In most stories, dragons are terrible monsters that live on the flesh of men, horde giant piles of stolen treasure, and keep fair maidens prisoner. These nightmarish monstrosities both terrify and tantalize the fantasies of those who visit the "other" worlds in their imaginations with their giant, scaly bodies and ferocious hunger. Vision of Escaflowne examines and reevaluates this image of the dragon by associating it with its main character.

At first glance, the dragon is everything a dragon should be. When his monstrous form appears on the track field, he waddles out of darkness ready to fight and probably eat everyone there. Every part of him represents some sort of danger to the boy who battles him from his fiery chest, gigantic teeth, powerful wings, to his sharp, armor piercing tail. His entire being seems to pulsate with savagery and menace as he knocks Van down, causing him to cough up blood, but with Van down he suddenly turns and pursues Hitomi and her very frightened friends. Van guesses that he wounds his enemies and comes back to finish them, but his assumption is wrong. With the aid of Hitomi's warning, Van avoids a deathblow from the dragon and kills the great beast.

It isn't until Folken explains it that the dragon's reason for leaving Van becomes clear. In this world, the strong, terrible dragons do not revel in murdering humans nor do they have an unnatural taste for their flesh. Dragons do not attack unless they sense they are in danger. The person who has a weapon or who runs away might pose a danger, but a wounded man with no sword or someone who will look the dragon in he eye with no fear does not.

Throughout the story, Van is associated with dragons. The explicit reason for this is his Escaflowne which has two forms-the traditional battle form and a dragon like flying form. When seen from a distance, this second shape is often mistaken for a real dragon. At first it is the "dragon" (or Escaflowne) that Lord Dornkirk is interested in, and not the pilot, but later he refers to them interchangeably. Dornkirk's accurate phrasing is due partially to a physical link between the man and the machine (the blood pact) and the symbolic link.

There is more to Van's status as a dragon then the armor he uses, which are the reasons implicate in his character. Much like the dragon, we first see Van in warrior mode, bent on killing his quarry for the sake of the rite. In many ways he is just as fierce and terrible as the giant dragon with his sword and array of other weapons and when the battle is over he takes what he needs from the body of his dead rival much like a dragon would eat the flesh of a man. This may be the first glimpse at Van and his character, but bears a much greater depth. He doesn't like fighting anymore than the dragon does, and he even once believed that killing the beasts was cruel.

Like the dragon, when Van first starts down the road to being a warrior he doesn't kill but disables. The dragon rips the sword arm off, but man without an arm has at least a chance to survive even though he is no longer a threat to the animal. Van, instead of killing as those he fought would have given the chance, destroys the energist and renders the suit unable to fight. He destroys the weapon but the man inside is allowed to live. As the fighting intensifies, he starts to kill instead but this is a betrayal of his real desires.

Finally Van ultimately thrives best in peace, just as a dragon would. Although able and willing to fight for the sake of his life or to protect a friend, he doesn't want to be the aggressor in battle. In this sense, both he and the dragons are morally superior to those who initiate the fight either to force people or for the joy of destruction. The "dragon slayers" are not heroes who protect men, recover stolen wealth, or rescue innocent women. They seek to kill men (for whatever reason), destroy wealth (since war creates nothing), and imprison both men and woman by stealing their ability to choose (either by forcing or killing them).

This image of the moral dragon directly opposes the image of the traditional brute dragon, but that isn't the full extent of its profound message. The moral dragon is directly contrasted with the brute human. Van as a dragon signifies that, while he has great power and ability, his true nature (if he chooses not to betray it) is essentially peace-loving and noble, like the ancient kings of the forest.