Merlin: A Weasley?

Inspired by earlier posts, I, too, delved into my extensive knowledge of Harry Potter and came up with an interesting connection concerning dragons. Appearing for the first time in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, dragons play an essential role, both as elements of danger/ fear, adventure and as a way to identify outsiders to the human race. Harry and the rest of the competitors are challenged to defeat various dragons in order to become champions of the Twi-Wizard tournament. Hagrid, Hogwart's groundskeeper, a giant in his own right, attempts to tame the most feared dragon and fails miserably, a compassionate endeavor that only serves to highlight his separation from the human race. Finally, we get our first glimpse of the infamous dragon-wrangling, eldest Weasley brother, Charlie, who functions as an exotic within the normal wizarding world and works primarily from Romania instead of living in the United Kingdom like the rest of his family.

After re-watching the 4th film, particularly the scenes in which Harry and the rest of the competitors fight the dragons, I was reminded of Merlin's prophecy concerning the infamous battle between the red and the white dragons, or metaphorically speaking, between the British and the Saxons. For the people of medieval Britain, the dragon functions in much the same way that it does in Harry Potter. The dragon is a representative of evil, portrayed as terrible and dangerously fierce and in slight relation to the serpent.

-      Ultimately, in both cases, the dragon is used to induce fear and as the embodiment of all things monstrous, or to be more specific, the antithesis to humanity. They are incredibly power symbols not only because of their brute physical strength and connection with magic but because of their extreme otherness. Similar to the effect of giants, they heighten our awareness of our humanity, insecurity and they are the tangible representation of fragile mortality despite "divine" Arthurian power or in Harry's case, a magic wand.  

Flight of Dragons: Magic, Science, Dragons and Race. Yup just went there.

Flight of Dragons is a film from 1982 that was adapted from two books "Flight of Dragons" an art book by Peter Dickinson and The Dragon and the George by Gordon Dickson.
The realm of magic is being threatened by the realm of logic and the Green Wizard Carolinus decides that there isn't anything to be done but shield the magical realm from everything else. He calls his brothers the Blue Wizard Solarious, the Golden Wizard Lo Tao Zhao and the Red Wizard Ommadon to hear of his plan.

Can you guess which one didn't quite like his plan?

Ommadon wants to fight the humans and make science turn on them. The brothers aren't allowed to physically interfere because they made a pact not to harm each other so they register a quest. Just like in tales we read some races would make pacts to save themselves from war and align themselves so that way they'd agree not to hurt each other. But there are always ways around that. I mean we're dealing with wizards here. Take Merlin x3. This quest invokes Sir Orin Neville Smythe, dragons Gorbash and Smrgol and a leader of science, who we will learn is Peter, a shy and skeptical human who ends up getting himself in quite the predicament. (spoiler alert, magic puts himself inside Gorbash.....)

Here are your heroes! They are quite the unlikely bunch. Looks like the the magical world seems to be screwed right? However it's a fairytale/fantasy so I'm not giving you the ending but a slight hint.... ;)

























So what's my point? If you haven't noticed the wizards are all firstly separated by color. All set to rule over separate areas of the land. One is tied to water, one to earth and land, one to air and the last to fire. All the wizards are also of a different race. The green wizard is your typical old white European guy, the golden wizard is an Asian guy and the blue wizard of an Indian race, and then there's the red wizard, he's goblin meets giant ogre? Just like in the stories we read in class each race that fights for different lands or for different reasons can be distinguished by different factors whether by how they look or how they're culturally represented. In this movie they don't hint this as the main theme, in fact it's not truly hinted at all, but it's a concept to tie into the thought of race playing throughout medieval times. Why is the European wizard always portrayed as the old guy? Not just in this film but in the sword in the stone also? Apparently white wizards can't be seen as young guys. Race in the stories we read plays how a character is portrayed, the giants in Geoffrey's tales were portrayed as evil and malice, (which was an accurate description) and the Anglo-Saxon's the complete opposite, the knight in shining armor and the wise. Their fighting style and weapon choices fit along with their racial stereotypes and persona. Subtle idea that opens a window of opportunities for exploration past just the ideas of dragons and magic and science. Though we can save that for another post.

However off topic I have to post the link if you want an interesting take on learning about dragons. You can thank me later, or if you completely hate it curse me later.
(Disclaimer if you get the theme song in your head it will be there for days, apologies ahead of time.)
http://youtu.be/j0j0Bjy6hFc