Of The Supreme Importance Of Dragons In Epic Tales

14 Nov 2010 2 Comments

by nainu in Scribbles Tags: dragons, epic tale

Anything is a story. It becomes a tale only if it begins with the words ‘Once upon a time…” And for a tale to be EPIC, it needs a dragon. It is a truth (not yet universally acknowledged) that every writer writing an epic story must be in want of a dragon. My friend didn’t think my theory made sense but I convinced her otherwise. First by repeating ‘I’m right, you’re stupid’ over and over again and then later by coming up with actual arguments that convinced her.

To understand the ultimate importance of dragons in epic tales, one has to visualise a tale bereft of dragons.

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom of …….. there lived a beautiful princess in a stone tower. The tower was in the middle of a forest and the beautiful princess was a little cold and lonely but not too unhappy. She was free to leave any time but didn’t wish to since the tower was her home. A handsome young knight was riding in the forest on his beautiful white horse and stopped by the tower to see the beautiful princess. “Hey there! Are you a damsel in distress?” he called out. She looked down and replied “Oh no, I just live in this tower. It’s quite comfortable.” This answer stumped the knight. What was one supposed to say to a princess in a tower who was happy to be there? “Thats lovely. But are you sure there are no dragons that you need me to slay? Or even a pack of wolves to fight with?” The princess looked down at him bewildered. He was a mighty queer chap. Who wanted dragons around? So she just shook her head silently and an awkward silence ensued. The knight was intensely uncomfortable. All he wanted was an adventure-not an awkward conversation with a damsel-not-in-distress! He waved awkwardly and rode off into the sunset. And they both lived reasonably average existences. The end.

And that is why a tale without a dragon is nowhere close to epic. Now, if there was a dragon in the story, it would have gone something like this:

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom of …….. there lived a beautiful princess in a stone tower in the middle of a forest. She was as beautiful as she was unhappy. And she was very unhappy because she was trapped in the tower by a scary fire-breathing dragon who wouldn’t let her out into the sunshine. A handsome young knight was riding in the forest on his beautiful white horse and stopped by the tower. He could see the princess’s silky, beautiful hair at the narrow window at the top and fell in love with her immediately. He knew intuitively that she was a damsel in distress and he had to save her. He needed desperately to get to the top of the tower and rescue her but found the stairs were guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. With his supreme ninja skills, he cartwheeled onto the dragon’s back and clung on for dear life as the beast tried to shake him off. The knight then jumped into the air with a loud war cry and drew his light saber from inside his shirt. The saber flashed green and red as he directed beams of light into the dragon’s eye and squirted tequila into its nostrils. The dragon fell down in a dead faint as the knight rushed to the top of the tower, swept the princess into his arms and jumped with her onto his horse’s back. His horse then turned into a unicorn and they rode off into the sky. They all lived happily ever after. The end.

I don’t think I need say anymore. Dragons are obviously the only cool things in epic tales. Also light sabers. But yeah, dragons.

=) peace

Author’s Note: If I was a traditional Epic tale-ist I would probably have had the dragon die. And there would be an absence of tequila and light sabers. But since I am after all my very own unique little snowflake, I’m going to let my tale stay epic the way it is.

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