Draconic Demon
A brave knight facing down an imposing dragon - a motif that has endured the test of time, and been a fixture of fiction for hundreds of years. Because when you're looking for the ultimate evil, or at the very least a truly terrifying and imposing foe, it's hard to find a creature better suited for this role than a dragon. The stereotypical image of a colossal beast flying overhead, laying waste to entire kingdoms with fiery or poisonous breath is a terrifying one because of how wrong it is. Creatures that big shouldn't be able to fly, and their destructive might is like that of a terrifying demon hailing from the deepest pit of hell.
While malevolent dragons are a universal concept that has existed since the beginning of recorded history, Christianity's influence has played a big part in the Draconic Demon as the dominant perception of dragons in the West: Satan himself takes the form of a particularly freaky dragon in the Biblical Book of Revelation, and European folktales and ballads in particular would portray dragons as cruel monsters who serve as an enemy to all things good. This is in stark contrast to the Eastern perception of dragons, where they are wise and benevolent deities worthy of respect.
Expect there to be plenty of overlap with Eldritch Abomination for the most horrific, otherworldly dragons, though more grounded and animalistic ones are still forces to be reckoned with. Dracoliches are another popular flavor of evil dragon given the innate creepiness of necromancy; when they're stalking the seas instead of the skies, they can serve as a particularly scary type of Sea Monster. They're a common enemy to the Knight in Shining Armor, but tend to serve as a Foil to any kind of righteous hero.
A subtrope of Our Dragons Are Different.
Examples of Draconic Demon include:
Anime and Manga
- The Apostle Grunbeld from Berserk wears armor that invokes the image of a snarling dragon, but his true form reveals that he hasn't merely adopted the aesthetics of one: he is a dragon, and a gigantic one with tons of crystal growths all over his body. He's one of the more noble Apostles, but is still a major threat.
- Machinedramon from Digimon Adventure is a mechanical dragon with a penchant for cold-blooded cruelty in the original Japanese version, while the English dub portrays him as a terrifying, sadistic maniac. No matter which version you're watching though, he's easily the most threatening of the Dark Masters.
- King Piccolo's youngest son Cymbal from the original Dragon Ball is a goofy-looking, tubby dragon, but is still a dangerous demon and one of his father's most powerful servants.
- The Godzilla Anime Trilogy does this with their interpretation of Godzilla, aka Godzilla Earth. It's one of the King of Monsters' most destructive, wrathful, and outright dangerous incarnations in any form of media. Also one of the biggest: he's 300 meters (Which is nearly 1000 feet) tall, which dwarfs every other version of the Big G out there. And as far as his malevolence goes, the trilogy begins with him having wiped out most of humanity and civilization as a whole, with the current, hellish state of the Earth being a result of extensive terraforming from his desire to turn the planet and its creatures into extensions of himself.
- Ghidorah from the same trilogy has been given a similar overhaul, and is a Lovecraftian horror in the form of a three-headed dragon. He's an interdimensional abomination who outright eats planets, and can mess with the flow of time and space around him to the point that he can kill you, but you won't properly die until your time-displaced body catches up with reality.
- Kaido from One Piece is one of the Four Pirate Emperors, making him one of the strongest pirates in the series period. He's a cruel tyrant who rules the kingdom of Wano with an iron fist, and his Devil Fruit allows him to transform from an already gargantuan human to a truly titanic Eastern dragon with control over fire, lightning, and wind.
- This technically applies to many of his highest-ranked crewmates by way of Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Zoan Devil Fruits that give their wielders dinosaur transformations are part of the "Dragon Dragon Fruit" family, and the draconic traits are especially apparent in King (a Pteranodon man), Queen (a Brachiosaurus man), and Sasaki (a Triceratops man).
- A heroic example of this trope would be Monkey D. Dragon, leader of the Revolutionaries and father of protagonist Monkey D. Luffy. He's a wild-looking, intimidating man whose very name causes people to shudder in fear and awe, and is the one leading a powerful resistance movement against the corrupt, tyrannical World Government. To them, of course, he's very much a straight example of this trope.
Comic Books
- Barbatos from the DC Comics line Dark Knights: Metal is an immensely powerful, draconic giant who makes a hobby out of conquering and corrupting entire universes and dimensions against his creator's wishes.
- Somewhat obscure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villain Savanti Romero is a powerful sorcerer who looks like a cross between a demon and a humanoid dragon, and seeks to conquer every aspect of time itself: the past, the present, and the future.
Film
- King Ghidorah from the Godzilla films is often portrayed as a sadistic sociopath who lives to destroy everything in his path, and is one of Big G's most hated enemies. Legendary Pictures' Godzilla: King of the Monsters in particular makes him out to be the Kaiju equivalent to Satan, complete with hellish imagery during his rampages.
- While Smaug was already a force to be reckoned with in the novel, he's an utter terror in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. Not only is he a godzilla-sized monstrosity who makes Bilbo look even more helpless and small than in the book, but he's openly cruel and sadistic, looks as if he's maliciously grinning at all times, and has a downright hellish-sounding voice thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch's dulcet tones.
- Reign of Fire is a very rare movie centered around a dragon apocalypse, with the dragons in question being a collective of dangerous, terrifying beasts responsible for the end of civilization as we know it. They even slumber deep underground, and when the protagonist accidentally wakes the alpha male up as a boy, the monster's rampage and escape make him look as if he's a demon clawing his way out of Hell itself.
- Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. During the film's climax, she goes from hauntingly beautiful dark fairy to a monstrous dragon, and her transformation is heralded by the queen mother of badass Disney villain quotes: "Now shall you deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell!"
Literature
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dragons of C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia are embodiments of sin, specifically the sin of greed. It's hinted that all dragons were once humans before being transformed into monsters thanks to their greed consuming them, which happens to Eustace when he finds and sleeps in a dragon's hoard while his mind is clouded with thoughts of greed.
- Dragons from the world of Harry Potter are among the most dangerous magical creatures due to their aggression and strength, which varies from species to species. The most dangerous is the black, spiky Hungarian Horntail, which is hostile and ferocious even by draconian standards. In Goblet of Fire, Harry is (naturally) pitted against one during the first part of the Triwizard Tournament, where he's tasked with stealing a golden egg that she's very protective of.
- Smaug of The Hobbit fame is a huge, greedy, sociopathic red dragon who rests upon a hoard of gold and jewels plundered from Dale and Erebor. He's prideful to a fault, and the smallest insult or instance of theft from his hoard is enough to throw him into a murderous rage. And as shown in The Silmarillion, all Tolkien-verse dragons are just as foul and nasty as Smaug is. Probably has something to do their progenitor, Glaurung, being the draconic equivalent of a fallen angel.
Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends
- In Christian folklore, dragons are associated with demonic imagery likely thanks to the Biblical Book of Revelation, where Satan takes the form of a titanic red dragon. Fittingly for the book's mind-screwy nature, Satan's appearance is truly eldritch and horrifying, with him being a seven-headed abomination big and powerful enough to send a third of the stars in the sky crashing down to Earth with a mere swipe of his tail.
- The dragon famously slain by Saint George in Saint George and The Dragon is said to be an unholy beast, and has an appetite for human sacrifice. This monstrosity is a far cry from the majestic beasts dragons are usually portrayed as these days, and is usually shown in artistic interpretations to be a pathetically hideous, slimy little thing that breathes poison and is implied to be demonic in nature.
- Tales and sightings related to the infamous Loch Ness Monster date all the way back to the seventh century, and in 565 A.D, the first written sighting of the creature details it as a ferocious beast known to have attacked and killed people around the Loch. Legend has it that St. Columba, the missionary who bought Christianity to Ireland, stopped it from attacking another man by rebuking it in the name of God, which would in turn prevent it from ever harming another human again.
- While dragons are portrayed as serene and benevolent beings in Japanese mythology, the Yamata no Orochi is a frightening anomaly. A humongous serpentine creature with eight heads, Orochi terrorized a pair of lesser gods into giving up their daughters as sacrifices for its monstrous appetite. Lucky for them and unluckily for Orochi, the timely arrival of a freshly banished Susano-o would spell Orochi's doom, with the disgraced god getting it drunk off its ass and cutting the intoxicated dragon's heads off.
- There is still some debate among Assyriologists as to whether the primordial sea goddess Tiamat of Mesopotamian Mythology was, was not, or was sometimes this sort of dragon, although the predominant view is that she either always or sometimes was. It is definite that she was the mother of dragons: Bašmu (“Venomous Snake”), Ušumgallu (“Great Dragon”), Mušmaḫḫū (“Exalted Serpent”), and Mušḫuššu (“Furious Snake”), to name just four.
- Fáfnir (alternately "Fafnir") from Norse Mythology was originally a dwarf who guarded his father's treasure-house. Consumed with greed, he killed his brother and was transformed into a dragon, hoarding the treasure to himself. He is eventually slain in turn by the hero Sigurd.
Recorded and Stand Up Comedy
- Stan Freberg's St. Geroge and the Dragonet presents a particularly monstrous and obnoxious dragon, presumably Western in origin based on the setting of the piece.
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Knave: Well, he was, you know, he had orange polka dots... |
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Tabletop Games
- As the name would imply, Dungeons & Dragons is home to all manner of frightening, dangerous dragons.
- The Chromatic Dragons are this, contrasting with their benevolent Metallic brethren. Whether they're Red, Blue, White, Black, or Green (or once they were added, Purple, Gray, or Brown), they're savage beasts that are rotten to the core and delight in killing, plundering, and amassing hordes of treasure. In other words, they're just like Tiamat: Goddess of dragons and patron of the Chromatics.
- Tiamat herself is even nastier than the cruelest Chromatic. A prideful, five-headed terror of a goddess, Tiamat is one of the setting's biggest villains and a sadistic monster that revels in murder, torture, and burning entire countries to the ground.
- Hellfire Wyrms are literal Draconic Demons since they're dragons from Hell. While they can wield powerful fire magic, that's not what makes them threatening. What does make them threatening is the way they infiltrate towns, cities, and other societies and corrupt them by tricking the citizenry and leadership to perform depraved and evil acts. At this point, their victims have pretty much damned themselves to an eternity in Hell, much to the Wyrm's delight.
- Being something of an Alternate Company Equivalent offshoot to Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder has plenty of ferocious dragons of its own.
- Just like in D&D, Chromatic Dragons. In stark contrast to their typically noble metallic cousins, chromatics are monstrous beasts who live to spread death and destruction. Black Dragons with their love of torturing and scaring people with acid are the biggest offenders, and Red Dragons are just as sadistic and cruel, while also being prideful and arrogant to the point of declaring themselves gods. Blue Dragons are manipulative schemers who will secretly control entire societies and make them dance to their whims, and White Dragons, while weaker than other Chromatics, are still ferocious and feral beasts. Green Dragons are the least malevolent of the bunch given their diplomatic, intellectual nature, but even they can turn cruel and bloodthirsty when sufficiently angered.
- As monstrous as Chromatics can be, even they hate the dragon god Dahak (who provides this page's image), whose cruelty goes far beyond even theirs due to his love of sadistically killing his own kind. He even created the metallic dragons specifically to hunt them for sport, and created Hell itself so the dead could be subjected to eternal suffering.
- Primal Dragons as a whole aren't anywhere near as destructive as their Chromatic brethren, but Umbral and Magma Dragons are truly hellish monstrosities. The unholy Umbral Dragons have shadowbreath, eat ghosts, enslave the souls of people they kill by twisting them into Living Shadows, and are cowards that exclusively hunt weak prey and will run for the hills when confronted by enemies that can fight back. Meanwhile, Magma Dragons look like they were carved out of brimstone and are so violent and murderously insane that other dragons give them a wide berth.
- While most of the bizarre and alien Outer Dragons are fairly neutral as far as their temperaments go, Void Dragons are (mostly) the exception of the rule. Twisted into shadowy monstrosities by terrifying Eldritch Abominations, Void Dragons live only to kill and Mind Rape people with their unholy powers. However, there are some who are able to fight off the urge to do these terrible things, but most can't help but succumb.
- Nightmare Dragons. Think Freddy Krueger as a dragon, and you've got the gist of it. They're the most malevolent of the Esoteric Dragons, and will terrorize sleeping mortals with the most frightening dreams they can think of while helping Night Hags steal their souls.
- Planar Dragons will terraform the countryside they settle in to have it better resemble their native Planes. It's not necessarily a bad thing with the more benevolent ones... and then you've got Apocalypse, Rift, and Infernal Dragons who twist their surroundings into a Hell on Earth. It's the most literal with Infernal Dragons, who are Satanic beasts that revel in damning mortal souls to hell. But Rift Dragons are also cruel, iron-fisted tyrants who force mortals to worship them as gods, and as for Apocalypse Dragons... well, take a wild guess.
Theatre
- The story of Fafner in Richard Wagner's opera The Ring of the Nibelung retells the story of Fáfnir from Norse Mythology (see above), with the change that Fafner was originally a giant, rather than a dwarf.
Video Games
- Tathamet is a seven-headed dragon described as the Prime Evil in the background lore of Diablo, and his death turned out to be the birth of not just the Burning Hells, but of the Seven Great Evils, with each of his heads reincarnating as one of the series' powerful demon lords.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- Dragons are ferocious conquerors by default, and the small handful of good ones like Paarthurnax and potentially the Dovahkiin have to go to great pains to suppress their evil urges. The black-scaled, red-eyed Alduin is a standout for acting as a living apocalypse: his intended function is to destroy, or rather eat the world as part of a natural cycle of death and rebirth. But rather than serving as a necessary evil, Alduin defies his purpose by being the nastiest, most power hungry dragon of them all, and would rather subjugate all of Nirn to a hellish reign of terror with him at the top. He's even said to be responsible for Mehrunes Dagon's nature as a living incarnation of destruction by personally corrupting him as punishment for defying him, if a certain in-universe lore book is of any indication.
- Peryite, the Daedric Prince of Pestilence, Tasks, and the Natural Order, often appears in the form of a sickly, scrawny green dragon. He's every bit as dangerous as every other Daedra, complete with demonic imagery and allusions. But despite his love of disease and plagues, he's arguably one of the more benevolent Daedra and his tasks often involve either saving followers of his, or killing followers that abuse the powers he's granted them.
- Rhea from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is for the most part a flawed, but otherwise benevolent Nabatean firmly on the side of good in most of the game's routes. But in the Crimson Flower route, she goes insane when Byleth refuses to kill Edelgard and mentally deteriorates into a bloodthirsty lunatic obsessed with killing them. And fittingly, Rhea's ferocious, intimidating dragon form acts as the route's final boss, and is a scary case of Light Is Not Good since the fight is in a city that was set on fire by order of Rhea herself. In the Silver Snow route, she's even scarier and looks like a rotting corpse, but that's due to her unwillingly going feral from the stress of tanking several of Thales' javelins of light as opposed to her consciously crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
- While normally a gentle and peaceful creature, you first meet the spirit dragon Naydra when she's been corrupted by Malice, and she looks terrifying. The Malice growths on her body look like some kind of demonic infection, and she has multiple hellish eyeballs growing from her face. She still manages to retain her peaceful nature, but she refuses to freely fly around and bless you with her materials out of fear of hurting people until she's been cured.
- Oddly enough, Calamity Ganon is drawn to look like a monstrous dragon in old artistic depictions. Whether this was a previous form of his or an interpretation of his boarlike wraith form is unknown, but his demonic appearance, corruptive influence, and the way he can be seen slithering and coiling around the ruins of Hyrule Castle definitely invoke this trope in spirit.
- The Crimson Dragon, Final Boss of Mega Man Star Force 3 is a humongous red dragon made of Noise, and seeks to crash Meteor G into Earth. Despite its appearance, the dragon no wild beast, but the incredibly evil Mr. King's new form after fusing himself with Meteor G in one last desperate bid to defy Mega Man, by destroying the Earth out of spite for having his plans of ruling it ruined.
- In the Monster Hunter series, you can seldom throw a stone without hitting one or ten of these things. While all the draconic monsters in the series are dangerous to some degree, these monsters are outright hellish, scary, and in a few cases, downright wrong.
- The crowning example would be the Fatalis, a ferocious black Western dragon considered to be the most dangerous Elder Dragon in existence. And it absolutely earned its reputation: it destroyed the entire kingdom of Schrade in a single night, melts hunters and uses their bodies as improvised armor, and is a generally cruel and sadistic beast. And it's not the only one of its kind: the Crimson Fatalis is even more hellish, and even the angelic-looking White/Old Fatalis is as brutal and merciless as its brethren.
- The fearsome Alatreon has control over every single element but struggles to control its immense power, and can wipe out entire ecosystems just by existing in them. It's a lot less dangerous than Fatalis since it doesn't go out of its way to attack humans and prefers to live a quiet, isolated life, but it will still mercilessly attack anything that trespasses in its territory. In World, the revelation that shady, self-important scholars are obsessed with destroying any record of this beast give it a sense of mystique and terror it didn't quite have during its debut in the third generation of games.
- Dire Miralis and Zorah Magdaros look the part, being titanic dragons that are essentially living volcanoes complete with lava trickling down their bodies. However, Zorah is a subversion, being a relatively peaceful Gentle Giant that is only a threat to the New World because its impending death will trigger the destruction of the continent if it dies in the wrong place. Meanwhile, Dire Miralis is in the same classification as the Fatalis trio and Alatreon: Black Dragons/Dangerous First Class Monsters. And it's a hellish abomination that can sink islands, boil oceans, and is treated as a harbringer of the apocalypse by the flavor text of its weapons, armor, and body parts.
- Xeno'jiiva comes off as more eldritch than demonic thanks to its utterly alien appearance and deadly newborn innocence, but its adult form Safi'jiiva goes all-in with the Satanic imagery. Like with Fatalis, its appearance invokes the image of a Western Dragon - in this case a bloody red dragon with tons of nasty black horns - and it can even "steal souls" by draining the life from the Earth and its inhabitants. The heavy implications that it came from space in a blaze of blue light make it feel almost like a fallen angel.
- Gore Magala isn't quite an Elder Dragon - in fact, no one knows just what it exactly is, hence its "???" classification - but is every bit as dangerous as one. It's a Xenomorphish-looking beast that spreads the dangerous Frenzy virus, which causes any monsters afflicted with it to turn into bloodthirsty berserkers that will attack anything on sight, with its few survivors turning into ridiculously powerful and dangerous Apex monsters. It turns out to be the juvenile form of Elder Dragon Shagaru Magala, and while Shagaru has angelic-looking light scales after shedding its dark coat, it still fits the bill if one goes off of Lucifer's status as a fallen angel.
- Valstrax are fairly peaceful creatures who aren't typically aggressive towards humans, and are only a threat due to the supersonic speeds they fly at making it easy for them to crash into human settlements and airships on accident. But that is not the case for the Crimson Glow variant, which are mutant Valstrax that are driven mad by excess dragon energy their bodies create. These guys will devastate entire ecosystems with this rampant energy through bombing runs, and old legends paint them as harbingers of doom.
- Nergigante is a brutally powerful Elder Dragon with black scales, humongous horns, and nasty quills growing from almost every part of its body. It's actually more of a threat to other Elder Dragons since it actively hunts them, but is every bit as ridiculously aggressive towards any other monsters or humans unfortunate enough to cross paths with it. And it's that wolverine-style aggression that allows this comparatively mundane dragon to go toe-to-toe with its far more apocalyptic prey.
- Because World tries to adopt a more "realistic" (or at least, as realistic as a setting full of impossible monsters would allow) aesthetic, Vaal Hazak's status as a Dracolich played straight makes it feel all the more like a hellish anomaly. Wearing the rotting corpse of another Elder Dragon like a cloak, Vaal has control over a strange and deadly gas that allows it to raise small monsters from the dead and employ them as its attack dogs. Its introduction even makes it out to be less of a wild animal and more like an evil necromancer raising the army of the dead... but when you hunt it any other time, it's a surprisingly peaceful creature that won't attack you unless it's provoked.
- Shara Ishvalda looks like a huge pile of stones at first, but once you break its armor you're faced with easily the freakiest dragon in the series. It doesn't even look like a dragon, but rather an ugly Hindu demon with a disturbingly humanoid face. And its eyes... goddamn, its eyes. Watch them closely, and shudder as you realize that they don't look at your hunter... but at you, the player.
- Ibushi and Narwa from Monster Hunter Rise have a more regal, divine vibe to them than most of the examples on this page, but make no mistake: they're among the freakiest and most malevolent creatures in the series. These moray eel-looking abominations are capable of sentient thought and are knowingly cruel and murderous, with Narwa in particular being a full-on Omnicidal Maniac with a god complex.
- Merphistophelin and Disufiroa from the discontinued Online and Frontier spinoff games are fairly obscure Black Dragons/Dangerous First Class Monsters, and are hated and feared for their ferocity and power over multiple elements. Bonus points for having demonic names: Merphistophelin's name is an obvious corruption of the demon Mephistopheles, and while Disufiroa's namesake Dis is the father of the Underworld in Ancient Roman mythology, it's also the name of the city encompassing the sixth circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy.
- The Deviljho is pretty much the end result of a one night stand between Satan and a T. Rex. It's far more rugged and brutal-looking than most monsters, and belches up streams of Dragon energy that looks like hellfire. And its Savage variant is constantly wreathed in a cloud of the stuff, and is even more dangerous than its already apocalyptic brethren. They aren't Elder Dragons, but are considered to be every bit as dangerous because their voracious appetites can devastate entire ecosystems if they're left unchecked.
- Diablos are, contrary to their hellish appearance, herbivorous cactus eaters. But make no mistake: These oversized, ceratopsian wyverns are every bit as dangerous as their demonic appearance and name would imply. They're ridiculously territorial and aggressive to begin with, but the Black Diablos dials it Up to 11 thanks to being worked up in a constant rage by a hormonal shift during the species' mating season. And then there's the Bloodbath Diablos (Or as it's called in Japan, Massacre Demon Diablos), a special Diablos that has turned into a human-hating psychopath due to a traumatic near-death experience at the hands of a Hunter in its youth. That sadistic aggression, combined with its black skin, Volcanic Veins, and ability to scald you with explosive steam can make you forget that you're basically fighting a rabid dinosaur instead of the devil himself.
- NetHack has Ixoth, the Knight quest nemesis, who is based heavily off this trope, and his tile even depicts him as a bipedal Big Red Devil.
- Symmetra's Dragon skin from the Overwatch Halloween events turns her into an evil, devilishly attractive anthropomorphic dragon with hints of Horny Devils in her design. The demonic imagery seems random unless you play the Junkenstein's Revenge mode, where her role in the story is the Summoner, the formerly human chief servant of a Satanic dragon she struck a deal with for the sake of power.
- Most Dragon-type Pokémon are friendly, dangerous yet awe-inspiring, or outright divine in nature. But there are a few exceptions to the norm:
- The Ghost/Dragon-type Giratina is a truly unholy creature with power over shadows and anti-matter, and is the Pokémon equivalent to Old Scratch himself, complete with being cast into hell/the Distortion World by God/Arceus for its brutal nature. When the player meets it in Platinum though, it's not characterized as evil so much as overzealous in protecting the fabric of reality from any and all threats.
- Guzzlord from the Pokémon Sun and Moon games is barely even recognizable as a dragon, but this colossal, bloated monstrosity is indeed a Dark/Dragon type and one of the most dangerous Ultra Beasts in existence. Its appetite brings a black hole to mind, and it will eat anything in its path. And by anything, we're talking humans, mountains, and oceans. Unfortunately, its stats are far from impressive and barely reflective of how dangerous it is.
- Eternatus from Pokémon Sword and Shield looks like some kind of freakish amalgamation of bones crafted from an Eldritch Abomination, and is a ridiculously dangerous Dragon/Poison type sealed away in the past due to the violent rampage it went on when it first visited the Galar region. The Dynamax energy that makes Pokémon grow to ridiculous size is a result of energy siphoned from this thing, and its power causes random wild Pokémon to not only grow to Kaiju proportions, but also go berserk during the story.
- Hydreigon and Dragalge are mundane in nature as opposed to the legendary Pokémon listed above, but are still aggressive and dangerous by nature. Hydreigon is a three-headed Ghidorah-esque Dark/Dragon type infamous for its violence and for being the signature 'Mon of Ghetsis (one of the most evil characters in the series), and Dragalge is a poisonous seahorse-looking dragon that attacks and sinks any ships unfortunate enough to sail through its territory.
- The very second Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village was revealed, people fell in love with her for her ridiculous height, huge boobs, and equally enormous ass... and they also expected her to transform into something far nastier and less attractive given the series' history. And they were proven right during the game's release: after Ethan Winters kills her daughters, she goes from sexy, sociopathic, torture-loving vampire to ferocious dragon abomination hellbent on killing him.
- Super Mario:
- Ever since his introduction in Super Mario, Bowser invokes a lot of draconic and demonic imagery, despite primarily being a turtle-like monster: he breathes fire, kidnaps Princess Peach on the regular, and rules over a volcanic wasteland. However, he's not that bad of a guy once you get to know him, and he's regularly invited to Mario's various parties, sporting events, and kart races. He's even saved the world a handful of times! His title in Japanese(Daimao Kuppa) can be translated as "Great Demon King of the Koopas".
- A trio of dragons serve as particularly malicious enemies in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and each is tougher and scarier than the last. Hooktail terrorizes Petalburg and the surrounding lands and is known to eat Koopas for fun, Gloomtail is a poison-breathing menace and the Shadow Queen's guard dog, and Bonetail is a monstrously powerful skeletal dragon who waits at the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials as the game's toughest challenge. Grifty's stories further implicate all three as having terrorized the world at large during the Shadow Queen's hellish reign millennia ago, as they were pets that she loved to feed people to.
- While Fracktail from Super Paper Mario is a benevolent robot dragon turned evil by Dimentio's interference, his prototype Wracktail is a malevolent monster sealed away during ancient times due to his destructive tendencies.
- In Super Mario Odyssey, the Ruined Dragon is a huge black-and-purple dragon who can control bolts of powerful purple lightning. Heavily implied to have destroyed an entire civilization in ancient times, Bowser somehow tames him and sends him after Mario late into the game. Despite his massive size and apocalyptic powers, he's no match for the plumber and his friend Cappy.
- In Bowser's Fury, Bowser's been transformed into a shadowy black colossus that terrorizes the peaceful Lake Lapcat. Dubbed Fury Bowser due to constantly being in a state of rage, every single one of his appearances causes a rainstorm to break out, followed by fire falling from the sky and Fury Bowser himself aggressively chasing Mario across the map. The only thing that can hold him at bay is light, either channeled through the lake's Cat Shines or Mario beating the tar out of him in a holy lion suit.
- While Warcraft dragons run the gauntlet of moral alignments, the entirety of the Black Dragonflight are evil bastards from top to bottom. And their leader, Deathwing, is a ferocious Omnicidal Maniac who wants to destroy everything in existence save for his followers.
Western Animation
- Along with Savanti Romero, the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show has Kavaxas, the Big Bad of Season 5 and self-proclaimed Demodragon. Tiger Claw summons him in order to get him to revive the Shredder, but in true demonic fashion, Kavaxas takes advantage of his carelessness and uses it as a way to kickstart the apocalypse.
Real Life
- While dragons obviously aren't real, it's believed that tales of these creatures originated from early man's encounters with dangerous reptiles such as crocodiles and snakes.