The Dragon / Literature

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• Adventure Hunters: Marcus becomes this for Ryvas; his second in command and the enforcer of his Evil Plan.
• The Axe-Man in the Ahriman Trilogy serves as the quietly Ax-Crazy Dragon for the more loquacious Toby Homolka.
• Squealer to Napoleon in Animal Farm. Squealer keeps the other animals in line by convincing them of Napoleon's generosity and warning them about Jones coming back. When Napoleon becomes more paranoid and isolates himself from the other animals, Squealer serves as his mouthpiece. While his superior Napoleon was based on Josef Stalin, Squealer shares similarities with his Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov.
• Bazil Broketail: Thrembode acts as one in the first three volumes, initially towards the Blunt Doom, then towards the Masters of Padmasa themselves.
• In The Belgariad, Ctuchik and Zedar play Dragon to Torak, while on a lesser scale Brill is the Dragon to Asharak (although the full details of that relationship aren't made fully clear). In the sequel, The Malloreon, Naradas is Zandramas' Number Two, while the Demon Lord Mordja is her last line of physical defence; Mordja's rival, Nahaz is Dragon with an Agenda and Dragon-in-Chief to her rival, Urvon. Urvon's right hand man Harakan/Mengha could be considered another Dragon and is definitely his Bastard Understudy; like Nahaz Harakan too has an agenda.
• In The Black Coats, Lecoq is The Colonel's dragon.
• Katla is Tengil's (also literal) dragon in The Brothers Lionheart. She is as evil as Tengil and is his greatest weapon, and the only reason she is under his command is that she obeys whomever is in possession of the horn she is afraid of.
• In Chasing Shadows, Holly sees Wiry as an agent of Kortha's who killed her brother on his behalf. Ends up subverted, as Wiry wanted to frame a local gang for the shooting and had nothing to do with Holly's beliefs.
• In Chung Kuo, Charles deVore to Berdichev, although he later gets a promotion.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Rhysand to Amarantha, except he had been plotting for decades to find a way to kill her.
• Daniel Faust has scads, in keeping with its large number of bad guys.
  • Each of the demon princes have one called their Hound. Caitlin is Sitri's Hound.
  • Adam, the head honcho for the Network, is also the right-hand man for the Kings of Man.
  • Fleiss is the primary minion of The Enemy.
  • As revealed in The Locust Job, Daniel's brother, Teddie is this for Naavarasi.
• Dark Future: Elder Roger Duroc is the series' Dragon for Nguyen Seth. Apparently, his family has served Seth in this capacity for several hundred years.
• Walter o'Dim from The Dark Tower serves the enigmatic Crimson King. He's a Dragon-in-Chief considering that the Crimson King is just a frail, crazy old man... albeit one with a lot of bombs at his disposal.
• Hester seems to be The Dragon in Death Speaker, and a pretty scary one, considering her mutation.
• Discworld: If Lord Vetinari were an Evil Overlord, then Samuel Vimes would be his Dragon. Vimes is often said to be Vetinari's "terrier", often unwittingly or unwillingly, but is The Protagonist of all the Watch books.
• Dah'mir of The Dragon Below Eberron trilogy is The Dragon to the Master of Silence, a daelkyr. And an actual dragon...
• In The Dresden Files, every villain has at least one Dragon that Harry has to deal with before he can tackle the book's real villain.
  • Deirdre is The Dragon to Nicodemus, her father and lover.
  • Tessa, Nicodemus' actual wife, uses both Rosanna and Magog as her Dragons.
  • Also, Lara Raith serves as Dragon and Bastard Understudy to her father (who used rape to establish control of all of his daughters except the youngest) until the events of Blood Rites, after which she is in charge of the White Court through control of her father.
  • In Dead Beat, the Corpsetaker uses a ghoul named Li Xian as her enforcer, though he mostly just hits things while she holds them in place with her mental powers.
  • Aurora has a Sidhe Lord, the Winter Knight Lloyd Slate, and a Centaur as her dragons.
  • The Faerie Queens all use a mortal agent known as a Knight to serve as their assassins and enforcers in the mortal world, as they cannot directly act against mortals.
  • In Changes, the Red King uses a pair of assassins known as the "Eebs" and a massive, difficult-to-pronounce beast that Harry dubs the "Ick" as his Dragons.
  • The Skinwalker serves as the Black Council's Dragon in Turn Coat, and Binder is Madeline Raith's Dragon as well.
  • In Ghost Story, Evil Bob plays this role for the Corpsetaker.
• Duncton Wood has Rune, who is this to Mandrake.
• In Eclipse (2007), Victoria uses Riley as her dragon and also has him making all of the moves for her.
• In The Elenium, Martel is Dragon-in-Chief to Annias and Azash, while in the sequel, The Tamuli, Cyrgon is The Dragon to Klael.
• The Eschaton Series: Portia Hoechst, in Iron Sunrise.
• In The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure, Throttlethumbs is the Dragon to Sir Jasper.
• Firebird Trilogy:
  • Firebird: Tel Tellai is Phoena Angelo's right-hand-man. He oversees security and the day-to-day operation of their resistance group when she is busy with other matters, and personally supports her as a friend and, later, husband.
  • Fusion Fire: Dru Polar is the Shuhr's strongest telepath, the head of Testing, and Brennen Caldwell's direct captor. He ran the attempts to extract the classified information from Brennen and he is the one who planned to break Brennen by forcing him to kill his own wife. Polar answers only to Eshdeth Shirak, who is the leader of the Shuhr.
  • Crown of Fire: Micahel Shirak is the son of the new leader of the Shuhr and the de facto second-in-command. He helps his father carry out their various plans and orchestrates the attempts on Firebird Angelo Caldwell's life.
  • Wind and Shadow: This book does not have a Dragon; instead, it has a major Big Bad and a lesser one.
  • Daystar: Colonel Zeimsky is Piper Gambrel's crony, creating the means to destroy the Sentinel's telepathic abilities and working to apply that "cure" to all the Sentinels. He is the scientist to Gambrel's religious bent and enables Gambrel's plans against the Sentinels to move forward. Zeimsky and Gambrel have a somewhat unusual relationship as Big Bad and Dragon, as they are frequently in conflict with each other and Zeimsky resents his subordinate role, feeling that he should be Gambrel's equal.
• In The Flying Boy, Dr. Paigne has a daughter named Demi.
• Played straight in The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth, by Lord Dunsany. Leothric has to fight a literal dragon, Wong Bongerok, before facing Gaznak.
• Pehaps not so surprising, Tom Hagen in The Godfather.
• In The Godless World Trilogy, Fatalist Emotionless Dark Action Girl Shraeve, is The Dragon to Aeglyss, whom she believes to be the promised one who will end the world and make her faith the rulers of the new paradise. She believes in him whole-heartedly until the end of the series; when she begins to doubt, Aeglyss brainwashes her. Throughout books two and three she does most of his killing for him, and serves as his bodyguard.
• GONE series:
  • Big bad Caine Soren has sadist and on-off best friend Drake Merwin...Before throwing him down a mine shaft at the end of Book 2.
  • As of Book 3 and onwards, Penny the monster bringer reprises Drake's role.
  • Although, Argubly, Drake is still the dragon, only now to the "thing in the mineshaft".
• In Gone with the Wind: India Wilkes has a convict named Archie and local gossip Mrs. Elsing as her dragons. Or at the very least, they side with her when all three of them catch protagonist Scarlett O’Hara hugging India's brother Ashley in their lumber mill. This causes a feud throughout Atlanta that sees Scarlett and her husband Rhett Butler being outcasted from high society.
• Aries the ram-man to the warlord Baelan in Greystone Valley.
• Harry Potter:
  • Lord Voldemort has a number of these and juggles them. Many of them think they're his favorite, of course he has none.
    • Lucius Malfoy was originally Voldemort's Dragon. He hands missions like the one at the ministry in Book 5 to the cool-headed Malfoy. Then after losing the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix the Dark Lord decided he'd failed one too many times. Lucius spends most of Deathly Hallows doing little more than sitting in his chair at Death Eater meetings and quietly whimpering^note it really doesn't help that Voldemort "borrows" his wand and promptly loses it. Then he and his family make a Heel–Face Turn of sorts...
    • Bellatrix Lestrange — the ruthless and devoted lieutenant but isn't one of the world's greatest thinkers, so Voldemort keeps her at arm's length.
    • Snape knows too much about Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix to be wasted somewhere else, and since he's Voldemort's Double Agent inside the Order of the Phoenix he reports directly to him and no one else. He's also Dumbledore's Double Agent, which subverts this trope as far as intentions go.
    • Barty Crouch Jr. was called his most faithful servant by Voldemort himself and he was likely the most shrewd one. Unfortunately for both he didn't last long.
    • Yaxley could be considered by the books end to be the second one after Snape as he controlled the Ministry of Magic and was determined to earn his master's approval as much as Snape.
    • Quirinus Quirrell from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was Voldemort's first Dragon seen in the series. Though this wasn't due to Quirrell's skills, rather it was because he was literally the only person Voldemort could get to do his bidding at the time.
    • In a similar case to Quirrell, in the second book Ginny Weasley is possessed by Tom Riddle's Diary and brainwashed into opening the Chamber of Secrets, unleashing the Basilisk on anyone unlucky to come across it, strangling Hagrid's roosters as preemptive measures, and writing messages in their blood as warnings to the students of Hogwarts.
  • When Umbridge took over Hogwarts, Filch served as her Dragon. Additionally, Umbridge herself seemed to be Cornelius Fudge's Dragon, although she would easily qualify as a Dragon-in-Chief since Fudge was more of a Horrible Judge of Character than a villain. After the Death Eater takeover of the Ministry, she serves as Yaxley's Dragon.
  • Chamber of Secrets has a literal example. The Basilisk is the Dragon and memory Tom Riddle (a Horcrux piece possessing Ginny Weasley) is the Big Bad. It's even the classic scenario: to save the Damsel in Distress, The Hero battles the Dragon and then defeats the physically weaker Big Bad. He also marries the damsel, though not until many years later.
• Porphyrion, the king of the Giants, in The Heroes of Olympus.
• In The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, Moran is Moriarty's number two, in charge of homicides for Moriarty's criminal organization, The Firm. He and Moriarty even live together, in an apartment above a brothel loyal to the Professor, and is a (mostly) loyal agent of his boss.
• The Hunger Games: Clove to Cato.
• The Hurog duology has Oreg, who is a kind of secret weapon, as everyone thinks he's just a ghost that haunts the castle. He's actually quite a powerful mage, but magically bound as a slave to the respective owner of castle Hurog. He can also shapeshift into a literal dragon. Interspecies Romance can have such results.
• Inheritance Cycle:
  • The Shade Durza serves as King Galbatorix's right-hand man for Eragon as his main agent in hunting The Varden down.
  • After Durza is killed at the end of book 1, he is replaced by Murtagh and his literal dragon Thorn, when the former is captured at the beginning of the second book and forced to do a Face–Heel Turn.
  • In the backstory, Murtagh's father Morzan was right-hand man to Galbatorix, the first and last of the Forsworn, the Dragon Riders who turned traitor and joined Galbatorix.
• The Inkworld Trilogy:
  • Basta, the knife-wielding henchman to Capricorn, who runs all his errands and does most of his dirty work.
  • The Adderhead's Dragon The Piper.
• In Last Legionary, The One, an exoskeleton-clad Evil Cripple, is The Dragon to the Warlord Arachnis, which due to being a Hive Mind made up of 24 people, is more or less immobile. The One is Arachnis' top field commander, trains its troops, and is its best and last line of defence, providing The Hero with his toughest challenge ever.
• In the eBook Legend of a Hero: Ice and Wind, ironically, the Big Bad IS a Dragon (7,000 years old and counting...) called the Dragon of the Ice, or the Ice Dragon. Its Dragon is a fire-wielding general named Marko Terror...HIS Dragons (if he were the Big Bad) would be (besides the multiple Captains) Alba T. Ross and Maria Terror, his niece.
  • In the same eBook, on the Hero of Wind story, we have the Sky Commander, whose Dragons are Ace-Right Blaze, Lieutenant Julius, Lieutenant Alexis, and the Ace-Left, a.k.a. Leon Heart.
  • They all die save Leon, who decides to do a Heel–Face Turn and just disappears.
• The Legend of Drizzt: In The Crystal Shard, Errtu was Akar Kessel's Dragon, especially since most of Akar's power is derived from the Crystal Shard, while Errtu is a powerful demon in his own right. In the rest of Drizzt's adventures, Artemis Entreri is often The Dragon.
• In The Legendsong Saga Kalide is this to his mother Coralyn. Despite thinking herself to be The Chessmaster Big Bad, she herself only the Dragon to the Chaos spirit.
• The Lensman series is built on Dragons behind Dragons. Along about the end of each book... or the beginning of the next... it's revealed that the Big Bad just defeated was The Dragon for someone even higher up. The stories were rewritten after their original appearance so that the reader is let in on who the real Big Bad is at the beginning of Book 1, but the protagonists don't find out until Book 6.
• By the end of Lord of the Flies, Roger becomes the dragon to Jack, with shades of Dragon-in-Chief and Dragon with an Agenda.
• In Paul Kelly's The Lost Brigade, General Arras Kierhenan is most certainly the Dragon to Eustace 'The Evil' De Mharburg's Big Bad. Unquestioning and subservient, Kierhenan is always ready to fulfill De Mharburg's orders, no matter what they may be...
• The Ice Cream Psycho in Lovely Assistant (by Geoph Essex) serves as The Dragon for the bad guys. Although in the climax, there are hints that he may have been The Man Behind the Man (or at least a Dragon with an Agenda) in the first place.
• In The Malazan Book of the Fallen, each of the High Houses has a Knight or Champion who serves in this capacity to the King and Queen that rule the House:
  • High House Dark: Annomander Rake is Knight to Mother Dark herself.
  • High House Light: Osric/Osserc/Oseric is Champion to Father Light.
  • High House Death: Dassem Ultor was Hood's Knight; we meet the current one on several occasions.
  • High House Shadow: Cotillion the Rope is Assassin to Shadowthrone Ammanas.
  • High House Chains: Formerly Ruhlad Sengar, The King in Chains, to the series' Big Bad, the Crippled God, who due to his Sealed Evil in a Can status, cannot be King of his own house. With Ruhlad's death, the two most obvious candidates for this position are the rebellious Knight, Karsa Orlong who wants no part in the Crippled God's schemes, and The Reaver, Badass Grandpa Kallor who actively seeks out the position of King in Chains.
  • In the physical world, the Malazan Empress has her Adjunct, who serves as her Number Two. And then there's the various minor gods and their Mortal Swords.
• The Mediochre Q Seth Series has a few:
  • Mr Antler serves this role in The Good, the Bad and the Mediochre, with Sapphire being the Big Bad.
  • Xanatos Gambit (no relation, possibly) fills in the role in Black, White and Shades of Mediochre, as the apparent right-hand Strigoi of the necromancer. Although it turns out that the necromancer isn't calling the shots either, being something of a Dragon-in-Chief to Jasper and/or Obsidian.
  • Also in Black, White and Shades of Mediochre, despite both of their villainous organisations being Unwitting Pawns in the grand scheme of things, Underdog Narrow is pretty-much The Dragon to Zac Abrahams, and Tiffany Quicksilver is pretty-much The Dragon to Guinevere Spencer.
• Metro 2035 has Lyokha/Aleksei Zvonariov, who starts out as The Lancer to the main protagonist Artyom. However, he later becomes The Dragon to the novel's Big Bad Aleksei Bessolov, when he betrays Artyom, after his imprisonment along with him.
• In Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, the Steel Inquisitors — once-human, virtually unstoppable killing machines — serve as the collective Dragons to the Lord Ruler. After the first book, the real Big Bad Ruin takes command of the Inquisitors, and one of them, Marsh, becomes his (unwilling) Dragon.
• Sebastian/Jonathan to his father Valentine Morgenstern in The Mortal Instruments. Seems to be one to Lilith now, too.
• In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the Fitzgibbon's cat acts as the dragon to the various animals on the farm, terrorizing and killing many of them including Jonathan, Mrs. Frisby's husband. The cat is quite appropriately named Dragon.
• In the New Jedi Order series, Warmaster Tsavong Lah, leader of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior caste, is The Dragon to Supreme Overlord Shimrra who is in turn a puppet for Onimi, but the Warmaster doesn't know that. Interestingly, he also takes on many aspects of the Big Bad in the early part of the series, since he has free rein with the invasion until Shimrra finally takes personal command.
• Hagen in Nibelungenlied.
• Nightfall (Series): Tristan to Prince Vladimir, although the servants mostly describe him as ‘The Puppy.’
• In The Night's Blade, Annamaria 'Anna' Hallin is Kelstra's dragon.
• Several examples in the Old Kingdom series:
  • In Sabriel, Kerrigor uses an unnamed Mordicant^note a sort of golem inhabited by an undead spirit, noted as an Implacable Man and Scarily Competent Tracker as his Dragon.
  • In Lirael and Abhorsen, Hedge manages to subvert his rival Chlorr of the Mask using Free Magic into being his Dragon, though she's got something of an Enigmatic Minion type flavor about her as well. The end of Lirael then reveals Hedge himself to not be the Big Bad as he first appeared, but The Dragon himself to Orannis the Destroyer, a tremendously powerful Sealed Evil in a Can that uses Hedge as Its agent in the outside world.
• Luke Castellan to Kronos in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
• The Power of Five:
  • Jayne Dervill in Raven's Gate.
  • Captain Roberts in Evil Star.
  • Susan Mortlake in Nightrise.
  • Jonas Mortlake and the new Chairman in Oblivion.
• In the Protector of the Small series, Stenmun serves in this capacity to Blayce. Blayce is a dumpy little necromancer with no physical capabilities. Stenmun, a seven-foot warrior with a double-headed axe, is the one who goes out and fetches the children Blayce uses in his killing devices, guards his castle, and executes servants who cross Blayce's will. Stenmun is the last obstacle Keladry faces when she assaults Blayce's stronghold, and Kel fights a grueling battle with him. Though it ends with him dead, Kel is also left wounded and fuzzy-headed when she goes to confront Blayce himself.
• The Reckoners Trilogy:
  • In Steelheart, Nightwielder acts as the Dragon to the book's namesake, Steelheart.
  • In Firefight, Newton is a straightforward Dragon to Regalia, with Obliteration acting as a Dragon with an Agenda. Obliteration also abandons a defenceless and dying Regalia at the climax of the book.
• Most Redwall villains have at least one.
  • Cluny goes through a long series of Dragons, since none of them lasts very long. After his original second-in-command, the strategically-minded Redtooth, dies Cluny favors the efficient and solemn Scragg. After Scragg dies, he sets up the power-hungry, bullying but largely out of his depth Cheesethief as a Dragon but then he unexpectedly serves as a decoy and gets killed. By the final battle, his ever-present third-in-command Darkclaw (who despite his competence lacked the spark to be a true second) and recent recruit but as dependable as odd-minded Killconey loosely fill the role together, and after that it ceases to matter.
  • Brogg (temporarily replaced by Cludd) and Ashleg to Tsarmina Greeneyes in Mossflower. Ashleg skipped town on deciding Tsarmina was a health hazard.
  • In Mariel of Redwall, Greypatch was this to Gabool the Wild originally. After his desertion, seven dragons were sent to retrieve him: Garrtail, Orgeye, Flogga, Catseyes, Riptung, Hookfin and Grimtooth.
  • Klitch and Deathbrush to Feragho the Assassin in Salamandastron.
  • Gurrad was Badrang's assassin briefly in Martin the Warrior.
  • Nightshade to Swartt Sixclaw in Outcast of Redwall.
  • Lask Frildur, Sagitar Sawfang and Grall to Ublaz Mad Eyes in Pearls of Lutra.
  • Ripfang, Doomeye, Karangool, Grand Fragorl and Groddil to Ungatt Trunn in Lord Brocktree.
  • Riftun to Kurda in Triss.
  • Glimbo to Raga Bol in Loamhedge.
  • Shard to Gulo in Rakkety Tam.
  • Atunra to Riggu Felis in High Rhulain.
  • Magger to Vizka Longtooth in Eulalia!.
  • Veeku and Sicariss to Korvus Skurr in Doomwyte.
  • Zwilt the Shade and Dirva to Vilaya in The Sable Quean.
  • Shekra, Mowlag and Jiboree to Razzid Wearat in The Rogue Crew.
• In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Lu Bu is The Dragon of the early story, as his allegiance clears the way for Dong Zhuo's rise to hegemony. However, he demonstrates a capacity for being manipulated that leads to Dong Zhuo's downfall and eventually his own. Xiahou Dun is this to Cao Cao in the later stories, since the former is always depicted as the latter's right-hand man.
• "Search by the Mule": By now, Han Pritcher has been made the Mule's lieutenant general, and is the best Converted minion he has. He sends Pritcher out on important missions, mostly revolving around Seldon's Second Foundation. In this story, Pritcher is sent out with Bail Channis on another attempt to find them, and is finally successful! Mention is made in "Search by the Foundation" that he became a Dragon Ascendant, trying to keep the Mule's Union of Worlds intact, but was unsuccessful.
• Many examples in Septimus Heap:
  • The Hunter in Magyk.
  • Simon in Flyte.
  • Merrin Meredith in Queste and Syren.
• Shadows of the Empire: Guri is Xizor's chief lieutenant, serving as his aide, assassin and sometimes sexbot. Being a droid too, her loyalty is beyond question since she's programmed to do whatever he asks.
• The Shannara series often makes use of this trope. In The Elfstones of Shannara, The Dagda Mor has The Reaper and The Changeling as his Co-Dragons. In The Heritage of Shannara, several Shadowen could be seen as Rimmer Dall's Dragon, but the most archetypical is likely the entirely human Psycho for Hire Pe Ell. In The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, psychopathic computer system Antrax has Ard Patrinell, and The Morgawr has Mwellret Cree Bega as his Number Two.
• Sherlock Holmes: Colonel Sebastian Moran is The Dragon to Professor Moriarty. Moran is described as Moriarty's chief of staff and attempted to avenge Moriarty when the latter was killed by Holmes. This is the main reason why Holmes went into hiding for three years.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The mercenary Bronn serves as Tyrion's Dragon, and Sandor Clegane is Joffrey's. Tywin has his brother, Kevan, who acts as his Number Two, and his son Jaime who is his favoured field commander (but is captured too early to do much dragoning).
  • A Song of Ice and Fire is full of Dragons, since there are almost as many factions as characters and the better part of them are either overtly nasty or neutrally antagonistic. Euron Greyjoy has Victarion (for now), Roose Bolton has his Bastard Bastard Ramsay, Hizdahr zo Loraq has Khrazz, The Tattered Prince has Caggo, Selyse has Axell Florent, and so on, and so on.
  • Melissandre could be seen as Stannis Baratheon's dragon, considering he is on a line between Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain. She could be seen as representing his evil side, encouraging him to perform ruthless actions, while Ser Davos Seaworth, serves as The Lancer and represents Stannis' good.
  • From the Targaryen perspective, Eddard "Ned" Stark, the central character of the first book, was Robert Baratheon's dragon during the War of the Usurper, their name for Robert's Rebellion, the war that put Robert on the throne.
• Temeraire: The Chinese Celestial dragon Lien adopts the Big Bad Napoléon Bonaparte as companion in order to gain Revenge against Temeraire. Not only is she a dragon and by far the most combat-capable of the two, but her expertise leads Napoleon to enact the Western world's most extensive dragon-breeding program and dragon civil rights movement, which drastically change the course of the Napoleonic Wars.
• Those That Wake: Arielle Kliest is this to the old Man in the sequel What We Become.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Silmarillion: One different Morgoth's high-ranking minion plays this role in each "Great Tale": In Beren and Lúthien, Sauron is the commander of Morgoth's army which invades Dorthonion and drives Beren out. In The Children of Húrin, Glaurung -a literal dragon- destroys Nargothrond and sees that his master's curse destroys the lives of Túrin and his sister. In The Fall of Gondolin, Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs and High-Captain of Angband leads the attack which razes to the ground the last Elven Kingdom.
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • The commander of Sauron's army is none other than the Witch-king of Angmar.
    • Saruman, although appearing at first to be co-dragon with the Witch-King, and is arrogant enough to think he and Sauron form a Big Bad Duumvirate, best fits the role of treacherous upstart.
    • The Mouth of Sauron may be considered a co-dragon. He knew a great part of his master's plans and thinking. However, he doesn't present any real challenge to the heroes and appears to function strictly as a communication tool.
  • In Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, it's suggested that Sauron (still the Necromancer of Dol Guldur at that time) intended to co-opt Smaug (the dragon from The Hobbit) as a subordinate but was thwarted when, ultimately thanks to actions by Gandalf, Smaug was killed during the events of that book.
• Trapped on Draconica: Taurok is the general working for Evil Overlord Gothon. While the latter sits around at home, Taurok leads the search for the main protagonist.
• Weed Maddox to Iain Corvus in Tyrannosaur Canyon. Corvus plays the aloof amoral intellectual, Maddox is a sociopath ex-military Lightning Bruiser.
• The Vampire Chronicles: The titular Queen in The Queen of the Damned, the deranged Akasha, wants resident Anti-Hero Lestat to be this to her. While he does call himself evil more than once, he suffers a major breakdown over the things she made him do and leaves her.
• In the novels set in the "Veteran" universe by Gavin G. Smith, the "Grey Lady" Josephine Bran serves as a dragon to main antagonist Major Rolleston.
• In Victoria, General Wesley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is this to the rather weak-willed President Warner, and probably the most effective force in the Federal Government when it comes to combating the freedom fighters in that setting's near-future civil war. When Warner and his cabinet are killed in a weird-looking terrorist strike he may or may not have had something to do with, Wesley also becomes the Dragon Ascendant.
• Warren the 13th: Petula is Annaconda's apprentice who does most of the spying for her.
• There are many in Warrior Cats due to almost all the villains being connected in some way.
  • Blackfoot serves as Brokenstar's dragon in the first half of the first arc and Tigerstar's dragon in the second half of said arc before his Heel–Face Turn at the end.
  • Early on in the first arc, Darkstripe serves as Tigerstar's dragon until Tigerstar finds a better one.
  • Bone is the dragon to Scourge in the sixth book, The Darkest Hour.
  • In The New Prophecy, Hawkfrost serves as Tigerstar's dragon. He's also a Dragon-in-Chief, seeing as Tigerstar is dead but he isn't. However, he spends the Power of Three arc as a regular dragon due to Brambleclaw killing him.
  • In Starlight, the fourth book of The New Prophecy, Mudclaw is Hawkfrost's dragon until he gets a literal bridge dropped on him.
  • In Omen of the Stars, Brokenstar replaces Hawkfrost as Tigerstar's dragon because Tigerstar likes Brokenstar more.
  • In The Forgotten Warrior, the fifth book of Omen of the Stars, Antpelt becomes The Dragon to minor villain Shredtail. He doesn't last very long.
• At the end of The Way of Kings (2010), Szeth unwillingly becomes this to Taravangian when he discovers that he is in possession of his Oath Stone.
• The Wheel of Time:
  • The Forsaken are the Dark One's most powerful mortal servants, and the most powerful of them is Ishamael, who is the Dark One's right hand. After he dies, the rest compete viciously for the vacated position of Nae'blis, which basically means The Dragon. The position ultimately goes to Moridin, an apparent newcomer who is soon revealed to be Ishamael in a new body. Subverted by Shaidar Haran, who initially appears to be another Dragon but is actually a sort of extension of the Dark One's own will, and is discarded once the Dark One's prison weakens enough that he's no longer needed.
  • This is played interestingly during the Last Battle across several levels. The Dark One is the Big Bad. Moridin is his Dragon, but he's not the type to get physical or lead his own troops into battle. Therefore his Dragon is Demandred, the Shadow's greatest general, who is also a Dragon with an Agenda, since he only cares about defeating Rand, not advancing the Shadow's cause. His Dragon is Mazrim Taim who acts as his enforcer in the ranks and leader of his Dreadlords, and who also schemes to take over from him.
  • Among the Children of the Light, the tough, skilled blademaster Eamon Valda is blackmailed into serving as a sort-of Dragon to the elderly, frail Rhadam Asunawa.
  • Ironically, Lewis Therin Telamon is called "The Dragon" but is not an example of The Dragon trope, but The Chosen One, as is his Reincarnation Rand al'Thor, "The Dragon Reborn".
• Esme of The Witchlands is Ragnor's right hand, and she creates and manages his Cleaved army.
• The Word and the Void: In Running with the Demon, the titular demon uses the maentwrog as his Dragon during his confrontation with the heroes, having it incapacitate John Ross while he targets Nest.
• Contessa from Worm is Doctor Mother's closest, longest-standing and most effective subordinate, although, as seen in her Interlude, they formed Cauldron together. Contessa eventually just let Doctor Mother call the shots while Contessa focused on finding the paths to success with her power.
• For all of the X-Wing Series books that feature him, Kirtain Loor is The Dragon. He's allowed autonomy but ultimately cringes before his superiors, both of whom are worse than he is. Ysanne Isard recruited him and put him in charge of the underground Imperial movement on Coruscant after it fell to the New Republic. He had his own plots going, but the head of the People's Militia, nominally there to stop Loor, recruited him to further his own agenda. Interestingly, neither he nor his superiors ever engaged in direct or even starfighter combat with the New Republic; Loor mostly sent stormtroopers and operatives after them, and later started setting bombs and directing speeders filled with explosives into population centers. He didn't even see any New Republic protagonists until he tried to surrender some information in exchange for his life.

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