"Drago Bludvist is a madman, without conscience or mercy, and if he’s built a dragon army, Gods help us all."
— Stoick on Drago Bludvist, How to Train Your Dragon 2
The many islands and tribes of the Barbaric Archipelago are filled with tension between humans and dragons. As a result, the franchise has produced many villains of all kinds. A few times, the worst villains are dragons, but more often than not, Humans Are the Real Monsters.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Novel Series
- Alvin the Treacherous, Hiccup's Arch-Enemy, is a man defined by his morally bankrupt and backstabbing ways to benefit himself. Alvin is first introduced by manipulating the Hooligan tribe to aid him to search for Grimbeard's treasure, betraying them to be sold into slavery and having Hiccup and Stoick eaten by his tribe. Escaping Grimbeard's treasure caverns, Alvin plots with the Fat Consul to kidnap the heirs of the Hooligans and Bog Burglar tribes to incite a war between them so he can steal their dragons to claim Grimbeard's treasure. Alvin later manipulates Humongous Hotshot to try and kill Hiccup, Iso he can obtain the Fire Stone and use it to command the Exterminator dragons to conquer the Barbaric Archipelago in a bloody swarm. On Berserk island, Alvin has Hiccup and his friends sacrificed to the Beast of the Forest. Becoming the ruler of the humans when the second human vs. dragon war commences, Alvin has countless innocents, children included, enslaved and has them forced to trek the marshes outside of Prison Darkheart to find the Dragon Jewel, uncaring if they don't return before the rising tide, and even would have slaves executed en masse purely out of anger. Alvin later takes to enslaving dragons to become machines of war to help slaughter the dragon and human rebellion. When Hiccup tries to end the war with the Dragon Jewel, Alvin swipes it from him, causing multiple casualties from both human and dragon in the ensuring battle purely so he can use the viral plague contained within the jewel and wipe out every dragon.
- First book & How to Steal a Dragon's Sword: The Green Death, aka Merciless, is a gigantic sea dragon who had tried to lead dragonkind to eradicate the human race before being exiled by Hiccup's ancestor. During his time in exile, Merciless would sink countless ships and devour their inhabitants. Washed ashore on the beaches of Berk, Merciless devours another dragon that had washed ashore with him simply out of petty grievance. Merciless then announces his intentions of devouring both the Hairy Hooligan and the Meathead tribes. Unable to kill Hiccup by eating him whole, Merciless tries to incinerate everyone on the island, relishing in their terror. Unlike most dragons who mostly hunt for food, Merciless forsakes any pretenses of being a civilized predator and shows deep down he's a sadist at heart.
- How to Break a Dragon's Heart: Thugheart is the eldest son of Grimbeard the Ghastly. Envious of his brother Hiccup II, Thugheart seeks to kill both him and their father. To achieve this, Thugheart frames a peaceful protest of dragons, led by Hiccup II, as an attack on the human race, causing a bloodbath on both sides, solely so he can claim power after the end.
DreamWorks franchise
Multiple Works- Drago Bludvist Appearances, a "madman without conscience or mercy", is a warlord seeking to use an Alpha he abused and tortured into loyalty to enslave as many dragons—-and people-—as he can. When the chieftains of various Viking tribes laughed off his ability to command dragons, Drago had his dragons burn them all alive, leaving only Hiccup's father Stoick to tell the tale. Years later, Drago forcibly enslaves all the dragons being kept in a safe haven by Valka by killing their Alpha, before promptly hypnotizing Hiccup's own dragon Toothless into firing upon him. When Hiccup's father Stoick takes the blow instead, Drago glances back in pleasure before commanding all his enslaved dragons to ravage Berk. In other instances, Drago orders failing minions such as Krogan and Eret executed for flimsy reasons; assassinated the noble King Stormheart and left his daughters as orphans; and burned down the village of a group of pacifistic farmers who refused to join him. Drago acknowledges his thirst for power comes out of its own sake rather than a desire to avenge his fallen family and is ultimately one of the few villains Hiccup was never able to reason with.
- Grimmel the Grisly Appearances is a tenacious, ruthlessly pragmatic dragon hunter and the one responsible for the near-eradication of the Night Fury species. Described as a single-minded predator who adores getting under the skin of his prey and pulling their strings, Grimmel stops at nothing to finish off Toothless to complete his genocide, and threatens to kill everyone Hiccup loves and scourge his island of Berk should he resist him. Grimmel tries to cow Toothless to his control by luring him in with the female of his species, the Light Fury, then threatens the Light Fury's life to force Toothless to corral all of Berk's dragons so Grimmel can butcher them and sell them all off. Grimmel has no qualms torturing and drugging dragons to force them to his control, keeping his six Deathgrippers loyal by subjecting them to their own venom and feeding them baby dragons. As revealed in Dawn of New Riders, Grimmel briefly allies with the would-be warlord Eir Stormheart, providing her dozens of dragons to experiment on and bind to armor that kept them in states of constant agony and insanity, before backstabbing her and absconding with her research to create dragon shock soldiers of his own.
Individual Works
- First film: The Red Death is the dragon "Hive Queen" of the archipelago, and is perhaps single-handedly responsible for all hatred of dragons throughout the archipelago. Enslaving countless dragons to its will, the Red Death has forced them to raid villages, kill hundreds of humans, and sacrifice thousands of their own kind to satisfy the Red Death's gluttonous desires, promoting bloody war between humans and dragons for centuries. The Red Death is quick to punish any dragons that do not properly serve it by eating them alive, and when the army of Berk arrives to stop its evil, the Red Death strands them on its island so it can slaughter them all in a flaming frenzy.
- Race to the Edge:
- Seasons 2-4: Ryker Grimborn is the brutish, less intelligent older brother of Viggo, but nonetheless proves himself to be the more depraved of the two. The co-leader of the Grimborn dragon hunters who hope to "skin or sell" every last dragon in the archipelago, Ryker works with Viggo to enslave innumerable dragons into torturous existences, eventually killing the dragons to sell their body parts. A full enabler and partner in Viggo's worst schemes, such as unleashing a plague in an attempt to blackmail entire islands with the cure, Ryker runs his own dragon fighting club on the side, where he forces the captured beasts to duel to the death for the amusement of crowds. Eventually growing weary of Viggo's reign, Ryker betrays his brother and takes control of the Shellfire project to launch the single most destructive campaign of death the archipelago has ever seen, Ryker planning to bomb every last island and their populations until all allies of Berk have been wiped out, Ryker bragging that he doesn't want prisoners; only bodies.
- Seasons 5-6 (primarily): Krogan is the leader of the Dragon Flyers and second-in-command to Drago Bludvist himself, having been right there at his master's side when he massacred the chieftains of the archipelago. The one whom Drago has entrusted with capturing a Bewilderbeast, Krogan allies in a ruthless Big Bad Duumvirate with the Grimborns and later Johann, openly attempting to betray and kill them all at numerous points. Krogan subjects Calder Cay and Wingmaiden Island to brutal attacks, and at one point, Krogan lays waste to Berk, capturing and threatening the populace to cow Stoick into surrender, while attempting to massacre the captured dragons with a ballista for cruel sport. After capturing Heather's dragon and taking the Dragon Eye key from her, Krogan gives a false key and deliberately throws her dragon's cage into the sea with the goal of slowly drowning her, allowing Heather to unsuccessfully rescue her. Easily the cruelest boss in the entire franchise, Krogan kills one of his minions simply for complaining; throws his men dozens at a time to die either in active volcanoes or at the hands of the Bewilderbeast; and at one point vetoes Viggo's option of a quick execution for a failed minion simply for the pleasure of torturing the mook to death himself.
