Assignment
Pick something in the world of the supernatural that interests you. Research your subject on the web keeping tracks of the sites you used and why and what you found there. Write a blog entry on your blog summarizing what you were interested in and why and what you found and where. What did you learn that is interesting?
One of the many things that I consider supernatural are Dragons! Dragons are mythical or supernatural creatures in folklore. A few countries in the West as well as in the East make references to dragons. Growing up as a kid I often adored dragons, which is really the main reason why I choose this as my topic. In fact, one of my very first book reports was done on a book titled Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville. Dragons have not only played parts in lore, but they have also played parts in video games, card games, songs, cartoons, as well as books.
I watched a cartoon movie called The Flight of Dragons as a kid and is one of my favorite cartoon movies growing up. The movie is based off of a book with the exact same name written by Peter Dickinson. (I have yet to read this, but I will soon change this!) In the movie, the realm of magic is threaten by the realm of science. In order to save this realm and dragons along with it, the 3 of the 4 magic brothers had an idea to create a magic realm that was to be enclosed off to the rest of the world. The film also goes over a dragons physiology, the way dragons breathed fire, fly up in the air, and even why their skin is tough.
If you look at dragons from a lore or mythology point of view, a lot of them are portrayed as being evil or malevolent, at least according to the European myths. These dragons that are usually depicted as being evil, are often found guarding treasures. The Asian dragons seem to have different characteristics then the European ones, they come off a lot kinder and benevolent. The majority of them are often are associated with different forms of water.
Dragons are also involved in a lot of games, mostly MMORPGs (Massive Multi-Online Role Playing game) or MMOs for short. The ideas of MMOs are derived from Dungeons and Dragons. This basically consists of a group of players banding together to slay a dragon for "epic loot" in turn each player that helps or provides help is awarded DKP. (Dragon Kill Points) These points are usually spent on the items that dropped off of the dragon that was slain. DKP also helps with the distribution of items so in turn not one single player will be getting all the items.
Stories of these supernatural creatures have been around a long time. This is reflected in history and about almost every country has some kind of dragon related story. They are very popular among the gaming community and are probably consider part of popular culture. As long as there are kids in the world, we will have dragons.
Credit Sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_Dragons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon
http://www.wowwiki.com/Dragon_kill_points
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