How to write dragons? How do YOU handle dragons?
Hello frens,
I'm currently struggling with one semi-crucial point of a bunch of my projects: that being dragons.
That pushed me to write this post, of which the main point is.... How to handle dragons? How to write dragons well? How to come up with something that makes them work ?
Beccasse I have thought about this a lot but I'm stuck, given the following.
A very common thing with dragons is that they're either divided by element (fire, ice, whatever, you name it), color (RpGs but also a lot of kids books, surprisingly) or habitat, with some media using all of the former ("Ice dragons are white and live in the icy north seas" kind of thing) which makes them feel more like pokemon or elementals than "dragons" like in myth/sagas... or they're all the same, with no variety: all the dragons in the world/universe have the exact same characteristics and sometimes are even all the same colors, even when there's very big diversification of habitats and/or vastness of the setting. On top of it there's the question of making them sentient or not, and magical or not.
We have examples of dragons checking all the boxes with DnD and RpGs, and of dragons being just very big animals with an affinity to magic in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and of them being animalistic yet somewhat smart but not magical at all in HTTYD, and the list goes on. Some considerations regarding it:
A thought is that in GoT dragons dont really feel much dragon-y, despite being "fire breathing winged magical beasts". Speaking strictly of the first books and the series, as much as they talk big game with mysticism and all, in the end they're like... big fire breathing chickens. Sort of anonymous, sort of "this could be any other magical creature and it would change virtually nothing". They're much more impactful in the House of the Dragon series or even just in the "background"/history of Westeros which – while still making them feel more like weapons in the hands of the Targaryens– at least actually establishes the basics for the "magical" feeling of dragons (them living around volcanoes, and possibly being products of genetic engineering... then they're not the only dragon-esque creatures: there's fyrewyrms and wyverns around too (which we don't really see, though).)
In HTTYD, despite being more like pokemons by the end of the series, they do feel like dragons. They're dangerous animals highly adapted to their respective habitats, and ok, there's really no mention of magic as far as I know, but they do feel dragon-y, they feel authentic – beyond the simple over-diversification that happens through the movies and series. They have a unifying "vibe".
In the Inheritance cycle... they're kind of like the stereotypical "medieval" dragon yet sort of diluted and tweaked a bit. They are highly intelligent creatures with an affinity to magic, they have telepathy sort of, and occasionally (read: when it's convenient to the plot they can even use magic. And they all look the same. They still crave shiny things a little (somehow, it gets mentioned during one of the books but I dont think it ever gets explained, and overall despite being so smart, they really are just talking apex predators with random magic slapped on top. The "occasionally with a lot of focus and prep they can use magic because they are very magical in nature" is actually a cool concept, and in the end they do feel like dragons (kinda), thought its more like if someone had took Tolkien's dragons and slapped telepathy and psychic powers on them. In Tolkien's works... dragons are varied. There's the first dragons (wingless and the second-generation dragons (winged. They further divide in "Fiery" (fire breathing) and "Cold" dragons (not able to breathe fire), and there's cold winged dragons and fiery wingless dragons for example. They're all highly intelligent, get massive with age, and some of them are able to use some sort of "charming" hypnosis-like effect. Overall they feel like dragons straight out of sagas or myth: smart, fearsome creatures at times capable of charming with their gaze.)
so, I wondered: how do you handle dragons? what are your tips to write them well? How do you deal with them to make them feel "dragons" ? This question sorta works as TL;DR too.
P.S. sorry I dont know how to format the post in a way that the long-ass paragraphs can be hidden