a new discussion for this thread.

What makes a dragon a dragon?

I have looked at many pictures and images of dragons from across time and most don't look too much alike but they all have something that we make out as dragon, or dragon like.
I have contemplated this.

and the conclussion I came to was, "Fatastic Retile" its a reptile that takes that one step over the "fantasy line" and becomes a dragon.

also I think I will also start posting images of Dragons from myths, history, and entertainment to show all the variations so to give others the mental image of them all to perhaps get what I am saying by that quality that makes a dragon a dragon "as opposed to a fire breathing dinosaur or something"

To begin I have found an interesting phenomenon.
The ancient art of Tiamat "the oldest Dragon type creature in written history"
depicts either a serpent, Griffen like, or a wingless monster that is not a snake. I didn't find the third but I have the first two here.
But somehow in most art, and videogames ect.. Tiamat is depicted as a multiheaded Hydra like dragon

A relief of Marduk slaying Tiamat

http://www.mysteriousworld.com/Content/Ima...rdukvTiamat.jpg

Tiamat from Babylon Wall art

http://frontpage.montclair.edu/alvaresj/JAMYTH/tiamat.GIF

Some Final Fantasy Tiamats
"they had multiple heads" but the links I removed due to being Image Thief protected" "As if they were official Final Fantasy site"

tiamat from the D&D cartoon show

http://www.zaksrealm.net/Screencap_Gallery/Bones/tiamat.jpg

a card game "Magic the Gathering I think"

http://www.theicemage.com/wyvern/tiamat.jpg

As part of the project to figure out what makes a dragon a dragon

a little compare and contrast between the Western "Dragon"
and the Eastern "Lung Wong"

Now Another mythical Dragon that was transposed into fiction

The Great Blue Dragon. Guardian of the Eastern part of the compess with the Phoenix, White Tiger, and Snaketurtle.

These same animals were used in the show "Digimon" as the four guardians of the Digital world.

First art of the actual deal



and the Digimon version called Azulongmon or Qinglongmon

Medeval Dragon Picture

European Dragon Statue

Now some Toys, The Megablocks Dragons

this was the best picture of all of them at once, but note that this picture was not taken by me and that's not my house in the picture.

http://www.graysage.com/cg/Toys/Megabloks/.../020824-003.jpg

Two Eastern Statues

http://jmason.org/albums/2002-Round-The-Wo...ple-dragons.jpg

the picture for this one and the prevoiuse post were too big so I made them links instead.

The Dragons Merlen saw fight each other.

The Humonoid Dragon is a very weird thing indeed. Very little to differentiate it from a Humonoid Dinosaur.

for example ExVeemon from Digimon



and for a size scale this link

http://download.lavadomefive.com/members/B...-Exveemon05.jpg

Varoius cards of the famouse Blue Eyes White Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh

http://www.geocities.com/dbzdudepa/BlueEyesWD3.jpg

http://www.yugioh-cards.net/Merchant2/grap...lob/LOB-001.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nicholas.pove...mos/pck-001.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/dbzdudepa/BlueEyesWD2.jpg

The Dragon as the evolution of a reptile.
In Pokemon this Dragon evolved from a fire lizard monster

One of the First Dragons Pokemon introduced in its games and series.

Charizard

One of the better ones

This Playable dragon from an RPG takes a different take on Dragon in relation to magic. being that this Dragon is more like a Barbarion than a Dragon

Basso, the Dragon Warrior from the game Shining the Holy Ark.

http://www.angelfire.com/games2/shiningfor...ters/basso.html

Most sci-fi Roleplaying games seem to avoid dragons these days.

But this image from the card playing Phantasy Star Online Episode III also depicts a dragon enemy from the other Phantasy Star Online games.

The NanoDragon: more Wyvern or Western Dragon like than most entertainment dragons are. except that it shoots and energy beam either from its mouth or off its head.

a little compare and contrats the Wyvern from Lore and a Wyvern from Phantasy Star 1

a chinese dragon statue

supposedly a real picture of a sea serpent

a rather unique take on the dragon, A transforming cyborg dragon from Digimon called Imperialdramon

Saw a comerical for a new Pokemon movie and there was this dragon in it that looked familiar so I did a little research and found out its based on QuetzalCoatle.
also found another based on the Plumed Serpent

first the real deal

Quetzalcoatle



now the Digimon Version Quetzalmon



and the Pokemon version Rayquaza

The Hybridization of Human and Dragon or Dragon Knights
for that I have found the game Legend of Dragoon interesting
"When I can find pictures of the freaky looking dragons of this game I will post them until than this warrior"
Dart who has the spirit of the Fire Dragon



Although one could say Dragon qualities, the game could just as easily have taken a demon approach and called these people demons and I don't see any reason the players would be able to tell the difference in the characters.

I think dragons are real. I mean, not in the flying around blasting firey death and what not, but large undescovered reptiles that could have been killed off in the last few thousand years. In Africa, you have reports of people seeing saurapods in the congo. In the south, I cant remember what state, some rednecks shot an honest to god pterodactyl. They saved the skin. It was a well documented case. These people wouldnt have faked it because they were rednecks and didnt know what a pterodactlyl was.
Another case around the turn of the century, was the 'Jersey Devil' that was aprehended and travled in a circus. You can look all this stuff up.

The Pteradactyle in the south, I hope your not talking about that Civil War picture where some Confederate soldiers shot down a Pterasaur. Because despite how circulated that picture got, ultimately it was revealed as a fake, "not a hoax" it was actually a marketing device that after many years was forgotten till someone found the picture and mistook it as real.

The Jersey Devil in a circus case was actually a Kangaroo with fake wings attatched to it.

But these shouldn't make one doubt the supenatural just because people make mistakes or try to fake things for money.

From Yu-Gi_oh

the Red Eyes Black Dragon

a seven headed dragon statue

http://www.arrakeen.ch/thai4/032%20%207%20dragons.JPG

Cyborg, Bug, Dragon, yet the dragon aspect to me seems to be more present than the other two "name is Paildramon "what ever that is supposed to mean""



a link to a picture for scale

http://download.lavadomefive.com/members/B...aildramon01.jpg

another compare and contrast

the seaserpent of lore



and Seadramon from Digimon

another Yu-Gi_oh dragon

the Black Skull Dragon

Slifer the SKy dragon "freaky two mouthed card monster"

Rose from Legend of Dragoon "has the spirit of the Darkness Dragon"

Sil Dragon from Phantasy Star Online. "Ultimate Difficulty first boss"

Sil Dragon from Phantasy Star Online. "Ultimate Difficulty first boss"
"would have been here if all the images hadn't been protected"

so instead
here is

Link to page of Dragon Warrior game to see the Dragon Lord. and all the other monsters in that early Video game RPG "the first and only time that the last boss looked like a basic dragon"

http://www.planetdw.com/dwmonsters.html

The Eternal Dragon from the Dragon Ball anime shows. Has the power to grant a wish

http://www.haslage.net/design/desktops/Dra...BZ_Shenlong.gif

try looking at this Pokemon dragon with out hearing "puff the magic dragon" playing in your head

Dragonite

The Dragons of the Original Phantasy Star game.

Links to the Dragons of Phantasy Star 1

http://www.pscave.com/ps1/ps1e/enemy27.html

boss dragon1

http://www.pscave.com/ps1/ps1e/enemy32.html

boss dragon 2

http://www.pscave.com/ps1/ps1e/enemy35.html

other dragons on that game

http://www.pscave.com/ps1/ps1e/enemy15.html

some seaserpent stuff.

I get the feeling Digimon got the feel for a water dwelling dragon better than Pokemon did, but you decide for yourself

MegaSeadramon



MetalSeadramon "and yes I do believe its nose is a cannon"
"follow the link with in this link"

http://www.absoluteanime.com/digimon/_metalseadramon.gif

now the Pokemon Dratini and Dragonair "gag unto me with a spoon"

This Digimon dragon warrior isn't a half bad example of a humonoid if you ask me

Cyberdramon

Yu-Gi-Oh card "I will find a way to get Magic the Gathering card images at some point so bear with me here" unfortuantly its not in the limeligh right now so there harder to come by.

Serpent Night Dragon



and

The Winged Dragon of Ra

Parunga the Nameks Eternal Dragon from Dragon Ball Z

Shana from Legend of Dragoon with the spirit of the Silver Light Dragon



and Miranda who got the same spirit later in the game

Recently on Dragon Ball GT the Eternal Dragon was so full of negative energy that it split into seven evil dragons "as this is very new very few pictures are online"

but here are two "the first Haze Shinron dragon of Pollution and second Rage Shinron dragon of electricity"

http://members.tripod.com.mx/multianime/images/RYAN.gif

http://www.dbzpower.net/deseos/vu_02p.jpg

Smaug rules! Sorry about the image size but it's too beautiful to shrink.

? Why can't I post a picture on this post?

IMG button and you have to copy and paste a link into the box that opens to the image you want to post.
there are other ways but they escape me at the moment.

El Tarasque " a pretty ugly turtle like Dragon in France"





and as the ultimate Irony a game called Dungeons and Dragons as included this monster but not as a Dragon. But rather unjusifiably as some unkillable demon

linked here for D&D page

http://www.planetadnd.com/interactive_books/mm00281.php

2 cards in my son's Magic, The Gathering card game... still looking for more, but he has over 7k cards!

First one:
Furnace Dragon



Second one:
Two-headed Dragon

I like them, wish I had them

I remembered a few names of cards I have and have looked them up online.

Fire Drake

These two Digimon dragons remind of back when all they did was change a monster's color to change its name in a game.

Megadramon



Gigadramon

okay one from the myths

the Eyption Dragon god Apophis

the robot Digimon Dragon

Machinedramon

Yu-Gi-Oh card

Thousand Dragon "grandpa?"