Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Difference between revisions

[[File:n170083.jpg|frame|Needs more awesome. The only dragon here is on the [[Covers Always Lie|cover]].]]

 

 

Even though [[Our Dragons Are Different]], they are still awesome in whatever form. Therefore works where dragons are not important to the story will often throw in a dragon anyway, just for the hell of it.

 

Compare [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha]], [[Rent-A-Zilla]], [[Dragons Up the Yin-Yang]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has thrown in some dragons. The first one is a guardian in [[The Library of Babel|Library Island]] who apparently works as a watchman for Albireo Imma. The latter of the two dragons existed solely for [[Ninja|Kaede]] to defeat [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|while blindfolded]]. There's also the significantly [[Super Weight|less-powered]] ([[Action Survivor|only having recently graduated]] from [[Muggle]] status) [[Badass Bookworm|Yue]] taking a [[Biological Mashup|Gryphon-Dragon]] down with an [[Joke Weapon|ornamental dagger]] and [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]. At about the same time [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|Kaede]] brought hers down, [[Everything's Better with Samurai|Setsuna]] and [[Cute Bruiser|Asuna]] took another one down, as well. [[Big Bad|Fate]] also demonstrates an [[Offhand Backhand]] to kill one of those dragons that had been left with a [[Non-Lethal KO]] by the heroines. Dragons are pretty much the [[The Worf Effect|Worf]] of Negima. Though there is Vrixas Nagasha, which fought Jack Rakan to a standstill.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', you can mold an element into a dragon-shaped projectile, for example Kakashi and Zabuza made two dragons made of water clash.

* In [[One Piece]], the leader of the Revolutionary Army, [[Mysterious Parent|Dragon]] is apparently only called so because it sounds cool.

** {{spoiler|In chapter 655, Luffy's crew encounters a real dragon.}}

* From ''[[Bleach]]'', we have Toshiro Hitsugaya, who's zanpakuto can manifest into an ice dragon.

* In [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|the 2003 anime version]] of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Envy takes the form of a dragon just before crossing the gate.

* Some of the most powerful [[Digimon]] belong to the "dramon" class, such as [[Digimon Adventure 02|Imperialdramon]] and the Seadramon line. They are [http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Dramon characterized] as having traits associated with dragons, but not all of them look draconic; [[Digimon Adventure|Birdramon]] looks like a big [[Toothy Bird]], but ''does'' [[Kill It with Fire]].

 

* When Ron Marz took over writing ''[[Witchblade (Comic Book)|Witchblade]]'', his introductory arc (which was meant as a compelling jumping on point for new readers) pitted the hero against an evil cult within the Catholic Church intent on summoning a "living god" from another dimension. Given Witchblade's typical milieu - it's far from high fantasy - one would expect something bipedal and vaguely demonic or [[Light Is Not Good|angelic]], or more rarely, a Cthuluesque eldritch abomination. Nope, not this time. Just a straight-up D&D-style bat-winged dragon.

* In ''[[X-Men|The Uncanny X-Men]]'' during the early 80s, in the midst of a climactic battle between the X-Men and the Brood, Kitty Pryde's life is saved...by a [[Shoulder-Sized Dragon|small dragon]] who flies in out of nowhere, who later becomes Kitty's companion Lockheed and a popular fixture of the X-books.

 

* In the [[Daria]] [[Fanfic]] series '' 'Legion of Lawndale Heroes' '', the Legionnaires are fighting The Alliance - another team of young metahumans. After [[The Worf Effect|her first volley is literally brushed aside by one of the kids, who says, "I thought you were going to be impressive"]], Quinn turns to Charles 'Upchuck' Ruttheimer and says, "Charles... impress them." [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|They are suitably impressed when Charles moves towards them - and turns into GODZILLA.]]

* In the Lord of the Rings fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3871735/1/Ancient_Prophecy_fullfilled Ancient Prophecy fullfilled]'', the author's OC's are something akin to Maiar (In-Universe Angelic Beings) who can shapeshift, and prefer to walk around as dragons. Que an [[Oh Crap]] moment when the father of those OC's decides to come back into the picture...

*** [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]

 

* When Maleficent [[Scaled Up|turns into a dragon]] at the end of ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]''. Even if the Disney version didn't originate that, it's likely an earlier version did it for this trope.

* In another Disney animated feature, ''[[The Sword in the Stone]]'', the wizard's duel culminates in Mad Madam Mim [[Loophole Abuse|breaking her own rules]], one being to not turn into anything make-believe, such as pink dragons, and turning into a ''purple'' dragon.

 

* The film ''[[Godzilla]]: Final Wars'' features a battle between the high-tech submarine, the Gotengo, and the Chinese dragon Kaiju, Manda. Manda is only there as yet another random monster to be featured in the movie and is quickly killed off at the beginning.

** And then there's Godzilla's final battle against <s>Monster X</s> Keizer Ghidorah, which is also an homage to the classic "Godzilla VS King Ghidorah" battles.

* "[[Starsky and Hutch (film)|Alright guys]], [[Crowning Moment of Funny|I'm not gonna lie to you]]. [[Perverse Sexual Lust|This is gonna get kinda weird]]... [[Up to Eleven|Two dragons.]]"

* ''[[Sucker Punch]]''.

* As the page quote shows, this is subverted and lampshaded in ''[[The 13th Warrior]]''. It turned out the "fire wyrm" is just {{spoiler|a cavalry with torches, and Herger said he would have preferred an actual dragon. Of course, given that the size of the fire wyrm in question meant it was comprised of literally ''hundreds'' of warriors, all mounted on horseback and moving independently, his preference for a straight-up lizard is understandable.}}

 

== Literature ==

* The [[Wheel of Time]] - thus far, no Dragon of any sort has materialized except the "Dragon Reborn", a male Channeler meant to fight the Dark One. His emblem is a lizardlike dragon, but no-one has any idea what it is, only that it's his emblem. The male half of the Aes Sedai symbol has become negatively associated with the Drgaon Reborn, and conflated with the Dark One. There's no real reason for either of them to be in, except this trope.

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'' have been known to throw dragons in for the hell of it. A dragon flew out of the portal created by Glory in the season 5 finale of Buffy, and Angel fights a dragon ([[Offscreen Moment of Awesome|offscreen]]) in its series finale (also its season 5 finale, interestingly enough).

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', they have to deduce a dragon's name as part of a test. Vala suggests they start guessing and names it "Darrell", while Cam throws in "Smokey".

* ''[[Tic-Tac-Dough]]'': Literally, as part of the gane show's [[Luck-Based Mission]] [[Bonus Round]]. The objective was for the winning contestant to find, on a 3-by-3 game board, dollar amounts adding up to at least $1,000, or the words "TIC" and "TAC" before uncovering a space with a computer-animated dragon to win the cash and a prize package; finding the dragon ended the game immediately with nothing won.

* In ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]'' and [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|its American adaptation]], the main team pilots [[Humongous Mecha]] based on [[Stock Dinosaurs]]. The [[Trope Namer|TropeNaming]] [[Sixth Ranger]]s pilot a dragon-styled mecha. Said Sixth Rangers became [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]s {{spoiler|With the one that lived becoming [[The Hero]] in later seasons}}. Deny the correlation as coincidence at your peril!

 

== Music ==

* For no apparent reason, Chris Squire, bassist of [[Yes]], sometimes wears a robe with a dragon on at shows.

 

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', Elementals gain draconic forms when they breach a certain threshold of power, regardless of what their original form was. There's no real reason for this; [[Word of God]] says that they are emulating the ideal of the Five Elemental Dragons, who, while not elementals themselves, were the basic template that elementals were designed off of. But we all know the real reason.

 

== Toys ==

== Video Games ==

* Since so many [[Video Game]] [[RPG]]s have dragons included as monsters for this trope, it would be easier to list exceptions.

** The ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' series is another exception, as the main character is ''always'' a human-dragon hybrid of some sort.

*** That doesn't mean that you don't fight dragons. In fact, every game in the series has you fighting against your own kind for some reason or another, and they are ''always'' more powerful than you.

** The paper-thin background lore is that Crusader, the strongest of the Espers, was sealed during the ancient War of the Magi using the power of eight dragons. These "Crusader" dragons are vicious, but defeating them will get you the Crusader magicite, the only Esper that can teach Merton/Meltdown. [[Awesome but Impractical|Which really isn't much of a reward, but hey.]]

** The Bahamut summon that appears in almost every FF game.

* [[Altered Beast]] allows players to become a dragon in level 2. Also, two of the bosses are dragons.

* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'', the only games in which dragons of some sort appear without playing a major part in the story is Daggerfall, with the small and actually-not-dragons dragonlings (an actual dragon is in the game files, but it does not seem to have been implemented). The other three games with dragons - Redguard (the super-weapon that set-up the situation and Tiber Septim's loyal servant), Oblivion (an avatar of a God that shows up to rescue the day after desperate measures are taken) and Skyrim (the [[Big Bad]]) - all have them as important parts of the story, and so does not quite fit this trope. That the God of Time near-universally amongst Tamriel's peoples is a ''Dragon'' God of Time may have something to do with this trope, though...

** The red crystal forms are fixed, you just have to be a bird to reach the dragon one (and the gargoyle one). Temporarily turning into one via green crystal works too, since the effect doesn't wear off inside the cloud maze for some reason.

* In the infamous MMORPG ''[[Maple Story]]'', there's a 3rd job class that is pretty much dedicated to this trope. The Dragon Knight. Said class's skills ALL INVOLVE DRAGONS in some way or another. Dragon Crusher, Dragon Fury, Dragon Roar, Dragon Blood, etc. These attacks are arguably some of the flashiest skills in the game, which is a huge motivation point for those who went for the extreemely boring Spearman class and want to keep going forward.

** In the beginning of the game when you are first exploring the vessel, you see the frozen corpse of the Ridley from Super Metroid. Later in the game, the X parasite takes Ridley's DNA, leaving the corpse's shell.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'' features Valoo, an ancient sky spirit/dragon. One of the game's first dungeons is all about figuring out what's wrong with him, the first boss you fight is torturing him, and farther into the game he repays the favor by roasting Ganon in his own tower, which is a huge [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for him.

* The ''[[Shining Force|Shining]]'' series is chock-full of dragons, playable or otherwise, and they're almost always among the strongest characters. ''Shining Soul'' introduced an entire new species, Dragonutes, to the canon.

* ''[[Custom Robo]]'' has the Dragon Gun (and its cousin, the Wyrm Gun), which is dragon-shaped. If that wasn't enough, it shoots dragon-shaped bullets.

** Unless you count the mana-circuit-eating dragon from the anime that replaced the H scene.

* The ''Xtended'' mods for the ''[[X (video game)|X]]-Universe'' series adds the "Shivan Dragon", a large (it's about 100 meters in wingspan) black dragons that flies around in [[Space Whale|space]], shoots lasers from its mouth, and attacks everything in sight. The dragons have no real impact on the player or the rest of the universe except for chance encounters in border sectors, or if the player owns stations in Unknown Sectors, where the dragons set up nests.

 

== Web Animation ==

* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' didn't have a dragon until someone asked Strong Bad if he could draw one. Thus, Trogdor was born.

** And the "S Is For Sucks" Dragon.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Terezi Pyrope's lusus from ''[[Homestuck]]'' is a dragon. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but is awesome none the less.

** Terezi occasionally also [[Role Play]]s as a dragon. This, too, has nothing to do with the story.

 

== [[Web Originals]] ==

* There was a story arc in [[Avatar Adventures]] revolving around dragons. It was awesome.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In the ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' episode "Spellbound", villain [[Mailer Daemon|Malchior]] could have easily been a human [[Evil Sorcerer]] whose spirit was [[Sealed Evil in a Can|trapped in one of Raven's spellbooks]] without substantially altering the plot- but he turns out to have been a dragon, just for that special dose of awesome.

* Spike, a baby dragon, has been in the ''[[My Little Pony]]'' cartoons, in their various incarnations.

 

== Real Life ==