Power Ranking of Fictional Dragons

Rod Nunez
The Irrelevant
Published in
6 min readAug 15, 2016

With the release of Pete’s Dragon this weekend and the reign of Game Of Thrones over pop culture dragons as a subject are BACK and in a big way. I’ve taken it upon myself to go through all the dragons in movies and TV shows and have put together the definite power rankings. So starting from the bottom to the top, the 10th position in the Irrelevant Fictional Dragon Power Rankings goes to…

These guys don’t even have individual names. They were woken up by miners and ripped through the world which admittedly is pretty badass BUT the reason why they’re pulling the caboose in this list and not any higher is pictured above. These guys were taken out by a PRE-McConnaissance Mcconaughey. We’re talking looooong before MUD. These dragons were taken out by a McConaughey that just before had starred alongside JLO in The Wedding Planner and after them was starring in How to Lose a Guy in 10 days and THAT’S the biggest reason why they’re this low. Onto the next position…

What’s better than a Chinese snake dragon crossed with a dog?! About 8 other dragons but that doesn’t mean that Falkor isn’t awesome. The best thing about this guy is that he’s the luckiest thing around. Think how convenient that is? You’ve always got luck on your side! This is the only dragon that you’d be better off having in a casino than not which is not something you can say for any other one on this list. If this dude was my dragon I’d always be buying lottery tickets, and that would be bad for the economy which is why he’s so low on this list.

Up next is the classic “Disney Bad Guy” which is actually an evil, kinda sexy, but very evil woman named Maleficent. I don’t think there’s a dragon out there that’s so etched in the subconscious of so many people that are now “old” as this one is. Even in the animatronic version at Disney parks “Fantasmic” show she’s still kinda intimidating and you don’t really wanna look at her directly. She’s got arguably the meanest color scheme of any dragon on this list and spits GREEN flames. She’s a badass. Why is she so low? She gets one sword shot to the chest from a pretty boy with a crush and she’s done? Come on…

Two words: Eddie Murphy. 3 years before that Donkey become the most famous animated character Eddie Murphy provied his voice to there was Mushu, and Mushu is legit. First of all he’s a dragon who can ALSO do that snake tongue thing, he can cook breakfast, ride a horse, talk trash (limp noodle), bite naked dude butts, and pull off a mean batman impression all to protect Mulan. If that’s not a worthy ally I don’t know what is. The reason why he’s not higher is very simple, WHY DIDN’T EDDIE MURPHY SING IN “MAKE A MAN OUT OF YOU” ?! Here’s what I mean, pay close attention to the song at 1:38. That’s not Eddie Murphy! It’s barely even a good Eddie Murphy impression. We know Eddie can sing, and the reason why he didn’t want to contribute his talents to one line in one Disney song will be one of life’s great unanswered questions.

Haku is a river AND a dragon. The river is the dragon, when rivers go to the spirit realm they become dragons. How cool is that?! Sorry for the spoilers but honestly if you haven’t seen Spirited Away by now you deserve that spoiler and more. Also Haku has this cool wolf/snake/catfish thing going on which is very unique and HE’S A FRIGGIN RIVER which raises so many questions…what kind of dragon is the Mississippi River? What about the Hudson? I bet you the most majestic River Dragon is the Nile, OR the Amazon…

Toothless is one of the first fully kid friendly dragon on this list. Sure Falkor is pretty kid friendly but there’s something unsettling about his bumpy scales. Toothless is adorable, and he’s scary AND he’s fast but he has an impediment which is perfect for kids and adults alike. Plus he gets to hang around Jay Baruchel all the time which means he’s probably really into Hockey. The biggest reason Toothless is on here is because How To Train Your Dragon showed the world that Dreamworks animation had fully arrived. Kung Fu panda wasn’t a fluke and they could create movies that weren’t dependent on crude Pop Culture references(ahem) and cementing a movie studio is something very few dragons on this list have done.

The newest of the Targaryen dragons we’ve seen Drogon (and his two brothers) grow from being the size of a bat to being big enough to eat horses and destroy ships with their breath. He’s black as night and can BARELY be controlled. Apparently he can fly across a whole ocean without stopping anywhere too? This guy will probably keep growing if he’s anything like his grandpappy and will soon be bigger than the entirety of Game of Throne’s special effects budget which means we probably won’t see any more real shots of him.

Now I know many of you will accuse me of recency bias with this pick, but let’s look at the facts. Elliot can become invisible. Elliot can spit fire. Elliot can fly with weight on his back. Elliot is Green. Ok the last one is maybe not important but the first two are enough. Dude’s been hiding from humans for YEARS and never been caught until white Mowgli gets curious about Bryce Dallas Howard. An animal of that size that can hide for that long is impressive. Also, what does he eat?! He doesn’t seem to eat meat, doesn’t eat plants he’s gotta eat something right? Best thing about this guy is his theme song though and also that he frolicks in the water with his human much like our following guy..

Of all the Dragons in this list. Draco is the smoothest. He’s got a constellation named after him and he has the voice of Sean Connery. Sean Friggin’ Connery. Never mind the Playstation era CGI or the weird “give half a heart” story line. This dragon could go on Celebrity Jeopardy SNL, and that’s something no other dragon on this list can do….SEAN CONNERY.

This brings us the to the top position on this list and it really shouldn’t be any surprise who it is right?

He’s THE Dragon. All other Dragons come after him, and none come close to him. It’s only a shame the modern era has only seen him in those awful Hobbit movies. The King Under the Mountain has defeated armies and has treasures untold. Can fly, spit fire, outsmart you, out trash talk you, and just beat you at almost every turn…I think his words are best when describing him. He is Fire, He is Death.

If you liked this or if you didn’t like this we’d love to hear from you on twitter @irrelevantpub

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