Of Dragons

[thetableyoufearthemost]

  “The purpose of fairytales isn’t to teach children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. The purpose of fairytales is to teach children that dragons can be defeated.” 

Neil Gaiman began the tradition of trying to quote G.K. Chesterton on this topic from memory (and therefore, naturally, misquoting him) in Coraline. I’ll continue the tradition by offering my own misremembered version of the quote above. After all, it’s only fitting: fairytales evolve with each new telling, and so, I suppose, should sayings about them. 

As all versions of Chesterton’s saying suggest, the world is filled with terrible creatures, and no one who has spent much time around children believes they need to be persuaded that this is true. Even in this Weberian age of disenchantment, children have an innate understanding that a dragon or bogeyman or some other fell creature might cause them enormous harm–even if (especially if) those fell creatures take the form of adults who shouldn’t be trusted. The world is a scary place, and today’s children still know it despite what adults tell them, not because of it. From a vague terror of the dark, childhood fears grow and crystallize into more concrete fears: “maybe there aren’t monsters under my bed, but I saw on the news that another child in my city was kidnapped recently, and that is very scary!” 

How this sense of dread develops and at what age varies from child to child, of course. In both my personal and professional life, I’ve had occasion to be involved with gifted education. In those circles, the cliche is a precocious kindergartner who reads the newspaper over his father’s shoulder: such a child may well have the cognitive ability to understand what it is he’s reading, but not what we adults would call the “emotional maturity” to handle the content, and will thus lose a great deal of sleep to nightmares. But children need not be able to read to understand the terrors the modern world holds… just ask any parent of a preschooler who has been through an active-shooter drill at school. Dragons abound. 

What’s needed, then, is a way to teach children that these dragons in their lives can be defeated. Even better if we can teach them that they themselves might be the ones to prevail in battle. After all, we don’t want children to grow up to be petrified by constant fear, nor to be the sort of people who always waits around for other people to solve their problems for them. 

And for the longest time, we had ways of imparting that lesson: the aforementioned fairytales. The societies of mankind have always had myths and legends that featured big, terrible monsters that seemed to be on the verge of destroying everything we love and hold dear. These monsters could often only be stopped through great personal sacrifice and uncommon bravery… but they could be stopped. 

To be sure, we still have fairy tales, of a sort. Something’s happened to them, though. The monsters have been… sanitized, shall we say. 

And that, dear readers, has been a disaster for children, in my humble opinion. 

Let’s take dragons as our starting point. 

***

Dragons used to be more-or-less uniformly terrifying in the Western imagination. They were the sorts of creatures whose odious appetites required the frequent ingestion of virgin maidens. They hoarded stolen gold for no apparent reason other than the stroking of their own egos. They belched fire hot enough to melt a suit of armor (and the knight within it). They left villages in smoky ruins and they terrorized countrysides.Their malevolence was only matched by their cunning, and (in some versions) their skill in magic rivaled the greatest wizards of the land. 

That’s not to say that dragons were never good in the older legends. It’s just that even when they were good (which was rare), like C.S. Lewis’ Aslan, they were never safe. 

What are today’s dragons like? 

Well, more often than not, in modern fairytales they’re the sort of misunderstood creature you might make your friend if you try hard enough. In fact, a popular series of children’s movies today suggests that a dragon might not only be your friend, he might be the sort of creature that can be trained (as if he were a scaly, flying horse). More importantly for the corporations behind these dragons, they’re the sort of creature that make for adorable plush animals and other merchandise. 

This has been a growing trend for several decades now. If you’re my age or slightly older, you might remember Pete’s Dragon, in which the creature is, well… not going to be haunting the dreams of any peasants anytime soon. 

There are a handful of frightening dragons still roaming the skies of our imaginations these days, but often they’re portrayed only in the sort of content we don’t expect for children to consume–I think here of Game of Thrones, which is off-limits to children for many reasons not having to do with wings and scales. In modern children’s stories it’s profoundly difficult to find a terrifying dragon. 

***

Dragons are far from the only monsters who have undergone this friendly makeover. I recently caught a bit of a preteen movie my child was watching in which the protagonists were zombies attending the local high school, struggling to fit in and (against all odds) perhaps even be elected homecoming king & queen. I couldn’t help but imagine George A. Romero rising up out of his own grave in protest…

Perhaps no other monster has gone through such an intense process of nice-ification (if I may be allowed to make up a word) as the vampire. Vampires reigned as the most horrifying creatures around for many years. Nowadays, as often as not, they’ll teach your young children basic math skills or be the kind of devoted and gentlemanly boyfriend that you’ll be delighted that your teenage daughter is dating.

Again, horrifying zombies and vampires still exist, but usually only in tales meant for adults. Children have a hard time finding terrifying monsters. 

***

While I suspect some of the motivations behind this trend are honorable–wanting to teach children lessons about not fearing the Other as a way of combating racism and xenophobia and other forms of bigotry is no doubt part of this, and I support that wholeheartedly– I still believe that children need stories with truly horrifying monsters, especially when they’re instructive on how the monster might lose. After all, art ought to reflect reality on some level.

Children know this too, by the way. As a teacher, I’ve seen an increasing number of students (of an ever decreasing age) carting a Stephen King book tucked under one arm while walking through the hallways. I’m not sure how many of them have parents that know what they’re reading, but none of them ought to be surprised: the grown-ups sanitized all of the Grimms Fairytales and other scary stories for children, so the kids have had to find fright elsewhere…

***

Is there a place for good monsters in stories?

Absolutely. I’m not going to lie to you, as someone with a deep love for Tim Burton’s work (among other things), I’m all about a monstrous protagonist. 

But the difference there is that these stories–when well done– represent the hard work of incorporating the Shadow in a Jungian sense. The Nightmare Before Christmas isn’t a great movie because Jack Skellington makes for an adorable plush toy, it’s a great movie because Jack learns to embrace the dark parts of himself he’s tried hard to bury (pun very much intended). Edward Scissorhands isn’t great art because Johnny Depp makes for a hot boyfriend despite his monstrous hands, it’s great art because Edward’s very monstrosity is what both sets him apart as a hero and marks him for inevitable suffering. Burton’s monsters never cease to be monsters; they never pretend the Shadow isn’t there. 

None of that incorporation of the Shadow (as we’ve mentioned before, a vital part of Jung’s theory of Individuation) is possible when we pretend that a dragon is as cuddly as a cocker spaniel. 

***

One of the things I most appreciate about Dungeons & Dragons and other TTRPGs is that they’ve done a wonderful job of restoring the frightening nature of dragons and other monsters. None of the artwork that accompanies D&D by the greats like Larry Elmore or Jeff Easley ever invites you to snuggle the Dragon–it’s meant to scare you, but also to let you know that if you should defeat such a ferocious and gargantuan Thing, that will be an accomplishment worth remembering. 

As a parent and an educator, I particularly appreciate the treatment of vampires in D&D. Take, for instance, this quote that Tracy Hickman wrote in the introduction to the Curse of Strahd module for the 5th Edition of D&D:

“But the vampire genre has taken a turn from its roots in recent years. The vampire we so often see today exemplifies the polar opposite of the original archetype: the lie that it’s okay to enter into a romance with an abusive monster because if you love it enough, it will change.

When Laura and I got a call from Christopher Perkins about revisiting Ravenloft, we hoped we could bring the message of the vampire folktale back to its original cautionary roots…”

Amen. 

The good news is that not only do you not have to date vampires, they can be defeated. Just like even the most evil of dragons… 

Oh sure, you may have to level up for quite a while before you yourself are ready to face the fell beast down. You will have to learn spells, and master weaponry, and perhaps form alliances with people you’d just as soon not have to deal with. You’re certainly going to have to face your own monstrousness first. 

But fairytales and RPGs alike impart this truth: slaying real dragons is never easy, but it is, without question, possible…