Alistair,

There’s a dragon and he’s invisible to all but me. I saw him crash-land in a field near my house where he sustained some minor injuries. Since then, he’s been licking his wounds while circling our village in a predatory manner. I’m certain that he’s planning an attack. It turns out that the local constabulary doesn’t take my story seriously and everyone I speak to on this troubling subject shares their skepticism. How does one raise an army to battle an invisible dragon?

Standing Alone in Kirkwhelpington

Standing Alone,

As it is a circling dragon, it’s probably gathering its strength to begin devouring the weak. Lone knights are a long tradition, and there’s a glut of precedence for charging directly at the dragon, sword in one hand and reigns in the other. Keeping in mind that there’s also a precedent for armor littering the ground where the true hero walks, your instinct to raise a little bit of popular support is a solid one.

The most reliable way to get people to support something utterly absurd is to explain how it is somehow the solution to their problems. On the unethical end of the spectrum, the problem and solution is other people. On the slightly less unethical end is making the problem that feeling you get when you wake up in the middle of the night, you know the one. Or only being able to breathe out of one nostril. Heck, just make something up and explain how it’s problematic, and the only way to solve the problem is to throw rocks at a specific patch of dirt outside Kirkwhelpington. If you sell the rocks, you’ll probably have flocks of volunteers.

Alistair