian beast often animalistic, sometimes with allusions ro the biblical serpent. It was feared and respected as a simbol of power. In taoist derived cultures dragons are definitely intelligent, usually representations of divine wisdom. Oddly enough between the two there exists a third type, much less frequently represented in popculture, in slavic and steppe nomad cultures, dragons are intelligent, sometimes even humanoid, often multi headed, immensly powerful, and utterly self serving mythological beings, often serving as representations of humanities own worst aspects, or of abuse of power. A sort of strange synthesis of the western medieval wyrm, and the chinese wise flying serpent. Are all of these myths really equivalent? Probably not, but the rare few who brought news of either culture across the earth back in those times seemed to think so, because the homonym translations are not new.
It was incredibly difficult to keep watching after the first minute. The premise of the video is that modern dragons suck because they're not scary, except you only focus on the dragons that you _think_ they suck just to prove your point, which is very wrong. So, firstly, there are plenty of "cool" ferocious dragons, if you just take a moment to look. Really, it's not that hard to find scary dragons in modern media. Secondly, just because some dragons are friendly and likeable doesn't mean they're "uncool". They add variety to the world of modern dragons. I think it's beautiful that there are so many different kinds of dragons in modern media. It means there's something for _everyone_ instead of just for people like you. This video gave me the impression that you're incredibly narrow-minded when it comes to fantasy.
I actually stopped watching after a few minutes, because the descriptions completely failed to connect with the images in my mind. I like stories about dragons. And back in my childhood I already loved the book about that little dragon who met a child and was terribly sad that it could only produce smoke - while at the same time I played roleplaying games with millennia old dragons, dragon mages (a homebrew back then) and read the little hobbit with terrifying Smaug to younger relatives.
I couldn't agree more. Dragons are so nuanced and making them only into scary monsters is kinda boring. I love the variety, I love how some media portraits them as friends and in others they are symbols of wisdom, they can be kings, pets, wild beasts, monsters, friends and so much more. I love the modern idea of a dragon.
Honestly this channel sometimes seems a little to prententious and heavily nostalgia-biased Another example of this narrow-minded perspective is their “magic isn’t magical anymore” video Basically these 2 video can be summed up as “See this trendy popular story elements? Back in my days it was better before you kids ruined it”
About 2 and a half minutes in and i have to put in my 2 cents. Just because you have a pet dog, that does not make being hunted by a pack of feral dogs or wolves less terrifying. Dragons have never stopped being "cool" as you put it, it is just that sometimes you get to see the other side of a being. Robots are often used as sidekicks, but the Terminator series didn't suddenly become tames.
They're also just wrong. The most popular dragon media in the past year was House of the Dragon, and that had a scene where a bunch of innocent people got eaten alive because they were brave enough to risk it all to get their families out of poverty. Nobody watching _wasn't_ fully clenched watching the Bronze Fury cooking and eating people. Tale Foundry is at least transparent that these at essentially them having a thought and exploring that thought in depth, sometimes even contradicting a previous or upcoming video. But it does get kind of annoying when they have to drum up the extent to which an issue they have is affecting media.
Terminator is an awful example because the latest movie ended up literally domesticating the T-800 and not just by having it as part of the good guys like T2
@@Cheirus4212 Yet the terror of a robot uprising remains. Even with Arnie being nice, the horror of Judgement Day, and the spector of brutal extermination remain. it is the perfect example, because we still fear it, even when we can "Domesticate" one. In this age of armed drones that can level entire buildings, can you say that the idea of our smart weapons turning against us isn't scary?
while i understand how you feel about Dragons today, It is rash to just want to go back with out thinking, i feel like instead of "let's go back this were better before, and let's keep things as they are." Should not be a definite answer, we evolve matters to a better new standard. I can think of of one i really like, Dragons are Ancient, and Smart creatures, misunderstood by the world as evil beings because of their size and the way they do things. I think of it as a better staging ground since it gives writers a chance to make dragons come alive even more. Plus, it so intringuing just thinking of how Dragon society might work being quite fascinating with many opportunities of stories that anyone could produce. This was written by; Dragons aren't just big lizards gang ^.=.^
"Dragons are ancient and wise creatures, misunderstood as evil because they're dangerous." That's what I like about the Legendary Godzilla series. It does that, but it also does the concept of a dragon being the embodiment of not just predators, but every threat to human life.
@@AtesSu2006.your also a cliche The archetype of people who call things cliche because they think it’ll put them in the limelight for agreeing with someone to make them seem smarter
Whoa whoa whoa.. House of The Dragon? Netflix’s Damsel Movie? The latest MonsterHunter Game? Netflix’s DOTA animated series? The Delicious in Dungeon anime? Vox Machina animated series? Pokémon? All those came out in like the last couple years and they all have serious, traditional dragon concepts and there’s still more I could name
@@siraaron4462 You should see how movies and extra material treat Dragon Legendaries and even some pseudo legendaries. Garchomp and Rayquaza are straight up forces of nature.
@siraaron4462 Eternatus is just overtly chaotic and destructive. Koraidon and Miraidon, the wild ones, are extremely territorial, blood thirsty monsters who are confirmed to have killed a named character AND brutally maimed the version we get at the start of the game. This is ignoring the dragons from the past/future that are extremely aggressive. And that is further ignoring that Pokémon has generations of aggressive dragon types. Giratina ripped a hole in realty in Legends to try and forcefully combat Arceus, for example.
@@Ditidos Pokémon has numerous traditional dragons, what are you talking about? Salamance also _does_ breathe fire. It's just not a fire type. Charizard X is a traditional dragon by every metric. Its ability is a direct reflection of its increased aggression, it breathes fire, it has four limbs and wings for people who think that has any historical basis, and it's just overall considered an exceptionally powerful being that rivals some legendaries.
Hmm... Got me thinking. The medieval evil dragons were kind of a metaphor for a fear of the wild, particularly the predators that could eat us. People back then weren't as prone to empathising with other creatures as many (though definitely not all) people today are. We believed that the wolf would eat us out of malice. We now understand it eats out of hunger and a need to survive, nothing more. As we've become more understanding about nature (and arguably more of a threat to it than the other way around), dragons have become more and more animals, and more and more "nice", to reflect that the wild places aren't as mysterious or scary any more. That said, depictions of humans have gone in sort of the opposite direction. Sure, there are still humans as heroes, kind of hard to go completely against one's own species, but there are far more human villains than non-human these days. We understand nature more and realise there's no malicious intent. We understand powerful humans more and understand they are so much more a threat. Think about all the stories that involve corrupt politicians, destructive industrialists, greedy manipulation behind the scenes. These things were once the domain of dragons, hoarding wealth for no reason other than to hoard and dominating places simply because they could. Now, it's powerful rich men, doing so because they believe they should be allowed to do so by right of being rich men. I would like to point out the recently released (at time of writing) Metaphor ReFantazio, by ATLUS Studios. Some of the most powerful and terrifying enemies in that game are literally called "Humans". They are created from anxiety, and look like creatures from the art of Hieronymus Bosch (he is stated as an inspiration), and I think that is a trend that may continue. We see Humans as more of a threat, so why wouldn't we depict them more monstrously? Just some thoughts I felt like I should share.
This exactly this. It’s worded perfectly, thank you for writing it. It makes me think- what other feelings or forces of nature could we dragon-ify for story purposes?
You really choose the worst example with How to train your Dragon. Did you only watch the movie, because I remember the first time I saw Red death, so here is your terrifying destructor monster. Do you remember the book of dragons, well if you did maybe you’ll remember the sheer diversity and expanded world of dragons with honestly very cool concepts and appearances far removed from the one of toothless (who is himself part of a very specialised species, quite different from the rest of the dragons). The biology of these creatures is literally a tool that is learned and used during the film, their fear of eels, their sensibility to loud noises, their limited number of shots, their not so fireproof insides and the individual capabilities of the main five species. So I really don’t see your point in this video. Maybe instead of only reading an old book you should maybe rewatch the movie for your comparison.
My main takeaway of this video helped me understand something (iirc) Tolkien said about dragons, that they should be defined by whatever's best for the story. I think he actually said they should be in service of the story or something like that, but the idea that getting caught up in preconceptions of what a dragon "is" detracts from that didn't really occur to me before
If you've ever seen a dragon on two legs, like a human, and with abs you will know the pain of have a fearsome creature turned into a shadow of its former self.
He was also writing in the early 20th century when mythological beings like dragons were actually mysterious and novel and not this watered down trope that just exists in fantasy. Also the dragons in his stories were very lucid and sentient creatures that are rarely came across, so seeing one raiding the lonely mountain or northern wastes of Middle Earth was a huge deal that only few live to actually tell of it.
@@osheridanimagine just ignoring the fact that toothless, while a cute friendly guy when he wants to be, is also a horrific force of nature when he wants to be as well
@@zaimcraft6581I think the second movie showed this very well, despite knowing how cute, friendly, and lovable Toothless is, he still a powerful beast that can kill you so very easily with just one breath. Stoic experienced this first hand.
@yeah, then there’s literally any seen from the ground looking up, you can’t see him coming and he never misses if there’s a night fury hunting you you are flat out dead once’s it’s air born Look to the book of dragons entry on night furies if you need more evidence lol
Surprisingly negative episode. For my part, I find joy in the sheer diversity of what has been put under the collective umbrella of the word, even if they were originally completely unrelated creatures. All monsters could be put under a similar, larger umbrella of 'chimera' or 'beast' and that doesn't take away from how they are. Dragons can still be scary, they can also be cool, cute, tragic, horrifying; they aren't exclusive to one or any. Maybe they aren't as effective as shorthand for evil, due to overexposure, but that's just how things change. Having a sword isn't enough to be cool, nowadays, it needs to be big or spiky or magical, and that's okay; things change. In more recent times, if you want a scary monster, you tend do something eldritch or existential, but nothing is stopping you from making an eldritch/existential dragon, which could be even cooler! Helps that they are as recognizable as they are, yet possess such diversity! In all their forms, they always represent 'power' (a weak dragon would therefore be a subversion, which has narrative potential like any other subversion) That we aren't scared by the same stuff as before roughly correlates to humans understanding the world better, imo. Nowadays, we can have snakes, wolves and spiders at home. I do not believe for a second that dragons are 'less', now. On the contrary, they are 'more' than ever before. They can look like so many different things, fill so many roles and they are familliar to so many people! I see them as 'the ultimate universal fantasy' and that's awesome!
Yes! As someone who has considered dragons my favorite animal for years now, it is the nuance and diversity of their kind that I value most; I would love to read a literal encyclopedia of everything Draconic including and expanding upon everything discussed in this video
Thing is rather than being a rare formidable beast, nowadays many fantasy media has that one dragon you see and forget about, also the fact that you brought up about many dragons looking the same with four legs and two wings
Wyverns got it worse because they just got turned into dragons with two legs. I know that this is true for some bestiaries, but wyverns also had many more features unique to them like pointy oftenly poisonous tails, poisonous breath and a cat like behaviour which made them oftenly paired with witches, nowadays people seem to barely use these features and just call their two legged dragons wyverns because somebody on the internet told them so.
blame the post tolkien age... that truly changed dragons in nowadays stories. especially japanese ones. they make dragons as segsual object. dragon girl...
There are limitless possibilities even with just that limb layout just have to be creative with it. Use different body types, structures, and coverings. Just design it based on what you want it to do.
I know someone else said this but in httyd there are plenty of nearly untamable dragons (like the majority of the ones with “death” in their name) and they are still creatures you should fear
isn't the word dragon more of a thing that doesn't exist but used as a umbrella term like the way Trees don't actually exist, but use it as a way to describe plants that share very specific traits?
Yeah, dragon is more of an umbrella term and people have been trying to make classifications so things like wyverns, drakes, amphiptere and much much more. People also made dragons that look nothing like your typical dragon with feathers, beaks, fur. Basically you can slap any animal trait on dragon
Exactly. A maple tree (and other deciduous flowering trees) is closer related to a daisy than it is to coniferous trees. A tree is a form-factor not a single taxonomical group.
Honestly I'd rather just hear about cool, weird, old dragons than pretending like modern dragon concepts are somehow worse in any way. No need to pit anything against each other
the contrast exists and is the exact reason why dragons aren't "Cool" or Bestial anymore, so I can't blame him for putting two dragons against each other
@@BenjaminAlternateI do t really like the httyd comparison though since toothless is just one of 1000s of different dragons in that world that range from fire worm to island eating death serpents and everthing in between, yeah they can be pets/companions but there was never any shying away from honorifically powerful forces if nature that would destroy anything in there path
Except the whole principle of western dragons is to provide a monster for the hero to kill. That is entirely different from eastern dragons and pre Christian snakes. Medicine is still represented by two snakes.
@@seriousmaran9414 i mean if you look at the caduceus' history you see it's more a symbol of hermes than medicine. hermes being the god of certain kinds of commerce is a fun nod to how the american medical system functions in the modern day. the rod of asclepius, or a single snake curled around a stick is more commonly associated with healthcare
10:28-11:03 yes and no. the word "dragon" comes the Roman term "draco", yes; but that comes from the Greek term "drakon", meaning "huge serpent". Pliny the Elder used that term to describe Pythons - Reticulated Pythons, specifically. (fun fact: before the snake was given that name, "Python" was the name of a Greek dragon) in antiquity - be it the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, Scandinavia (Germanic people, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings), or the Celts - a dragon was basically a giant snake, sometimes with traits it simply wouldn't have (limbs or crest, to name 2 things; not all were limbless). in fact, for the Germanics, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Celts, the line between a snake and a dragon was blurred. as time progressed, dragons became more chimeric, as you said, but they still kept a long tail - which Pliny described as their strongest part and weapon... and they still behaved somewhat snake-like. it doesn't even need to be or resemble a snake: a all a dragon from Europe would need is a long neck and longer tail, some snake-like mannerisms, snake-like movement in the neck and tail, and "dragon" is still somewhat applicable. the word "dragon" is an umbrella term, and an overgeneralizing one at that. with the exception of a good few (like Ninki Nanka)... the Russian term "zmey", the Greek "hydra", the Irish term "paiste", the word "worm" (derived from Old English "wyrm", which derives from Old Norse "ormr") - which is connected to the German term "lindwurm", the French term "vouivre", and the aforementioned word "dragon". they're all different words, and refer to similar creatures with varying traits, that is true... but what they all mean and refer to boil down to one thing: "serpent". when i say "yes and no" to your point in the timestamp, that's what i mean. they're not actual dragons to the people who "made" them, and those terms were the name of the culture's depiction of the same concept; but considering what they all mean, they fit the word "dragon", as an umbrella term, very nicely. simply put: different interpretation and names, same concept (this goes for Fairies and the Basilisk).
I absolutely love dragons. They are my favorite fantasy creature of all time. There's a reason that everyone in my D&D campaign is half-dragon. Also TF you guys rock. Best way to learn about fantasy stuff.
Dragons are still cool and terrifying. I am making my own journal about them about different species. Their habitats, their behaviors and how to avoid them, and how to like you know, fight them, but finding a dragon is no easy task
I like how dragons are the logo for fantacy, it a creature that molds and changes with each story and "role" it plays in a story; the representation of the devil, a hurdle the hero needs to overcome save a princess, or a key to another world simply gatekeeping flight. If I ever write or DM and have dragons I'll make sure to define not what a dragon is, but it's role in the world and story.
Only 2mins in so maybe I’ll be swayed by the end but I don’t think we’ve lost the intimidating BBEG dragon archetype. Outside of HTTYD and maybe Pokemon, the friendly dragon trope isn’t all that common in modern media. But we still have a ton of big evil scary dragons in recent media; Dragon’s Dogma 2, Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Dragon Age Inquisition and Veilguard, Legend of Vox Machina, D&D Honor Among Theives, and probably a ton more im missing Edit: I see the point you were going for, still disagree, but I see it. Good video as usual tho!
And even in HTTYD there are plenty of terrifying dragons both in the movies and the Race t the edge show. And there are plenty of terrible dragons in modern fantasy media, I agree that they havn't exactly disappeared. I don't see the idea of friendly dragons as particularly bad either, I think dragons are characters can work really well if written properly but like all characters they are hard to write. I think all the characters in Raya are mediocre, not just the dragon. The one thing I truly agree with in this video is the movement of attempting to syncretize multiple folkloric creatures as dragons when i don't really consider something like Quetzalcoatl t count as that, but its hardly a new movement humans have been syncretizing deities for literal thousands of years.
You got it 100% Hell, even in Pokémon we get our fair share of “scary dragons” but by the nature of the franchise the “scary” parts are usually more in the lore than the design.
Eh, I kinda feel like it was the opposite- that the evil dragon trope was the overused one (though I will admit that the knight saving the damsel trope took a good amount of these slots). In games, I was tired of hurting or killing a species that I considered to be one of my favorites, and wanted to instead live or fight alongside them- which some games do allow, but it feels incredibly rare. Dragons are still feared creatures, just for our adversaries, not for us (when they're on our side). And of course, there are still large, powerful dragons that aide the protagonists and aren't just companions- especially the godlike wise dragons who aren't just mindless brutes as many of the more generic "dragon bad" tropes suggest. Also, I have seen many people compare both the good and bad dragons to larger cats who occasionally have wings, breathe fire, or whatever other power(s) the story gives them.
The how to train your dragon books (which the movies are based on) although for a younger audience I believe have the best of both worlds. There are both terrifying wild dragons which the protagonist wishes like us, to classify but there are also smaller tameable dragons like in the movies. The dragons in the books are also quite mystic and unexplainable with some of the larger ones being able to seemingly recognise their killers before they meet them, capable of predicting the future. Whilst also having lore for how they function/live like how they produce fire and words in their language.
I also loved the show Race to the Edge. A HUGE amount of dragon species were explored, a lot of them being truly terrifying monsters or mighty forces of nature left disturbed. I don't particularly like how he used HTTYD as an example for "weak" dragons since, sure, there are a fair few friendly dragons but there is a huge diversity of dangerous and powerful dragons showcases in all both the movies and show.
I'm kinda frustrated with these recent few videos. I really like this channel and the way it is structured, the way it is indulgent in nostalgia. But the recent couple videos have kinda done that at the cost of... crapping on modern media? Like, it's okay to love things in different ways. It's okay to love scary dragons and it's okay to love wholesome dragons. Neither of that is wrong. You can also have both. And I feel like this trned of mocking or downputting some media to make the point of uplifting something else with a very implied opinion, e.g. "Don't you think that's overdone? Don't you miss when dragons were cool?" is a little... I dunno, dismissive, I guess. And it's frustrating, because usually these videos make me wanna write, btu with this disparaging, you're always gonna just shoot down some people's likes to uplift others and it makes me wanna not write. Which sucks.
I gotta be honest, I didn’t find any negativity about the Weird Tales video, though my main takeaway was that it’s a neat genre to draw from creatively; however, that doesn’t negate your overall point. It does seem weird that they’d go in the direction of complaining about recent portrayals of dragons (that they seem to have barely glimpsed at, judging by how they talk about Skyrim at the very least) and wishing we could go back to the times when dragons were scary monsters (which, as other commenters have pointed out, is still a thing in a lot of fiction)
I think he also misses a lot on other media (whether it is on purpose or not), I actually view a lot of art with dragons and there is so much variety of dragons there. You have cute ones but also ferocious ones, sizes ranging from the size of a bug to mountain, intelligence ranging from animal like to highly intelligent. So people didn't stop making monstrous evil dragons but people started also making cute ones. And both are awesome
@@fennk5386A lot of the TH-camrs that I’ve followed the last like ten years or so have also become more clickbaity and negative the more popular they are. It’s a viscous cycle, I guess. This is my first video I’ve seen of Tale Foundry and the production quality was amazing and so good that I forced myself to watch the whole video while grinding my teeth and wishing I could argue with him. Luckily, the commenters here have said everything I could have and more!
One example of a dragon that isn't just a cute little pet and isn't irrelevant for the story is the red dragon from Dungeon meshi. I mean, Fallin getting eaten by him it's what kickstart the whole story and I thought it was cool that they made a beliavable explanation for why it breaths fire.
I saw someone do a pretty effective takedown of the boy who cried wolf, basically pointing out that in the end there WAS a wolf, that we only have the word of the other villagers that the boy was lying, and asking the question of why, if the villagers really didn't trust the boy not to give false alarms, they didn't find some other punishment for him than continuing to give him sole responsibility for watching over the flock?
tbh our relationship with dragons kinda mirrors our relationship to the natural world: back in the day it was filled with dangers and unknown against which people were almost powerless now? We tamed it, there are still dangerous places and unknown but have you ever were in a situation where an animal was an actual danger to you?
You have completely missed another more logical, more plausible explanation: dinosaur fossils. Your argument that Christians forced Dragons on other cultures is a clear false theory as it does not fit the chronology.
In my opinion, dragons can be whatever the writer desires, and even though they can get a bit un intimidating at times like toothless, I felt fear as a kid during the red death scenes in the first movie and when toothless was mind controlled in the second one. that feeling of the friendly companion no longer being the same you once knew, it would’ve been horrifying outside of a cartoon animated film. Moving on from httyd, we have other dragons that can be quite intimidating, like king Ghidorah (Godzilla), Smaug (lord of the rings) Or even any dragon in monster hunter, each with their own charm, and intimidating design, the music that plays when they’re on screen adding to the feeling that this is more than the silly reptile dragon fans are used to now
Especially when it comes to Elder and Black Dragons. Their design philosophy is that in order to make these dragons feel larger than life they must break the conventional rules of biology. They aren’t built in a logical way, their powers can only be described as magical more often than not and sometimes they seem far too intelligent. They exist but they don’t feel like they belong, theirs no mistaking them for a rampaging animal like other monsters
Yeah, and even just the regular ol' Dragons of D&D have a decent number of species that are each distinct in their own way, from their scales and element to (canonically) the types of horns they have. And in some cases, the size they grow to (for example, the tiny fairy dragon to the absolutely insanely massive Astral Dragon). D&D did this while simultaneously letting them be characters depending on the individual case.
You overlook the fact that what all those cultures also had in common was fossils. We know that the Greeks would find large fossils and proclaim them "giants." They would then place them in temples. It's not a stretch to think that ancient societies would find a long/large string of spinal bones and think, "A-ha! This must have been some giant serpent-like creature!" They weren't wrong. They just applied a mythological interpretation to scientific evidence.
Not quite, is still up to debate how much fossils have actually influenced mythology. If you look closely at the Greek myths and early dragons you will find these creatures are more likely based of snakes, particulary large ones such as pythons and cobras.
@@MrTroodon_Official I cited specifically how they would bring fossils into temples after declaring them giants. We know this, because there's evidence. I do not know enough about Greek culture to make claims about their beliefs regarding dragons.
@@aimeeinkling From what I've seen, the general consensus is that fossils probably aren't a source for dragons. As Troodon said, the Greek dragons were pretty much big snakes. Dragons turning into something more dinosaurlike is something that happened after the general concept of dragons already existed (we can see this in particular with the cockatrice, which is a very similar body plan to therapods that were close relatives of birds, but we can trace that legend back to what is basically a supernaturally poisonous snake, and yes I do mean poisonous, although it was venomous too). If I recall correctly, the bones you refer to were much more recent, generally mammoths and megafauna from around the same period. There is a theory floating around that mammoth skulls might have inspired the cyclops.
It sounds like your problem is really with How to Train Your Dragon. I still see mostly ferocious portrayals of dragons. But my favorite will always be Spyro.
I love ALL kinds of Dragons. The big terrifying primal beast of extreme power kind, the little companion kind, the large dangerous cat with fire breath kind, the wise divine dragon kind, the "Intelligent loners who scheme in the shadows and sit on a hoard" kind. So this deep dive (much like OSP's deep dive years ago) was absolutely phenomenal. I've used them in many forms in most of my fiction. Seriously, it's rare that I put something out that doesn't have a dragon somewhere in it. Hells, even a sci fi TTRPG I once ran for a friend had galaxy-spanning empire of honest to gods *space dragons* who everyone else was terrified would return to rampaging once their current reasonable emperor was dethroned. My approach is almost always to hearken to either importance within the story, or evoking Power. Like, one RPG I made that was a Dragon Hunt had the dragon serve as both a metaphor for the heroine's trauma she was trying to overcome, and also as a reveal that the Dragons of that world were actually Outlaws from beyond the stars, and much of the world's semi-recent supernatural problems could be traced back to them and their hubris. My current TTRPG has them as among the first Free Willed entities, Powerful adolescents in a brand new world, who kicked off an age of destruction before being driven to the lost places in the world. Basically, lost primal ancestors of a long-forgotten age, forced out of history and into myth. One unreleased thing I worked on even drew a parallel to modern times. Where, in a collective unconscious kind of world, the protagonist challenges a "King" of that world, calling him "Just like any other corrupt CEO" for how he runs his domain. This king laughs and says "True, I own vast lands, hoard great wealth, and wield unfathomable power... Now tell me, boy... What does that make me?" as he turns into a Dragon on a hoard of gold. Yes, I'm a huge dork about this, and I'm proud of it. XD
OMG! Core memory unlocked when you brought up that Dragonology book! I checked that thing out at my local library multiple times when I was quite young. I loved that book so much, it sparked so much in my imagination and played a key role in beginning my love of dragons. I might have to go find a copy of it now. Thank you for an amazing video and for triggering that wonderful memory for me. Have loved your vids for a long time! Keep up the brilliant work!
I agree completely, I usually like this channels videos but I feel his very premise is flawed. Even in the modern day there are a vast amount of truly powerful and terrifying dragons as well as the wek and friendly ones, but Tale Foundry makes it seem as though they have all disappeared.
2:54 you mentioning this book unlocked some hidden nostalgia in me that I forgot existed. I used to pour over this book obsessively as a kid pondering how I could create my own dragon pet in real life.
Same! I remember sitting in my dad's fantasy themed library with Dragonology, Monsterology, and Wizardology, wondering how to befriend a Frost dragon (I live in southern Canada, there's no way that could happen unless I moved to Nunavut or somewhere in Greenland or something)
Okay, this video really missed the mark dude. Saying dragons in general aren't scary or evil anymore then bringing a ton of international examples and saying they're "not dragons" when the word used to name them literally means "dragon". (Not to mention leaving out the villains and book toothless of httyd or smaug in the Hobbit movies or Ghidorah in monsterverse simply because they're not new dragons in name or something?) This video genuinely felt like draconic racism. If you were to say "WESTERN dragons aren't scary anymore" I agree with every single point in this video. But to say dragons in general have to be mean mythical village destroyers feels like you saying "well my people define dragons like this historically so actually you can't call it a dragon if it's not the stereotype I imagine"
Is the compromise possible? And by that, I mean reverting dragons back to what they used to be but still maintaining them as being capable of acting friendly toward humans and other races in the fantasy worlds. I know Skyrim did that already according to this video. But still, the way How To Train Your Dragons approached should not be dismissed. In fact, it can even improved the compromise here in my view. By that, I mean having dragons started out as these unknown and mysterious creatures that represented nothing but evil and barbarism. But as the stories progressed, the humans and the other races learned more that both the dragons and themselves are not so different after all. I know that this sounded like taming dragons all over again. But this is leaning more towarded making an attempt to understand the dragons more in order to establish peace between both sides and not actually taming the dragons to make them the companions. And when peace is established, both sides parted ways on good terms instead. P.S: To me, dragons were, are, still and will be, cool for me.
The wearle series by Chris d'lacey covers this. The dragons are from space and colonise early tribal humans but a couple of them are kind and friendly, But terrifying as they see humans as we do ants
While it's sad to hear that the classification and name "Dragon" was effectively forced onto those old cultures and their myths, I think there can still be two positive takeaways from that event. The first being that, because they were so different from the Christian dragons, their myths survive to this day, and those curious about them can still find their lore and find real treasures by doing that digging. Second, while it wasn't the intent at the time, I think that somehow, all of these different mythological beasts being brought under an umbrella term actually kind of brought the world together. You can certainly take the "Hey, we have those too, they're called dragons." in a negative light, but for some reason, somewhere inside me, I felt a sense of solidarity and welcoming by calling the other monsters dragons. Lots of cultures can bring their own dragons, even if they didn't start that way, to a discussion about them. If you go to a dragon party with a picture of your culture's dragon, everybody will ask about it and it's lore and mythology, why it is the way it is, and how cool they are. Thereby sharing your culture and myths through the medium of big lizards that breath spicy air. Maybe it's reductive to think that way or even offensive to people whose myths were forcibly recategorized, but somewhere in me, it feels like a bridge between cultures
It's not even wrong to call them out as the same myth. They may have adapted to each locales environment, but the frame story of the myths themselves clearly indicates that each concept of the dragon is connected to an older, perhaps truly universal myth that predates written history. It's probably to do with our instinctive fear of snakes, with other predators getting the chimera treatment because that's what ancient people did to create monsters in general. It's not unlike how the Romans identified the gods of other cultures with their own pantheon. They may have had a political angle when they did so, but they weren't wrong to identify commonalities with those cultures that had all come from the same part of the world before wandering far away from one another and long forgetting that they were once the same peoples.
@@RubyCarrots3232 this is more true than you think. Demons didn’t exist until Greece adopted the religion. What we think of today as demons were simply fallen angels. Greece translated it as Daemon which I believe meant “evil spirits” which technically isn’t inaccurate but it loses some of the context. Eventually the term gained traction and got anglicized into Demon. Every culture and religion has Daemon
@@RubyCarrots3232 this is more true than you think. Demons didn’t exist until Greece adopted Christianity. What we think of today as demons were simply fallen angels. Greece translated it as Daemon which I believe meant “evil spirits” which technically isn’t inaccurate but it loses some of the context. Eventually the term gained traction and got anglicized into Demon. Every culture has Daemon
Kaiju have largely taken the position Dragons once held - sometimes beneficial, even benign, but always destructive and powerful. Oftentimes, they are malign, and fighting them off is either folly or an undertaking of heroes, armies, and/or god-like figures.
Gosh I wish we had more dragons like that today. Not against the idea of pet dragons though, but we need to bring back ferocious fantasy dragons back. And we most certainly don't need any more My Little Pony-snake hybrids voiced by Awkwafina or tumblr OCs.
tiny me was seriously obsessed with the dragonology book and a documentary explaining the "totally legit" science behind their flight and fire breathing
Personally, the Eastern depictions of dragons have always been my favorite. Despite having godly levels of power and were far more intelligent than humans, they were mostly benign, creating rainfall to nurture the land. But if you disrespected them? Those rains would become a deadly storm or flood. In a way, they represented nature itself.
I'm actually writing a story myself where the dragons are literal incarnations of Natural forces, neither evil nor good. Comprised of the elements which they embody and tend to have a matching attitude towards most things. Oceanic dragons are literal amalgams of coral, sea life, water, and other various bits held together in a draconic shape, fickle and prone to rapid mood swings. While the slow and cumbersome stone dragons are big lazy do nothings who are practically impossible to stop once they get a moving.
This video is so wrong. Plenty of modern media still treats dragons as scary monsters. Look at Dance of The Dragons, sure people ride them but the dragons are barely under there control. Then there's Elden Ring where dragons are completely out of our control and treat humans as pawns on a chess board for their own conflicts.
Add in the monster hunter series and the off shoot games and stories and only very special people are even able to control any kind of monster much less once you get to the dragons.
@Lordgrim001 I believe that the idea is that dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have been considered dragons by certain people for quite some time. This said in my opinion I personally believe that dragons were a mix of two major factors working together to produce them. First off there were dragons that were directly based on actual animals of some kind. Then the other part was a combo platter of existing animals that resulted in people being able to effectively recognize and react to dangerous animals in their environment. For example the European dragons typically have traits of certain specific dangerous animals that were present though not well enough known for someone to recognize alone. For example venomous snake, toxic reptiles, a predatory birds. This is similar in other regions but the animals are a slightly different mix every single time. This resulted in dragons that are both strikingly similarly but also quite different from one another. Then you have certain more modern versions of dragons that are much more likely to be companions. The companion thing is because of the fact that a very large section of our population has pets of some kind or had pets or want pets. There is also another thing involving the desire to have a friend that will not abandon you.
@@mrdasgehtsienichtsan2020 the thing is for monster hunter in particular dragons aren't just another monster to fight and kill. Most things are just animals doing animal stuff. You aren't kill a rathalos because it wants to burn everything around it your killing it because it is a threat to people not as capable as a hunter. Your not hunting the deviljho because it hates everything your hunting it because it's metabolism makes it eat other wyverns constantly and that might become a problem for the local environment. Meanwhile things like alatreon kill everything around them for the crime of existing too close. Xeno'jiva lures in other dragons to absorb their power which could wreak the the entire ecosystem. Fatalis destroyed a whole kingdom because it hates humans. They are a different fight from the regular creatures you fight.
Wait… is this the natural course of all creatures? 100 years from now will we see nickelodeon versions of SCPs and regular horror monsters that will befriend the protagonist?
You think you have to wait that long? Before SCP was even widely popular, it had already happened. SCP is just cryptozoology fanfiction, and Secret Saturdays, Ben 10, Generator Rex, Danny Phantom, and many other cartoons have already tackled the "occult" things turned heroes or companions. SCP's tend to become more extreme, though many of them are just haunted items or cryptids by another name. The Owl House has many things that could just be SCPs if taken out of context, and most of those things are friends with the protagonist. As for horror monsters, again, already done since as far back at least as the Munsters.
At that point, the foundation could be universally framed as the antagonists or the foster parents of the being that won’t be loved by the masses even.
Smaug a straight killer he was the best thing about the Hobbit movies. He was his own individual, he was hateful, he had an ego, he was formidable and terrifying. He was the last fire drake of the north, the last true dragon of media.
I’m reminded of the theory that dragon stories were partly inspired by the discovery of dinosaurs fossils. So in a way, people’s eternal fascination with dinosaurs is a way in that we are still fascinated of dragons.
@@Lars_Ziah_Zawkiansweet summer child? He's making a joke about how surprisingly relevant dragons are on a certain porn website, which, for the Internet, is a pretty standard type of joke. How is that particularly naive or childish?
I think a good presentation I’ve seen was the early parts (cause I haven’t been caught up) of the Wings of Fire series, making the dragons themselves the characters as well as having pretty detailed differences between different species, behavioral and cultural differences
My favorite type of dragon is friendly, hands down, but it's absolutely essential that I feel like that dragon has agency over itself. Like if it's bonded to a human(oid), then that human(oid) had better have legit earned the dragon's respect somehow. If it feels like that dragon had little to no choice but to be bonded it feels like it's just a member of a slave race/species and that's just really depressing to me. I'd rather read a story where the dragon is a monster than a glorified horse or fighter jet.
Come on now. Dragons as predatory animals are sometimes what makes them cool. At least for me, the idea of learning how, and why a dragon is what is is fascinating.
Although i get the point isnt it pointless? Nobody(or nearly) nobody believes in dargons anymore as misterious creatures that roam the earth somewhere remote. They're just myth and culture, and you can still apreciate them like that, just research about it, talk to someone on a museum or your elders. As for all the more friendly or tame versions you see in kids movies and many high fantasy projects its just that we humans want to touch and understand all beatiful and mysterious things that we interact with, and thats hard to do if you have to turn tail every time you get even a whiff of a dragon nearby; its why we have zoos(and i have conflicting feelings about them). And before criticizing a franchise you have to take into account what their role is: in many games they're just fearsome cool looking beasts that provide valuable materials, and therefore it makes sense for an adventurer to categorise them in such ways; kids movies? obviously the point is to present likeable and visually attractive characters; and if we get into the realm of high fantasy these days is more of a mixed box, you'll find everything, mindless beasts, misunderstud scaly cats, wise and mystical or just a symbol of status. And finally i don't think that pretending to study and categorize them makes them boring or less terrifying, no more than sharks and tigers are beatiful, interesting and yet still misterious and frightening, of wich, being real, we have a much better understanding of. Sorry, i did like the video, didnt actuslly mean to sound so bitchy, though i am right.
I'm generally a big fan of your videos but this one felt, for lack of a better word, dishonest? Like you were willfully ignoring large quantities of recent media and cherrypicking examples to make your point. You call out Mulan and How to Train Your Dragon as examples of how they've lost something, but don't acknowledge massive cultural forces, cornerstones of the modern dragon image like Game of Thrones where an entire city is razed, where you call back to Skyrim where Alduin is a world ending dragon, a literal apocalypse, and it came out after Mulan by 13 years. Other memorable dragons to feature prominently in western media recent-ish would be Smaug or even sticking with Disney you have Maleficent or the Hydra from Hercules. More broadly things like Godzilla could be classified as a dragon, certainly Ghidorah. Even by the end of the video, the nostalgia for weird, unique, uncategorized dragons feels shallow. While we don't call them dragons, massive, impossibly powerful, scary monsters in general exist - unique and nuanced. The Godzilla property is a good example of that, but Kaiju from Pacific Rim were each unique, the sand worms of Arrakis in Dune, and so forth. Going back to your logic of each is its own thing and that dragon was a label superimposed on them, you can say 'well those aren't dragons' but then aren't you doing the same thing you complained about, using the dragon label to impose your expectation of what dragons should be instead of letting unique monsters be uniquely monstrous? I don't know, I think of all your videos this is the first one that just felt completely off base.
u've nailed the dissonance i felt at a few points in the video to a T. i feel like there was some important messaging about the flattening of a nigh-universal cultural impulse into a marketable slice of the breadth of history behind it (the impulse to narrativize local fears & taboos into powerful beasts w interesting design overlaps, as well as the history of the term "dragon" being used to similarly flatten non-western cultures' mythologies), but it got muddied and, ironically, flattened. there's also some strange goalpost-moving used to empower the thesis/title that i don't believe was intentional but could have been ironed out w more time.
Thank you so much for this video!!! I've always had a fascination with dragons, and in fact, my first story was about a race of people capable of turning into dragons. I never published that story, so I think I can finally go back to it with a clear head and redefine this race of people. Thank you!!!
I honestly disagree, I think the direction dragons have taken is fresh, I do wish to see dragons take a more dangerous approach though like they are cataclysms but could be friendly and like co workers but only when it benefits them, otherwise they are indifferent
The idea of making videos about old Fantasy stories and ways of writing is actually fabulous! Keep going, I have an idea for you : old sci fi and cosmological fantasies
Dragons aren't any less cool now, far from it. In an interconnected world that is more aware of each other's cultures, a world where creatures aren't restricted to their previous archetypes, dragons are as diverse as ever. It's the reason they are near impossible to adequately classify. Our ideas of what a dragon could be are limited only by imagination, and the fact that the word "dragon" is polyphyletic doesn't lessen what, or indeed who, they are.
I for one have only one emotion for these creatures. Inspiration. These creatures of old and new, incarnations of power, danger, wrath, nature, benevolence, evil and mystery. Being a d&d nerd, it has presented to me so many stories of powerful and epic dragons who have shaken the world to its core, their mere presence changing the landscape to suit their needs. I simply just adore these creatures, both the friendly, unfriendly and downright malevolent ones, i love them all and wish to bring them to life in the games i run them. To give them more variety and personality while fitting within one or two categories. Though there was a quote i liked when i used it for my players when roleplaying a Silver dragon mentor figure to the party. "As i said about the red dragons, they are savage, spiteful and above all ambitious, so dont think you have them figured out, among my kind, they are the most unpredictable as they have a proverb. To do as a book might describe you, you are no longer of Tiamat's brood, you are one amongst thousands of dragons lost to time" Basically....dont expect them to all act the same or by what some sheet describes
The Dragons in the Legend of Vox Machina is a peak modern adaptation of dragons, I recommend everyone give the arrival of the cinder king a check it is truly a terrifying masterpiece.
If we are to approach our mythological creatures as if they are monsters, what will we do when we see formidable potential foes in real life? While I don't quite think projecting human or even ones own social structure and relationships is the answer for understanding animals or others is correct, I do think assuming they are incapable of such or portraying them as something to be feared is the answer either. One must acknowledge the potential danger, but also acknowledge the potential for things beyond human values and meaning. Just because something can be a threat, does not mean they are one, and until they prove themselves to be one we shouldn't judge them. To get back onto the point from the beginning, peoples best fiction affects their reality, if we do not create fiction to show that you can both cautious yet not destructive then maybe we shouldn't bother creating reality. Maybe this is what the dragons were trying to tell us all along. Peace and Love all.
I just want to thank you. I've been struggling with a block in writing for several months, and you've given me the inspiration to pick up the pen once more.
This video seems very unfocused and is full of contradictions. The videos seems to argue that dragons should be these evil creatures that shouldn't be categorized, but then goes on to show how dragons from different cultures were very different and could be benevolent. So which is it?
both of what you wrote, the creature that was originally called dragon during the middle english period, came from a symbology of evilness. Nowadays we call "dragon" a lot of other mythological serpent-like creatures from other cultures and in some cultures, for exemple chinese one, those creatures we call "dragon" were benevolent or had other very very different features than the creature that was called dragon during the middle english period
The Pern books have a tremendous twist on the genre for its day, slowly being revealed the series is scifi not fantasy but beyond that she had such a tremendous amount of world building that integrates the peculiarities of Pern so well
"Maybe its time to let dragons be something else." that... thats that the friendly dragons do. Listen, I love tale Foundry, I loveeee Tale Foundry, But i cant help but feel like the entire premise of this video is flawed, while still agreeing with almost every point made throughout. Please, let fantasy creatures be whimsical and unique and changing. let our idea of dragons be inverted, to something cute and friendly, and let something else, something terrifying and scary and new, unknown, take the place of the "dragon".
I know your whole argument here is that codification leads to homogenization and a loss of individual value, but I still want to recommend a special called Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. It's a fictional documentary produced by The Discovery Channel that depicts a biologist discovering that dragons were real and theorizing how they fit into the actual biological history of the world.
If you want a different take on dragon riders I can strongly recommend Naomi Novik "Her Majesty's dragon". The premise is that we are in the napoleonic wars but every nation has an airforce out of dragons. Where it gets interested is that the dragons are very indifferent about the social rules of the time. They care about their bonded rider. But then they might be like "If the king tells you to do sth. you don't like, why don't we just fly somewhere else or kill him?" The dragon is used as an outsider of the (historical) society and forces the protagonist to ponder why he is fighting and if the systems he previously accepted as a given are indeed good.
It's been ages since I read a it but doesn't Temeraire get a serious eye-opening moment when he's in Azia where dragons are treated more as people that sentient war planes ? It's a really special world, I need to pick it back up again. Fantastic series.
@@frostreaper1607 there are several eye-opening moments like that. I do think the first 3 books are where it's at. After that I don't really like where the story went, but up until that point it's amazing. When the dragons find out they can head-hunt ships is also pure gold.
I had mythology and oceanology!! Those books were so freaking neat and the little trinkets from the stories they tell were so cool to me as a kid. The mythology one had a little piece of gold yarn that was 'a piece of the golden fleece' and other little things like that! It ended with the author getting the midas touch and the last page is turning to gold on the corner. Cant remember what trinkets were in oceanology but I do known it had alot of mock accounts of letters from expiditions. When I have kids im definetly getting the whole set
People can say what they want about the Hobbit movies. But Bilbo's confrontation with Smaug is peak cinema and has to be one of my favorite depictions of dragons.
I'm so happy you mentioned the Spiderwick Chronicles! I could basically call it my childhood - there was something so real about them, how at the same time everything was categoried, so it all made sense but at the same time everything was just so free, unexpected - it wasn't a dictionary or a math textbook, there was freedom, wildness, the unexpected, there was magic that worked just because it was magic (not complicated science) I feel like many stories can't find the balance between it all
I love Smaug, but he's not even Tolkien's most loathsome, conniving, or powerful Wyrm - whom he wrote first, though it only published post mortem - read the Children of Hurin, if you dare, to meet Glaurung!
I LOVE the way Dungeons and Dragons handles the creatures. They're varied, and nuanced; but ALWAYS creatures that command respect, and even a bit of fear.
I suppose it was inevitable that dragons would become less mysterious. As the years go on, the unknown becomes explored, studied, and eventually becomes history.
A good-ish example of a modern day dragon thats both a beast of terror and, at the same time, a character thats shrouded in mystery is Grigori from the dragons dogma series.
The Legend of Vox Machina definitely goes for the large, evil, fearsome destructive beast route! I also recently read Tress of the Emerald sea, which took a more old fearsome almost fairytail route. Intelligent and powerful... difficult to comprehend but enough that you might just convince them to allow you to live if you're lucky.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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The deep disrespect of "Dragon" is simply realizing, they are not beyond us.
Can you do a video on becoming a hero
Dragon is meant to be a destructive force of nature & something to fight with a callous ire.
Todays ides of dragon as you said is a lizard ''dog'' as in tamed & made mundane.
I want to see the unrelenting force fire spewing flying tank of scales, flesh & bone.
People wanting everything to be safe makes everything dull today.
More so the issue is not the idea of dragon you have issue with it that Anglo dragon has been diluted by those that have to include everyone else's mythos that was already tame.
It doesn't work into the European & Abrahamic mythos.
A Chinese Lóng should be a Lóng but no one would be interested with out dragon associated at it is not a creature of might destruction & awe as present in the west mythos.
Revisionism of todays socialists to accommodate for other cultures always makes much of the core of a subject get diluted till it no longer represents the subject in any shape or form at it fundamentals.
You must exclude to keep the intrinsic idea or it becomes a jumbled mess of nothing!
West a dragon is a primordial entity against Christendom while the mythic reptile like creatures of other cultures shared nothing in common but vague appearance.
Crusaders did not upset & put dragon on other cultures.
Socialists did in the 19th century to date.
The world for the lonest time was a pretty seperate place not as we think f it today.
Information transfer was far lower & gradual meaning the parts that worked were incorporated organically but now in the Information age most certainly all is in incorporated with no scrutiny rill it is a mess & blind acceptance of that we should all include each other rather then do our own thing makes 1 massive pile of sh!t.
''A camel is a Horse made by committee'' is what comes to my mind of todays issue with much & not only ''dragons''.
The original _How to Train Your Dragon_ books were pretty good at having dragons that were both friendly companions and ferocious beasts. On one end of the spectrum, you've got the little green Common-or-Garden that looks exactly like the generic idea of a "dragon"; on the other end, you've got stuff like the octopus-like Monstrous Strangulator and the Woden's Nightmare that has literal laser eyes and the borderline invincible, impossibly massive Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus that experiences the past present and future simultaneously.
Even the more traditional dragons have plenty of scary examples. Sharkworms and Skullions are both feral predators who are considered absolute "Do not fight this", and the Venomous Vorpent is nothing but sadistic and evil. All three still look like pretty standard Dragons.
Especially in the later books they're definitely treated with plenty of magnitude
I also really love the amount of variety in the different types of dragons, with different sizes (going from bug-sized to mountain-sized) and natural habitats (caves, oceans, volcanoes, etc (even space!)). And the varying levels of intelligence. Some dragons are very animalistic, while others are just as intelligent as humans, while still having animalistic traits that keep them from feeling entirely human.
And the designs are so good! One of my favorites is the Monster of the Amber Slavelands, because it's just really unique and strange. I'm also a big fan of the dragons that are kind of incomprehensible, like the Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus and the Dragon Guardians
Those books were literally my childhood. They are so good
Yess they were wonderful! And even the small little ones retained their ‘wild and selfish’ side. Aside from a select few species which were too stupid or passive to be ferocious, all of them felt like animals. And the bigger or more ferocious ones did feel really high stakes and scary to encounter
To be fair to HTTYD, the expanded universe has more dragon varietys than you can count of various sizes and shapes, including ones big enough to be mistaken as islands.
HTTYD also makes a point that there are dragons that might as well be monsters. They're just also wild animals and should be respected. Toothless wasn't a house cat. He was a jaguar stealth bomber that was downed and forced to cooperate with a human for food until they became companions. Toothless is also one of the only dragons to have a confirmed kill, and it's one of the only ones to happen on screen, and it's a character we follow and root for.
Toothless is an aggressive, territorial predator that is also the best friend of a guy that is allowed to see his calmer, sillier side.
Soo true not all the dragons 🐉 can be tamed in that series
@@muntu1221 Thank you!
One thing I felt HTTYD did really well was giving dragons different personailties. The Red Death forces all the dragons under its control to feed it while it does nothing except kill any that don't. The Green Death (same species) is self-sufficient and just wants to be left alone, which doesn't make it any less terrifying when you accidentally draw its ire by tresspassing.
As you mentioned, Toothless only behaves like a giant kitten when around Hiccup because that is an environment he feels safe in, but as soon as any immenent danger presents itself, he's back to being the jaguar stealth bomber.
Basically what Hiccup discovered was that it is possible to become part of a dragon's 'pack' or 'family' but in an interesting double-subversion, he is also regularly proven wrong in that not all dragons are interested in having humans in their pack.
They are all diferent but most kinda act and función the same way, though (havnt watched inva while though)
@renatoe9648 To a degree, many follow a certain set of rules, though some of these rules are just that they have some degree of a rule in that area. For example, shot limits are different between species, and some don't have them either due to lacking a breath attack or simply having an unending supply of one.
Skyrim is 100% NOT telling you heres dragons they’re youre friends. Skyrims dragons are very much more than just dragon breathe fire fly around. They have an entire culture built around them, they controlled all of tamriel and had their own “cult leaders” called dragon priests. Not to mention the literal DRAGONBORN the main character in the game.
Yeah, they did get Skyrim pretty damn off lmao
But then again I've watched many Elderscrolls lore videos from multiple channels, and it can be a bit convoluted at times.
Still, the most common interaction you have with a dragon is killing one and absorbing its soul making it permanently dead. Parthurnax (probably spelled wrong) isn't your friend really, but at the end of the day he decides to help you stop Alduin.
So like- I'd think they'd at least get the dragon killing is the most common interaction part right.
Definitely get the feeling though that no one who has seriously played Skyrim was involved in the making of this video tho lmao
In the actual game they are more of an annoyance than anything else. You can see it if you look at someone who played the game long enough: there's a roar and the player sighs and looks to the sky to see if this particular dragon is here to waste your time some more or he'll fly away as they do sometimes. That "culture" is so hidden and the dragon shouts can be found at the end of almost any odd cave. So I am disagreeing with the take that there's more to them. They mostly are just annoying bats that breathe fire/ice at you. They had much potential to be something more, but Bethesda did not go deep enough. There's a few very interesting encounters where you see Alduin resurrecting a dragon from the grave and it's cool, but I only saw this once beside the main story mission. And I have 400 hours in that game
@@AlleonoriCat two of the dragons in the game can become kind of your buddies: after their quest you can summon them to ride around on and help you out.
@@Call-me-Al which still counters the point of the original commenter, lol
@@AlleonoriCat I don't think OP or I are arguing Skyrim is very deep 99.99999% of the time lol
But even if they don't go as far with it as they could, they still did do their own thing.
I have mixed feelings about you saying lore is "hidden". There's a lot about dragons you learn just by playing the main quest (for the few who do) and lots of games have hidden lore. That's kind of the whole point of lore, it isn't shoved in your face.
And sure, a lot of it is extremely gamified, and most of the time the most interesting stuff isn't very important, unfortunately, but it IS still there.
I feel your sentiment tho, even if I don't share it.
Also ayyyy fellow multiple hundreds of hours in Skyrim player hello there ^.^
I must admit that this does feel very much like an old man going on about the good old days as well as a very Western viewpoint on Dragons.
Not just western, but also fairly narrow, focusing on the most generic depictions in pop culture while ignoring the countless others that are still depicting western style dragons in the "traditional" way.
@@Horvath_Gaborlike Monster Hunter? I do like scary dragons but I like seeing all kinds from those from Skyrim to Chinese dragons to Yoshi
Dragons have a complicated history. There is only so much you can fit in a 20 minute video. That being said, his concerns about them being turned into pets so they can sold for merchandise are still valid.
I agree that it seems like this, but "Western viewpoint of Dragons" is an oxymoron. Dragons *are and always were* a Western concept. Do not be deceived by the fact that today we also call many non-Western creatures "dragons" too - we do it to avoid making up new useless words, not because they are Dragons. Lamenting about Western centrism on such topic is like lamenting that fantasy is always set in European middle ages - duh, it was created to reflect the European middle ages, and all other settings came into the genre because the foreigners were so fascinated with the genre in the first place.
@BelaFox-vt5xu That it Western Centrism as Eastern hemisphere countries/cultures have had their dragons such as Chinese, Mesopotamian, & African to name only but a few.
Don't even try to pull that bullshit.
On the note of "dragon" being retroactively applied to various reptilian monsters across the world, this happens honestly in a lot of places. Things like vampires, demons and fairies in English are considered types of "youkai" in Japan, and likewise, youkai are often called fairies, demons or ogres when English speakers portray them for other English speakers. (I don't know as much about other cultures, but it seems pretty common from what I have seen.)
Humans like to group things that remind them of things they already know, even if those aren't really the same things.
That’s a neat way of looking at it actually
It's not a jelly filled donut, it's an onigiri.
Localization snubs inquisitivity.
There was a great Curious Archive video talking about "The Problem with Goblins" are essentially defined Goblins as; small, green-skinned, and mischievious. Despite the fact there is no one clear-cut idea of what a Goblin is the idea anything remotely "goblin-like" getting grouped together is similar to how you're describing the catch-all way of linking different things because of how they're seen as similar
different interpretation and name, same concept.
@@jacktheomnithere2127 It's not even really the same concept though. It would be like calling Buddhas Angels - like, sure, it's a man-shaped thing that's holy and wise but isn't a god, but grouping them together misses so much nuance as to be kind of irresponsible.
Or maybe Angels, Harpies and Sirens are the better comparison - they've got aesthetic similarities but that's about it (at a stretch you could argue that "be not afraid, go to Bethlehem" is comparable to Sirens using their voice to appear non-threatening and compel people to go somewhere).
There are some examples of cross-cultural monster categories, like the "make sure to bury people properly"-monster, the "don't wander off into the wilderness"-monster or, unfortunately the "women with agency are spooky"-monster, but we tend to group monsters by how they look or how they function rather than what they represent - the Manananggal is a spooky-women-monster but gets grouped with Vampires (either a properly-bury-your-dead-monster, a rich-people-are-evil-monster or any number of other groups depending on when and where you're looking) because she has bat wings and feeds by sucking.
Turning vicious monsters that haunt the night into friends is something we humans do as a species.
also Monster Hunter is still going strong for dragons as speculative biology. and some are reserved as terrifying living apocalypses with grudges, but are ultimately unknowable. like Fatalis.
The dragon as scary monster beyond understanding and reflective of cultural fears also survives in the Kaiju genre. What else is Godzilla but a dragon that spews radiation instead of fire? The fact he comes from the sea and cannot fly is no obstacle here given the history of the myth and it's connection to water monsters of snake like description.
@@formlessone8246 Not to mention we've got creatures like King Ghidorah, who is a 3 headed, flying, fire breathing dragon in literally everything but name.
@@formlessone8246nope Godzilla is a dinosaur end of story
@@secretagentkarve9431 you do realize that the video already addresses how dragons are typically depicted as chimeras of multiple predators, right? Plus, point to any real dinosaur that matches the description of Godzilla. I know you can't because Godzilla is completely fictional, not based on a tyrannosaurus or any other kind of prehistoric reptile. He's a dinosaur only insofar as the writers claim he is, but that doesn't change the clear influence of dragons on his design and even mythology since the very first movie.
god i fucking love monster hunter's spec-evo aspect so much
I’m a little disappointed that the ‘Dragons were meant to be feared’ angle was the only one talked about in the majority of the video when you breezed over another reason dragons are so revered, ‘they are symbols of wisdom.’ Sure they were scary in Europe, but in Asia dragons were often depicted as benevolent and wise, something for humans to learn from. Why wouldn’t humans be enamored with an idea like that?
Completely different mythical creatures though. They were just called dragons because of European syncretism, but Western and Eastern dragons have nothing to do with each other beyond some surface-level reptilian traits.
@@Horvath_Gabor then why did he mention "year of the dragon"? the western doesn't have that concept.
The western concept of dragons are usually some sort of antedeluvian beast often animalistic, sometimes with allusions ro the biblical serpent.
It was feared and respected as a simbol of power.
In taoist derived cultures dragons are definitely intelligent, usually representations of divine wisdom. Oddly enough between the two there exists a third type, much less frequently represented in popculture, in slavic and steppe nomad cultures, dragons are intelligent, sometimes even humanoid, often multi headed, immensly powerful, and utterly self serving mythological beings, often serving as representations of humanities own worst aspects, or of abuse of power.
A sort of strange synthesis of the western medieval wyrm, and the chinese wise flying serpent.
Are all of these myths really equivalent? Probably not, but the rare few who brought news of either culture across the earth back in those times seemed to think so, because the homonym translations are not new.
It was incredibly difficult to keep watching after the first minute. The premise of the video is that modern dragons suck because they're not scary, except you only focus on the dragons that you _think_ they suck just to prove your point, which is very wrong.
So, firstly, there are plenty of "cool" ferocious dragons, if you just take a moment to look. Really, it's not that hard to find scary dragons in modern media. Secondly, just because some dragons are friendly and likeable doesn't mean they're "uncool". They add variety to the world of modern dragons.
I think it's beautiful that there are so many different kinds of dragons in modern media. It means there's something for _everyone_ instead of just for people like you.
This video gave me the impression that you're incredibly narrow-minded when it comes to fantasy.
I actually stopped watching after a few minutes, because the descriptions completely failed to connect with the images in my mind.
I like stories about dragons. And back in my childhood I already loved the book about that little dragon who met a child and was terribly sad that it could only produce smoke - while at the same time I played roleplaying games with millennia old dragons, dragon mages (a homebrew back then) and read the little hobbit with terrifying Smaug to younger relatives.
I couldn't agree more. Dragons are so nuanced and making them only into scary monsters is kinda boring. I love the variety, I love how some media portraits them as friends and in others they are symbols of wisdom, they can be kings, pets, wild beasts, monsters, friends and so much more. I love the modern idea of a dragon.
Honestly this channel sometimes seems a little to prententious and heavily nostalgia-biased
Another example of this narrow-minded perspective is their “magic isn’t magical anymore” video
Basically these 2 video can be summed up as “See this trendy popular story elements? Back in my days it was better before you kids ruined it”
About 2 and a half minutes in and i have to put in my 2 cents.
Just because you have a pet dog, that does not make being hunted by a pack of feral dogs or wolves less terrifying. Dragons have never stopped being "cool" as you put it, it is just that sometimes you get to see the other side of a being.
Robots are often used as sidekicks, but the Terminator series didn't suddenly become tames.
They're also just wrong. The most popular dragon media in the past year was House of the Dragon, and that had a scene where a bunch of innocent people got eaten alive because they were brave enough to risk it all to get their families out of poverty. Nobody watching _wasn't_ fully clenched watching the Bronze Fury cooking and eating people.
Tale Foundry is at least transparent that these at essentially them having a thought and exploring that thought in depth, sometimes even contradicting a previous or upcoming video. But it does get kind of annoying when they have to drum up the extent to which an issue they have is affecting media.
Yeah I have to agree like in delicious in dungeon the main characters are trying to some one of their members from a dragon 🐉
You missed the point by jumping the gun.
Terminator is an awful example because the latest movie ended up literally domesticating the T-800 and not just by having it as part of the good guys like T2
@@Cheirus4212 Yet the terror of a robot uprising remains. Even with Arnie being nice, the horror of Judgement Day, and the spector of brutal extermination remain. it is the perfect example, because we still fear it, even when we can "Domesticate" one. In this age of armed drones that can level entire buildings, can you say that the idea of our smart weapons turning against us isn't scary?
while i understand how you feel about Dragons today, It is rash to just want to go back with out thinking, i feel like instead of "let's go back this were better before, and let's keep things as they are." Should not be a definite answer, we evolve matters to a better new standard. I can think of of one i really like, Dragons are Ancient, and Smart creatures, misunderstood by the world as evil beings because of their size and the way they do things.
I think of it as a better staging ground since it gives writers a chance to make dragons come alive even more. Plus, it so intringuing just thinking of how Dragon society might work being quite fascinating with many opportunities of stories that anyone could produce.
This was written by; Dragons aren't just big lizards gang ^.=.^
"Dragons are ancient and wise creatures, misunderstood as evil because they're dangerous." That's what I like about the Legendary Godzilla series. It does that, but it also does the concept of a dragon being the embodiment of not just predators, but every threat to human life.
Mısunderstood is to cliche at this point
Not really cliche, just misunderstood…
@@DuckWithA_DarkSidecliche
@@AtesSu2006.your also a cliche
The archetype of people who call things cliche because they think it’ll put them in the limelight for agreeing with someone to make them seem smarter
Whoa whoa whoa.. House of The Dragon? Netflix’s Damsel Movie? The latest MonsterHunter Game? Netflix’s DOTA animated series? The Delicious in Dungeon anime? Vox Machina animated series? Pokémon?
All those came out in like the last couple years and they all have serious, traditional dragon concepts and there’s still more I could name
You lost me with pokemon
Wait a second, does Pokémon have traditional dragons? Closest I can think of is Salamence but it's not really a fire breather.
@@siraaron4462 You should see how movies and extra material treat Dragon Legendaries and even some pseudo legendaries. Garchomp and Rayquaza are straight up forces of nature.
@siraaron4462 Eternatus is just overtly chaotic and destructive.
Koraidon and Miraidon, the wild ones, are extremely territorial, blood thirsty monsters who are confirmed to have killed a named character AND brutally maimed the version we get at the start of the game. This is ignoring the dragons from the past/future that are extremely aggressive.
And that is further ignoring that Pokémon has generations of aggressive dragon types. Giratina ripped a hole in realty in Legends to try and forcefully combat Arceus, for example.
@@Ditidos Pokémon has numerous traditional dragons, what are you talking about? Salamance also _does_ breathe fire. It's just not a fire type.
Charizard X is a traditional dragon by every metric. Its ability is a direct reflection of its increased aggression, it breathes fire, it has four limbs and wings for people who think that has any historical basis, and it's just overall considered an exceptionally powerful being that rivals some legendaries.
Hmm... Got me thinking. The medieval evil dragons were kind of a metaphor for a fear of the wild, particularly the predators that could eat us. People back then weren't as prone to empathising with other creatures as many (though definitely not all) people today are. We believed that the wolf would eat us out of malice. We now understand it eats out of hunger and a need to survive, nothing more. As we've become more understanding about nature (and arguably more of a threat to it than the other way around), dragons have become more and more animals, and more and more "nice", to reflect that the wild places aren't as mysterious or scary any more.
That said, depictions of humans have gone in sort of the opposite direction. Sure, there are still humans as heroes, kind of hard to go completely against one's own species, but there are far more human villains than non-human these days. We understand nature more and realise there's no malicious intent. We understand powerful humans more and understand they are so much more a threat. Think about all the stories that involve corrupt politicians, destructive industrialists, greedy manipulation behind the scenes. These things were once the domain of dragons, hoarding wealth for no reason other than to hoard and dominating places simply because they could. Now, it's powerful rich men, doing so because they believe they should be allowed to do so by right of being rich men.
I would like to point out the recently released (at time of writing) Metaphor ReFantazio, by ATLUS Studios. Some of the most powerful and terrifying enemies in that game are literally called "Humans". They are created from anxiety, and look like creatures from the art of Hieronymus Bosch (he is stated as an inspiration), and I think that is a trend that may continue. We see Humans as more of a threat, so why wouldn't we depict them more monstrously?
Just some thoughts I felt like I should share.
I love these thoughts. And that's what I personally liked most about this video, is that it just naturally gets you thinking.
I'm reminded about the meme about how Smaug's hoard was valued and how he wouldn't even be among the top ten richest people today.
@@Draxynnic And yet the richest fictional character ever is still probably Scrooge McDuck.
This exactly this. It’s worded perfectly, thank you for writing it. It makes me think- what other feelings or forces of nature could we dragon-ify for story purposes?
You really choose the worst example with How to train your Dragon. Did you only watch the movie, because I remember the first time I saw Red death, so here is your terrifying destructor monster. Do you remember the book of dragons, well if you did maybe you’ll remember the sheer diversity and expanded world of dragons with honestly very cool concepts and appearances far removed from the one of toothless (who is himself part of a very specialised species, quite different from the rest of the dragons). The biology of these creatures is literally a tool that is learned and used during the film, their fear of eels, their sensibility to loud noises, their limited number of shots, their not so fireproof insides and the individual capabilities of the main five species.
So I really don’t see your point in this video. Maybe instead of only reading an old book you should maybe rewatch the movie for your comparison.
My main takeaway of this video helped me understand something (iirc) Tolkien said about dragons, that they should be defined by whatever's best for the story. I think he actually said they should be in service of the story or something like that, but the idea that getting caught up in preconceptions of what a dragon "is" detracts from that didn't really occur to me before
If you've ever seen a dragon on two legs, like a human, and with abs you will know the pain of have a fearsome creature turned into a shadow of its former self.
If we would get picky like that even 13th century definition of dragon is "wrong". In ancient Greece dragons were monstrous sea serpants
He was also writing in the early 20th century when mythological beings like dragons were actually mysterious and novel and not this watered down trope that just exists in fantasy. Also the dragons in his stories were very lucid and sentient creatures that are rarely came across, so seeing one raiding the lonely mountain or northern wastes of Middle Earth was a huge deal that only few live to actually tell of it.
0:34 Toothless bashing? This is the worst scandal any TH-camr has ever committed.
@@osheridanimagine just ignoring the fact that toothless, while a cute friendly guy when he wants to be, is also a horrific force of nature when he wants to be as well
@@zaimcraft6581I think the second movie showed this very well, despite knowing how cute, friendly, and lovable Toothless is, he still a powerful beast that can kill you so very easily with just one breath. Stoic experienced this first hand.
@yeah, then there’s literally any seen from the ground looking up, you can’t see him coming and he never misses if there’s a night fury hunting you you are flat out dead once’s it’s air born
Look to the book of dragons entry on night furies if you need more evidence lol
Exactly, how dare he 😭
@noimsquidward7327 yea, There is a Entire video talking about the brutal ways toothless could kill you 😭🙏
Surprisingly negative episode.
For my part, I find joy in the sheer diversity of what has been put under the collective umbrella of the word, even if they were originally completely unrelated creatures.
All monsters could be put under a similar, larger umbrella of 'chimera' or 'beast' and that doesn't take away from how they are.
Dragons can still be scary, they can also be cool, cute, tragic, horrifying; they aren't exclusive to one or any.
Maybe they aren't as effective as shorthand for evil, due to overexposure, but that's just how things change.
Having a sword isn't enough to be cool, nowadays, it needs to be big or spiky or magical, and that's okay; things change.
In more recent times, if you want a scary monster, you tend do something eldritch or existential, but nothing is stopping you from making an eldritch/existential dragon, which could be even cooler!
Helps that they are as recognizable as they are, yet possess such diversity! In all their forms, they always represent 'power' (a weak dragon would therefore be a subversion, which has narrative potential like any other subversion)
That we aren't scared by the same stuff as before roughly correlates to humans understanding the world better, imo. Nowadays, we can have snakes, wolves and spiders at home.
I do not believe for a second that dragons are 'less', now. On the contrary, they are 'more' than ever before.
They can look like so many different things, fill so many roles and they are familliar to so many people!
I see them as 'the ultimate universal fantasy' and that's awesome!
a eldritch dragon does exist tho it's Zeromus from final fantasy 14
Yes! As someone who has considered dragons my favorite animal for years now, it is the nuance and diversity of their kind that I value most; I would love to read a literal encyclopedia of everything Draconic including and expanding upon everything discussed in this video
Dragons are fun creatures, imo they're like dinosaurs but flying and breathing fire (or other element) so people have fun around them
Thing is rather than being a rare formidable beast, nowadays many fantasy media has that one dragon you see and forget about, also the fact that you brought up about many dragons looking the same with four legs and two wings
Facts. Dragons became a staple of fantasy so sometime they just throw one in there that doesn't actually matter that much
Wyverns got it worse because they just got turned into dragons with two legs. I know that this is true for some bestiaries, but wyverns also had many more features unique to them like pointy oftenly poisonous tails, poisonous breath and a cat like behaviour which made them oftenly paired with witches, nowadays people seem to barely use these features and just call their two legged dragons wyverns because somebody on the internet told them so.
Makes them more marketable that way
blame the post tolkien age...
that truly changed dragons in nowadays stories.
especially japanese ones. they make dragons as segsual object. dragon girl...
There are limitless possibilities even with just that limb layout just have to be creative with it. Use different body types, structures, and coverings. Just design it based on what you want it to do.
I know someone else said this but in httyd there are plenty of nearly untamable dragons (like the majority of the ones with “death” in their name) and they are still creatures you should fear
isn't the word dragon more of a thing that doesn't exist but used as a umbrella term like the way Trees don't actually exist, but use it as a way to describe plants that share very specific traits?
also I don't agree with orochi being considered a dragon, pretty sure it was explicitly said to be a giant snake with multiple heads and tails
Yeah, dragon is more of an umbrella term and people have been trying to make classifications so things like wyverns, drakes, amphiptere and much much more. People also made dragons that look nothing like your typical dragon with feathers, beaks, fur. Basically you can slap any animal trait on dragon
Exactly. A maple tree (and other deciduous flowering trees) is closer related to a daisy than it is to coniferous trees. A tree is a form-factor not a single taxonomical group.
Dragons never stopped being cool, my dear Tale Founderer. Different approaches to them is what contributes how awesome they are.
EXACTLY!!
The balance is tipping too far, so it needs to go back the other way towards terror and mystery.
Honestly I'd rather just hear about cool, weird, old dragons than pretending like modern dragon concepts are somehow worse in any way. No need to pit anything against each other
the contrast exists and is the exact reason why dragons aren't "Cool" or Bestial anymore, so I can't blame him for putting two dragons against each other
@@BenjaminAlternateI do t really like the httyd comparison though since toothless is just one of 1000s of different dragons in that world that range from fire worm to island eating death serpents and everthing in between, yeah they can be pets/companions but there was never any shying away from honorifically powerful forces if nature that would destroy anything in there path
good comment, VERY good comment
Except the whole principle of western dragons is to provide a monster for the hero to kill. That is entirely different from eastern dragons and pre Christian snakes. Medicine is still represented by two snakes.
@@seriousmaran9414 i mean if you look at the caduceus' history you see it's more a symbol of hermes than medicine. hermes being the god of certain kinds of commerce is a fun nod to how the american medical system functions in the modern day.
the rod of asclepius, or a single snake curled around a stick is more commonly associated with healthcare
10:28-11:03 yes and no.
the word "dragon" comes the Roman term "draco", yes; but that comes from the Greek term "drakon", meaning "huge serpent". Pliny the Elder used that term to describe Pythons - Reticulated Pythons, specifically.
(fun fact: before the snake was given that name, "Python" was the name of a Greek dragon)
in antiquity - be it the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, Scandinavia (Germanic people, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings), or the Celts - a dragon was basically a giant snake, sometimes with traits it simply wouldn't have (limbs or crest, to name 2 things; not all were limbless). in fact, for the Germanics, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Celts, the line between a snake and a dragon was blurred.
as time progressed, dragons became more chimeric, as you said, but they still kept a long tail - which Pliny described as their strongest part and weapon... and they still behaved somewhat snake-like.
it doesn't even need to be or resemble a snake: a all a dragon from Europe would need is a long neck and longer tail, some snake-like mannerisms, snake-like movement in the neck and tail, and "dragon" is still somewhat applicable.
the word "dragon" is an umbrella term, and an overgeneralizing one at that.
with the exception of a good few (like Ninki Nanka)... the Russian term "zmey", the Greek "hydra", the Irish term "paiste", the word "worm" (derived from Old English "wyrm", which derives from Old Norse "ormr") - which is connected to the German term "lindwurm", the French term "vouivre", and the aforementioned word "dragon". they're all different words, and refer to similar creatures with varying traits, that is true... but what they all mean and refer to boil down to one thing: "serpent".
when i say "yes and no" to your point in the timestamp, that's what i mean. they're not actual dragons to the people who "made" them, and those terms were the name of the culture's depiction of the same concept; but considering what they all mean, they fit the word "dragon", as an umbrella term, very nicely.
simply put: different interpretation and names, same concept (this goes for Fairies and the Basilisk).
I absolutely love dragons. They are my favorite fantasy creature of all time. There's a reason that everyone in my D&D campaign is half-dragon.
Also TF you guys rock. Best way to learn about fantasy stuff.
Dragons are still cool and terrifying. I am making my own journal about them about different species. Their habitats, their behaviors and how to avoid them, and how to like you know, fight them, but finding a dragon is no easy task
Nice
I like how dragons are the logo for fantacy, it a creature that molds and changes with each story and "role" it plays in a story; the representation of the devil, a hurdle the hero needs to overcome save a princess, or a key to another world simply gatekeeping flight. If I ever write or DM and have dragons I'll make sure to define not what a dragon is, but it's role in the world and story.
Only 2mins in so maybe I’ll be swayed by the end but I don’t think we’ve lost the intimidating BBEG dragon archetype. Outside of HTTYD and maybe Pokemon, the friendly dragon trope isn’t all that common in modern media. But we still have a ton of big evil scary dragons in recent media; Dragon’s Dogma 2, Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Dragon Age Inquisition and Veilguard, Legend of Vox Machina, D&D Honor Among Theives, and probably a ton more im missing
Edit: I see the point you were going for, still disagree, but I see it. Good video as usual tho!
And even in HTTYD there are plenty of terrifying dragons both in the movies and the Race t the edge show. And there are plenty of terrible dragons in modern fantasy media, I agree that they havn't exactly disappeared. I don't see the idea of friendly dragons as particularly bad either, I think dragons are characters can work really well if written properly but like all characters they are hard to write. I think all the characters in Raya are mediocre, not just the dragon.
The one thing I truly agree with in this video is the movement of attempting to syncretize multiple folkloric creatures as dragons when i don't really consider something like Quetzalcoatl t count as that, but its hardly a new movement humans have been syncretizing deities for literal thousands of years.
Hell even Mario Odyssey has a big scary serious dragon in it as one of the games bosses
I will add that DnD have variety of dragons, evil, sadistic, friendly, pranksters and even pets
You got it 100%
Hell, even in Pokémon we get our fair share of “scary dragons” but by the nature of the franchise the “scary” parts are usually more in the lore than the design.
Eh, I kinda feel like it was the opposite- that the evil dragon trope was the overused one (though I will admit that the knight saving the damsel trope took a good amount of these slots). In games, I was tired of hurting or killing a species that I considered to be one of my favorites, and wanted to instead live or fight alongside them- which some games do allow, but it feels incredibly rare. Dragons are still feared creatures, just for our adversaries, not for us (when they're on our side). And of course, there are still large, powerful dragons that aide the protagonists and aren't just companions- especially the godlike wise dragons who aren't just mindless brutes as many of the more generic "dragon bad" tropes suggest. Also, I have seen many people compare both the good and bad dragons to larger cats who occasionally have wings, breathe fire, or whatever other power(s) the story gives them.
Dragonslayer Codex by Sawyer Lee is my all time favourite dragon project.
It's ridiculously cool and creative.
The how to train your dragon books (which the movies are based on) although for a younger audience I believe have the best of both worlds. There are both terrifying wild dragons which the protagonist wishes like us, to classify but there are also smaller tameable dragons like in the movies. The dragons in the books are also quite mystic and unexplainable with some of the larger ones being able to seemingly recognise their killers before they meet them, capable of predicting the future. Whilst also having lore for how they function/live like how they produce fire and words in their language.
I also loved the show Race to the Edge. A HUGE amount of dragon species were explored, a lot of them being truly terrifying monsters or mighty forces of nature left disturbed. I don't particularly like how he used HTTYD as an example for "weak" dragons since, sure, there are a fair few friendly dragons but there is a huge diversity of dangerous and powerful dragons showcases in all both the movies and show.
I'm kinda frustrated with these recent few videos. I really like this channel and the way it is structured, the way it is indulgent in nostalgia. But the recent couple videos have kinda done that at the cost of... crapping on modern media? Like, it's okay to love things in different ways. It's okay to love scary dragons and it's okay to love wholesome dragons. Neither of that is wrong. You can also have both. And I feel like this trned of mocking or downputting some media to make the point of uplifting something else with a very implied opinion, e.g. "Don't you think that's overdone? Don't you miss when dragons were cool?" is a little... I dunno, dismissive, I guess. And it's frustrating, because usually these videos make me wanna write, btu with this disparaging, you're always gonna just shoot down some people's likes to uplift others and it makes me wanna not write. Which sucks.
I gotta be honest, I didn’t find any negativity about the Weird Tales video, though my main takeaway was that it’s a neat genre to draw from creatively; however, that doesn’t negate your overall point. It does seem weird that they’d go in the direction of complaining about recent portrayals of dragons (that they seem to have barely glimpsed at, judging by how they talk about Skyrim at the very least) and wishing we could go back to the times when dragons were scary monsters (which, as other commenters have pointed out, is still a thing in a lot of fiction)
I think he also misses a lot on other media (whether it is on purpose or not), I actually view a lot of art with dragons and there is so much variety of dragons there. You have cute ones but also ferocious ones, sizes ranging from the size of a bug to mountain, intelligence ranging from animal like to highly intelligent. So people didn't stop making monstrous evil dragons but people started also making cute ones.
And both are awesome
Yeah, I miss the old Tale Foundry videos. These new ones have been overly negative and clickbaity, honestly.
@@fennk5386A lot of the TH-camrs that I’ve followed the last like ten years or so have also become more clickbaity and negative the more popular they are. It’s a viscous cycle, I guess. This is my first video I’ve seen of Tale Foundry and the production quality was amazing and so good that I forced myself to watch the whole video while grinding my teeth and wishing I could argue with him. Luckily, the commenters here have said everything I could have and more!
Am I the only one that likes dragons as protagonists as opposed to antagonists? (I think both are good btw)
i like them as both too
Wings of fire is realy good book series with dragons as protagonists
One example of a dragon that isn't just a cute little pet and isn't irrelevant for the story is the red dragon from Dungeon meshi. I mean, Fallin getting eaten by him it's what kickstart the whole story and I thought it was cool that they made a beliavable explanation for why it breaths fire.
plz do a video on dark old cautionary tales like "boy who cried wolf" getting eaten by wolves for lying.
I saw someone do a pretty effective takedown of the boy who cried wolf, basically pointing out that in the end there WAS a wolf, that we only have the word of the other villagers that the boy was lying, and asking the question of why, if the villagers really didn't trust the boy not to give false alarms, they didn't find some other punishment for him than continuing to give him sole responsibility for watching over the flock?
2:34 THE SACRED TEXTS
I think the fact that dragons can be friends and for and categorized as a species makes them more fun and fascinating
tbh our relationship with dragons kinda mirrors our relationship to the natural world:
back in the day it was filled with dangers and unknown against which people were almost powerless
now? We tamed it, there are still dangerous places and unknown but have you ever were in a situation where an animal was an actual danger to you?
You have completely missed another more logical, more plausible explanation: dinosaur fossils. Your argument that Christians forced Dragons on other cultures is a clear false theory as it does not fit the chronology.
Trust me, dragons _never_ stopped being cool.
In my opinion, dragons can be whatever the writer desires, and even though they can get a bit un intimidating at times like toothless, I felt fear as a kid during the red death scenes in the first movie and when toothless was mind controlled in the second one.
that feeling of the friendly companion no longer being the same you once knew, it would’ve been horrifying outside of a cartoon animated film.
Moving on from httyd, we have other dragons that can be quite intimidating, like king Ghidorah (Godzilla), Smaug (lord of the rings)
Or even any dragon in monster hunter, each with their own charm, and intimidating design, the music that plays when they’re on screen adding to the feeling that this is more than the silly reptile dragon fans are used to now
I feel like Monster Hunter does the "biology of dragons" thing well
Especially when it comes to Elder and Black Dragons. Their design philosophy is that in order to make these dragons feel larger than life they must break the conventional rules of biology. They aren’t built in a logical way, their powers can only be described as magical more often than not and sometimes they seem far too intelligent. They exist but they don’t feel like they belong, theirs no mistaking them for a rampaging animal like other monsters
Monster Hunter is one of the very rare works that depicts dragons as forces of nature, which is what they were initially.
I love dragons and the draconic pantheon of the Forgotten Realms! There's so much cool stuff there!
Yeah, and even just the regular ol' Dragons of D&D have a decent number of species that are each distinct in their own way, from their scales and element to (canonically) the types of horns they have. And in some cases, the size they grow to (for example, the tiny fairy dragon to the absolutely insanely massive Astral Dragon).
D&D did this while simultaneously letting them be characters depending on the individual case.
In the first two minutes I think to myself, I love variety. I have not seen the rest if this video.
You overlook the fact that what all those cultures also had in common was fossils. We know that the Greeks would find large fossils and proclaim them "giants." They would then place them in temples. It's not a stretch to think that ancient societies would find a long/large string of spinal bones and think, "A-ha! This must have been some giant serpent-like creature!" They weren't wrong. They just applied a mythological interpretation to scientific evidence.
**happy dinosaur noises**
Not quite, is still up to debate how much fossils have actually influenced mythology. If you look closely at the Greek myths and early dragons you will find these creatures are more likely based of snakes, particulary large ones such as pythons and cobras.
@@MrTroodon_Official I cited specifically how they would bring fossils into temples after declaring them giants. We know this, because there's evidence. I do not know enough about Greek culture to make claims about their beliefs regarding dragons.
@@aimeeinkling From what I've seen, the general consensus is that fossils probably aren't a source for dragons. As Troodon said, the Greek dragons were pretty much big snakes. Dragons turning into something more dinosaurlike is something that happened after the general concept of dragons already existed (we can see this in particular with the cockatrice, which is a very similar body plan to therapods that were close relatives of birds, but we can trace that legend back to what is basically a supernaturally poisonous snake, and yes I do mean poisonous, although it was venomous too).
If I recall correctly, the bones you refer to were much more recent, generally mammoths and megafauna from around the same period. There is a theory floating around that mammoth skulls might have inspired the cyclops.
It sounds like your problem is really with How to Train Your Dragon. I still see mostly ferocious portrayals of dragons. But my favorite will always be Spyro.
I love ALL kinds of Dragons. The big terrifying primal beast of extreme power kind, the little companion kind, the large dangerous cat with fire breath kind, the wise divine dragon kind, the "Intelligent loners who scheme in the shadows and sit on a hoard" kind. So this deep dive (much like OSP's deep dive years ago) was absolutely phenomenal.
I've used them in many forms in most of my fiction. Seriously, it's rare that I put something out that doesn't have a dragon somewhere in it. Hells, even a sci fi TTRPG I once ran for a friend had galaxy-spanning empire of honest to gods *space dragons* who everyone else was terrified would return to rampaging once their current reasonable emperor was dethroned.
My approach is almost always to hearken to either importance within the story, or evoking Power. Like, one RPG I made that was a Dragon Hunt had the dragon serve as both a metaphor for the heroine's trauma she was trying to overcome, and also as a reveal that the Dragons of that world were actually Outlaws from beyond the stars, and much of the world's semi-recent supernatural problems could be traced back to them and their hubris. My current TTRPG has them as among the first Free Willed entities, Powerful adolescents in a brand new world, who kicked off an age of destruction before being driven to the lost places in the world. Basically, lost primal ancestors of a long-forgotten age, forced out of history and into myth.
One unreleased thing I worked on even drew a parallel to modern times. Where, in a collective unconscious kind of world, the protagonist challenges a "King" of that world, calling him "Just like any other corrupt CEO" for how he runs his domain. This king laughs and says "True, I own vast lands, hoard great wealth, and wield unfathomable power... Now tell me, boy... What does that make me?" as he turns into a Dragon on a hoard of gold.
Yes, I'm a huge dork about this, and I'm proud of it. XD
OMG! Core memory unlocked when you brought up that Dragonology book! I checked that thing out at my local library multiple times when I was quite young. I loved that book so much, it sparked so much in my imagination and played a key role in beginning my love of dragons. I might have to go find a copy of it now. Thank you for an amazing video and for triggering that wonderful memory for me. Have loved your vids for a long time! Keep up the brilliant work!
I'm sure this is addressed in the video itself but I haven't watched it and can't keep this phrase inside me: dragons are still cool af
I agree completely, I usually like this channels videos but I feel his very premise is flawed. Even in the modern day there are a vast amount of truly powerful and terrifying dragons as well as the wek and friendly ones, but Tale Foundry makes it seem as though they have all disappeared.
2:54 you mentioning this book unlocked some hidden nostalgia in me that I forgot existed. I used to pour over this book obsessively as a kid pondering how I could create my own dragon pet in real life.
Same! I remember sitting in my dad's fantasy themed library with Dragonology, Monsterology, and Wizardology, wondering how to befriend a Frost dragon (I live in southern Canada, there's no way that could happen unless I moved to Nunavut or somewhere in Greenland or something)
Hahaha same had this collection of books. Started with Egyptology, brought back the excitement opening that gold book for xmas
3:02 GASP, You take that back!
Okay, this video really missed the mark dude. Saying dragons in general aren't scary or evil anymore then bringing a ton of international examples and saying they're "not dragons" when the word used to name them literally means "dragon". (Not to mention leaving out the villains and book toothless of httyd or smaug in the Hobbit movies or Ghidorah in monsterverse simply because they're not new dragons in name or something?) This video genuinely felt like draconic racism. If you were to say "WESTERN dragons aren't scary anymore" I agree with every single point in this video. But to say dragons in general have to be mean mythical village destroyers feels like you saying "well my people define dragons like this historically so actually you can't call it a dragon if it's not the stereotype I imagine"
Is the compromise possible? And by that, I mean reverting dragons back to what they used to be but still maintaining them as being capable of acting friendly toward humans and other races in the fantasy worlds. I know Skyrim did that already according to this video. But still, the way How To Train Your Dragons approached should not be dismissed. In fact, it can even improved the compromise here in my view.
By that, I mean having dragons started out as these unknown and mysterious creatures that represented nothing but evil and barbarism. But as the stories progressed, the humans and the other races learned more that both the dragons and themselves are not so different after all. I know that this sounded like taming dragons all over again. But this is leaning more towarded making an attempt to understand the dragons more in order to establish peace between both sides and not actually taming the dragons to make them the companions. And when peace is established, both sides parted ways on good terms instead.
P.S: To me, dragons were, are, still and will be, cool for me.
The wearle series by Chris d'lacey covers this. The dragons are from space and colonise early tribal humans but a couple of them are kind and friendly, But terrifying as they see humans as we do ants
While it's sad to hear that the classification and name "Dragon" was effectively forced onto those old cultures and their myths, I think there can still be two positive takeaways from that event. The first being that, because they were so different from the Christian dragons, their myths survive to this day, and those curious about them can still find their lore and find real treasures by doing that digging. Second, while it wasn't the intent at the time, I think that somehow, all of these different mythological beasts being brought under an umbrella term actually kind of brought the world together. You can certainly take the "Hey, we have those too, they're called dragons." in a negative light, but for some reason, somewhere inside me, I felt a sense of solidarity and welcoming by calling the other monsters dragons. Lots of cultures can bring their own dragons, even if they didn't start that way, to a discussion about them. If you go to a dragon party with a picture of your culture's dragon, everybody will ask about it and it's lore and mythology, why it is the way it is, and how cool they are. Thereby sharing your culture and myths through the medium of big lizards that breath spicy air.
Maybe it's reductive to think that way or even offensive to people whose myths were forcibly recategorized, but somewhere in me, it feels like a bridge between cultures
It's like the term "Demon" and "Spirit" they were a natural fit for them.
I like this way of thinking, it's a little comforting.
It's not even wrong to call them out as the same myth. They may have adapted to each locales environment, but the frame story of the myths themselves clearly indicates that each concept of the dragon is connected to an older, perhaps truly universal myth that predates written history. It's probably to do with our instinctive fear of snakes, with other predators getting the chimera treatment because that's what ancient people did to create monsters in general. It's not unlike how the Romans identified the gods of other cultures with their own pantheon. They may have had a political angle when they did so, but they weren't wrong to identify commonalities with those cultures that had all come from the same part of the world before wandering far away from one another and long forgetting that they were once the same peoples.
@@RubyCarrots3232 this is more true than you think. Demons didn’t exist until Greece adopted the religion. What we think of today as demons were simply fallen angels. Greece translated it as Daemon which I believe meant “evil spirits” which technically isn’t inaccurate but it loses some of the context. Eventually the term gained traction and got anglicized into Demon. Every culture and religion has Daemon
@@RubyCarrots3232 this is more true than you think. Demons didn’t exist until Greece adopted Christianity. What we think of today as demons were simply fallen angels. Greece translated it as Daemon which I believe meant “evil spirits” which technically isn’t inaccurate but it loses some of the context. Eventually the term gained traction and got anglicized into Demon. Every culture has Daemon
Kaiju have largely taken the position Dragons once held - sometimes beneficial, even benign, but always destructive and powerful. Oftentimes, they are malign, and fighting them off is either folly or an undertaking of heroes, armies, and/or god-like figures.
Gosh I wish we had more dragons like that today. Not against the idea of pet dragons though, but we need to bring back ferocious fantasy dragons back. And we most certainly don't need any more My Little Pony-snake hybrids voiced by Awkwafina or tumblr OCs.
King Ghidora is literally both.
tiny me was seriously obsessed with the dragonology book and a documentary explaining the "totally legit" science behind their flight and fire breathing
Dragons have been done every which way, from silly to world ending.
Tolkien’s Ancalagon the Black is probably my favorite example of a dragon as an existential terror.
I disagree. How to Train Your Dragon didn’t overshadow the traditional depiction of dragons
Personally, the Eastern depictions of dragons have always been my favorite. Despite having godly levels of power and were far more intelligent than humans, they were mostly benign, creating rainfall to nurture the land. But if you disrespected them? Those rains would become a deadly storm or flood. In a way, they represented nature itself.
I'm actually writing a story myself where the dragons are literal incarnations of Natural forces, neither evil nor good. Comprised of the elements which they embody and tend to have a matching attitude towards most things. Oceanic dragons are literal amalgams of coral, sea life, water, and other various bits held together in a draconic shape, fickle and prone to rapid mood swings. While the slow and cumbersome stone dragons are big lazy do nothings who are practically impossible to stop once they get a moving.
This video is so wrong. Plenty of modern media still treats dragons as scary monsters. Look at Dance of The Dragons, sure people ride them but the dragons are barely under there control. Then there's Elden Ring where dragons are completely out of our control and treat humans as pawns on a chess board for their own conflicts.
Add in the monster hunter series and the off shoot games and stories and only very special people are even able to control any kind of monster much less once you get to the dragons.
...who wouldve thought that games that are about fighting 99% of the living animal population would make Dragon an enemy?
@mrdasgehtsienichtsan2020 really, I am bewildered at their barny suggestions.
@Lordgrim001 I believe that the idea is that dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have been considered dragons by certain people for quite some time. This said in my opinion I personally believe that dragons were a mix of two major factors working together to produce them. First off there were dragons that were directly based on actual animals of some kind. Then the other part was a combo platter of existing animals that resulted in people being able to effectively recognize and react to dangerous animals in their environment. For example the European dragons typically have traits of certain specific dangerous animals that were present though not well enough known for someone to recognize alone. For example venomous snake, toxic reptiles, a predatory birds. This is similar in other regions but the animals are a slightly different mix every single time. This resulted in dragons that are both strikingly similarly but also quite different from one another. Then you have certain more modern versions of dragons that are much more likely to be companions. The companion thing is because of the fact that a very large section of our population has pets of some kind or had pets or want pets. There is also another thing involving the desire to have a friend that will not abandon you.
@@mrdasgehtsienichtsan2020 the thing is for monster hunter in particular dragons aren't just another monster to fight and kill. Most things are just animals doing animal stuff. You aren't kill a rathalos because it wants to burn everything around it your killing it because it is a threat to people not as capable as a hunter. Your not hunting the deviljho because it hates everything your hunting it because it's metabolism makes it eat other wyverns constantly and that might become a problem for the local environment. Meanwhile things like alatreon kill everything around them for the crime of existing too close. Xeno'jiva lures in other dragons to absorb their power which could wreak the the entire ecosystem. Fatalis destroyed a whole kingdom because it hates humans. They are a different fight from the regular creatures you fight.
Wait… is this the natural course of all creatures? 100 years from now will we see nickelodeon versions of SCPs and regular horror monsters that will befriend the protagonist?
remember what w did to the wolves?
You think you have to wait that long? Before SCP was even widely popular, it had already happened. SCP is just cryptozoology fanfiction, and Secret Saturdays, Ben 10, Generator Rex, Danny Phantom, and many other cartoons have already tackled the "occult" things turned heroes or companions.
SCP's tend to become more extreme, though many of them are just haunted items or cryptids by another name. The Owl House has many things that could just be SCPs if taken out of context, and most of those things are friends with the protagonist.
As for horror monsters, again, already done since as far back at least as the Munsters.
@@muntu1221 where is my “How To Train Your Infinite Ikea” 😂
At that point, the foundation could be universally framed as the antagonists or the foster parents of the being that won’t be loved by the masses even.
@@Charolette21 They're kinda the antagonist already, aren't they?
Smaug a straight killer he was the best thing about the Hobbit movies.
He was his own individual, he was hateful, he had an ego, he was formidable and terrifying. He was the last fire drake of the north, the last true dragon of media.
Dragons are *still* cool!
In a different way.
*funny green website*
I’m reminded of the theory that dragon stories were partly inspired by the discovery of dinosaurs fossils. So in a way, people’s eternal fascination with dinosaurs is a way in that we are still fascinated of dragons.
@@xIstenbul oh sweet summer child
Soo true
@@Lars_Ziah_Zawkiansweet summer child? He's making a joke about how surprisingly relevant dragons are on a certain porn website, which, for the Internet, is a pretty standard type of joke. How is that particularly naive or childish?
I think a good presentation I’ve seen was the early parts (cause I haven’t been caught up) of the Wings of Fire series, making the dragons themselves the characters as well as having pretty detailed differences between different species, behavioral and cultural differences
My favorite type of dragon is friendly, hands down, but it's absolutely essential that I feel like that dragon has agency over itself. Like if it's bonded to a human(oid), then that human(oid) had better have legit earned the dragon's respect somehow. If it feels like that dragon had little to no choice but to be bonded it feels like it's just a member of a slave race/species and that's just really depressing to me. I'd rather read a story where the dragon is a monster than a glorified horse or fighter jet.
This is like scp 3844. The researchers learned so much about the dragon, the fantasy around it dissappeared.😢
Come on now. Dragons as predatory animals are sometimes what makes them cool. At least for me, the idea of learning how, and why a dragon is what is is fascinating.
Although i get the point isnt it pointless? Nobody(or nearly) nobody believes in dargons anymore as misterious creatures that roam the earth somewhere remote. They're just myth and culture, and you can still apreciate them like that, just research about it, talk to someone on a museum or your elders. As for all the more friendly or tame versions you see in kids movies and many high fantasy projects its just that we humans want to touch and understand all beatiful and mysterious things that we interact with, and thats hard to do if you have to turn tail every time you get even a whiff of a dragon nearby; its why we have zoos(and i have conflicting feelings about them). And before criticizing a franchise you have to take into account what their role is: in many games they're just fearsome cool looking beasts that provide valuable materials, and therefore it makes sense for an adventurer to categorise them in such ways; kids movies? obviously the point is to present likeable and visually attractive characters; and if we get into the realm of high fantasy these days is more of a mixed box, you'll find everything, mindless beasts, misunderstud scaly cats, wise and mystical or just a symbol of status. And finally i don't think that pretending to study and categorize them makes them boring or less terrifying, no more than sharks and tigers are beatiful, interesting and yet still misterious and frightening, of wich, being real, we have a much better understanding of. Sorry, i did like the video, didnt actuslly mean to sound so bitchy, though i am right.
Dragons are STILL and will always be cool in my book. 🐉😮
I'm generally a big fan of your videos but this one felt, for lack of a better word, dishonest? Like you were willfully ignoring large quantities of recent media and cherrypicking examples to make your point. You call out Mulan and How to Train Your Dragon as examples of how they've lost something, but don't acknowledge massive cultural forces, cornerstones of the modern dragon image like Game of Thrones where an entire city is razed, where you call back to Skyrim where Alduin is a world ending dragon, a literal apocalypse, and it came out after Mulan by 13 years. Other memorable dragons to feature prominently in western media recent-ish would be Smaug or even sticking with Disney you have Maleficent or the Hydra from Hercules. More broadly things like Godzilla could be classified as a dragon, certainly Ghidorah.
Even by the end of the video, the nostalgia for weird, unique, uncategorized dragons feels shallow. While we don't call them dragons, massive, impossibly powerful, scary monsters in general exist - unique and nuanced. The Godzilla property is a good example of that, but Kaiju from Pacific Rim were each unique, the sand worms of Arrakis in Dune, and so forth. Going back to your logic of each is its own thing and that dragon was a label superimposed on them, you can say 'well those aren't dragons' but then aren't you doing the same thing you complained about, using the dragon label to impose your expectation of what dragons should be instead of letting unique monsters be uniquely monstrous?
I don't know, I think of all your videos this is the first one that just felt completely off base.
u've nailed the dissonance i felt at a few points in the video to a T. i feel like there was some important messaging about the flattening of a nigh-universal cultural impulse into a marketable slice of the breadth of history behind it (the impulse to narrativize local fears & taboos into powerful beasts w interesting design overlaps, as well as the history of the term "dragon" being used to similarly flatten non-western cultures' mythologies), but it got muddied and, ironically, flattened. there's also some strange goalpost-moving used to empower the thesis/title that i don't believe was intentional but could have been ironed out w more time.
I concur
Sawyer Lee’s dragon project really has this old feeling about threatening and uncontrollable beasts. It’s awesome, it’s a lot like the ologies
Thank you so much for this video!!! I've always had a fascination with dragons, and in fact, my first story was about a race of people capable of turning into dragons. I never published that story, so I think I can finally go back to it with a clear head and redefine this race of people. Thank you!!!
I honestly disagree, I think the direction dragons have taken is fresh, I do wish to see dragons take a more dangerous approach though like they are cataclysms but could be friendly and like co workers but only when it benefits them, otherwise they are indifferent
The idea of making videos about old Fantasy stories and ways of writing is actually fabulous! Keep going, I have an idea for you : old sci fi and cosmological fantasies
Dragons aren't any less cool now, far from it. In an interconnected world that is more aware of each other's cultures, a world where creatures aren't restricted to their previous archetypes, dragons are as diverse as ever. It's the reason they are near impossible to adequately classify. Our ideas of what a dragon could be are limited only by imagination, and the fact that the word "dragon" is polyphyletic doesn't lessen what, or indeed who, they are.
Dude saw that we enjoy modern dragon lore and took it personally
In my opinion, if whatever I'm befriending _isn't_ a monster of mind-breaking scale, I don’t want it.
I for one have only one emotion for these creatures. Inspiration. These creatures of old and new, incarnations of power, danger, wrath, nature, benevolence, evil and mystery. Being a d&d nerd, it has presented to me so many stories of powerful and epic dragons who have shaken the world to its core, their mere presence changing the landscape to suit their needs.
I simply just adore these creatures, both the friendly, unfriendly and downright malevolent ones, i love them all and wish to bring them to life in the games i run them. To give them more variety and personality while fitting within one or two categories.
Though there was a quote i liked when i used it for my players when roleplaying a Silver dragon mentor figure to the party.
"As i said about the red dragons, they are savage, spiteful and above all ambitious, so dont think you have them figured out, among my kind, they are the most unpredictable as they have a proverb. To do as a book might describe you, you are no longer of Tiamat's brood, you are one amongst thousands of dragons lost to time"
Basically....dont expect them to all act the same or by what some sheet describes
The Dragons in the Legend of Vox Machina is a peak modern adaptation of dragons, I recommend everyone give the arrival of the cinder king a check it is truly a terrifying masterpiece.
"Hear me and obey INSECTS”
God I love TloVM dragons, so vicious.
6:35 man i grew up with those storys it feels so unreal and nostalgic listen to anyone talk about those characters.
If we are to approach our mythological creatures as if they are monsters, what will we do when we see formidable potential foes in real life? While I don't quite think projecting human or even ones own social structure and relationships is the answer for understanding animals or others is correct, I do think assuming they are incapable of such or portraying them as something to be feared is the answer either. One must acknowledge the potential danger, but also acknowledge the potential for things beyond human values and meaning. Just because something can be a threat, does not mean they are one, and until they prove themselves to be one we shouldn't judge them. To get back onto the point from the beginning, peoples best fiction affects their reality, if we do not create fiction to show that you can both cautious yet not destructive then maybe we shouldn't bother creating reality. Maybe this is what the dragons were trying to tell us all along. Peace and Love all.
I just want to thank you. I've been struggling with a block in writing for several months, and you've given me the inspiration to pick up the pen once more.
This video seems very unfocused and is full of contradictions. The videos seems to argue that dragons should be these evil creatures that shouldn't be categorized, but then goes on to show how dragons from different cultures were very different and could be benevolent. So which is it?
both of what you wrote, the creature that was originally called dragon during the middle english period, came from a symbology of evilness.
Nowadays we call "dragon" a lot of other mythological serpent-like creatures from other cultures
and in some cultures, for exemple chinese one, those creatures we call "dragon" were benevolent or had other very very different features than the creature that was called dragon during the middle english period
The Pern books have a tremendous twist on the genre for its day, slowly being revealed the series is scifi not fantasy but beyond that she had such a tremendous amount of world building that integrates the peculiarities of Pern so well
"Maybe its time to let dragons be something else." that... thats that the friendly dragons do. Listen, I love tale Foundry, I loveeee Tale Foundry, But i cant help but feel like the entire premise of this video is flawed, while still agreeing with almost every point made throughout. Please, let fantasy creatures be whimsical and unique and changing. let our idea of dragons be inverted, to something cute and friendly, and let something else, something terrifying and scary and new, unknown, take the place of the "dragon".
I know your whole argument here is that codification leads to homogenization and a loss of individual value, but I still want to recommend a special called Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. It's a fictional documentary produced by The Discovery Channel that depicts a biologist discovering that dragons were real and theorizing how they fit into the actual biological history of the world.
If you want a different take on dragon riders I can strongly recommend Naomi Novik "Her Majesty's dragon".
The premise is that we are in the napoleonic wars but every nation has an airforce out of dragons.
Where it gets interested is that the dragons are very indifferent about the social rules of the time. They care about their bonded rider. But then they might be like "If the king tells you to do sth. you don't like, why don't we just fly somewhere else or kill him?"
The dragon is used as an outsider of the (historical) society and forces the protagonist to ponder why he is fighting and if the systems he previously accepted as a given are indeed good.
I read that book and its amazing, I loved it
It's been ages since I read a it but doesn't Temeraire get a serious eye-opening moment when he's in Azia where dragons are treated more as people that sentient war planes ? It's a really special world, I need to pick it back up again. Fantastic series.
@@frostreaper1607 there are several eye-opening moments like that. I do think the first 3 books are where it's at. After that I don't really like where the story went, but up until that point it's amazing. When the dragons find out they can head-hunt ships is also pure gold.
"no Ur-Dragon"
*Laughs in Magic: the Gathering*
The video does feel a bit like Nicol bolas vs Ugin
I had mythology and oceanology!! Those books were so freaking neat and the little trinkets from the stories they tell were so cool to me as a kid. The mythology one had a little piece of gold yarn that was 'a piece of the golden fleece' and other little things like that! It ended with the author getting the midas touch and the last page is turning to gold on the corner. Cant remember what trinkets were in oceanology but I do known it had alot of mock accounts of letters from expiditions. When I have kids im definetly getting the whole set
People can say what they want about the Hobbit movies. But Bilbo's confrontation with Smaug is peak cinema and has to be one of my favorite depictions of dragons.
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I'm so happy you mentioned the Spiderwick Chronicles! I could basically call it my childhood - there was something so real about them, how at the same time everything was categoried, so it all made sense but at the same time everything was just so free, unexpected - it wasn't a dictionary or a math textbook, there was freedom, wildness, the unexpected, there was magic that worked just because it was magic (not complicated science)
I feel like many stories can't find the balance between it all
Well I mean there's Smaug right?
Well yeah, but he's from the early 1900s. He just happens to be lucky enough to still be culturally relevant.
@@greenhydra10 This comment came up at the bottom of my screen, I immediately came to say the same thing 😂
I love Smaug, but he's not even Tolkien's most loathsome, conniving, or powerful Wyrm - whom he wrote first, though it only published post mortem - read the Children of Hurin, if you dare, to meet Glaurung!
@@MagusMarquillin love Glaurung, I appreciate true haters through and through
I LOVE the way Dungeons and Dragons handles the creatures. They're varied, and nuanced; but ALWAYS creatures that command respect, and even a bit of fear.
"Back in the days dragons were cool, and now they aren't" is not really what I'd expect from a tales foundry video ngl. (Watched till 5:27 )
I suppose it was inevitable that dragons would become less mysterious. As the years go on, the unknown becomes explored, studied, and eventually becomes history.
A good-ish example of a modern day dragon thats both a beast of terror and, at the same time, a character thats shrouded in mystery is Grigori from the dragons dogma series.
The Legend of Vox Machina definitely goes for the large, evil, fearsome destructive beast route!
I also recently read Tress of the Emerald sea, which took a more old fearsome almost fairytail route. Intelligent and powerful... difficult to comprehend but enough that you might just convince them to allow you to live if you're lucky.
Well technically Long in Chinese does translate to dragon.