Tag: Dragons

Exploring Dragons: Myths to Movies

No!

“You’re inviting me to a movie?” I asked, incredulous. 

Usually, I am begging to go to the movies with them, and the response is “No!”. Curt no’s, polite no’s, humorous no’s. But ‘No’. The fault, I admit, is on both sides. I fall asleep before the movie starts, but the theatres make you fall asleep even before the movie starts. What’s with all the dimming of the lights, and the trailers for every movie they are thinking of releasing in the next decade? What’s a good, hard-working woman to do in a comfortable reclining seat at the end of a long day with some inconsequential music playing in the background, and the popcorn butter doing its magic in the old intestines, huh?

I start with a simple meditation technique involving closing the eyelids for a few beats of music longer, and then a few frames of trailer longer, and before I know it, the magical lands open to the subconscious mind throw open the cosmic doors, and I float in with a smile on my lips. The theatre hears a dramatic hiss at this point in the proceedings: “Amma! Get up! The movie started and you missed the opening!” 

Anyway, this time, the dragons of sleep may have made valiant attempts to snatch my consciousness to their realms, but I was firm, and resolute. I was going to watch the dragons take the sheep in the movie, not in my dreams. 

“Wake me up when the movie starts!” I said before starting the m. technique.  

“If you don’t get up, I’ll…I’ll”

“What? Tickle me?! Please!” said I, and drifted off. 

I was happy to learn that I was invited because the movie was good for me: not too much violence, has a happy ending, is not too depressing, and has dragons and humans in a beautiful setting. 

How to Train your Dragon 

Based on the novels by Cressida Crowell, this is a wonderful story of a boy who seems to be a reluctant heir to the vikings chief, and a soft-hearted, intelligent misfit in a bunch of knuckleheads who all value brawn over brain. I have always liked the series, and when I read Cressida Crowell’s article on her childhood influences, it only made the series dearer.

However, I still do not understand the impulse of large studios to remake the same stories over and over again. Did you really have to take the same movie again? 

Does Harry Potter really need a remake this soon?

Our Fascination with Dragons

In any case, the fascination of humankind with dragons is millennia old and the number of dragon stories is near inexhaustible. So, I am sure there isn’t exactly a dearth of dragon content. 

How could human imaginations in the absence of social media have imagined similar creatures (Fire breathing, of giant aspect and size ) the world over? 

Our tales speak of dragons across time and geographies too. 

Ancient Aliens: Mythical Dragons Across the Ages

“Speak politely to an enraged dragon” – JRR Tolkien

The metaphors of inner dragons are just as widespread

“You can’t map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld, we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere” – Terry Pratchett

“This Marcius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a creeping thing.”  – Shakespeare. It describes the transformation of the play’s protagonist, into a figure of immense power and ferocity. 

With all the imagery, humor and wit we have humankind must continue on in its quest to slay its inner and outer dragons, with the motto of Hogwarts in mind

‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ – which means ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon‘ – J K Rowling 

P.S: The children did tickle me when the movie started, and I am happy to say I enjoyed the movie.

🐲When Women Were Dragons 🐉

Intriguing beginnings:

There are powerful beginnings and there are intriguing beginnings to stories. It has been a while since I saw a beginning as brilliant as the one in the book, When Women Were Dragons – By Kelly Barnhill. 

women_dragons

Dragoning

Dragoning is the term that seemed to be used when some women turned permanently into dragons and left their human life aside – taking off to wherever dragons live. For those left behind, the phenomenon is bizarre, frightening, traumatic, and quite often fatal. 

This is how the book starts:

“Greetings, Mother- I do not have much time. This change (this wondrous, wondrous change) is at the very moment upon me.

…

I married a man who was petulant, volatile, weak-willed, and morally vile. 

…

But there were no babies, were there? My husband’s beatings saw to that. Tooth and claw. The downtrodden becomes the bearer of a heavenly, righteous flame.

…

I shall not miss you Mother. Perhaps I won’t even remember you. Does a flower remember its life as a seed? Does a phoenix recall itself as it burns anew? You will not see me again. I shall be but a shadow streaking across the sky-fleeting, speeding, and utterly gone.

– From a letter written by Marya Tilman, a housewife from Lincoln Nebraska, and the earliest scientifically confirmed case of spontaneous dragoning within the United States prior to the Mass Dragoning of 1955-also known as the Day of Missing Mothers”

I am midway through the book, and the story soars with the dragons – fiery tempests in teacups and how the placid bore it within themselves.

The book’s narrative voice is brilliant. Seamlessly moving between dragoning as a phenomenon and when it was first observed, slowly moving onto research of dragoning and its funding removed, to the whole topic becoming a taboo.

Society isn’t really mysterious once you understand the original intent. Cruel maybe, but not as mysterious. For instance, in this world, drawing or mentioning dragons could get children in serious trouble. Those who had lost a mother or a sister or a friend to dragoning don’t ever want to hear anything to do with it. They ignore it so it may never happen again. The news forgets to mention it, and society plows on.

For those looking for dystopian fiction or just a jolt from our current state, When Women Became Dragons, is worth a read.