The Eye of the Dragon
Thoughts on the archetype of the human monster
In a previous piece, I explored a little bit of what it means to be a dragon, for a human to act like the archetypal monster of Western thought. Here, I want to dig a little deeper into the dragonish attitude, or “dragon sickness” as expressed in The Hobbit.
To Smaug, the infected Thorin, and anyone else with the disease, the self becomes ultimate. In fact, the self becomes all that matters, except perhaps the treasure, which the dragon-being sees as an extension of the self. To the dragon, other people are not people at all. They fall into three categories: Food, Treasure, or Threat.
The Others Who the Dragon Sees as “Food”
Food-people are those that the dragon uses and exploits. Often, their lives will be completely consumed by the dragon’s demands. Parents and caregivers easily fall into this category. And of course, it’s only natural for babies and little children to treat their parents this way as they can’t be expected to know better. Plus, a nursing mother literally is the source of a baby’s food. But part of growing up is realizing that the world doesn’t exist just for you. Dragons, however, never grow up. They always expect other people to take care of them or serve them. Wealthy dragons might treat servants and service workers as food-people. More poverty-stricken dragons might have a few people who always bail them out of trouble or lend them money. Food-people are those who enable the dragonish lifestyle.
One crucial part of this kind of dragon sickness is that the dragon never gives their food-people any thanks or appreciation, or, if they do, it’s insincere. In the dragonish mind, why wouldn’t the food-people serve them? That’s what they’re for. It’s their purpose in life. And sadly, many food-people agree. They see their enabling, or their giving in, as a way to love the dragon. Their identity is completely consumed in being a part of the dragon’s life. This is a “love” that is a lot more like worship; the dragon becomes their god.
Of course, the food-people might rebel. They might try to break free of the dragon’s control, or force the dragon to take care of themselves. Then comes the fire and fury. A domineering dragon snorts that the food-people “forget their place” and tries to force them back into it. A more subtle dragon might whine about selfishness and how “nobody cares about me”. Dragons can be very good at playing the victim. Either way, the food-people have suddenly become a threat to the dragon’s lifestyle. As such, they must either be changed back or be destroyed.
The Others Who the Dragon Sees as “Treasure”
Treasure-people are those that the dragon values, not because of any needs they meet, but simply for being the way they are. This form of dragon sickness is probably the most subtle and dangerous, because it looks so much like love. Love also values people for who they are, but there is a difference between treasuring a person and turning a person into a treasure.
The chief difference is control. The dragon wants this treasure all to itself. No one else may treasure that person. The dragon trusts no one else, including the treasure-person themselves, to take care of them. This is the dragon sickness that I find most often in myself: the mother bear, or mother tiger, that will not let anyone touch her cubs. And this can be a good thing in moderation; after all, infants and small children literally can’t take care of themselves, and their parents are usually the ones who know what’s best for them. But dragons never let their children grow up; or if they do, or if they have no children, they find other people to infantilize. This can happen with an individual or a group. For example, there’s this idiotic notion that the Democratic party knows what’s best for all women everywhere and we can’t be trusted to make our own choices. Our choices won’t always be right, but part of being an adult is making stupid choices, facing the consequences, and learning from them.
Another part of growing up is learning how to deal with all the problems out in the world. But the dragon denies all of that to the treasure-person. The treasure must be kept safe and close, even if it costs them their individuality and responsibility.
Sadly, too many victims misinterpret this obsessive, controlling attitude as love. They believe the dragon when he or she insists that the lair is the only safe place and the dragon the only qualified protector. (See Mother Gothel and Rapunzel in Disney’s Tangled.) And if the treasure-person ever sees through the dragon’s deception and tries to break free, or if someone else tries to rescue them, the dragon sees it as theft. Fire and fury follow. “How could you be so ungrateful?! After all I’ve done for you!” If it’s an outside source trying to break the dragon’s hold, the dragon accuses them of selfishness, of not really caring about the treasure-person (since the dragon is obviously what’s best for them). Or a more cunning dragon might subtly sabotage the treasure-person’s attempts at independence, or relationship with someone else, to make sure that circumstances drive them back to the dragon’s waiting arms. Because the dragon will always welcome them back as long as they’ve “learned their lesson”.
This works with individuals or groups of people. A tyrannical government wants its citizens to depend on it for everything: food, healthcare, employment, protection, and a sense of belonging. Anything that offers an alternative source of those things must be destroyed; or at least, the people must be convinced that those sources aren’t good enough. Family, religion, individual responsibility — you can’t trust them, says the dragon state. Only I will never let you down.
The Others Who the Dragon Sees as “Threat”
Anyone in the dragon’s life and outside the dragon’s control — that is, anyone who refuses to be Food or Treasure — is counted as a Threat. The dragon might view them as a threat to their own safety, to their food supply, or to their treasure hoard. The fate for such people can only be elimination. Of course, the dragon would much prefer that they be converted into Food or Treasure if possible; but failing that, the dragon will settle for nothing less than utter destruction. There might be some excuses or attempts at proof that the threat-person deserves their fate. But it’s never really about what they deserve. It’s all about eliminating the threat and keeping the dragon and treasure safe.
Interestingly, a dragon will often frame their opponent, the threat-person, as a dragon; that is, as a monster or tyrant. And sometimes they’re right. Sometimes there are two or more dragons fighting over the same territory or treasure. In this case, one dragon will usually be held up as “the lesser of two evils” or as the only one who can defeat the other. This is how totalitarian regimes often get started; the threat is seen as so big and bad that only the strongest possible government can protect the people. But those who hide in a dragon’s lair soon find that it is anything but safe. The people are quickly turned into Food, Treasure, or smaller Threats (e.g. suspected spies or “enemies of the state”). Because despite its promises, the dragon can’t really allow its subjects to feel safe. Then they might not need the dragon anymore. They might rebel, or worse, simply ignore the dragon’s existence.
Thus, fear reigns. The dragon’s lair becomes a sterile pile of rocks, and all the land around is desolate. Nothing grows. The animals all avoid the area. Real human life becomes impossible. But at least the dragon and treasure are safe.
Conclusion: People are People are People
Reading this post probably puts a clear picture in readers’ minds of someone, or multiple somenones, who act in the ways described. But perhaps the scariest dragon is one in the mirror. We all have a bit of dragon sickness. We treat ourselves as the most important on a regular basis and have treated others as as Food, Treasure, or Threat instead of as people. Christians call this our sin nature. That’s why perfect safety is impossible. The dragon is inside us all.
So am I saying it’s hopeless? Not at all. Simply recognizing our own monstrous nature can be a huge step in the right direction. It was a turning point in my own life, at the age of fifteen or so, to realize that the very sin I condemned in others was present in myself. That enabled me to fight it, and to get help in the fight. It’s one of the hardest things in the world. For one thing, all of these attitudes can be legitimate in some forms: when you really do need someone to take care of you, or when someone really needs you to take care of them, or when someone really does mean to harm you. But it takes a lot of wisdom to differentiate between when those situations are real and when we’re just looking for an excuse to act like dragons. We also have to recognize that even if people take a legitimate role of Food, Treasure, or Threat in our lives, they’re still actually people underneath that role. Their intrinsic value is separate from what they might mean to us.
This is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself: to recognize the other as a self like you. Or, to put it more simply, people are people are people.
