Good Monsters

I never bought “The Little Mermaid” for our children to watch since I thought Ariel was a spoiled brat who made bad choices and trouble for everyone. Nothing princessy about her.
Having grown up afraid of the dark and monsters I’ve taught myself that there are no such things as monsters, the dark is just the absence of light, and that the thing to be afraid of is Satan. Evil is real. I’ve had encounters similar to Joseph’s in the grove. Scariest thing that ever happened to me.

>Dragons are evil.

Of all the things to vociferously disagree about…but well, here we go.

(I speak with zero authority but intuition)

The natural state of dragons is evil, it is true. Even the ones that eat sheep instead of men—they are naturally vain, proud, and indifferent to Man. And they are not Men—not created in the image of the Most High.

But there are good dragons, just as there are good foxes, horses, and fishes. Age has allowed some to grow restful in righteousness, such that it is more work to sin than to do good.

It is possible that some may become men; it is possible that some men may become dragons. It is possible that one is simply a stage in development for the other; I cannot be sure.

Somewhere, scales overhead signify help long-awaited, not death.

There is a rumor among them that the Most High took the form of a man, rather than a dragon. Evil dragons cannot abide this thought and will kill you on the spot merely for mentioning it in their presence; good ones snort and shake their heads, but agree that that fits with their experience of how He seems to do things. The wisest of them, have learnt some humility from it.

I have used the present tense, but I may be referring to the ancient past or the distant future; it may be that in this time all dragons are evil. If so, we are the poorer for it.

Whoa, wait a second. Why do you think that Satan took on the form of a serpent? It’s because originally, the serpent was a symbol of Christ. Christ is the Original Dragon. Was not the brazen fiery flying serpent the symbol that Moses asked the children of Israel to look to if they wanted to live?

Of course, most ‘good’ dragons these days are weak approximations of the terror and majesty of an actual dragon. They are worms with wings, ‘nice’ and invertebrate.

On the other hand, I think of that one of the worst ways to corrupt is to insist that evil is good until you actually believe it. Ignore that sinking feeling! Black is white; light is darkness; evil is good!
Yeah, and that uncomfortable feeling you get when you see actual good happening? That’s your conscience. It’s trying to tell you something.
Monsters can become men, but men can also become monsters – see Eustace’s experience in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I remember seeing that thread. There may be some truth there, but I am not yet convinced. God saves all the work of his hands, except some men and women.

Of course, much of the problem here, is that we use the name ‘dragon’ to mean so many different things. It is a bit like banning horses because of the existence of tigers. There is the (speculative and crazy) idea that Dragons were Dinosaurs. Interestingly, they are twice mentioned in passing, in the Book of Mormon. I have yet to see a clear explanation of what that is about.

EC made an important point about serpents. I would also include the Brass Serpent and Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, the Meso-American diety with Messianic overtones. A dragon without legs is called a Wym.

But, lest I go to the opposite extreme – there is a certain element finds familiarity among the monsterous, and monsterousness among humanity. The Witcher goes in this direction (I think), with the idea that, even while fighting fearsome beasts, humanity is the real monsters. And THAT does really feel evil.

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/450864-the-line-separating-good-and-evil-passes-not-through-states

Dragons aren’t creatures–like snakes or horses or peoples–they are monsters.

A dragon that isn’t evil isn’t a contradiction in terms, its just a sapient flying lizard that is being made to act as a dragon so that one can forget the malice of real dragons.

Also, they are Scotsmen.
True Scotsmen.
The Irish ones don’t count.

I was going to copy what Seamus Heaney wrote about dragons in the preface to his translation of Beowulf, but I can’t find where I left that book. Basically he wrote that we have become so used to cute cartoon dragons that we don’t understand the terror they represented in ancient literature.

I would like to suggest that you bend your rule just a bit so as to include Cressida Cowell’s How To Train Your Dragon series (the books are quite different from the movies, and I would argue even more charming.) The books feature both good and bad dragons, and suggest that men lose their humanity when they engage in monstrous acts. The first couple are lighthearted and a little silly, but after book 7 or 8 or so they become a little darker, and more grown-up, but all in the ways we love.

I’m reminded of a comment or post made years ago by one of the regulars.

He had observed a shady-looking non-student character on campus in an area where only students should have been. Not wanting to judge a person based on appearances, he did not report the out-of-place person. He later learned of an assault, or some crime, in that area and at that time; and assumed that it had been the same subject.
—

I suppose this is what concerns G in moulding his children’s judgement — most often, people and things are what they first appear to be. Most often, things are true to their inherent nature.

Momof6,
the suggestion is appreciated, but I’m afraid the rule is more of a strong unthinking prejudice than it is an actual rule.