It comes from this scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2.
Never discount the broken people along your way.
One of my all-time fave authors, Madeleine L'Engle wrote a wonderfully done biopic of a minor character turning out to play a major role in her Time Quintet series (I think there are actually 8 books that link together). Calvin O'Keefe's mother, Branwen, was a broken down woman going past middle age, the very picture of the ugly side of how unkind life can be, and easily dismissed as someone of very little consequence. But as we journey with them through A Swiftly Tilting Planet (spoilers coming, but the book is decades old), Calvin's mother is the one who invokes St. Patrick's Rune, which I quote at the end of my A to Z survey. Might show up better in the original post here, but I can't guarantee mobile viewing.
I once tried to list fave authors. All I can confidently settle on is that Madeleine L'Engle, Terry Pratchett, and C.S. Lewis are my top three faves. I've read, owned, and given away everything they've written because I can't help sharing, so, oddly, I have none of their books in my house even though I've spend hundreds on multiple copies. I otherwise have so many more favorite authors that it's ridiculous trying to keep track.
Anyway, me and dragons go way back, as they probably do for most people. My first dragon love was Anne McCaffrey's The White Dragon, given to me by my best friend from school before she was killed. It was the third book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. Like everyone else around me, I like drawing dragons, and I love seeing dragons in TV shows and movies, especially now that CGI is becoming so realistic.
One of my very fave Jackie Chan movies was originally titled Heart of Dragon and the only pre-American Jackie movie I've never owned, otherwise have a complete collection up to The Tuxedo. I have deep respect for Sammo Hung.
The film is unusual in that although featuring Sammo Hung and Lam Ching-ying, two actors famed for their kung fu abilities, neither actually perform any martial arts. Golden Harvest had wanted Hung to perform fight scenes in the film, but he refused, rationalising "My character was mentally retarded, mentally disabled, so how can you ask me to fall down and suddenly become well again? And fight? They knew my fighting skills and wanted me to be part of the action but I thought that would have completely destroyed the tone of the film, the principles behind the film."
If I remember correctly, that movie also has one of the longest uncut action scenes ever filmed. The movie was a bit of a ground breaker at the time, centered around a mentally retarded main character and fairly honest and unabashed about how he was treated at a time when people with disabilities still didn't have very much protection even here in the States. The question over who, exactly, is the dragon never gets answered, making the title seem incongruous with the movie, but I dug through Jackie's biography and everything else I could find (he eventually started keeping video diaries), and I think the title is apt for the intended audience. Anyone can be a dragon. The reviews on Amazon are pretty good, and I guarantee the movie makes way more sense after you read how Jackie grew up in his biography. You can read a faster 99% stripped watered down version for Americans here.
The thing about dragons is that they are world changers. There aren't that many dragons around in the first place, much less those who manage to effect real change without the cushion and comfort of sponsorship, but you've probably met a dragon sometime in your life. You know, someone who stood up when no one else did. Someone who didn't wimp out because things got hard. Someone who hung onto a dream in spite of every bit of it being torn to shreds. Someone who didn't even know they were a dragon.
The dragon at the top of this post is a blind, broken dragon with heavy chains around its neck, and look what it's doing- at the first opportunity that presented, it was ready to GO. That crippled wreck of a dragon ripped through the most spell protected building on the planet like it was tissue paper and took off even though it couldn't even see where it was going, and it happened to be carrying exactly the right people at exactly the right time to exactly the right place to go do exactly the right thing. The dragon isn't a very big part of the story, but without that dragon, the rest of the story wouldn't have happened.
You can be so broken and lost that you think you'll never find a way again and still be the right person at the right time in the right place for the right stuff to happen. You only need to be ready to GO when the opportunity pops up. If you think you can wait until you believe in yourself or until you're in better shape or when it's easier, you'll miss it. Every life we touch is affected by our being here. We create ripples through time.
You're right, I need to get some lunch (it's nearly 2:00) and find a video so I can change brain tracks and work on other things. This has been a mind blowing week for me, a great big touch base kind of week, a looking back and seeing how high up the mountain I've come without realizing it kind of week. I'm excited and happy and exhausted and worn out, not sure how I'm doing it but still hanging on to a bit of crag sticking out and figuring my way up the next bit of scarp. This has been my jam all day. You never know what's going to come out of a big pink dragon egg, lol.
