The Dark Triad: Dragon's Death Kickstarter Update #3, £4,578 and Counting
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You might think the following a crazy idea, but just the other day I was thinking why dragons exist in the human culture and myth, what might be the true origin of their nature and folklore associated with them during the centuries humans gace dwelt on the earth. I can think of a natural and a psychological motivation.
The natural motivation I think could be somehow plausible in the sense that we can trace the origins of some similar stories. Our ancestors supposedly thought that the bolts of lightning were caused by the gods' wrath. Thus the advent of sacrificial rituals among the different cultures. The same way humans invented certain gods to explain natural causes, the dragon could also be related to a power of nature that could not be explained at the time. I'm thinking of volcanoes and their brutal, devastating power. One can imagine how many villages or cities would perish under the fire spurt by this natural force, and what kind of explanations the ancient survivors would try to make up to explain that incomprehensible phenomenon of killer lava being furiously ejected from a big hole on the earth that nobody would dare to approach for closer scrutiny.
The psychological side that justifies the existence of dragons can be more difficult to explain, as the natural phenomena has not an obvious direct grip on the matters of the mind, heart, and soul. But we have some clues in mythology. Usually animals are conferred certain human traits, and we can think of a dragon as a mix of different animals. The serpent, deer, bull, and cat are some of the animals that have been poured in the making of the dragon depending on the culture and epoch.
It will help us to understand the psychological side that the dragon could represent if we think that our ancestors used to confer psychological traits to those animals. Thus, the serpent could symbolize sagacity or cunning, the bull boldness or violence. Depending on the culture, they were bearers of a positive or negative side. Yes, we come back to the good and evil side of things. BUT.
.the same way the electricity has a positive and a negative side, it can't exist without a third force, a neutralizing factor. Thus a Triad is born. And a Triad generates a visible, tangible phenomenon. So, we as humans also have what we could consider good or bad qualities. Thus the dragon has been represented as evil sometimes, and the hero needs to kill him to rescue the princess , in an allegory that means he must overcome his fears to achieve his goals in life. Here, the neutralizing factor between a fearsome character and his other extreme, the tyrant, is the conscious struggle to keep the balance. And this struggle is only possible when one is aware of his biased attitude towards others or himself.
