EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
It's the "hippie" part, or more accurately the "in touch with the vibes of nature, dude" that enabled that archetype. Tolkien is responsible for there being not just one but two types of modern elves: as Red from OSP puts it, you have the "nature loving hippie archer" elves that are imitations of Legolas and the Sylvan elves more generally (with just a hint of Lothlorien because they grow giant trees to live in, hence a connection to nature), and "their cousins, the a$$#@!e elves, who are always pretentious with massive superiority complexes" (a very, very shallow gloss of Galadriel, Elrond, and most other Noldor and Vanyar, but since Red was talking about the Planet of Hats trope, shallow glosses were the topic at hand.) "Elf" in 4e means what other editions have more narrowly called "wood elf," while "eladrin" was chosen as the name for the more overtly magical and otherworldly (and often prideful, as noted by Red) type of elf aka "high elves," who have different stats (+Int; +Dex or +Cha). The idea was that eladrin are closer to the "original" form of the species, because they mostly remained in their native Feywild plane and retained its weirdness and magical bent, while the elves are the many, many, MANY generations removed descendants of ancient eladrin immigrants to the mortal plane, who have adapted to be pretty much fully "native" to the mortal world and no longer have much connection to the magic of the Feywild, instead being more connected to the natural rhythms of the mortal world--though since they still have that Int bonus they make perfectly cromulent Wizards.
Perhaps, though "dragon as bad guy" is a pretty thoroughly subverted trope today. I wouldn't call it a dead horse trope, it's still totally used seriously and likely will continue to be, but the exceptions are far too numerous to be considered outliers. Goldand silver dragons (really, metallic dragons more generally, gold and silver are just the most iconic) and the popularity of Bahamut pretty well indicate that dragons can be Good Bois without this seeming like a contradiction. Also the Dragonriders of Pern series, the How To Train Your Dragon movies, and other major entertainment media of the past like 40-50 years pretty well indicates that the "dragons are evil" association is weak at best.
I think it's more just the inherent mythic and narrative weight that comes from any association with dragons. Dragons are symbols: of power, importance, danger, wisdom, magic, wealth, glory, fame, even divinity. To be a dragon, even in the minor way that dragonborn are (that is, "scaley bois and gorls with extra spicy breath"), is to carry some of that weight of mythology and folklore. Unlike the aforementioned lack of surprise if a dragon ends up being fully heroic and benevolent, it still is a major subversion to have a dragon that is truly weak or incapable--hence why (for example) faerie dragons and pseudodragons are usually presented as lesser dragons or merely related to "true" dragons. We would not make such distinctions unless there were some reason that being small and easy to defeat were something that disqualified these creatures from full participation in what "dragon" means.
