Religious impacts

The dragon or serpent image and symbolism has been found and deemed important in many different religions, including Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, and New Age religions. However, it's universal impact is most noted with Christianity.

"Chaos Vs Order" --> "Good Vs Evil" Mytheme

Pre-Christianity, snake worship was important and essential to all ancient civilizations. The serpent provided representation for women in ancient cultures with it’s symbolism of free expression and the divinity of the female figure, allowing for sovereignty and self-affirmation for these women. The dragon-slaying myths of these cultures represented an order vs chaos mytheme, wherein the dragon represented chaos and nature and order represented structure and the controlling of that chaos.

Leading into the common era, we see the decline of the Order Vs Chaos mytheme and it’s conversion to a Good Vs Evil one, with the origins really beginning with the rise of Christianity. The stories become a heeding of disobedience and the consequences. Here is really where the shift began of the importance of following order and rank, obeying your God ultimately, even over your King, as per the separation of church and state.

The serpent is symbolic of freedom, empowerment, sexuality, and the feminine. The dragon-slaying mytheme, at this time, became the destruction of those things, the controlling of those things. It took the order vs chaos mytheme and applied it to the masculine and feminine, denoting women were something to be controlled and conquered. Along with the intention to abolish paganism for the same reasons, as it encouraged similar behaviours and characteristics, these intentions became the hidden themes to the biblical scriptures and were used as a method to emasculate.