The biggest literary dragons

 SPOILER ALERT! dragons often feature as a climatic part of books, expect a couple of spoilers in the following article. You’ve been warned.

5. Dragon from The Paper Bag Princess

Dragon meets all the stereotypical benchmarks of your classic dragon: a huge, green, winged reptilian creature breathing fire. But what makes this one so special is what it represents. The book has become a feminist icon – it turns the ‘Princess and dragon’ premise on its head by making the vain and ungrateful prince the victim of the dragon, while the brave princess comes to the rescue. This one rates as our 5th dragon, as it’s really the princess who steals the show.
 

4. Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm, aka Errol from Guards! Guards!

This dragon is a classic construction from the late great Sir Terry Pratchett. Like many of his best characters, this dragon receives a vast given name followed by an equally inglorious nickname – in this case Errol, granted by the Ankh-Morpork watchman Nobby Nobs. With eyebrows the same size as his diminutive wings, an anteater face and huge nostrils, Errol is considered to be fairly useless as dragons go, a reversal of the mighty dragon depicted in other books. He's so rubbish, that it was speculated that he couldn’t flame – that is, until he flamed backwards, proving he is a “complete whittle"after all.
 

3. Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal from A Song of Ice and Fire

That’s Game of Thrones to the uninitiated . Yup, if you love the show and haven’t yet read these… you know the rest. Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal are three dragons we’ve become accustomed to watching grow up – very, very slowly. From hatchlings, we’ve seen these drakes learn to fly and fry. From a story standpoint (so far anyways) they don’t really drive a whole lot of plot, but boy are they a powerful symbol. At once representing life, family, history, heraldry, magic, empire and death, the dragons are a wicked counterpoint to Daenerys Targayen’s personal emotions – and I think this is why the mother of dragons is so beloved by fans even though she’s yet to set foot on her homeland.
 

2. Saphira from Eragon

This dragon has a real point of difference from your everyday soaring reptile, because Saphira is the good guy. In the world of fantasy and myth, that makes this dragon pretty unique. But we can do you one better – this dragon is a female, too! In the first book, farm boy destined to be warrior, Eragon discovers Saphira as a hatchling. The two develop a deep bond, with Saphira allowing Eragon the right to be a Dragon Rider. Each of the books is told to some degree from the perspective of the dragons – usually the domain of the sidekick or new guy. It’s this innocence in the character of Saphira, that she is young, that makes Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle a truly rewarding experience for the reader.

1.  Smaug from The Hobbit

If it’s books and dragons you want, then look no further than J.R.R Tolkien's Smaug. He’s known by many names (many of his own devising) including Smaug the Golden, The Tremendous, The Unassessably Wealthy and – our personal favourite – The Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities. He is one of the most endearing and long lasting visages of Middle Earth. It’s perhaps due to the sheer amount of art depicting Smaug, that he is often considered to be of archetypical dragon design (i.e. a large lizard with wings), though actually he's more akin to a snake or worm with wings. Perhaps the most long lasting impact of Tolkien’s depiction of dragons is the greed, malice and cunning that those created since seem to possess. Given Smaug’s mighty influence on virtually every fantasy author since, he truly is king of the dragons!