HC SVNT AWESOME

Game of Thrones is all the rage on the blogosphere and Twitterverse and all those other online sources of baseless opinions which, sadly, I belong to. Even though it puts my soul at hazard, I finally broke down and tweeted: "Okay. I'll be a part of this world."

As my college friends can attest, there isn't a TV series that I haven't seen. We all remember that two week stretch during sophomore year where I marathoned seasons 2-5 of Blossom and nearly wrote my term paper on Joey instead of D.H. Lawrence. With Game of Thrones, however, I'm waiting to read the book first. Partly because I hear it's a great read. Mainly I'm doing this for the same reason that before torrenting (what? I would never do that!) V for Vendetta, I read the comic book: so I could say "God, the book was so much better! Why did they change detail XYZ and leave out character Q?" Without reading a single page, I feel entitled and better than most people. Exactly like incoming Harvard freshmen.

A co-worker of mine was turned off by the Game of Thrones series since it was "high fantasy." Upon asking what that means, she replied, "dragons flying around all the time."

Call me crazy, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with dragons flying around all the time. Hell, this is a huge selling point for me. I would have led with "dragons flying around all the time." Too many times have I looked out my window and been disappointed that dragons aren't soaring past, devouring seagulls as they incinerate windmills. Dragons are eternally cool and impossible to screw up, like Jeff Bridges or seersucker.

Let me put it this way: If you were to Google "Dragon," your search result would be, "Are you sure you don't mean AWESOME Dragon?"

There has never been a movie/tv series/rock opera with a dragon that has sucked. Never does someone say, "Yeah, it was a good movie, but the dragon really bogged it down." (Sidebar: the same goes for Craig T. Nelson).

Now, the last thing that I want to become is one of those freaks who become obsessed with fantasy and the power of crystals and use pewter dragon figurines as their power center while frequenting Renaissance fairs. I'm merely a believer in the unalienable truth that a giant winged dinosaur who can spit fire and presumably speaks with an erudite British accent is brilliant.

Let's run the gamut of dragons improving fiction. (NOTE: This is running the gamut, not listing. Lists are for women and VH1 specials).

Dragonheart: Repurposing Val Kilmer's costume from Willow, Dennis Quaid stars as a campy hero who befriends a giant dragon that sounds exactly like the Highlander. Perfect.

Reign of Fire: Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey (I'm ashamed that I spelled "McConaughey" correctly the first time), and Gerard Butler running away from fireballs in slow motion. Forget Star Wars. We need a 3D special edition of Reign of Fire. And oddly enough, out of the three Christian Bale is the one who goes shirtless.

Pete's Dragon: Live-action/animation hybrid featuring the music of Helen Reddy. Truly, the Avatar of its day.

Puff the Magic Dragon: After many long, sober decades, this song FINALLY made drugs cool via music.

Professional wrestling has embraced the dragon, as evidenced by Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Ultimo Dragon, and my personal favorite, the American Dragon Bryan Danielson.

I run into some issues with Smaug. In the "pro" column, he's gigantic. He hoards gold and rubies like a scaly Fed Chairman (redundant?). Yet his name is "Smaug," spelled with superfluous vowels. Some might think that this adds colour to his person, but it's truly an dishonour to the whole dragon race. Strunk and White your own name and just go by "Smog." If anything, your name will evoke more fear in the hearts of Los Angelinos.

SIDEBAR: Although he was easily taken down by Hobbits and an old, bearded, de-powered Magneto, it bears noting that hobbits are not the weakest of adversaries. Ever since Sauron went the way of the Middle Earth Dodo (the Frododo), Hobbits' street cred soared through the roof of their 3ft tall houses. Being taken down by Bilbo Baggins is like UConn losing to George Mason. It's not embarrassing if they make the Final Four.

Mulan offers quite possibly the weakest addition to this compilation in Mushu. Mushu never really attained the requisite level of awesomeness to count himself next to Smaug and Sean Connery on this list. Then again, you had Eddie Murphy offering the voice of a stereotypical black man to a character that is a stereotypical Asian dragon. Two racisms make it right.

The works of C.S. Lewis were full of dragons. Granted, they were allegories for Christ and human failings, but they're still dragons.

Trogdor. It's up for debate whether he is a dragon, a dragon-man, or just a man, but one fact is empirical: he is still Trogdor. And that ain't not bad.

Honorable mentions/I'm too lazy to go into detail: Albie the Racist Dragon, Dragonball Z (Oddly enough, it has the fewest dragons per capita), the New Zealand one-hit-wonder of the same name, and I think that Hagrid had a dragon (which sounds like a Hogwarts nursery rhyme).

****

Find a dragon that sucks. I dare you. They spit fire. They fly. They guard golden vaults of McDuckian proportions. And apparently they have some sweet submission holds that can make Ric Flair tap out.

-MGD