Modern Dragons
Dragons today are too big for heroes to slay on their own. It takes an army. Armies are bigger and take more time, but if led by a competent captain, they'll find the dragon. Eventually. Meanwhile, all the hero can do is stand there waving his arms and dodging fireballs. The hero has become an elite messenger. The captain is the one in charge.
But even armies are not alone. They need supply trains, water carriers, farriers, laundresses -- all the necessary items to support an enterprise so large. Without them the army would collapse, unable to reach the dragon let alone kill it. Sometimes it seems that the water carriers do more work than the hero.
When I was little I didn't know that water carriers existed. You turned on the faucet and boom! out came the water. What would you want to carry it for? But then I learned about plumbing and reservoirs and water treatment facilities and somehow water carriers didn't seem like too much of a stretch. If you can have a dragon, you can have a water carrier.
When I was little I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to find a problem, wave a sword, and fix it. When I learned that heroes no longer existed I didn't believe it: of course they do, look at them up there, waving their arms and jumping around. All that jumping's going to fix the problem, you bet. Then I realized that they were jumping around to avoid being hit by a fireball. Definitely not fixing a problem.
In fact, it wasn't even the hero that found the dragon to begin with. It was a peasant, of course, or a lone adventurer, or a survivor from a devastated village. The peasant came to the hero and the hero went and looked at the dragon and said, damn, I'm screwed, and called up the army captain.
Then the army captain gathered all the soldiers, poked and prodded the water carriers and farriers and laundresses, and got that huge bulk of people all moving in the right direction. When the hero got fed up and wanted to know what was taking so long he found them moving down the road at a brisk trot, having not only isolated the den of the dragon, but actually formulated a plan for how to slay it. Imagine that, he thought, a plan.
As I grew up I realized that water carriers were necessary. That even the captain had to start out as a water carrier in order to learn the business of armies and how much effort actually goes into slaying a dragon. As I grew up I realized I didn't want to be the hero. I wanted to be the captain.
But even armies are not alone. They need supply trains, water carriers, farriers, laundresses -- all the necessary items to support an enterprise so large. Without them the army would collapse, unable to reach the dragon let alone kill it. Sometimes it seems that the water carriers do more work than the hero.
When I was little I didn't know that water carriers existed. You turned on the faucet and boom! out came the water. What would you want to carry it for? But then I learned about plumbing and reservoirs and water treatment facilities and somehow water carriers didn't seem like too much of a stretch. If you can have a dragon, you can have a water carrier.
When I was little I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to find a problem, wave a sword, and fix it. When I learned that heroes no longer existed I didn't believe it: of course they do, look at them up there, waving their arms and jumping around. All that jumping's going to fix the problem, you bet. Then I realized that they were jumping around to avoid being hit by a fireball. Definitely not fixing a problem.
In fact, it wasn't even the hero that found the dragon to begin with. It was a peasant, of course, or a lone adventurer, or a survivor from a devastated village. The peasant came to the hero and the hero went and looked at the dragon and said, damn, I'm screwed, and called up the army captain.
Then the army captain gathered all the soldiers, poked and prodded the water carriers and farriers and laundresses, and got that huge bulk of people all moving in the right direction. When the hero got fed up and wanted to know what was taking so long he found them moving down the road at a brisk trot, having not only isolated the den of the dragon, but actually formulated a plan for how to slay it. Imagine that, he thought, a plan.
As I grew up I realized that water carriers were necessary. That even the captain had to start out as a water carrier in order to learn the business of armies and how much effort actually goes into slaying a dragon. As I grew up I realized I didn't want to be the hero. I wanted to be the captain.