I have really began to notice that dragons are EVERYWHERE. I challenge you to go into a kids store without finding eighty million dragon things. How to Tame a Dragon was a big hit this last year.
It isn't fair people!
When I was a child, I liked dragons before dragons were cool. I had to work really hard to find dragon things anywhere. Every time I did find something, I did a dance of victory like the hyper-active over-imaginative child that I was.
And now, they are everywhere. The dragon loving children of today have it too easy.
Not only that, dragons have been cheapened, lessened, enslaved to the same cuteness culture that already got the unicorns. I loved How to Tame your Dragon, but it is a real sign of the problem. You can't tame dragons people! And what about Dragon Tales? What the heck is that? Dragons are not cutesy beings whose sole purpose is to babysit annoying human children and learn lessons through non-dangerous "adventures".
Dragons are dangerous. So are unicorns, so are vampires, so are fairies. They are dangerous because they are other. They have rules and culture and law, but these are so very different from human rules and culture and law that we cannot understand them.
Now, Lisa Frank stole the unicorns a long time ago. She drained them of their wildness. She took the deadly point out of the their horns. She imprisoned them in a jail of rainbows and eternal improbable flowers.
Twilight may have sparklified the vampires, but the divergence from the true myth and to more modern interpretations began with Bram Stoker. The vampire as a restless spirit who died before his time and returns from the grave, more zombie or ghost than incubus, is long gone.
The fairies, fortunately, seem to be returning back to their proper place as dangerous and other. I think that Holy Black's novels do an excellent job portraying the old fairies in the modern world. Though Tinkerbell and Disney seem determined to ruin everything. I'm not saying that fairies couldn't be helpful. I'm just saying they usually weren't.
They shall not have the dragons! The dragons will not be tamed and shackled! You can cutesify and dress things up for children (between you an me, children don't need the cuteness. Adults need it so that they feel that their children are protected), but you cannot take my dragons!
DRAGONS WILL RULE THE PLANET!
ModernHelen
ps: Dragons will not really rule the planet because they are not real. Don't be alarmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment