In Raising Dragons, we’re introduced to Billy Bannister and Bonnie Silver, the two middle-school age children of dragons. This sounds weird, since they both look human for the most part, but don’t worry. We have Billy’s dad here to tell the story of how, during King Arthur’s reign, slayers threatened to wipe out the entire dragon race because of the terrible reputation brought on by the evil ones. To save his friends, Merlin, who was actually a prophet of God, transformed the dragons into humans. The dragons lost all their traits except for their long lifespans. Now the children they’ve borne with humans have somehow inherited dragon abilities. Billy has fire-breathing and Bonnie has wings.
Since it’s not scary enough for a fourteen-year-old boy to learn he’s a dragon, let’s bring in the modern dragon slayer, who just happens to be disguised as Billy and Bonnie’s principal, Dr. Whittier. (I knew principals were evil!) Throw in some comic relief in the form of Walter, Billy’s wisecracking best friend, and the cultural awkwardness he has with Professor Hamilton, their elderly British teacher, and we’ve now got the stage set for Raising Dragons. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t say anything else, other than you know the kids live or there wouldn't be any other books.
Making his story believable is part of what makes Davis’ writing so good. He shows a corny sense of humor through his characters, but that makes it come across as all the more real. Let’s be honest with ourselves—our normal, everyday banter is generally quite lame. As an even stronger point, though his books are Christian fantasy novels, he’ll go ahead and use science to explain a decent amount of the events so that they actually seem plausible. I have never considered God and science to be enemies, but this is the first book I’ve read that has the two fully linked. For example, Merlin is a prophet of God, but he’s also a scientist. Davis explains it all far better than I could hope to, so I won’t even try. You’ll just have to read it.
My absolute favorite aspect to these books is the focus on old-fashioned chivalry. I shamelessly admit I’m a bit old-fashioned myself, so this sort of thing wins me over every time. Throughout the series, Professor Hamilton acts as a mentor to the kids, training them for combat and in the way of chivalry. For example, a knight is never to attack when his opponent’s back is turned. Hamilton also teaches them to be warriors of God, telling them that truth is their sword and faith is their shield (or vice versa, but either way it still reminds me of the armor of God described in Ephesians).
The concept of gender roles plays a huge part in the theme of chivalry. As Davis puts it, the man is the lover and protector of his woman. Equally important, the woman provides motivation and encouragement to her man. Though she’s not supposed to fight in battle—well, at least not in the same way men do—there’s no victory without her. (There’s no victory without God, either, but you get the point.) Then again, Davis fails to be consistent with these statements because his female characters do a good amount of fighting in his battles. In fact, Bonnie is the first of our protagonists to wield Excalibur. (Yes, Excalibur appears in this story. Why write about anything Arthurian without it?)
Billy is an example of God’s warrior, though he doesn’t always look like one. Certainly, he shows some amount of chivalry early on, especially in risking his life to defend Bonnie from Dr. Whittier, but overall he has a lot of issues to deal with, from the trust in his father he loses to the trust in God he’s hesitant to give. His rage brings him to violate the code of chivalry at least once that I remember. I see Billy’s character as something many of us can look at and recognize as similar to ourselves. No matter how good or strong we think we are, we will always mess up and have to rely on God’s grace to get us through our battles.
Bonnie Silver, arguably the strongest character in this series, embodies the pure, faithful woman several of my female friends and I want to be. She also has her fair amount of emotional scarring, needing to forgive her father, who used her in his experiments when she was younger. As a foster child, she longs for a permanent home and family. Yet her trust in God gives her such peace the other characters can’t help but notice. Overall, Bonnie is the reflection of ourselves we wish to see—the ideal follower of Christ.
As much as I love these books, I take issue with a few things and it’s only fair to point them out. At first I thought of Bonnie as flawless and that bothered me, but a closer look reassured me she’s not, though she’s very close.
Bryan Davis steps onto some shaky theological ground, as is expected by writing Christian fantasy. The whole dragon-human transformation and reproduction concept is certainly odd in its own right, but once again, he writes it well enough that it comes across as plausible, so I don’t see it as an issue. Then we come to the part in which we learn the dragons need their own messiah. One of the dragons must die and be resurrected in order to redeem all their souls.
The red flag went up the moment I read this part. Sacrifices are supposed to be blameless in the eyes of God. No one fits this description except for Jesus. Once he made his sacrifice, there were supposed to be no others. Jesus is the one and only Messiah. To even suggest otherwise puts Davis in dangerous territory, even if this is a work of fiction.
This last issue pales in comparison to the messianic one, but it annoyed me enough so in the review it goes. Several times, Merlin is referred to as “the descendant of Noah,” as though that somehow sets him apart. It doesn’t. Take a good look at Noah’s family tree. Here’s a hint: EVERYBODY’S ON IT! Please reread Genesis, Mr. Davis.
Messianic and Noah soapboxes aside, I appreciate Davis’ approach to the dragon, a creature generally viewed by Christianity as a demonic symbol. The Bible often refers to Satan as a great dragon, and as a result, dragons have been seen exclusively as wicked. That’s not a fair view to take at all, since the Bible also refers to Satan as a roaring lion and I haven’t heard of anyone thinking all lions are evil. In my eyes, this is just one more example of when a biblical metaphor is taken too literally. Davis was brave for portraying dragons as noble servants of God, and he has my respect for that.
One specific scene in Raising Dragons hit me hard. When Bonnie faces off against Dr. Whittier, she is injured and worn out. She prays aloud for God to help her, and the slayer retorts, “God can’t love a miserable creature like you.”
I want to cry with Bonnie every time I read that. Now I wonder to myself: How often do we see someone and write them off as a miserable creature God can’t love, so we don’t either?
Food for thought—Davis prepares it every time he picks up that pen of his. His stories have excellent themes and his heroes, flaws and all, make great fictional role models, inspiring me to be a better writer and a better person. I would gladly read any and all of these books to my children someday.
