Book 3, Chapter 46: The Paragon Of Animals
The Saami are a Finno-Ugric ethnic group indigenous to the Sápmi District of the North Sea Empire. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Saami's ethnic roots originated from the Uralic peoples to the southeast in the Volga Region between five and four thousand years ago. Migratory tribes of these people eventually pushed towards the Finnish Lakeland region approximately three and a half thousand years before present, and eventually spread through the highlands of the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, mixing with the isolated groups already present and integrating them, creating the predecessors to the Saami people…
As one of the Sovereign Peoples of the North Sea Empire, the Saami, as a political unit, have the legal right to organize their own Things for internal self-government in their District, full representation in the Grand Thing, and to determine Saami tribal identification according to their own criteria…
Many Saami who live in the Sápmi District continue to maintain their traditional lifestyles, with herding reindeer, fishing, hunting, and forestry being dominant activities, while Saami who live outside of the District are noted as being disproportionately employed by House Haddock as Dragon Tenders for the Imperial Brooderies and Rookeries, a tendency that goes back to the founding of the Empire.
—Saami. (n.d.) In Wikikenna. Retrieved January 8, 1891
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Content Warnings:Chapter Trigger Warnings: Implied Reference To Past Non-Con
- Dark and Troubled Past: It is all but explicitly stated that Eret may have been the victim of sexual abuse from female owners during his time as a thrall.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Fearless' mate tells Good-Cold's nest that humans destroyed his nest not knowing most went voluntarily to Berk due to a combination of, variously, being sick of the Screaming White's tyranny, the allure of a better future working alongside humans, and those humans stopping the ones that were capturing them.
- Kurya assumes Drago deliberately usurped his father when his father of his own will chose Drago as heir out of a belief that Kurya had died in the raid.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Toiréasa's comment to Dagur is a modification of the more familiar "lion's mouth" idiom."Walking into Berk right now would be like sticking your head in the dragon's mouth and not expecting it to bite down."
- Internal Reveal:
- Drago learns the Romans know the Pechenegs have dragons.
- The Song Dynasty tells Kurya his father Berk is dead and Drago is the new Kagan.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Downplayed. Hiccup is starting to understand what Toothless actually says rather than making good guesses, almost completely understanding Toothless when they try to reassure each other it's not the other's fault that Fearless died.
- Unfortunate Implications: In-Universe. In order to avoid feeling as though he has 'simply' traded one set of masters for another by immediately accepting the proposal to become Cami and Merida's concubine, Eret asks that they spend some time 'courting' before immediately engaging in sexual activities.
