Dragons Can Be Killed

This morning, three of my middle-aged coworkers got into a spirited discussion about the movie KPOP Demon Hunters. One of them said she wouldn’t let the little kids in her life watch anything with the word “demon” in the title while another insisted it was a cute, fun show. The third woman then pointed out that Harry Potter has sometimes been viewed as satanic because it’s about witchcraft, even though the series is good, clean, child-friendly fun. I told them I’d thought KPOP Demon Hunters was uplifting and child-appropriate—the demons are pink and goofy-looking and their slayers sing and dance as they slaughter them. I would argue that a work about demon hunters can’t honestly be viewed as devilish if the goal of the story is to defeat the demons. Their discussion put me in mind of a quote attributed to the classic Christian fantasy writer G. K. Chesterton. “Fairy tales do not tell children dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.”

When you dig back into Cheston’s writings, the original blurb that was later distilled into this quote is as follows:

 “Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. . . Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.”

This Halloween season, I decided to finally read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’d met the famous vampire in everything from the black-and-white 1931 film and to the children’s movie Hotel Transylvania, but I’d never gone back to the original story. Modern vampires are often alluring in their spooky glamour (hello Edward) but Count Dracula is unapologetically awful. He’s old, foul, ugly, and his house stinks. His vampire powers make him near-invincible, and yet, he’s allergic to crosses and communion wafers. He is the prime example of one of Chesterton’s bogeys with “enemies in the knights of God.” While the thought “this is satanic” certainly crossed my mind several times while reading Dracula, overall, the story has an uplifting message, even a Christian one. Vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing compares killing monsters to a religious crusade. “Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him.”

As a fantasy author, I’m always careful when I write anything that evokes dark superstitions, classic mythologies, or modern-day world religions. Writing about demons or gods immediately pulls you into very different territory than writing about dragons and fairies. A few years back, I wrote a witch book, which I hope to publish someday. Usually I do extensive research on folklore to create a magic system, but I specifically avoided taking inspiration from “real” witchcraft for this one. Some witch novels are whimsical and fun; others unnerve me with references to satanic tradition. And, of course, there are many modern-day people who consider themselves to be witches who have nothing to do with the Christian devil. They’d be offended if you thought their crystals and auras were satanic. In my own witch book, I made sure that my witch protagonist never did anything that could be considered reminiscent of real-world witchcraft traditions, whether light or dark, and also included scenes where witch hunters defeat an antagonistic witch.

The holiday Halloween encapsulates the idea that monsters can be slain and dark gives way to dawn. Its colors, black and orange, traditionally symbolize night and sunrise. We wear our spooky monster masks trick-or-treating and take them off at the end of the day to reveal that there was never really a monster there all along. Some Christian traditions associate All Hallows’ Eve on October 31st alongside All Hallows’ (Saints’) Day on November 1st. Halloween falls around the same time of year as the family-centered Dia de los Muertos, which combines spooky death imagery with connection to beloved deceased family members, as well as Diwali, my Indian husband’s favorite holiday, which has associations of light and good triumphing over evil. 

Some types of horror stories do lean into the death and darkness too much, but the best spooky stories are the ones that tell us that the bogey can be defeated. I see a beauty, even a divinity, in monster tales. Scary stories serve a deep-seated human need, present across many cultures and time periods, to see the darkness overcome.