Follow TV Tropes

Following

Western Animation / Dragons: Riders of Berk

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dragons_Riders_Of_Berk_5531.png

"This is Berk. For generations, it was Viking against Dragon. The battles were ferocious... then one day, everything changed. I met Toothless. And together, we've shown people here that instead of fighting dragons, we can ride them. Live with them, even train them."

DreamWorks Dragons (first titled Dragons: Riders of Berk, then renamed to Dragons: Defenders of Berk for the second season, and finally titled Dragons: Race to the Edge for the remaining six seasons) is an animated series that picks up where How to Train Your Dragon left off.

For centuries, the inhabitants of Berk were locked in a violent struggle with the dragons, until Hiccup learned how to tame them. Once he managed to finally reconcile their differences, the two species lived Happily Ever After. Ha! Yeah, right. The many problems of having a massive horde of untrained but otherwise friendly dragons quickly becomes apparent, and anti-dragon sentiment begins to stir up once more. Determined not to let the whole cycle start up yet again, Hiccup resolves to teach the dragons to work with the Vikings in everyday life. Despite a rough start, he learns to channel their instincts into productive tasks, so Stoick puts Hiccup in charge of a new dragon academy to encourage this behavior. Of course along with the daily troubles of keeping the dragons in check, outside forces such as a rival viking clan likewise present challenges for the young dragon trainer.

Dragons: Race to the Edge takes place three years after the end of season two, and sees Hiccup, Toothless and the Dragon Riders soar beyond the borders of Berk and discover a mysterious object called the Dragon Eye, an Ancient Artifact filled with secrets that leads them to new lands filled with never-before-seen dragons. Hot on their trails though are the Dragon Hunters, who will stop at nothing until they seize the powerful Dragon Eye for themselves. The third season premiered on Netflix on June 26, 2015, while the eighth and final season premiered on February 16, 2018. In 2019, Netflix released a new series called Dragons: Rescue Riders. In 2021, Hulu and Peacock released another series, taking place in modern times (1300 years in the future) called Dragons: The Nine Realms.

This series shares a Character Sheet with its parent film.

There is a Recap Page here.

Not to be confused with Dragonriders of Pern.


DreamWorks Dragons provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes A to F 
  • Abusive Parents: Snotlout's father. Made worse by Snotlout's adamant denial of it.
  • "Ass" in Ambassador: Several examples, including Dagur, Snotlout when undercover, and Mala.
  • Accentuate the Negative: Crops up time to time, usually for comedy, but becomes deadly serious when Mala, human leader of the Wing, stubbornly takes every little misstep (even those as simple as normal first contact), as some proof that Berk's riders are working for Viggo. Even after seeing the loyalty the dragons show their riders.
  • A Day in the Limelight: "Viking for Hire" was about Gobber and how the village making peace with the dragons had rendered his dragon hunting equipment useless.
  • Adults Are Useless: Played with. Stoick and the other adults are clearly capable, but they are often out of their element when it comes to dragon-related matters which make up much of the plots that occur (see their ambush in "Alvin the Traitor" and Gobber in "Viking for Hire")
  • Aerith and Bob: In a village populated with folk such as Stoick, Gobber, Hiccup, Snotlout, and Astrid, an exotic foreign beauty who crashes on their shores is named Heather. Even stranger, the leader of the Outcasts, who used to live on Berk, is named Alvin.
    • It is worth noting that the name Heather actually comes from a flower of the same name. Different varieties exist that bloom all over the world. The name is VERY much Bob compared to the the rest of the Viking's Aeriths, but it's not unreasonable to name your daughter after a flower. Alvin on the other hand, is just named after a character in the books.
  • All Animals Are Dogs: Meatlug invokes this. In "When Lightning Strikes", she pants and wags her tail.
  • All Animals Are Domesticated: Downplayed. Dragons can be tamed (and have mannerisms borrowed from dogs and cats, making it easier), but even the dragons of the main cast aren't totally well-behaved.
  • All-CGI Cartoon: The animation is close to film quality, though slightly more limited, and everything is noticeably smoother and brighter compared to in-series flashbacks to the film. From the third episode onward, the animation progressively improves.
    • Compare Toothless's canines between how they appear in the first season and the third. In the first season, they're either folded or deployed. After the move to Netflix, they start to be used in a slightly more realistic manner, though neither are anywhere near as nicely animated as in the films.
  • All There in the Manual: Stoick's dragon was confirmed to be named Thornado on the wiki prior to it actually being named in "Dragon Flower".
  • Always Lawful Good: "Animal House" establishes that all dragons have 'protective instincts' for humans and especially their riders. Every 'evil' action committed by a dragon in the series thus far is either: a mother looking for its child, brought on by a toothache, or ignorance that their action was causing trouble.
    • One exception: in "What Flies Beneath," a Whispering Death had a longstanding, seemingly murderous grudge against Toothless. Later on, at season's end it's the same dragon species (the same beast?) that Alvin picks as his own dragon.
    • The second season introduces a few more exceptions. There's the Screaming Death, which is extremely powerful and seems to have it in for the vikings of Berk. Subverted at the end of the season when it's revealed that the Screaming Death, which is still an infant, was only searching for its mother.
    • There's also the Skrill, which happens to be the symbol of the Berserker Tribe, and is as dangerous as Toothless and completely Ax-Crazy. Ends up subverted as well later in the series. While still aggressive and not trained, it does come to recognize Hiccup is not an enemy and leaves in peace.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Ruffnut and Tuffnut, as Half-Identical Twins. It's lampshaded in "Viking for Hire" (see Wouldn't Hit a Girl below) and "Free Scauldy". Becomes a Running Gag in season 3.
    Tuffnut: Has anyone told you that you look like a boy?
    Ruffnut: Has anyone told you?
  • Amusing Injuries: Ruff and Tuff are always seen hurting each other out of boredom. They do it so much that the group doesn't consider it weird.
    Hiccup: Look for anything unusual.
    Fishlegs: Does that count?
    [the group watches as Ruff and Tuff ram head first into each other]
    Astrid: Hmm, nothing unusual here.
  • Anachronism Stew:
    • Fishlegs makes a reference to the Deadly Nadder's magnesium-based flame... centuries before magnesium would be discovered.
    • Hiccup often orders Toothless to use 'plasma blasts', but it's really unlikely plasma has been discovered yet.
    • Astrid makes a reference to the Twins needing to stick to their guns centuries before the development of firearms and before they have encountered Drago's cannons.
    • Hiccup and Fishlegs use the Speed Stinger's web-feet to confirm their theory on Dragon Evolution. The idea of evolution didn't even exist in the Viking era, let alone a hypothesis that could even be considered probable by a superstitious people like the Vikings.
    • Dagur wears a set of armor patterned after that of Roman legionnaires.
    • Trader Johan wears Arabian clothing (though he may have bought it from Vikings who had travelled that far like the Rus) and has mentioned Papa New Guinea (which no known Viking has ever sailed to).
    • The Twins tend to be the most guilty of this, including but not limited two Ruffnut making quotes in Spanish, the two mimicking detectives centuries before the practice was created, several cases of a Historical In-Joke incidents (such as moldy bread as a cure for illness or ice cream), adopting French accents and fashionista phrases, and then there's Boar Latin...
  • Anchors Away: In "Alvin and the Outcasts", during his fight with Stoick, Alvin the Treacherous swings around his own ship's anchor by its rope.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: The entire village of Berk was cheering when they thought Snotlout was dead in "Cast Out, Part 1", mainly because it meant having a Viking Funeral.
  • Animal Gender-Bender: Tuffnut's pet chicken in "Race to the Edge" crows like a rooster in one episode, is referred to as male several times, but has the shape and the plumage of a hen.
    • Chicken eventually finds a rooster (which makes Tuffnut jealous) and starts a family, including egg laying so probably female.
  • Anti-Hero: Heather in Race to the Edge, who attacks Berserker ships and is out to kill Dagur (the main antagonist at this point) on the back of her Razorwhip for revenge for the destruction of her village despite protests from the rest of the group.
  • Antiquated Linguistics: A Running Gag in "Total Nightmare", in which Ruffnut and Tuffnut compare the events of the episode to theater, complete with Delusions of Eloquence.
  • Appropriated Appellation: Although Viggo claims that his ancestors created the Dragon Eye in Race to the Edge, when Hiccup reveals what he calls it, Viggo decides that he likes the name and decides to use it in future.
  • Arc Welding: The series takes great care to weld itself to the movies by keeping very close to the movies tone and throwing more than a few Call-Forwards.
  • Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving/Chew-Out Fake-Out: In "How to Start a Dragon Academy," Stoick Invokes this when he talks to the kids about the "consequences" of disobeying him and releasing the dragons to do chores, but Gobber excitedly interrupts and blurts out the plan to give the teenagers a dragon training academy, ruining the intended effect.
  • Art Evolution: With each new installment. Defenders had a slight upgrade from Riders, and "Race to the Edge" features a totally revamped artstyle from the previous two shows (similarly to the second movie in comparison to the first), with more developed character models and backgrounds, much more fluid animation and designs from the sequels.
  • Artificial Limbs: Hiccup and Toothless, of course.
    • A couple of plots are raised by some type of damage to Toothless's artificial tail fin, rendering him and Hiccup unable to escape from whatever situation they're in.
    • In "Dragon Eye of the Beholder", Hiccup triggers a bear trap with his peg leg, and comments on the benefits of a metal leg.
    • In "Imperfect Harmony", Toothless tries to alert the riders to a new threat by grabbing Hiccup's metal leg in his mouth and running toward the threat, not realizing that the leg had detached and Hiccup was still with the others.
      Astrid: How far do you think he's going to get before he realizes...?
      Hiccup: Hard to say. He seemed pretty committed.
    • Gobber has an artificial leg and a bunch of artificial limbs for his left hand.
    • The crowner has to be the man with a hook on each hand.
  • Artistic License – Biology: In the episode "Saving Shattermaster", the Defenders of the Wing feed Snotlout some "hyena gizzard". Only birds have gizzards, mammals like hyenas don't. Although they might just be trolling Snotlout.
  • Artistic License – Physics: In "When Lightning Strikes," the lightning bolts seem to be following Toothless around in the sky, eventually hitting him. Lightning is caused by an imbalance of charge between the clouds and the ground, and therefore is highly unlikely to strike anything that's in flight and not grounded. The episode actually pays lip service to proper lightning physics (lightning strikes more easily at metal objects with high elevation) but misses out on the whole "grounding" requirement. However, lightning strikes aircraft frequently—and small aircraft have always been the most vulnerable.
  • Ass Shove: Mildew gets this in "Dragon Flower".
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Hookfang seems to get easily distracted, along with Ruffnut and Tuffnut.
  • Automaton Horses: Averted, Toothless is understandably worn out after a full day of being ridden all over the island by Stoick.
  • Badass in Distress / Distressed Dude:
    • Hiccup several times, usually courtesy of Alvin or Dagur.
    • Stoick at the end of "Cast Out Part I"
    • Most of the riders or their dragons have been captured at one point or another.
    • By the third season, Astrid seems to be knocked off her dragon every two or three episodes, even though in every other way she's clearly the best warrior on the team after Hiccup. Partly justified because she's an aggressive fighter on a small dragon, so she only has to make one mistake to be in trouble.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: This happens at the end of the first episode of every two-parter to date, forcing the heroes to clean up the mess in the second episode:
    • "In Dragons We Trust"/"Alvin and the Outcasts": "In Dragons We Trust" ends with the dragons banished to Dragon Island as Mildew succeeds in framing them for damage that he himself actually caused, and with Hiccup forced to watch from afar as Mildew disposes of the only evidence Hiccup has of this.
    • "The Heather Report": Heather turns out to be a spy who is coerced by Alvin into stealing the Book of Dragons for him. Despite the Riders' best efforts, they fail to prevent Alvin from obtaining the Book at the end of Part I.
    • "We Are Family": What Hiccup and Toothless spent almost the entire episode searching for turns out to be an elaborate trap set Alvin and the Outcasts, with help from a traitorous Mildew, to finally capture Hiccup, after failing to do so multiple times previously. Part I ends with the Outcasts successfully kidnapping Hiccup and Toothless and spiriting them away to Outcast Island.
    • "A View to a Skrill": Hiccup and the other teens spend the whole episode trying to keep the Skrill from falling into Dagur's hands...only for it to be captured by Alvin instead. This is a downplayed example, though, since the only people who know about this are the twins, who then (surprisingly) manage to secretly follow Alvin to find out what he's up to.
    • "Cast Out": Dagur finally attacks Berk, and while the Hooligans do win their fight, Dagur and Savage succeed in kidnapping Stoick, and plan to use him as a hostage in exchange for Toothless.
    • "Night of the Hunters": All of the Riders save for Hiccup and Snotlout are captured.
    • "Edge of Disaster": Most of the Riders were lured away from the Edge, leaving only Astrid and Tuffnut to defend against the Dragon Hunters.
    • "Maces and Talons": Viggo outwits Hiccup at every turn, stealing the Dragon Eye and unlocking it despite Hiccup's precautions. And unlike other examples, this one occurs in the second half and sticks.
    • "Defenders of the Wing, Part I" has Viggo escaping with a new dragon and the Riders about to be attacked by the Defenders of the Wing.
    • "Shell Shocked": Viggo convinces Hiccup to team up with him after Ryker goes rogue and takes over the Dragon Hunters along with Viggo's weaponized Shellfire.
  • Bad Vibrations: Berk's first clue to the attack of hatchling Whispering Deaths.
    • Viggo's mining also causes these... and it's not just the Quakens being used to break the marble.
  • Beastly Bloodsports: "Stryke Out" reveals dragon fighting (which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin) is one of the many uses the dragon hunters use their captives for. The heroes are no more forgiving of the people who pay to watch than they are of the hunters who stage the fights.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Fishlegs in "Gem of a Different Color".
  • Big Bad: Several throughout the series. Often, when a new Big Bad takes over, the previous one will do a Heel–Face Turn:
    • Riders: Alvin the Treacherous;
    • Defenders: Alvin for the first half, before Dagur the Deranged takes over for the second half;
    • Race to the Edge—Season 1: Dagur;
    • Season 2: Big Bad Duumvirate between Dagur and Ryker Grimborn for most of it, before Viggo Grimborn takes over at the end;
    • Seasons 3 & 4: Viggo;
    • Season 5: Another Big Bad Duumvirate, this time between Viggo and Krogan, who himself appears to be The Dragon to Drago Bludvist (though it's also an example of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, as each of them is clearly planning to betray the other when they get the chance);
    • Season 6: Starts off as a three-way Duumvirate between Viggo, Krogan, and Johann (being, again, an uneasy alliance) before the latter two betray and try to kill the former, who does a Heel–Face Turn before dying, leaving a two person Duumvirate between Krogan and Johann, who also end up betraying each other in the end.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Twice in "Heather Report, Part Two". Heather swoops in with Stormfly when the riders are being overwhelmed, then later the Monstrous Nightmare Astrid tamed comes to her rescue. Alvin was seriously impressed with the latter.
    • Fishlegs in "Fright of Passage" where he shows up with Stormfly to give Astrid, Toothless, and Hiccup help.
      Astrid: How do we stop the Flightmare before it reaches the village?
      Hiccup: Fishlegs!
      Astrid: How's he gonna help?
      Fishlegs: By bringing you some reinforcements.
    • Once again, Fishlegs, in "Appetite of Destruction". This time, be brought the entire Gronckle population on Dragon Island, and was followed shortly with Deadly Nadders in similar numbers.
    • In "Frozen" when the teens are surrounded by Speed Stingers Stoick and Thornado come in to blast away the small dragons, allowing the teens to take away the leader.
    • Meatlug gets one in Big Man On Berk complete with "Test Drive" playing.
    • Hiccup and Toothless ironically play this for Dagur the Deranged when he interrupts Heather's attempt to kill him.
    • The Auxiliary Riders in "Team Astrid", hitting Dagur in the flanks and crippling his new armada.
    • "Out of the Frying Pan" has the Great Protector save Throk from dying in lava.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: Hiccup and Astrid share several of these once they become a couple starting from Season 4 of Race to the Edge onwards.
    • After several seasons of Unresolved Sexual Tension, Hiccup and Astrid finally shared their first mutual kiss in "Blindsided" against the backdrop of a setting sun coupled with "Romantic Flight" playing in the background, which starts their relationship for real.
    • Astrid plants one on Hiccup at the beginning of the two-parter episodes "Shell Shocked", and another one at the end of the second part in full view of the other riders, much to their surprise and happiness.
    • In "Mi Amore Wing", Hiccup pulls Astrid into a passionate kiss after telling her that he loves her, with "Romantic Flight" swelling in the background while the camera spins around them as they kiss.
    • In the series finale "King of Dragons, Part 2'', Hiccup plants one on Astrid by pulling her back as she starts to walk away after encouraging him to get to the King of Dragons first before Johann and Krogan.
  • Big Eater:
    • In "The Terrible Twos", Torch the baby Typhoomerang manages to eat its and Toothless' food (a single fish, and a hundred fish) in the time it takes Toothless to turn his head.
    • Fishlegs and Meatlug as well, seen in "The Iron Gronckle", but with clear consequences as they stagger back into town.
  • Bizarre Alien Senses: The Snow Wraith has thermographic vision that overlays its regular eyesight. A few shots depict how it sees warm things, as shimmering blue-and-pink auras surrounding the heat sources.
  • Blatant Lies: Mildew when he claims that he had no idea that the flowers he purchased would harm the dragons. Stoick and Hiccup, unsurprisingly, weren't buying it.
  • Body Wipe:
    • "How to Start a Dragon Academy" Twice. Once with Hiccup walking backwards toward the camera going through it, while trying to avoid the dragon's poop coming down. Again with some viking chasing after a dragon who took his cart. The viking runs through the camera.
    • "Animal House", at the very beginning with some viking wearing purple and a black beard pushing a wheelbarrow walking straight through the camera.
  • Bolt of Divine Retribution:
    • The Vikings believe all lightning is this, particularly when a freak lightning storm hits after they install metal dragon perches.
    • Fishlegs theorizes that this may have been the cause of the disappearing islands in "Appetite For Destruction".
  • Book Ends: For Race to the Edge, the title sequence (and the end of the first two-parter) has Hiccup saying "This changes everything" about the Dragon Eye. Come the end of "Shell Shocked" four seasons later as Hiccup and Astrid (whom he's just sacrificed the Dragon Eye to save) kiss in full view of the Riders,
    Snotlout: This...
    Fishlegs: ... changes...
    Ruffnut: ... everything!
  • Boyish Short Hair: Mala.
  • Brain Bleach: For all the things Gobber has seen and had happen to him, none were so horrible as being forced to extract dragon venom from Mildew's behind. He decides to cope by going into the forest to scream.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
    • Comes up when the twins ask Snotlout what he found at the start of "The Heather Report".
      Tuffnut: A severed head?
      Ruffnut: Our cousin Lars?
      Tuffnut: Our cousin Lars' severed head?
    • In "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", Hiccup asks what you need to trap a metal thief. Tuffnut's guesses include "A net?", "A rope?" and "A ropey net?".
  • Breather Episode: The sportsmanship-themed "Thawfest" comes between the action-heavy two-parter "The Heather Report" and the intense and emotional "When Lightning Strikes".
  • Brief Accent Imitation: Listen carefully to Hiccup pronouncing "Stoick The Vast" in "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man".
  • Bring the Anchor Along: In Dragons: Race to the Edge, Hiccup teaches the dragon hunters that dragon-proof chains are useless without dragon-proof winches... but dragon-proof winches are just as useless when anchored to a wooden deck, as Hiccup simply blasts the deck, allowing Meatlug and Fishlegs to fly away with the winch still chained to her leg.
  • The Bus Came Back:
    • Torch, who first appeared in "The Terrible Twos" as an infant, returns in "Zippleback Down" as an adult.
    • Heather comes back after the "Heather Report" duology for the "Have Dragon, Will Travel" duology having Taken A Level In Badass.
    • Heather does it again after vanishing for the first half of the first season of Race to the Edge, this time becoming a Dragon Rider in full.
  • Call-Back:
    • Toothless does his upside-down, toothless smile to a sheep in "Animal House".
    • In "How to Pick Your Dragon", Hiccup takes Stoick on a ride through the clouds in the same manner as he took Astrid on her first ride. It even uses the same music.
    • In the same episode, Astrid tries to dissuade Stoick from walking right up to Stormfly and touching her on the nose. This is because, as stated in the film, that's the breed's blind spot and therefore Stormfly has a minor freak-out.
    • In "Heather Report, Part One", an angry Astrid throws her axe at some trees, like she did in the film when Hiccup was beating her at Dragon Training.
    • In "Heather Report, Part Two", Tuffnut says "wait for it..." right before the Zippleback lights some gas, just like when Hiccup was waiting for the red death to start charging its shot.
    • In "When Lightning Strikes", Hiccup awakes from a near-death experience with Toothless at his side. He takes a moment to confirm that he still has his good leg.
    • "The Iron Gronckle" features Meatlug dragging Hiccup off to parts unknown yet again. Just like when it happened in "Gift of the Night Fury," someone asks him where they're going and Hiccup shouts out "I have no idea!" as they fly uncontrollably into the sunset.
    • In "Tunnel Vision", Hiccup leads a giant dragon on a merry chase into a rock formation. They even used similar camera angles as the movie!
    • In-universe example in "Fright of Passage" where Astrid quotes her dead uncle word for word when confronting the Flightmare.
    • In "Dragon Flower", Hiccup bartered for some extra ink from Trader Johann but Toothless accidentally breaks it when Johann punched a Terrible Terror. Johann promises to get Hiccup some extra ink at another time since he was out. In "Frozen", once back on his ship Johann provides the ink as a token of appreciation for the rescue and even claims it was from the same source he said he got the ink from back in "Dragon Flower".
    • Heather's and Fishlegs's budding romance in "To Heather or Not to Heather" calls back to "Have Dragon Will Travel", when Heather told Astrid that, out of all the boys in the group, she's most attracted to Fishlegs. In fact, Astrid straight-up mentions this to Snotlout.
  • Call-Forward: Several in "Race to the Edge," since it's a midquel between the two films. Noticeable examples include finding out how Stoick met his new dragon Skullcrusher, seeing the first prototype of the flight suit Hiccup is just perfecting the use of in the second film, and the occasional bit of dialogue that nods to future events. A shadowy representative of Drago Bludvist even appears at one point.
    • Exaggerated in Race to the Edge, Season 5 with the Drago's representative being the new Big Bad who is search for "The King of Dragons", Stoic recalling his first meeting with Drago Bludvist (even reusing the flashback scene that first appeared in the 2nd film), and the riders discovering the remains of a Bewilderbeast.
  • Cardboard Prison: Heather's repeated escapes from the cells of Berk show they could do with some improvements. Having Bucket as a jailer doesn't help, so firing him would be one of them.
    • The pens in Dragon's Edge don't fare much better, but at least this time it involved dragons.
  • Cargo Ship: In an In-Universe example, Tuffnut falls in love with his new mace (affectionately dubbed "Macey") in "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".
  • Cassandra Truth: Astrid can't convince Hiccup that Heather is trying to steal the Book of Dragons despite mounting evidence to that effect.
  • Cat Scare: In "What Flies Beneath", Hiccup and Fishlegs experience a sheep scare while creeping through the Whispering Death's tunnels.
  • The Cavalry: Astrid's auxiliary dragon-riding team as it was designed.
  • Cerebus Retcon: Once the finale of Season 5 of Race to the Edge and premiere of Season 6 of RTTE reveal that Trader Johann was Evil All Along, many of his past scenes and episodes are painted in a different light, and Hiccup outright points out some of them:
    • When Dagur escaped from prison in "Eye of the Beholder", he was able to get away from Outcast Island (where he was imprisoned) by stealing Johann's ship when Johann seemingly just happened to be docked there at the time, conducting trading on Outcast Island, but this reveal makes it clear that Johann left it there on purpose for Dagur to steal, knowing that he would antagonize the Dragon Riders now that he was free. Johann freely admits to this one, noting that the hardest part was getting Dagur to think that stealing the ship was all his own doing.
    • He sent Heather into the ambush Dagur had set for her in "Have Dragon Will Travel", assuring Heather and Hiccup separately that Dagur would be alone so they would be caught off guard.
    • He sent a distress signal to the Riders that his ship was being attacked by dragons in "Edge of Disaster"; this lured Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Snotlout away from Dragon's Edge to help him, leaving the Edge vulnerable to be attacked by the Dragon Hunters while only Astrid and the Twins were present to defend it.
    • He was also present with the Dragon Riders when Krogan took Heather's Dragon Eye lens from her in "Sins of the Past", and in fact, when the Riders were passing the lens around to each other to try to keep it away from the Dragon Flyers, Johann seemingly dropped it accidentally, with this reveal making it clear that he dropped it on purpose so Krogan could re-obtain it.
    • Johann himself also reveals that he was trying to get rid of the Riders from as far back as "Breakneck Bog" (all the way back in the first season), and that the wacky stories and tall tales he would regale the Riders with were actually stories he stole from other traders before sinking their ships.
  • The Chains of Commanding: Hiccup's plan in "Reign of the Fireworms" is to teach this to the Twins so that they will give up their legal claim on Dragon's Edge.
    • Also becomes a recurring theme for Hiccup as the war with the Dragon Hunters intensifies.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: While there are a few cases of Forgotten Phlebotinum, this series is actually quite good at repeatedly using the knowledge and skills that various characters discover:
    • The Riders first learn how to give their dragons commands with just hand signals in "Twinsanity" (see Chekhov's Skill below). The hand signals are still used often in future episodes, and even name-dropped a couple of times.
    • Similarly, the Riders first learn to use imitation dragon-calls to call dragons (their own or others) to them in "We Are Family Part I". Hiccup has since used this skill to call Toothless to him in multiple later episodes.
    • Hiccup discovers that metal attracts lightning in "When Lightning Strikes"; his knowledge of this is mentioned again a few times, and is a plot point in the "A View to a Skrill" two-parter.
    • Hiccup's shield, first built in "Live and Let Fly" and finished in "The Iron Gronckle", was first used in combat in "The Night and the Fury" and has helped him win several fights afterward.
    • Gronckle Iron was at first a one off for "The Iron Gronckle", but come "Night of the Hunters" the formula is rediscovered and soon it becomes used quite widely by the Dragon Riders.
    • In "Worst in Show", each of the Riders gets a Terrible Terror to train. In the very next episode, "Appetite for Disaster", Hiccup uses his Terrible Terror, Sharpshot, to deliver AirMail to the other riders.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • In "How To Start A Dragon Academy", the dragon dung, which was once used as a constant source of Toilet Humor, makes a comeback at the end of the episode to, ahem, fertilize Mildew's garden, saving him "three month's extra work".
    • In "The Terrible Twos", the Typhoomerang's Catherine Wheel style of flight leaves a distinctive spiral burn pattern in the ground. Torch, the baby that Hiccup finds, is the first to leave one. Guess who's responsible for the second, much larger, one that he finds?
    • When Heather is first introduced, there is a signal horn strapped to her belt. It is not significant until much later when it is discovered that this particular horn was a gift from Stoick to Oswald's newborn daughter, whom he later gave up for adoption. This also reveals that Dagur is Heather's brother.
  • Chekhov's Lecture:
    • Hiccup's Opening Narration generally turns out to be the key to saving the day, directly or otherwise.
    • Astrid recalls a brief tidbit given by Snotlout on Monstrous Nightmares to deal with one on Outcast Island.
    • Hiccup and later Fishlegs lecture Astrid on Terrible Terrors being territorial and thus perfect to act as messenger hawks. Astrid quotes it, leading to a "Eureka!" Moment for Fishlegs at the climax of "Appetite for Destruction".
  • Chekhov's Skill: In the opening to "Twinsanity" Fishlegs demonstrates that he's taught Meatlug how to obey hand signals, Hiccup notes that this might be useful in the future and gets the other teens to start using them as well. This is later used to fake a full-scale dragon attack without the kids needing to give verbal commands. Even Meatlug's "hug" trick was effective as an attack, as Hiccup predicted earlier.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: By "In Dragons We Trust", all of the "background" dragons are completely gone, and it is implied that the five main dragons are the only ones living in Berk. "Alvin and the Outcasts" shows that numerous dragons are attacking the titular Outcasts, which suggests they simply went there to wreak havoc. However the dragons are back in "Twinsanity", where the gang are rounding them into temporary hiding.
  • Circling Birdies: Ruff and Tuff always seem to try to make each other "see stars" when they are hitting each other.
  • Clear Their Name:
    • The plot of the "In Dragons We Trust"/"Alvin and the Outcasts" two-parter, where Hiccup has to prove Mildew is framing the dragons. He ultimately fails, but events conspire to allow the dragons to earn their way back in, regardless.
    • Happens again in "When Lightning Strikes", forcing Hiccup to extreme measures to protect Toothless.
    • And again in "Defenders of the Wing", this time while also trying to make first contact.
  • Combination Attack:
    • One effect of the training the team does during Heather Report - most notably with Astrid and Snotlout working together to attack with flaming quills.
    • There's also been at least one instance of the twins working with Fishlegs—Barf and Belch will fill a wide area with flammable gas, and then Meatlug uses her more condensed fireball to light it all on a fly-by. This proved rather effective at burning Outcast vessels, as seen in "Alvin and the Outcasts".
    • Thornado and Toothless combine their attacks when strafing Avlin's ships, turning Toothless' small plasma blast into a wide area-of-effect scattershot which completely covered ships with a spray of shrapnel from the split plasma blast.
    • The Dragon Hunter's dragon-proofed bars turn out to not be quite as proofed as first thought... but it does require the combined firepower of at least a Gronckle, a Deadly Nadder, a Monstrous Nightmare, a Zippleback, and a Night Fury and will run them out of shots.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Fishlegs had one in the episode "In Dragons We Trust". When Hiccup was trying to get Fishlegs to stop giving information that a dragon was involved, he just wouldn't stop.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Sheep carrying (used significantly in "Animal House") and hatchet throwing appear as skills judged in the Thawfest games.
    • This happens again in "When Lightning Strikes" when Hiccup is struck by lightning and gets knocked out. Upon waking he see Toothless in the same position he was in when he woke up at the end of the film and makes sure he hasn't lost his other foot.
    • In "Heather Report", Heather lured out Stormfly by feeding her chicken. In the RTTE Season 1 two-parter "Have Dragon Will Travel" she used chicken to lure Stormfly away again. Astrid commented, "I have to admit, the chicken move, that brought back some memories."
  • Convenience Store Gift Shopping: Stoick does this at Trader Johann's vessel before leaving for a meeting with the chief of another island and purchases a very nice sword to bring as a gift.
  • Counting Bullets: Hiccup does this in "The Eel Effect" to determine how many more plasma blasts a delirious Toothless can fire before he gets tired (and thus becomes safe to approach). Unfortunately, dragons on an eel high don't play by the usual rules.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Gobber's issue in "Viking for Hire" is that he specializes in designing weapons for use against dragons. Unfortunately, getting him to accept that anything dragon-related does not require weapons is an exercise in futility. Then it turns out his talents make him a great dragon dentist.
  • Darker and Edgier: Season three is moved to Netflix and the writers are obviously given a lot more freedom in what they can show.
    • While the gang wait for Hiccup to come back and free them from the Deathsong's amber, the Deathsong snatches a trapped Terrible Terror, which is never seen again!
    • Dagur pillages Heather's village, killing many of them and leaving Heather homeless and parentless. She then dedicates herself to taking Dagur's life, even against the wishes of her friends and allies.
    • Viggo's schemes include spreading a centuries-dead plague so he can sell the cure. We don't see the bodies, save for one man's hand scratchign Astrid, but Viggo mentions that it was his fishing boat that had it.
  • Darkest Hour: Multiple, but the episode from the last RTTE season named Darkest Night name really fits this trope.
  • Dead All Along: While Dagur the Deranged was initially heavily implied to have murdered his father Oswald the Agreeable, he reveals to Heather after his Heel–Face Turn that this is not actually true, and the two of them later leave together to find him. However, Dagur discovers near the end of Season 5 of RTTE in "Searching for Oswald...and Chicken" that Oswald really did die a long time ago on Vanaheim, though the notes he left behind about his discoveries on dragons prove to be vital aid for the Dragon Riders.
  • Dead Man Writing:
    • Dagur in "Family On The Edge". Or as of "Saving Shattermaster", Not Quite Dead Man Writing.
    • Oswald the Agreeable in "Searching for Oswald...and Chicken".
  • Death Glare:
    • Hiccup is surprisingly good at delivering these, if only very rarely.
    • Stoick is a master at giving these to people.
    • Toothless' glares are both intimidating and backed up with plasma blasts.
    • Astrid's prone to intense glares when she gets pissed off as well.
    • Both the Grimborn brothers have a talent for this.
  • Deus Exit Machina:
    • In order for Alvin to be a threat to Berk, the dragons had to be exiled on top of the armory being destroyed. As soon as they get their dragons back, the battle is quickly won in favor of Berk.
    • One wonders why, when Astrid is the most capable of the young vikings, she has never won at Thawfest, especially when one of the main events involves axe-throwing, which is her thing. Cue Fishlegs constantly screwing her up for two of the first three events, knocking her off the log roll and throwing his axe early, right into hers, so Snotlout can win them all and tie with Hiccup, who took all the dragon events.
  • Didn't See That Coming: In the season two finale, Hiccup says this word for word about his escape plan. When he and Stoick are tied up by Dagur and the Outcasts and Toothless is in a cage and muzzle, Stoick asks for his plan includes the other riders flying in or the Berk fleet. Hiccup said no to both. The plan was for Alvin and Mildew to release the horde of Whispering Deaths from their cages below the Outcast arena and the two traitors of Berk help the three captured heroes out of their bounds. Stoick was a bit angry and truly didn't expect this.
  • Disability Immunity: In "Frozen", Hiccup avoids being paralyzed by the Speed Stingers because they hit his artificial leg.
  • Disability Superpower: Surprisingly enough, when they were infected with eel pox in "The Eel Effect", the twins displayed extreme intelligence by (correctly) deducing that air resistance has a greater effect on a falling feather than a falling rock, proposing the concept for ice cream, and for some reason, get rather refined accents. Gobber and Stoick just believe them to have gone crazy for wanting to freeze "perfectly good milk".
    • After being temporarily blinded, as is common for the trope Astrid's hearing becomes extremely sharp once she has had some time to adjust.
  • Distinction Without a Difference: In "Live and Let Fly", when Hiccup and Stoick are arguing, Stoick asks if Hiccup is arguing with his father's orders. Hiccup replied he wasn't arguing with his father's orders, but his chief's poor idea.
  • The Ditz: Hookfang, Snotlout's Monstrous Nightmare. Highlights include not noticing Snotlout jumping off him for a trust-fall and not noticing Snotlout yelling for help for a few seconds due to watching a falling leaf.
  • Doing In the Wizard: Played with. A common story in the show, especially in the first few seasons, was the group disproving spooky or fantastical Berkian legends - like curses or fog monsters or mythical beasts - by discovering they have rational explanations. Where it's played with is that what the characters consider rational explanations - usually that the legends are caused by dragons and their abilities - are still very fantastical by real life standards.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Astrid's habit of punching Hiccup's arm, possibly justified in that they're vikings and it's simply her way of showing affection. After all, she's done it before kissing him on two occasions.
    • Averted with Ruffnut. While she does hit male characters (mostly Tuffnut), she fully expects to get hit right back.
  • Downer Ending: The endings of most seasons have this:
    • Riders: So Hiccup and Toothless have escaped Outcast Island safe and sound. Everything is okay, right? Wrong! Turns out Mildew was just pretending to be on Hiccup's side and is now teaching the Outcasts how to train their own dragons.
    • Race to the Edge:
      • Season 2: Viggo outsmarts Hiccup and successfully steals the Dragon Eye from him.
      • Season 3: Just when Mala and the Defenders of the Wing are beginning to trust the Riders, the Great Protector goes missing, and the Riders are arrested and sentenced to death as a result.
      • Season 4: Of the Sudden Downer Ending variety. Up until the very end, it feels like a Series Fauxnale, with most of the hanging plot threads wrapped up...and then the volcano on Dragon's Edge erupts.
      • Season 5: Krogan and the Dragon Flyers successfully steal Heather's Dragon Eye lens, and Trader Johann is revealed to have been Evil All Along.
  • Dragon Rider: The most impressive and combat-oriented part of dragon training, pioneered by Hiccup and Toothless and practiced by the Five-Man Band of teenage vikings. Other teenagers and adult vikings have also begun to take an interest, with Alvin the Treacherous and his Outcasts quite taken with the idea of learning the art from Hiccup (whether he's willing to teach them or not), chief Stoick also willing to learn, the Riders eventually training a Reserve Team (including Gustav, Spitelout, Gothi, and Mulch and Bucket), and other eventual-allies picking this up as well (such as Heather and Dagur).
  • Dragons Are Divine: In Season 3 of RTTE, it is revealed that there is a ninja-like tribe called the Defenders of the Wing. Like Berk they do not see Dragons as mindless animals, but they take it a step further and practically worship them. They do so out of respect for the Great Protector, an Eruptodon that eats the lava from their local volcano, keeping their village safe. Because of this, they tend to hold a strong animosity to anyone they would perceive as any kind of threat to dragons, especially Hiccup and the riders, seeing dragon riding as a form of "enslavement". They get better after seeing how in harmony the Riders are with their dragons.
  • Dramatic Irony: "When Lightning Strikes" has the island stirred up over what they believe to be Thor bringing destruction upon them for harboring a Night Fury ("the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself"). Any viewer even marginally familiar with the behavior of lightning will realize that the giant metal dragon perches they built at the start of the episode are the cause of the strikes. Hiccup eventually makes the connection. Amusingly, at the end of the episode Hiccup and the village know that the metal causes the lightning, but assume that Thor was angry at the metal rather than understanding electricity.
  • Enemy Mine: All three of the Big Bads who end up doing a Heel–Face Turn start off by doing this with the Riders:
    • In the second season finale Hiccup helps Alvin regain control of the Outcasts from Dagur.
    • In the third season of Race to the Edge, Dagur protects Hiccup and Toothless from the Dragon Hunters while trying to prove to him that he's had a change of heart (which is actually true, but Hiccup doesn't believe it until later).
    • In the fourth season of RttE, Viggo and the Riders do this to oppose Ryker, though Viggo betrays them at the end as he was planning to all along.
    • In the final season, Viggo forces Hiccup into one of these by tricking him into helping him get revenge on Krogan and Johann for betraying him.
  • Equippable Ally: The women of Wingmaiden Island wear young Razorwhips on their backs. The Razorwhips allow them to fly while wearing them protects them from the males of the species, who would eat them given the chance.
  • Everybody Hates Mathematics: Ruffnut and Tuffnut suck at counting. It's unfortunate for them the Academy involves doing quite a bit of measuring and data collecting.
  • Evil All Along: Trader Johann, who ends up being the final Big Bad of the series for its last season. It's outright stated that he only pretended for years to be friendly with Berk and the Dragon Riders and was trying from as far back as "Breakneck Bog" to get rid of them, and that all the "tall tales" he would tell them were really stories he stole from other traders before sinking their ships.
  • Evil Plan:
    • Mildew will stop at nothing to banish the dragons from Berk. He thinks they're Always Chaotic Evil because he spent his life fighting them. In truth, every episode further proves they're actually Always Lawful Good.
    • "Alvin and the Outcasts" establishes Alvin The Treacherous with a different goal; he wants to conscript 'the Dragon Conquerer' (i.e. Hiccup) so he have his own Dragon Riders.
    • Dagur wants to bring Berk to its knees and capture both Hiccup and Toothless.
    • Viggo is actually notable in that, ultimately, he lacks ambitions to take over the world and such. He's ultimately looking for a high bottom line.
  • Evil Versus Evil:
    • In "A View to a Skrill", we have Alvin versus Dagur.
    • In the "Shell-Shocked" two-parter, Viggo vs. Ryker.
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: In "The Night and the Fury", Hiccup fires his grapple into a branch above Dagur the Deranged's head. When Dagur gloats that Hiccup missed, Hiccup replies "Did I?" and yanks the branch down on top of Dagur.
    • Dagur manages to pull this on Hiccup in "Dragon Eye of the Beholder", catapulting a rock at Hiccup and Toothless, which they easily evade. The rock then lands on a derelict boat where the other dragon-riders are trapped, forcing Hiccup into a Friend-or-Idol Decision.
    • The Dragon Hunters do this while the Riders are trying to free a Submaripper.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In "Cast Out Part 2" Hiccup, having infiltrated Outcast Island, sends a message to the other Dragonriders, telling them they need to lure the Screaming Death dragon that is threatening Berk to Outcast Island. Fishlegs suggests using dragon-root, which acts like catnip to dragons, to attract the Whispering Death.
    Snotlout: Just one problem; all our dragons go nuts when they go anywhere near it!
    Fishlegs: If you recall, not all the dragons are affected by the dragon-root. For example, as a boulder-class dragon, Meatlug is... (the others stare at him) ...and I've said too much.
  • Extranormal Institute: The Dragon Academy, where Hiccup and his friends develop and self-teach Dragonology and dragon training. Lately, they have had to do more militarized training via Dragon Flight Club in order to defend Berk against Alvin and his dragons.
  • Face Palm: Tuffnut does this after Snotlout gives Alvin his bludgeon.
  • Failed a Spot Check: In "Frozen" Hiccup and Trader Johann somehow missed a paralyzed Meatlug on the roof while searching all of Berk for its inhabitants and are themselves stunned by their ignorance once Fishlegs points her out.
  • False Dichotomy: Arguably present in the "Thawfest" episode. Letting Snotlout win is presented as the only option Hiccup has to be a good friend and not a bad winner, even though this solution ignores the real problem. Namely, that the approval of Snotlout's father seems to be dependent on Snotlout succeeding in what is essentially a game with no real consequence beyond some prestige.
  • Fantastic Science: The dragonology and dragon behaviorism Hiccup and his friends study (and discover) at Berk Dragon Academy. In season 2, it expanded and started to focus on combat oriented elements due to Alvin learning how to train dragons and other threats rising up against Berk. By the time of Race to the Edge, it's all over the place as the Riders use the Dragon Eye to find all sorts of new dragons.
  • Faux Affably Evil:
    • Alvin the Treacherous, who treats all his evil actions with a casual disposition, despite clearly relishing it.
    • Viggo Grimborn, who acts polite to hide a sadistic demeanor underneath.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: All of the Riders with their dragons, and other riders as well (such as Stoick, Heather, and Dagur).
  • First Kiss: Hiccup and Astrid share a kiss at the end of the episode Blindsided, which officially cements them as an Official Couple. This kiss was their first mutual kiss as the previous kisses were basically one sided kisses, with Astrid kissing Hiccup with no warning whatsoever for different reasons.
  • Flashback: Occasionally, footage from the How to Train Your Dragon movies is reused. In "Viking For Hire", it establishes Gobber's previous occupation as weaponsmith. In Race to the Edge, Stoick's flashback to Drago Bludvist murdering the other chiefs from the second movie reappears.
  • Flat World: The residents of Earth believe the Earth is flat, as shown in "When Lightning Strikes." Astrid spins a yarn about how a relative of hers set sail to find the edge of the world - when she came back from the other direction they assumed she got lost.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The plot for the final act of the third episode "Animal House" was hinted at rather subtly throughout the first two, with the dragon's protective instincts kicking in at random intervals to save their trainers, and Stoick, Bucket, Mulch, and Mildew all griping about the hard work they have to do before the Freeze hits Berk.
    • In "The Iron Gronckle", one of the Whispering Death eggs is a lot bigger than the others, and whatever hatched made a much larger hole than the young ones. This is clearly meant to be the Screaming Death that will feature later in the season.
    • In "Bad Moon Rising," Tuffnut initially describes the night that attacks him as "Furry." This is a clue that what bit him was not a dragon, as they don't have hair, but a wolf, as Snotlout finds by the end of the episode.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: Heather's adoptive parents. While never actually developed as characters, the fact that Dagur murdered them is quickly forgotten in Season Six so that Heather and Dagur can go off in search of Oswald.
  • Frame-Up: In "In Dragons We Trust" Hiccup begins to suspect foul play when the dragons seem responsible for a new outbreak of property damage. He's proven correct when he discovers dragon limbs hidden at Mildew's house.
  • Free-Range Children: Hiccup and the others move with quite a bit of freedom, though being the island's main dragon riders and all the Mundane Utility that comes with it certainly has something to do with it.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: In "Dragon Eye of the Beholder", the two-part premiere for "Race to the Edge", Hiccup has to choose between saving his friends or chasing after Dagur to prevent him from using the Dragon Eye. He immediately saves his friends first...then goes after Dagur and steals the Dragon Eye from him.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: Averted. Hiccup is quite clearly seen getting his dad a drink from a tankard in the second episode.
  • Full-Boar Action:
    • Stoick has to fend off a herd of these in "How to Pick Your Dragon".
    • When searching for a place to put Dragon's Edge, the riders somehow find the same island twice, and both time it's infested by highly aggressive boars.
    • Dragon's Edge has a boar pit built by the twins. The other riders do not want to know what happens in there.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The Dragon United Monitoring Brigade, DUMB, in "In Dragons We Trust." Astrid even notes they need a new name when Gobber says the teens are wearing sashes with "Dumb" written on it.

    Tropes G to L 
  • G-Rated Drug: Eels to dragons, based on Toothless-vision in "The Eel Effect".
  • Generation Xerox: A non-blood version. Near the end of Season two, Hiccup was getting tired of Snotlout's reckless behavior, especially when it led to Astrid being injured. Later, Hiccup learns Stoick and Alvin had a similar falling out with Alvin's recklessness causing someone to get hurt. Seeing what happened in the past, Hiccup and Snotlout are able to come to a middle ground of sorts and reaffirm their friendship.
  • Genius Ditz:
    • Gobber is definitely out there, but he knows things about dragons even the Book of Dragons (and Hiccup) doesn't know.
    • Ruffnut and Tuffnut are usually just The Ditzes, but occasionally they show shades of this as well.
  • Genre Blindness: Hiccup never seems to understand that when Toothless is acting hostile, there is usually a very good reason for him to do so. Hiccup will more often than not just think Toothless is moody. Likewise he will casually dismiss other's suspicions as overreacting, such as when Astrid tried to warn him of Heather working for Alvin.
    • He gets better about this by Race to the Edge, though.
  • Giant Flyer: While an obvious occurrence where Dragons are involved, special mention goes to the Giant Shadow Wing and to Krogan's enormous Singetail
  • Gilligan Cut: In "Breakneck Bog", Hiccup tries to go alone to find Trader Johann, only to get caught in the act by Astrid and Snotlout. He agrees to take them along so long as they keep the others out of it. Cut to the entire group riding their dragons.
  • Gory Discretion Shot:
    • Used in "Race to Fireworm Island" when the Fireworm Queen jabs Hookfang with her tongue. Thankfully, this was just to cure Hookfang of his lack of flame.
    • Used in regards to the death of Fearless Fin Hofferson in the flashback when he confronts the Flightmare.
    • And Dagur. Then Again...
    • This actually becomes a regular thing in "Race to the Edge" as there are several times when the dragons clearly hit targets dead on but the scene cuts away before the smoke clears.
  • Gratuitous Ninja: Despite being a part of the Barbaric Archipelago - an area inhabited by vikings - Mala and the Defenders of the Wing look and act suspiciously like a ninja clan, from the way they dress to their worship of dragons.
  • Gray Rain of Depression: Used at the end of "Family On The Edge" as Heather reads Dagur's note.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Drago Bludvist, the Big Bad of the second movie, is this most of the Race to the Edge portion of the series. The Dragon Hunters (led by Viggo and Ryker), the Dragon Flyers (led by Krogan), and Johann are all directly or indirectly working for him, and Krogan even appears to be The Dragon to him, or at least a high-ranking member of his army.
  • Groin Attack: During the "Thawfest" games, the Riders are supposed to come up with an eye-catching and impressive display of their dragon. Ruffnut and Tuffnut try to impress the judges with what they called the "Iron Split". Unforunately, Tuffnut's nuts were not too tough, as Barf and Belch separate their heads too far apart, causing the male viking to perform an actual split, grab his crotch and moan in pain, while his sister derisively laughs, standing on his shoulders.
  • Grumpy Old Man: Mildew, who hates dragons with a passion and tries to use any opportunity to get rid of them.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy:
    • In "The Heather Report, Part Two", Bucket proves himself to be befitting this role as he walked into Heather's apparently empty cell without calling for backup. He ends up locked inside when Heather sneaks out.
    • Two Outcasts in "We Are Family Part Two" fall for Toothless playing dead and remove the muzzle on his mouth to feed him by hand. Toothless promptly breaks out. They also thought the changewing had escaped when they couldn't see it inside the cell, which is especially stupid when one considers that the one thing that people know about changewings is that they turn invisible.
    • Gobber asleep on the job in "Fright of Passage", where he's asleep while the Flightmare is supposedly incoming. He accidentally activates a loaded catapult and fires it into some sheep off-screen.
  • Guile Hero:
    • Hiccup, so very much. Since he is smaller and weaker than nearly all of the threats he faces—although, to be fair, he does also get better at physical combat as the series goes on—he's learned to adapt by using his wits and cleverness to win. The shield he makes himself in Season 2 is a great demonstration of this; it's made of very light but extra-tough Gronkle iron, and can also be used as a crossbow, a grappling hook, and a freaking boomerang.
    • This trait of his seems to rub off on the people he's closest to, since Astrid, Toothless, Fishlegs, and even Snotlout and the twins show more traits of this as the series progresses.
  • Hate Sink: Mildew wasn't exactly well-liked considering his desire to get rid of Toothless and the dragons, but the events of "In Dragons We Trust" where he frames and succeeds in exiling them has driven the last nail in. Then the hate for the guy skyrockets with each attempt to restore the status quo at the expense of the dragons, such as trying to poison, which could kill, the dragons.
    Bucket: It took us three days to dig Mildew out!
    Mulch: And the rest of our lives to wonder why we bothered...
  • Held Gaze: Hiccup and Astrid have several moments like this in Race to the Edge, which are shown more prominently once they become a couple.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Queen Mala first accuses Hiccup and the other riders as being dragon hunters and enemies of dragon-kind. Shortly after Hiccup manages to convince her that they are friends with their dragons, Mala immediately goes back to threatening Hiccup when she thinks that he knowingly was involved in the Great Protector's kidnapping, declaring war on him and all of Berk. However, once this issue is settled, Mala and the Defenders of the Wing remain steadfast allies afterwards.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Happens with half of the Big Bads of the series, including several you would not expect:
    • Alvin made one in the two-part season finale of Defenders. It started off as an Enemy Mine, but the end of the episode implies, and his few appearances in Race to the Edge later confirm, that Stoick and Alvin buried the hatchet, and Alvin and his Outcasts are now living peacefully on Outcast Island by the end of the series.
    • Even more surprisingly, Dagur, of all people, has made one by Season 3 of Race to the Edge. It was partially because he realized how expendable he was to Viggo, and also for the sake of his sister, Heather, his last remaining family, whom he actually ended up saving from Viggo (marking the start of his Turn). It takes a lot for the Dragon Riders to even begin to trust him, but his change of heart is genuine, as he even performed a Heroic Sacrifice to keep them from falling into Viggo's trap, is later revealed to have not killed his father after all (something his earlier appearances had heavily implied was the case), and becomes chief of the Berserkers and a steadfast ally to the Dragon Riders, also convincing Heather to join him on Berserker Island. He even gets one of the happiest endings of the series, as he marries Mala and continues to peacefully lead the Berserkers as their chief, together with Mala and Heather.
    • The most surprising of all, however, is Viggo in the final season. He serves as the longest-running villain of the series and is shown to be truly ruthless and cruel to dragons and humans alike; however, when Johann and Krogan betray him and try to have him killed, he is saved by a wild dragon and begins to respect dragons as never before. He tricks Hiccup into helping him try to take his revenge on them, but when that fails and Viggo is mortally wounded by Dragon Flyer arrows, he helps Hiccup and Toothless escape and dies holding off Krogan, Johann, and their men, together with a Skrill he'd managed to tame.
    • Notably, the three Big Bads who avert this all die by the end of the series to get them out of the way in time for the second movie: Ryker is drowned in a Submaripper attack, Johann is frozen solid by the Bewilderbeast's ice breath, and Krogan is executed (offscreen) by his boss, Drago Bludvist, for failing to bring the Bewilderbeast to him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In "Family on the Edge," Dagur, of all people. He was sincere about his Heel–Face Turn at the start of the season, and proves it by jumping head-first into a trap he knew Hiccup and the Riders were going to fly right into.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", Hiccup turns the Smoldering Smokebreath pack Dagur snuck onto Berk by dragging several loads of metal to his armada. The Smokebreaths followed the bait and stripped all the metal from his ships, destroying them.
    • Mildew's efforts to frame the dragons leave the village open to attack by its enemies (because his final act was to destroy the armory, leaving the village without any weapons), and he still has the nerve to blame the dragons for it. Of course, he can't very well admit responsibility without admitting to treason.
  • Honorary True Companion: Heather in Race to the Edge, until she officially joins the Riders as of "To Heather or Not to Heather." After she leaves the team in "Gold Rush", she becomes this again, as do several other allies the Riders have made, such as Dagur, Mala and the Defenders of the Wing, the Wingmaidens, and the Reserve Team.
  • Hostage for MacGuffin: Both Alvin and Dagur try to use other people, on several different occasions, as hostages in exchange for Hiccup and Toothless, respectively. In Race to the Edge, pretty much all the Riders and several dragons become this on different occasions for the Dragon Eye and/or its lenses.
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen
    • Dagur supposedly kills Alvin using the Skrill while he is swimming away, gaining control of both the Berserker Tribe and the Outcasts. Alvin later turns up alive, saving Snotlout from death by Screaming Death and turns himself in to Berk's authorities willingly, hoping to appeal to their mutual hatred of Dagur.
    • In Race to the Edge, Dagur was imprisoned on Outcast Island for three years, having lost his helmet, weapons and what little sanity he might have had to begin with.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: In "Breakneck Bog", the group has to sacrifice their weapons to a pack of metal-hoarding dragons. Between them, they manage to unload an arsenal that could have armed half their village.
  • I Have Your Wife:
    • In "We Are Family, Part Two" Alvin tells Hiccup he can either help him train dragons or Toothless will suffer.
    • In "Buffalord Soldier", Viggo uses the fact that Astrid has been poisoned and needs an antidote from the Buffalord (which he's captured) to force Hiccup's cooperation.
  • I Call It "Vera": Gobber seems to have named many of the weapons he's crafted. After the armory fire he mourns the loss of "Prudence" and "Sadie".
    • Tuffnut names his Gronckle-Iron Mace "Macey."
  • Immediate Sequel: A televised variant, this series picks up right after the supposed Happily Ever After ending of the original How to Train Your Dragon, and explores the major shift as the Vikings of Berk adjust to peaceful coexistence with the dragons. Thankfully, several flashbacks using footage from the film help newcomers catch up pretty quickly.
  • Immune to Slapstick: Zig zagged. While Ruffnut tends to get hurt as much as her brother, a lot of that is the series treating them as interchangeable, and his tendency to be slapsticked tends to go way up in comparison to her when they're more separate. When misfortune hits the other female characters, namely Astrid or Heather, it tends to be played for totally straight drama even if the same thing had been played for laughs when done to the boys or Ruffnut earlier.
  • Impairment Shot: In "The Eel Effect", Toothless eats an eel, which makes him ill. POV shots show that everything looks distorted to him, which is why he attacks Hiccup when he tries to calm him down.
  • Impossible Task: During the fireweather of "Zippleback Down", Stoick tells Hiccup to "make sure the twins don't do anything stupid". The hopeless look on Hiccup's face says it all.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Alvin's crossbowmen miss from virtually point-blank. Largely thanks to this being a children's show on Cartoon Network. Inverted with most of the Deadly Nadders we've seen up to this point, who are frightfully accurate with their tail spines.
  • Improbably Female Cast: Not the main cast but if you pay attention to the children, so far most of them are girls.
  • Informed Ability: In their first appearance the Berserkers are said to be powerful warriors. In "A View To A Skrill", a group of them attack Bucket and Mulch and are almost immediately defeated and forced to retreat. "Something Rotten on Berserker Island" shows that "Berserkers" is an outright Ironic Name; with the exception of Dagur, they're actually very laid-back and slow-moving.
  • Informed Attribute: When Hiccup usually describes the horrible weather of Berk during his narration as "snowing 9 months and hailing the other three", most of the time it is usually sunny and clear (though it could still be cold).
  • Informed Flaw:
    • In Season 5, the dragon riders repeatedly mention how "obsessed" Hiccup has become with beating Viggo. The way they talk, you'd think he was turning into Robin after the latter met Slade or Harry Potter in Book 6. Outside of easily falling for a relatively obvious trap of Viggo's, however, Hiccup never acts darker, out of character, or any more "obsessed" with this villain than he has with any others; there's nothing out of character, excessive, or unjustifiable about the level of determination he shows or effort he puts into fighting him.
    • Ryker is treated like the Dumb Muscle brawn to his Badass Bookworm brother's brains, yet he manages to outsmart Hiccup in both "Night of the Hunters" and "Snow Way Out," both of which also feature him getting the upper hand at some point due to his significant knowledge of dragons. He's actually such an intelligent adversary, it's no wonder Hiccup originally concluded he was the leader of the dragon hunters.
  • Insane Equals Violent: Dagur the Deranged is Deranged. I'll give you a moment for that to sink in. He is prone to random bouts of violence and will start a fight at the drop of a hat. It is implied that he killed his own father to become chief and will let out his aggression on his own men whether is was called for or not.
  • Insecure Love Interest:
    • Actually averted with Hiccup. Despite him having lingering insecurities during the series, his relationship with Astrid doesn't seem to be one of them. He clearly realizes how important he is to Astrid, as he mostly just shrugs it off and rolls his eyes when people like Snotlout or Gustav flirt with her.
    • Astrid is accused of this when other characters think she may be jealous of Hiccup paying so much attention to Heather, but this is ultimately averted with her, too. She was really just frustrated that Hiccup didn't believe her about Heather being untrustworthy. When Heather returns in Race to the Edge, Astrid doesn't seem the least bit insecure about Hiccup and Heather potentially liking each other, and seems to realize how important she is to Hiccup as well.
  • Insomnia Episode: The episode "The Longest Day" features the characters going on without sleep because of the annual midnight sun, a time where the sun does not set for 2 whole weeks. Each of the characters are shown to suffer a variety of symptoms brought on by this.
    • Hiccup becomes careless with a slower reaction time.
    • Astrid is overcome with euphoria, becoming obnoxiously optimistic and carelessly carefree.
    • Snotlout suffers from severe mood swings, switching from laughing to crying to shouting in an instant.
    • Fishlegs becomes increasingly paranoid of the others.
    • Heather loses all sense of coordination, tripping on her own feet and spilling her water bucket trying to clean Windshear. She later starts losing focus, confusing Windshear with a rock. Admittedly, some dragons can be confused with rocks (notably those of Boulder-Class, such as Meatlug) but Windshear is not one of these.
    • Ruffnut and Tuffnut are overcome by visual hallucination.
    • Gothi spends her time "babbling" for hours, drawing in the sand with a blank stare.
  • I Surrender, Suckers:
    • In "Alvin and the Outcasts", Hiccup gives himself up to Alvin the Treacherous to save the villagers, promising to prove his reputation as the "dragon conqueror". They take him to Dragon Island, where he is able to get Toothless and turn the tables on them.
    • In "We Are Family, Part Two" Hiccup tried this on an outcast guard, but didn't have the strength to knock the guy out.
  • It Will Never Catch On: In "The Eel Effect", Gobber takes the twins' idea of freezing yak milk and flavoring it as proof of their illness-induced delirium. "Who would freeze perfectly good cream?"
  • Jerkass -> Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • While his behavior varies from episode to episode Snotlout is often prone to making rude, out-of-line comments towards Hiccup and Fishlegs and even mocks Astrid's late uncle in "Fright of Passage". Nonetheless, it's usually made clear that he does care a lot about his friends and values their approval, especially Hiccup's.
    • Mala, leader of the Defenders of the Wing, seems to be just looking for an excuse to kill Hiccup and Berk's Riders, but this just seems to be because she's seen many times how horribly dragons are treated by humans, even the ones that don't appear overtly mistreated. Once she's finally convinced that the Riders love and appreciate their dragons and are genuinely friends with them, and good guys who protect dragons in general, she mellows out towards them and becomes their firm ally afterwards.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Karma Houdini: While the villains all suffer some comeuppance, some acts they get clean away with.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Mala wields a sword that looks suspiciously like a katana.
  • Killed Off for Real: A few examples, despite the lighthearted nature of the the series:
    • Oswald the Agreeable, who actually died before the start of the series, but this isn't confirmed until near the end of Season 5 of RTTE, and despite being The Ghost, was a reasonably important character who'd been mentioned many times up to that point.
    • The Great Protector, who was last seen entering a cave that is heavily implied to serve as the final resting place of all Eruptodon in the archipelago.
    • Ryker Grimborn, who dies from being inhaled/drowned by the Submaripper in the finale of Season 4 of RTTE.
    • Viggo Grimborn as well about midway through the final season, who makes a Heel–Face Turn after being betrayed by his so-called allies Krogan and Johann, and after being fatally shot with several arrows and realizing he has no hope of escape, makes a Last Stand against them to buy time for Hiccup and Toothless to get away.
    • Johann in the series finale, frozen solid by the Bewilderbeast's ice breath while trying to kill Hiccup.
    • Krogan in the series finale as well (though offscreen), as Drago orders him executed for failing to bring him the "King of Dragons" (a Bewilderbeast).
  • Kill It with Water: The Scaldron, first mentioned in the film, shoots boiling water instead of fire.
  • Kill It with Fire: Most dragons, naturally, with fire ranging from traditional fire out of Nadders and Nightmares, to magma bursts out of a Gronckle, to the Night Fury's plasma blast.
  • Kneel, Push, Trip: In "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man", Ruffnut and Tuffnut do this to Snoutlout when he tells them to kiss his pointy shoes.
  • Knight of Cerebus: every next Big Bad compared to previous!
    • Alvin the Treacherous. Not only is he actually pretty terrifying, he's completely ruthless. To make matters worse, season one ends with him managing to tame the Whispering Death that has a grudge against Toothless.
    • Then there's Dagur the Deranged, who is much, much worse.
    • Viggo Grimborn, who is every bit as cunning as Hiccup but has none of his morality.
    • Krogan, who initially appears as a hooded figure at Viggo's auction (and directly works for Drago Bludvist), and later kidnaps Hiccup to collect a bounty on him. In the following season, his Establishing Character Moment as the new Big Bad is throwing an ax into the head of a Mook who tried to quit.
    • Johann becomes this once it's revealed he was Evil All Along.
  • Lady Land: Winged Maiden Island is home to a tribe of amazons living in symbiosis with juvenile Razorwhip dragons. No men are allowed on the island. The reason for this is that male Razorwhips are cannibalistic, and therefore female Razorwhips are extremely aggressive with males of any species on their nesting grounds.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler:
    • The Vikings of Berk have brokered a fragile peace with the dragons they once fought, with the once-ostracized chief's son Hiccup (a Handicapped Badass) leading the younger Vikings' efforts at studying, domesticating and riding the dragons.
    • Hiccup's handicap itself is this; losing his leg is one of the more emotional moments at the end of the film.
  • Late to the Punchline: Tuffnut has this problem in "Heather Report, Part One", not getting Ruffnut's analogy about Astrid being jealous of Heather.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: with so much vikingness on the screen this is almost inevitable.
    • First are both Snotlout and nis father, they even scream their names while charging. Spitelout has less screen time for showing this trait, but he actually recreates original video by attacking group of dragon hunters while others are dicussing about the plan. Also it is revealed that he teaches his son to reclessly "take the initiative".
    • Twins seem to have this tendency too because of their love for destruction, but usually they do stupid things of other kinds.
    • As for smart half of the team, Fishlegs and Astrid can become this when in comes to restoration of family honor. Astrid tried to attack Flightmare in the same way Fearless Fin had failed miserably, and Fishlegs tried to stop a group of dragon hunters who were praising one of his ancestors for founding their training camp simply by exposing himself and telling that he is Ingerman too.
    • Even Hiccup himself was going to pull Leeroy by chasing hunters' armada right after Viggo outplayed him in every single step.
    • Heather tried this several times because of her obsession with revenge.
    • According to Stoick, Alwin the Treacherous was banished from Berk for some stupid actions against orders similar to one of Snotlout's escapades.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: At the climax of "Gem of a Different Color," Fishlegs finally decides to give Snotlout what he's had coming for a long time.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Hiccup and Heather, with Hiccup being just about the only one of the Riders who doesn't explicitly declare interest in her - or in Astrid's case, have a significant amount of Homoerotic Subtext and a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with her. They're nevertheless very close, arguably the two of the three most accomplished riders in the series and share unusual green eyes, leading to the show implying that they're siblings, a Red Herring for the ultimate reveal that she's Dagur's sister.
  • Living MacGuffin:
    • Hiccup as of "Alvin and the Outcasts". Alvin and his outcast vikings call him the "dragon conqueror", and believe that they too can learn to ride dragons by capturing him. This goes away after Alvin switches sides, but he later becomes this again in the first season of RTTE for Dagur, who wants revenge on him.
    • Toothless is this for Dagur as of "The Night and the Fury". At first it seems like Dagur wants to kill him as a trophy, but by "Cast Out", it sounds more like he wants to force Toothless to become his own dragon instead.
    • Meatlug, briefly, during "The Iron Gronckle" due to being the source of Gronckle Iron.
  • Literary Allusion Title: "Animal House", "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man", "When Lightning Strikes", "What Flies Beneath", and "The Iron Gronckle" are either lifted directly from books and films, or altered to fit the setting.
  • The Load: "The Iron Gronckle" centers around Fishlegs feeling like he is this after being left behind (albeit willingly) on a speed-based mission. By the end of the episode he managed to prove to both himself and others that he can be useful and this carries on to future episodes.
  • Logical Weakness: In "Have Dragon, Will Travel", Hiccup tries to free Heather from being captured by Dagur only to find that the chains he is using are made of a special dragon resistant metal. Thinking fast, Hiccup instead attacks the completely normal winches the chains are connected to.
    • When this is later rectified with dragon-proof winches, Hiccup simply attacks the wooden boat deck that the winches are attached to. A dragon is perfectly capable of lifting the weight of a winch and what are the hunters gonna do, make the entire boat of dragon-proof metal?
    • Yes, that is exactly what they do in "Gold Rush". That said they are still boats, so a giant hole in the side still does the job.
  • Logo Joke: Starting in season 3 of Race to the Edge: Hiccup and Toothless are sitting in the moon together, with Toothless fishing with a line tied to his tail. Toothless notices the viewer and fires on them, which Match Cuts to the opening proper giving the impression that they just literally jumped out of the moon.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: "Have Dragon, Will Travel" has this in regards to Heather's heritage. The plot starts with Hiccup finding Stoick's seal on her horn... that was given to Heather by her biological father, and the show tries to set it up as if Heather is somehow Hiccup's sister. This is a Red Herring, as she is actually Dagur's sister and the daughter of Oswald the Agreeable.

    Tropes M to R 
  • Made of Iron: The characters take damage with barely a scratch that would prove fatal to humans in real life whether it be explosions or falling from great heights. They are rarely seriously hurt and if they are tend to be find a short time later.
  • The Magnificent:
    • Alvin's descriptor is "the Treacherous."
      Alvin: ...and let me be clear, that name was earned.
      Tuffnut: Pfft, Alvin? How'd he earn a name like that?
    • Several other characters get this as well, such as Dagur "the Deranged" and Oswald "the Agreeable". And of course, the already-established Stoick "the Vast" and Gobber "the Belch".
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: The Thunderdrum, first mentioned in the film, makes its appearance in "How to Pick Your Dragon". It has a sonic scream, though its ability to scream someone's head clean off was exaggerated by the Book of Dragons.
  • The Masquerade: Introduced in "Twinsanity", where Stoick doesn't want another tribe to find out about the dragons and get the wrong idea. The tribe having an insane new chief eventually drives the kids to faking a dragon attack using their own dragons in order to just get him off the island and save Barf and Belch. In said attack, you can see Toothless isn't wearing his artificial tail fin, in order to preserve appearances. And the kids solely use hand signals to control the dragons.
    • Broken in "The Night and the Fury" where Hiccup drops it to save Toothless. The Berserkers were not happy about that.
  • Mirror Character: Hiccup and Snotlout, both being the sons of proud Viking families with legacies they desperately want to live up to and legendary fathers, both riding very powerful dragons and both being surprisingly strong for their size. This is intriguingly illustrated in Tone Death, when both choose very similar tunes, classical military marches, for their songs.
  • The Mole:
    • Heather acts as one while working with Viggo, feeding information to the Riders, though only Astrid is made aware of this fact for some time.
    • Trader Johann turns out to be this as well, acting friendly to the protagonists and the people of the archipelago to gain their trust, but is actually the true leader of the Dragon Hunters.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!":
    • In "Viking for Hire," when confronted with Gobber's proposal of adding Training from Hell to the curriculum, (involving a cart full of wicked-looking "killing things") the dragons visibly recoil, then flee in terror.
    • In "Tunnel Vison", when they meet the Screaming Death.
    • Berk has a general one when the Flightmare comes by, particularly given its habit of making Berk's finest freeze in fear or more accurately, paralyze them with a mist.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Thor, God of Thunder: Is he real or not?
    • In Legend of the Boneknapper, Gobber's claims Thor saved him are dismissed along with the Boneknapper being real. Yet the Boneknapper is proven real in the end. So did Thor really save Gobber?
    • In When Lightning Strikes, the severe lightning storm is in the end assumed to be caused by all of the metal. Yet the lightning struck Toothless when he was far from the village and he has flown in storms before without lightning focusing in on him. An earlier story claims Thor punished a thief by striking the thief through his helmet on his mast. The lightning was powerful enough to set all of Berk's fleet on fire. Yet Hiccup is struck by lightning while at the top of a mast and the ship is not set on fire. Viking wear metal helmets all of the time and are not always struck by lightning. By episode's end Gobber thinks Thor is angry at the metal. Is he correct and for some reason Thor did send the storm and strike down the thief?
  • Meaningful Rename: The second season changed "Riders of Berk" to "Defenders of Berk" because now they will have to defend against the Outcasts riding dragons. Meanwhile, the third season is called "Race to the Edge" as Hiccup and the other riders are exploring beyond the edges of the known archipelago.
  • Misplaced Wildlife: Although we don't know where Berk is, it's probably nowhere close to the Himalayas, where yaks are from. Unless they are Scotland Hairy Cows; however, they are referred to as yaks.
    • Fishlegs speculates that the baby dragon that scared him might've been a flaming chipmunk. Chipmunks are native to North America and (one species) Central Asia.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The series unexpectedly jumps from Slice of Life episodes to the dragons getting exiled and an imminent invasion by Berk's enemies.
    • "Twinsanity" introduced teen chief Dagur the Deranged. While his villainy is mostly played for laughs, it's also very creepy. Stoick, of all people, very nearly attacks the teen with a sword three times in the episode.
    • "Fright of Passage" flips from the seriousness of Hiccup, Astrid, and Fishlegs pursuing the Flightmare to stop it from destroying Berk to Snotlout trying to get into the twins' "secret bunker" by following a list of increasingly hilarious demands.
    • "Searching for Oswald...and Chicken" is perhaps the most extreme. Since we know Dagur didn't kill his father, Oswald, he and Heather spent two seasons searching for him. After finding out he is on Vanaheim, Hiccup, Dagur and Fishlegs found a hut on the island. They confirmed that it's made by Oswald after learning that the materials of the house are made from a shipwrecked Berserker ship. Dagur opens the doors in hope he'll finally meet his long lost father only to get a crushed look on his face. In the next scene, the riders are shown burying the body as they've learned he had lived on the island for many years after being shipwrecked. And now he had also died on the island alone. After he is buried, Dagur mourns over the loss of his father whom he had been searching for for so long. The mood goes from joy and hope to a massive tearjerker in 10 seconds for both the cast and the viewer.
  • Moment Killer: Gobber hasn't lost any skill in this department.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: "The Terrible Twos" introduces a new species of dragon in the form of a baby Typhoomerang. Its mother, naturally, isn't happy that her baby has been taken.
  • Moving the Goalposts: : In "Fright of Passage," Tuffnut and Ruffnut do this to Snotlout, repeatedly adding to a list of ridiculous demands that he has to meet in order to get into their shelter. Each time he brings back what they want, they just add something else, until finally the Frightmare threat is driven away and then Snotlout is able to get in, only to find that everyone is gone and the party he was hoping to attend is over.
  • Musical Episode: Everybody sings to the baby death song to get it to quiet down in "Tone Death"
  • My Eyes Are Up Here: Inverted in "Free Scauldy".
    Astrid: The island is down there.
    Snotlout: But your eyes are up here.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Hiccup appears to have a minor version of this during the Thawfest games just as he was about to beat Snotlout. Realizing what the desire to win was doing to him, he decides to throw the race.
    • Mildew has one in the season one finale when Alvin decides that he's outlived his usefulness and throws him in prison with Hiccup. This is actually a subversion as it was part of Mildew's plan to buddy up with Hiccup and obtain his dragon taming knowledge.
  • My Horse Is a Motorbike: Inverted with Snotlout, as he uses his dragon like a motorcycle, right up to holding his horns like ape hangers when riding him.
  • Never Say "Die": Averted; they mention death fairly frequently.
    • As of "Dragon Flower", it has been mentioned once, in passing, by Tuffnutt as a joke.
    • Alvin clearly states he will kill Heather's parents if he doesn't get the book.
    • While nothing is explicitly stated, Stoick rather clearly is about to kill or at least maim Dagur three times in "Twinsanity". It was explicitly stated that Dagur wanted to kill dragons, and that Berk used to do so during the war with the dragons.
    • In "We Are a Family", the twins blow up a fake Night Fury near Astrid and Fishlegs. Astrid chews them out because if it was Toothless they could have killed him.
    • At the start of "Live and Let Fly", Hiccup states that Alvin had him ready to be executed.
    • Although nothing explicit is ever stated, it is pretty clear that Fearless Fin Hofferson (Astrid's uncle) was killed by the Flightmare.
    • Hiccup and Astrid make it explicit that the latter nearly died after Snotlout's Leeroy Jenkins stunt at the beginning of "Cast Out, Part I".
    • Snoutlout explicitly recommends they kill the Twins during the events of "Reign of the Fireworms".
    • Heather is planning on killing Dagur during "Have Dragon Will Travel", but abandons her chance when she learns he's her brother.
    • Mala makes her intent towards the Dragon Riders clear, threatening not only to kill Hiccup but also all of Berk ('his people').
  • Never Speak Ill of the Dead:
    • Stoick is outraged when Dagur the deranged insults his own dead father, to the point of pulling a sword on him.
    • Astrid gets in on the act in "Fright of Passage" when Snotlout makes a rude remark about her dead uncle.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • In "Viking for Hire", Mildew takes pleasure in pointing out to Hiccup that by making peace with the dragons, he put Gobber out of a job, which sets Hiccup on a quest to find Gobber a new line of work. Thankfully, Gobber's skills translate well to dragon dentistry.
    • While trying to get Fishlegs attention in order to apologize, Hiccup accidentally starts an angry mob and causes Fishlegs to panic, filling Meatlug up with a variety of rocks to try and make the metal and causing her to run through town attracting everything she passes.
    • Becomes disturbingly regular when confronting Viggo Grimborn and his schemes.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
    • Mildew's attempts to highlight Hiccup's failures usually provide him with the inspiration to correct them.
    • Hiccup was powerless against Alvin until Alvin agreed to take Hiccup back to the Isle of Dragons, to show how he can defeat dragons, and ends up reuniting Hiccup with Toothless.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: the Shellfire project is a medieval kaiju-based artillery submarine
  • No Flow in CGI: Averted rather beautifully. The characters' hair and clothing detail are almost on par with the film itself, the only major difference being that the fur on the character's clothing has been either drastically shortened or removed completely. Hiccup's fur vest, for instance, now appears to be made of leather.
  • No Guy Wants to Be Chased: In "Free Scauldy", after becoming fed up with Snotlout's constant flirting Astrid decides to use Reverse Psychology on him and starts flirting back, which immediately horrifies him.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The series title of the Netflix Original series— "Race To The Edge." There's no urgent need to get to the "Edge," and the "Edge" refers to the Dragon Riders' new home base, the Dragon's Edge, which they spend most of the series based out of. Aside from a few competitions or episodes where they have to stop raiders, there's no urgent, overwhelming need to get there as fast as possible.
    • While the plot of the RTTE Season 5 finale "Sins of the Past" revolves heavily around the past character Oswald, and there are plenty of people committing sins, the plot has nothing at all to do with anyone's past sins — there are no sins of the past in "Sins of the Past."
  • Noodle Incident: Numerous, but among a couple of those mentioned in the show:
    • Snotlout has apparently been struck by lightning twelve times. Enough for Tuffnut to learn how to understand his garbled post-strike speech.
    • When Astrid makes a strange suggestion in "The Heather Report, Part Two," Fishlegs wonders out loud if she's "been eating dragon nip again." This earns him an elbow to the gut.
    • Whatever happened between Alvin and Stoick was bad enough that Stoick refuses to speak of it.
    • Heather apparently has had a close experience with lava before.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Gronckle Iron in "The Iron Gronckle" becomes this as soon as Fishlegs realizes that he can't remember which rocks Meatlug ate to make it. However, he and Gobber do attempt to rediscover it instead of just calling it quits, and he later manages to recover an identical formula from Ryker's men in "Night of the Hunters, Part 2". For the rest of the season, the riders are seen experimenting with Gronckle Iron.
    • Averted with the Dragon's Eye - while the item itself is one of a kind, Hiccup and Fishlegs spend a lot of time recording notes from it between episodes (or wanting to during an episode but needing to move on). This pays off big time in "Buffalord Soldier" as it allows them to locate the home of the Buffalord dragon species.
      • Averted even further as of "The Wings of War, Part 2", where it's revealed that Hiccup has been building a second Dragon's Eye in his spare time.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: As of "In Dragons We Trust", Mildew has become a properly Evil Old Folk.
  • Number Two: Astrid is this to Hiccup. She states that if Hiccup is unable to be the leader of the Dragon Academy she takes over. Not that they would like that.
  • Obsolete Occupation: Gobber finds himself out of work now that he doesn't have to make dragon-killing weapons anymore. He eventually takes up a job as a dentist.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You can tell how bad Dagur really is by the fact that Stoick almost attacks him three times, despite needing him for a peace treaty.
  • Odd Name Out: In "Bing! Bang! Boom!", the twins want to name the three baby Thunderdrums 'Bing', 'Bang' and 'Lloyd'.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: In "The Terrible Twos", Toothless hurls Torch, the baby dragon Hiccup finds, out of his bedding area due to not being too fond of him. He turns around and shrieks in shock when he finds Torch right behind him no more than a second after he had tossed him. Later on, as they're trying to return Torch to the mother, Hiccup leaves Torch while escaping only to find Torch has already caught him again moments later.
  • Off with His Head!:
    • Not seen on screen, but Stoick mentions another chief who did not bring a gift to the meeting of chieftains 'left without his head'.
    • Taken further in "Twinsanity" when Dagur almost beheads Belch.
    • At the end of RTTE Season 6, Drago has Krogan beheaded for failing to bring him the King of Dragons. You can hear a loud *SNAP* immediately after Krogan is dragged offscreen.
  • Official Couple:
    • Hiccup and Astrid are clearly in love throughout the entire series, but officially begin their relationship near the end of Race to the Edge Season 4 in "Blindsided", and become engaged in the early RTTE Sesaon 5 episode "Sandbusted".
    • Fishlegs and Heather are this for about a season of Race to the Edge, during Heather's time as an official member of the Dragon Riders. It doesn't last, though, as Heather ends up choosing to return to Berserker Island with her brother (and the relationship was Doomed by Canon anyway since Heather doesn't appear in the movies and Fishlegs is competing with Snotlout over Ruffnut by the second film).
    • Dagur and Mala, in the show's final season, meet, fall in love, and become engaged, and marry in the series finale.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Hiccup in "The Terrible Twos", when the rather ticked off mama Typhoomerang spots him holding her missing baby.
      Hiccup: Uh-oh...
    • Happens again in "Heather Report, Part One", where Hiccup fails to keep the Book Of Dragons out of Alvin's hands.
    • Savage gets a moment of this when enough metal falls through his ship, putting a hole right into it.
    • Snotlout gets a taste of this in "Fright of Passage" when he's making rude remarks about Astrid's dead uncle.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted, as it is revealed that it is tradition to name the Runt Of The Litter Hiccup, from humans to sheep.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: In the episode "Fright of Passage", Astrid holds a particular chip on her shoulder because her Family Honor was mocked and teased by the village ever since her Uncle "Fearless" Finn Hofferson froze when faced against the Flightmare a decade prior. It was eventually revealed that Finn did not freeze in terror, but rather because the Flightmare sprays a paralyzing venom. The news of this revelation restores the Hofferson name.
  • Only Six Faces:
    • Many of the villagers are just a copy of another. This clearly shown when Heather's parents look exactly like the couple that Stoick helps in "How To Pick Your Dragon" in herding their boars.
    • Also all of the little girls look exactly the same except with different hair colors. Even when Astrid was shown as a child she looks just like one of the little girls.
    • There are quite a few identical Outcast mooks as well.
    • The Defenders of the Wing basically all look the same, too; since once episode involves Hiccup and Heather disguising themselves as Defenders (who are masked, making only their eyes visible), these same models are used for all the other nameless Defenders.
  • Open Heart Dentistry: Gobber, a blacksmith by trade, is entrusted with the care of a dragon with a very significant hole in its wing and Fishlegs goes to him to tend to Meatlug after ingesting too many rocks. Well, the series is supposed to be set in Dark Age Europe. Moreover, aside from Hiccup, Gobber is probably the most knowledgeable about dragons - and he certainly knows more tricks about dragon anatomy than Hiccup does.
  • Opening Narration: Done by Hiccup, as was so in the film and shorts. No longer done in the Defenders, however.
  • Origins Episode: "Crushing It" is the story of how Skullcrusher became Stoick's dragon.
    • Likewise, "Last Auction House" is this for Gobber and Grump.
  • Palette Swap: To make the main cast's dragons stand out, all others of the same species are recolored in various patterns.
  • The Pen Is Mightier: The final challenge of the Death Course in "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man".
  • Plot Hole: The series takes a few cues from the special Gift of the Night Fury. The show is meant to take place directly after the film (see Immediate Sequel above), while the special is implied to take place well after that. Among the details used are the fact that Meatlug is female and that dragon eggs explode, both of which were surprises in the special.
  • Poor Communication Kills: The plot of "The Terrible Twos" could have been avoided if Toothless had a reliable way of communicating "You took the baby and the mother is pissed."
    • Also becomes a problem in "Defenders of the Wing, Part I", though this is more Poor Listening Kills due to Mala's Knight Templar attitudes about riding dragons.
  • Portmanteau Dragon-Rider Name:invoked While gloating in "Thawfest", Snotlout claims that he and Hookfang have become so close that they should be called "Snotfang". Hiccup retorts that Snotfang will lose to "Hictooth".
    • Later seasons actually run with this in-universe, with Snotlout referring to Fishlegs and Hiccup's geeking out as "Hiclegs" and even mentioning "Hicstrid" once.
  • Powder Keg Crowd: The people of Berk seem to be very mercurial in public opinion, especially when it comes to the topic of dragons. They spent countless generations devoting themselves to killing dragons, even to the point of labeling nearly every dragon in their manual as "extremely dangerous. Kill on sight." Then, after Hiccup and Toothless kill the Red Death, they are all more than willing to allow dragons into their homes with open arms to the point of losing their holiday spirit when they all leave shortly before Snoggletog. Later, Mildew, who has been established to be the most disliked member of the tribe, was able to rile them into a frenzy against dragons several times should anything remotely bad happen, only for Hiccup and the group to win them over almost just as easily.
  • Properly Paranoid: Hiccup automatically assumes Alvin has learned to train dragons in the season 2 premiere, reasoning that Mildew will likely cave under torture (Hiccup doesn't know he's a traitor).
    • Likewise, he doesn't take anything Viggo says at face value as he knows he's a schemer.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: The show's portrayal of the Vikings native to these islands with a helping of Blood Knight. However, this is often Played for Laughs, for example: Stoick gives Hiccup advice in how to deal with Astrid and Snotlout having personal issues with each other by suggesting that he A) give them both axes and let them kill each other, B) give then maces and let them kill each other, or C), trick them into working together, which either works or gets them to kill each other, 50/50 odds to the outcome.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: The Grimora, small freshwater creatures that latch onto dragons and reduce them to a feral state.
  • Putting the Band Back Together: One of the main points of "Dragon Eye of the Beholder", the two-part premiere of "Race to the Edge". It's been three years since the end of "Defenders of Berk", and the gang are going their own way; Snotlout is testing weapons, Fishlegs is teaching the lore of dragons to the children of Berk, Tuff and Ruff have become "followers of Loki" (an excuse to pull practical jokes on everyone else), Astrid is planning on joining the Berk Patrol, and Hiccup is afraid of losing touch with his friends. The escape of Dagur the Deranged, followed by the discovery of the Dragon Eye, prompts the Dragon-riders to reassemble to explore new lands away from the archipelago in order to discover new dragons and prevent Dagur from hunting them for his own schemes.
  • Rampage from a Nail: In "Viking For Hire", Hookfang ends up going wild due to a rotten tooth.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Stoick. He's more lenient with the dragons' antics than he could be, given the trouble they cause, and treats exile as a very last resort. When Hiccup comes to him claiming that Mildew framed the dragons and disposed of the evidence, he seems inclined to believe his son, but can't just accuse someone of treason without proof, either. Much to the annoyance of everyone (and the audience), Mildew tends to abuse this trait of Stoick's when doing things concerning the dragons.
    • Much of Stoick's conversations with Hiccup in Defenders is shaping Hiccup into this, such as dealing with two squabbling vikings, or when Snotlout's recklessness nearly killed Astrid. Hiccup asks his father about how one can be a friend and leader at the same time. Stoick notes that as chief, one doesn't just have to balance between being a leader and friends but also what is good for all of Berk. Given the release of How to Train Your Dragon 2 is after the season, it's no doubt meant to tie in to that.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After three seasons of ignoring her mean-spirited but on target comments about the Twins' antics, "Edge of Disaster - Part One" has Ruffnut finally reaching her limit and calling Astrid out on how rude she is towards both her and her brother, as well as anyone that isn't Hiccup.
    "You have no respect for the people around you who are just trying to help and be part of the team. You have no respect for Fishlegs, certainly none for Snotlout, and you couldn't have LESS respect for the two of us."
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Screaming Death as part of its albino-like image.
  • Redemption Equals Death:
    • Played straight with Viggo Grimborn, who ends up turning on Johann and Krogan after they try to kill him and siding with Hiccup. Despite Hiccup's severe (and understandable) doubts, Viggo does end up helping Hiccup and Toothless escape from his former partners, but takes several fatal arrow wounds in the process and dies while holding off Krogan, Johann, and their men.
    • Averted with Alvin and Dagur, who both also had stints as a Big Bad of the series, but end up atoning and helping the heroes, and both get fairly happy endings at the end of the series.
    • Inverted in that, while two of the three Big Bads who make a Heel–Face Turn end up surviving to the end, all three who don't—Ryker, Johann, and Krogan—are killed off in or before the series finale.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Between Hiccup and Astrid as of the end of RTTE Season 4's "Blindsided". The following two-parter episodes make it clear that they are officially together.
  • Remember That You Trust Me: Despite the lessons of the first film, Stoick remains wary of the dragons, and whenever a problem arises that Hiccup struggles to solve, is quick to suggest they may have to get rid of them. Justified as part of the realistic setup; like it or not, Stoick has to keep what's best for Berk in mind, not to mention that his whole life up until this point was a neverending cycle of "The horrible sky monsters are killing our families, destroying our buildings, and stealing our food," so him still holding a bit of a grudge against the dragons is more than a little understandable.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Alvin the Treacherous is an old rival of Stoick and foe of Berk village, yet "Alvin and the Outcasts" is the first time the viewer has heard of him. This is lampshaded in his premiere episode when Alvin can't believe Stoick never spoke of him to Hiccup.
  • Reverse Psychology: In "Free Scauldy", Astrid finally gets fed up with Snotlout's constant advances and starts mimicking his behavior, which creeps him out to no end.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: When the guard who snuck Dagur a key to his prison cell meekly protests he was the one he freed him, Dagur muses, "Which makes you a traitor." He promptly smacks him unconscious with his club, and chuckles, "I hate traitors."
  • Rewatch Bonus: With the final season revealing that "Trader" Johann was Evil All Along and trying to get rid of the Dragon Riders from as far back as "Breakneck Bog", a whole bunch of seemingly benign scenes and episodes with him take on a whole new meaning. Hiccup even points out some instances where Johann was conveniently in the right place at the right time to make things more difficult for the Riders. The episode "Eye of the Beholder Part 1" might qualify as the biggest instance of it. Originally, Hiccup finding the Dragon Eye after Johann sends them after Dagur seemed like a simple coincidence. Until it's shown that Johann has been searching for the Dragon Eye and lenses all along in order to find the King of Dragons. Since he also knows Viggo and Krogan and the area where the Reaper was trapped, he must have known the Dragon Eye was on board that ship, surrounded by Death Traps, but instead of trying to get through them himself, he tricked Hiccup into exploring it, finding the Dragon Eye, and getting it off the ship.]]
  • Rule #1: The first rule of Dragon Flight Club is that it doesn't exist, which confuses the twins to no end.
  • The Runner-Up Takes It All: In "Thawfest", Hiccup intentionally loses to Snotlout in the Thawfest games. Snotlout gets to keep his family's winning streak, while Hiccup gets a secret approving beam from his father and a kiss from Astrid; definitely good consolation prizes.
  • Running Gag:
    • Ruffnut constantly getting partially paralyzed by a baby Speed Stinger in "The Next Big Sting"
    • Ruff and Tuff speaking in faux-Shakespearean throughout "Total Nightmare"
    • Hiccup's missing leg is a constant source of humor throughout the show.
    • For Race To the Edge, the increasing dragon proofing of equipment starting in "Have Dragon Will Travel" and finally culminating in dragon proofed ships in "Gold Rush".
    • The progressive accumulation of relatives, aliases, imaginary friends or pets of the twins, whose names use every conceivable permutation of "____nut". Buffnut, Gruffnut, Agnut, Dullnut, Stuffnut, Fluffnut, Snuffnut, Wingnut... not to mention Scruffnut and Sluffnut (mentioned in the HTTYD video games).
  • The Runt at the End: Any person or animal named "Hiccup" is considered one. It's a viking tradition.

    Tropes S to Z 
  • Sacred Hospitality: Though not seen, it is implied when a chief visits the others at the meeting of the viking chiefs they receive it, provided one brings a gift to the host as thanks for the shelter and protection. The last chief who failed to provide a gift left without his head. Overall, gift giving seems to be a big part of Viking culture with one episode implying that this is the primary way of apologizing.
  • Saved by the Awesome: In "How to Start a Dragon Academy", when Hiccup and friends make amends for the dragons' extensive property damage by demonstrating their utility (disobeying orders to keep them caged), Stoick rewards them with a So Proud of You and a gift of the old arena, re-purposed into a Dragon Academy.
  • Saying Too Much:
    • In "In Dragons We Trust", Hiccup begins to suspect Mildew of framing the dragons when he mentions that Toothless was left outside the Great Hall. Since he lives on the other side of the island and it's the middle of the night, it's highly unlikely that he would be around to notice.
    • In the premiere of RttE season 6, some Dragon Hunters ambush the group, take Trader Johann hostage, and demand the Dragon Eye lenses Hiccup has with him in exchange for Johann's safety. Since Johann was the one who suggested Hiccup bring the lenses in the first place, and the Hunters otherwise shouldn't have any reason to believe that he would have them with him, Hiccup is able to figure out that Johann must be the traitor in their group.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Implied. Dagur claims that his father Oswald the Agreeable "retired", later saying that he "had to be eliminated" so that he could become chief. Oswald is never seen or heard from once in the show. Ultimately subverted in season five and six when Dagur reveals that Oswald disappeared and has been actively searching for him.
  • Schizo Tech:
    • Parasols made of metal and stone and, of all things, flamethrowers, exist in a show that is supposed to be set between Dark Age Europe to the High Middle Ages. These might be a throwback to the book, since one of the villains made a steamship using dragons.
    • There's also the diving bell from "Dire Straits".
  • Servile Snarker: When the Twins turn out to be the lawful owner of Dragon's Edge and begin to lord it over the riders, everyone else except Snotlout act as this to the Twins.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: The last two seasons of Race to the Edge have shades of this. In the end, Johann is turned into Human Popsicle and Krogan is prevented from obtaining a Bewilderbeast egg, so Drago won't get his hands on it. However, by the second movie Drago has his own Bewilderbeast anyway, meaning Dragon Rider's efforts to stop Krogan were for nothing.
  • Shaming the Mob: When Hiccup proved to the village that Toothless was not the reason why lightning struck the village, the villagers all showered them with treats and gifts, hoping there's no hard feelings.
    Hiccup: No matter how much things change around here Vikings are still Vikings. They're not afraid to admit when they're wrong. And when they do, watch out! Cause you'll be up to your ears in pie and smoked fish.
  • Shamu Fu: Deprived of their metal weapons in "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", Bucket and Mulch settle for using sturgeon to bludgeon each other. Stoick quips that this is actually better for all parties.
  • Shooting Gallery: In "Thawfest", one of the events is a contest where the dragons have to shoot enemy targets while avoiding friendly ones.
  • Shoot the Dog: When Hookfang goes wild in "Viking For Hire", Stoick is ready to get back to dragon-slaying with Gobber by his side.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Johann the Trader could be one for the grocery store chain "Trader Joes".
    • In "Dragon Flower", Stoick calls his sick dragon, Thornado, "Dragon Warrior."
    • "How to Pick Your Dragon" has Hiccup briefly giving Toothless prompts for breathing fire, (i.e. "Toothless, plasma blast") in a manner very reminiscent of Pokémon.
    • In "Gem of a Different Color" there's a bit where a Baby Carriage goes careening out of control down a flight of steps during an action scene while Fishlegs tries to catch it.
    • In the season premiere of Defenders of Berk, Hiccup and the other riders form the "Dragon Flight Club".
    • In "Fright Of Passage", Toothless and Hiccup finishing off the new channel is reminiscent of Luke destroying the Death Star.
    • In "Worst in Show", Fishlegs considers naming his Terrible Terror 'Deathwing'.
    • In "Frozen", Fishleg's telling Hiccup what happened, from his mannerisms to the description of the attack begin to sound a lot like a 'Collector raid.' Priority:Berk anyone?
    • The insult exchange between Tuffnut and Ruffnut in "Free Scauldy" (see under Ambiguous Gender) is the same as a similar exchange of insults between Hudson and Vasquez in Aliens.
    • Also, when they first encounter Changewings, there is a shot of their acid dripping down that is an obvious reference to Alien
    • Why did it have to be eels uttered by Hiccup in the first episode of Race to the Edge, a Shout-Out to Indiana Jones.
    • Race to the Edge gives us an episode titled "Reign of Fireworms". And there are many other episode titles that reference films, e.g. "What Flies Beneath", 'Free Scauldy', "A View to a Skrill", "Live and Let Fly", etc.
    • The first episode of Race to the Edge give us the twins, who have apparently dedicated their lives to Loki, announcing their pranks with occasional cries of 'Loki'd!'
    • Dagur's helm has a striking similarity to Loki's helm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
    • Gobber's Lycanwing story from "Bad Moon Rising" features a cursed Viking named Kessler.
    • "The Zippleback Experience" episode is reminiscent of the The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode "My Hero".
    • The scenes with Astrid and Tuffnut from "Edge of Disaster" with them fending off the Dragon Hunters is a tribute to the Home Alone Movies, especially the dummies used to make it look like the rest of the Riders were still there, the Monstrous Nightmare Gel that acted as Kerosene, throwing the chicken down to the Dragon Hunters on their way up a cliff, and a Big Damn Heroes moment that involves the Dragon Hunters getting attacked by flying creatures.
    • Astrid's speech at the end of "Buffalord Soldier" is lifted almost directly from The 13th Warrior.
    • In "Saving Shattermaster", Snotlout yells he's fed up with these freaking eels in this freaking maze!
    • Dagur's throne in "Something Rotten on Beserker Island" looks suspiciously like the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones.
    • In "A Matter of Perspective", when Astrid interrupts Hiccup while he's working on an as yet secret project, she asks "Hey! Watcha up to?"
  • Sick Episode: "The Eel Effect", where most of Berk comes down with eel pox and the Riders have to gather the ingredients for the cure. In the course of getting the most vital ingredient - a blood eel - Hiccup is attacked by eels and Toothless, in trying to save him, accidentally ingests one, which makes him ill as well.
    • Happens again in Buffalord Soldier, this time to only Astrid.
  • Simpleminded Wisdom: Stoick explains that when vikings don't agree on something, they usually settle it three different ways. Option 1: Give them both axes and let them fight it out. Option 2: Give them both maces and let them fight it out. Option 3: Trick them into working together. Given that Astrid recognized Hiccup's ploy as the third, it can best be assumed that all Hooligans teach their children this lesson.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor/Stealth Mentor:
    • Stoick's attitude towards Hiccup and the dragons.
    • Apparently, Gobber's father, if his comments are anything to go by... and he passed those on to Gobber himself. We don't get to see it, but that's partially because the dragons fled before he could start "training" them using real weapons...
  • Skewed Priorities: Snotlout, who was the only one still interested in the treasure after they found Hiccup alive after a cave in.
    • Likewise, in "Cast Out, Part I", he's more concerned of how awesome his Leeroy Jenkins moment at the start was instead of the fact that it nearly got Astrid killed.
    • The Twins in "Reign of the Fireworms" are more concerned about being rulers in total control due to a family claim on the island that the stumbled upon and are planning a summer palace rather than dealing with the imminent Fireworm migration that would burn down the whole island.
    • Mala, leader of the Defenders of the Wing, is more concerned about putting Hiccup to the sword because he's a Dragon Rider who was tricked by Viggo than dealing with the imminent destruction of her village due to lava or dealing with their mutual enemy.
  • Smooch of Victory: Hiccup gets one from Astrid at the end of "Thawfest", though it's for doing the right thing instead of winning (he could have, but threw the match for Snotlout's sake).
  • Snap Back: "Free Scauldy" ends with Ruffnut cutting her braids off to save Scauldy. Then "Frozen" comes along and her hair is back to normal.
  • So Proud of You: In "How to Start a Dragon Academy", Stoick attempts this with the Viking teens via Chew-Out Fake-Out, but Gobber excitedly steps on his big speech for a bit before Stoick finally manages to deliver his praise properly.
  • Standard Female Grab Area:
    • In "Alvin and the Outcasts", Astrid gets grabbed here by Alvin as a hostage (so the dragons won't fire at him). Justified because there's a massive weight difference between them, and he also pins her against himself for a better hold. In addition, the second he's surprised Astrid hits him with an oar and bolts.
    • Also happens to Hiccup in "When Lightning Strikes", although in his case it's "Standard Skinny Teenager Grab Area".
    • To Hiccup again in "The Defiant Ones", and again in "Midnight Scrum".
  • Start X to Stop X: In "Zippleback Down", Hiccup and the twins use a back burn to stop a forest fire threatening Berk.
    • Done again in "Reign of the Fireworms".
  • Status Quo Is God: Usually averted for the show as a whole, but there are a few straight examples:
    • In the first season, Mildew succeeded in several episodes in turning the villagers of Berk against the dragons, and pressuring Stoick or the town into banishing them. By the end of the episode (or two-parter, in one case), the Riders always manage to convince the town otherwise, and the dragons return to Berk and don't seem to have any kind of grudge towards the townspeople.
    • Near the end of "Free Scauldy", Ruffnut cuts off her braids to use as a rope, and has short hair at the end of the episode. In the very next episode, "Frozen", her hair is back to normal.
    • Also in "Free Scauldy", Astrid finally can't take any more of Snotlout's excessive flirting, and gets him to stop by being overly gushy and flirty with him in return. Within the first minute of "Frozen", Snotlout makes another flirtatious comment towards Astrid, and she responds with the usual "Ugh" and eye-roll.
    • Double-subverted when Heather becomes a Dragon Rider and joins them at Dragon's Edge, being a regular in all episodes that follow...for a season. Then she ends up leaving and going back to being an Honorary True Companion to the group, though this one at least had the justification that her being a member of the Dragon Riders and having a relationship with Fishlegs was Doomed by Canon to not work out.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: In "Viking For Hire", when conducting a tribal induction ritual, Gobber decides an unnamed female baby looks more like a "Magnus" than a "Hildegarde", and renames her accordingly. While lamenting his tactless action, Stoick agrees in spirit.
    Stoick: I'm not sayin' she didn't look like a "Magnus," but try telling that to her parents!
  • Stunned Silence: Happens at least Once an Episode when someone says something completely horrifying, or stupid, or just plain weird, or unexpectedly brilliant. Happens most often with Snotlout or the twins, but sometimes with Fishlegs, too. In all cases, everyone else present will just go silent and give the speaker a look that's either horrified or just screams "WTF".
  • Suddenly Shouting: Gets inverted by Hiccup during the Are We There Yet? segment in "Night of the Hunters - Part 2".
    Snotlout: Is that the island we're going to?
    Hiccup: No.
    Snotlout: How about that one?
    Hiccup: Also no.
    Snotlout: That one?
    Hiccup: FOR THE LAST TIME—Oh, that's exactly the one. My bad.
    • In "Darkest Night", though, Hiccup plays it straight when he's completely out of himself from learning about Stoick's injury, and as a result has a lower tolerance for the bickering among his friends about the situation at hand.
    Hiccup: ENOUGH! All of you, enough! Look, it doesn't matter if we stayed in or left Berk! [...] It's not a game, it's not a dream, it's not a way of life, it's reality. It actually happened— we trained the dragons, we left Berk, and now my father is on his deathbed because of it. Because of me. None of [the events of the series, especially Stoick's injury], and I mean none of this would have happened if I had shot down Toothless in the first place! You know it. I know it. Berk knows it. Everyone knows it. [...] Even [Toothless] knows it. (storms out)
  • Super-Speed: The Typhoomerang can get a speed boost by igniting itself like a Catherine Wheel firework.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • This show addresses various issues brought about by the dramatic shift the vikings made in how they deal with dragons. Sometimes Played for Laughs, other times not so much.
    • Even though she has learned not all dragons are bad and made friends with several, Astrid still wanted to kill the Flightmare that killed her uncle Finn.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: When asked where he's going at one point, Tuffnut replies that he is going somewhere to be alone and not to cry.
  • Swiss-Army Weapon: Hiccup has a shield which transforms into a crossbow and has a bola/grappling hook built in.
  • Synchronized Swarming: From "When Darkness Falls", the Night Terrors are small dragons that fly as a swarm to form the shape of a bigger dragon in order to frighten their predators. For this, though, they need the presence of their leader (a white Night Terror that the Dragonriders name "Smidvarg") to command the flock and takes the position of the "eye" of the mock dragon.
  • Take My Hand!: Happens in "What Flies Beneath" when Astrid tries to pull Hiccup out of the Whispering Death's pit. She manages to hold on to him for a few seconds before his hand slips from her grasp and he falls back into the pit.
  • Team Rocket Wins: Season one ends with Alvin having Out-Gambitted Hiccup and learned how to tame dragons himself, thus turning the Outcasts into a much more dangerous enemy for Berk.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Young Berserker chief Dagur the Deranged. Before becoming a chief he'd torture the other viking kids on his dad's visits to Berk (including purposefully starving Fishlegs and trying to drown Hiccup); all he wants to do on Berk is go the the arena and kill dragons, he mocks his own dead father (whom he's implied to have killed (he didn't though)), threatens war at every turn and almost kills Ruff and Tuff's Zippleback by cutting off Belch's head. And then, after learning Hiccup tricked him, takes over the Outcasts.
  • Temple of Doom: In "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man".
  • Tempting Fate: In "Alvin and the Outcasts", Gobber notes, "This would be a really bad time to get attacked, especially by Alvin the Treacherous." Guess who lands on their shores later that day?
  • Terms of Endangerment: Dagur referring to Hiccup as "brother" is this during Dagur's time as the Big Bad of the series, considering he's actually pretty hell-bent on killing Hiccup during this time; however, once he makes his Heel–Face Turn, it becomes a term of affection instead, and Hiccup uses this for him as well.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
    • This is Toothless' attitude toward the Whispering Death in "What Flies Beneath", even going so far as to scare away the other dragons and refuse Hiccup's help.
    • Dagur has the "Only One Allowed to Kill You" version towards Hiccup, or at least until his Heel–Face Turn.
    • Viggo also eventually becomes so fed up with the Riders ruining his plans that he, too, feels this way towards Hiccup, or at least until his Heel–Face Turn.
  • This Is Gonna Suck:
    • In "Worst in Show", Hiccup is quick to notice that Fishlegs is taking the competition too seriously and something will inevitably go wrong, even going so far as trying to nip it in the bud later on. But naturally, things have to go wrong for the lesson to be learned.
    • Happens again in "Appetite for Destruction" when the Screaming Death returns.
  • Those Two Guys: Bucket and Mulch.
  • Time Skip: Three years have passed between the last season of the Cartoon Network series ("Defenders of Berk") and the first season of the Netflix Original Series Race to the Edge
  • Toilet Humor:
    • In "How to Start a Dragon Academy", all the dragons fly up in formation to shower the village in glowing green dragon dung. Onscreen. In unison.
      Bucket: (holding a wooden parasol) Every day at three. They're regular at least. A tip o' the cap.
    • Happens a few more times in "Dragon Flower" with Gobber going behind a rock to remove his underpants, Meatlug farting in Fishleg's face, and Mildew getting an Ass Shove at the end of the episode.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Heather in "Have Dragon Will Travel". Not only has she trained herself in fighting and built her own dual-bladed axe, but she tamed her own dragon, Windshear.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass:
    • During the Thawfest games, Snotlout goes from jerk to Jerkass.
    • Hiccup also dabbled in this trope a bit in the same episode by gloating and getting wrapped up in his victories.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who actively hurt themselves because they like pain.
  • Trailers Always Spoil:
    • The full previews for "In Dragons We Trust" practically spelled out who was framing the dragons.
    • The previews for the two-parter "The Heather Report" are terribly unsubtle in painting Heather as a spy for Alvin.
    • Previews for Race to the Edge: Season 4 didn't even try to hide the reveal that Dagur is alive.
  • Training from Hell: In "Viking for Hire", this is ex-dragon slayer Gobber's idea of dragon training:
    Gobber: I thought we could train them by threatening to kill them. That's how my daddy taught me to swim! (pulls out giant mace) School's in session!
  • Traveling at the Speed of Plot: In Race to the Edge, it is clearly shown to take well over a day of continual flying on Dragon to get from Berk to the titular Dragon's Edge. This extreme distance only seems to be a problem when it is convenient for dramatic tension.
  • Trojan Horse:
    • In "We Are Family, Part Two" Stoick knows Alvin will be expecting an air assault to take back Hiccup and Toothless, so they hide on Trader Johann's ship.
    • In "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", Dagur has one of his Berserkers sell Trader Johann a Smoldering Smokebreath nest, knowing the hatchlings within will steal all of Berk's metal to build their nest. This naturally includes the armory.
    • In "Last Auction Heroes", Toothless and the riders hide below the floorboards of Johann's ship to infiltrate Viggo's auction.
  • True Companions: Slowly over the course of the first season, the Riders' bonds with each other and their dragons grow. By the end of the first season, they are fully this and the dragons show it by moving to defend a bound Hiccup and Toothless in "We Are Family, Part Two" without any prompt from their riders. They remain this throughout the rest of the series.
  • Trust-Building Blunder: In "In Dragons We Trust", Hiccup successfully convinces Snotlout to jump off Hookfang's back so his dragon can catch him as a trust-building exercise. Unfortunately, Hookfang doesn't realize his rider is missing until Astrid points it out to him.
  • Tunnel King: Whispering Death dragons, especially the mutant Screaming Death.
  • Understatement: Hiccup, upon seeing Trader Johann's ship stuck up in a big, tall tree in the middle of an island, declares that he got "a little off-course".
  • Undying Loyalty: Hiccup and Toothless towards each other, carrying over from the film. Numerous episodes explore how far they'll go to protect each other, frequently risking themselves in the process. It also is a regular thing used to show people that dragons are not Always Chaotic Evil when skepticism comes up.
  • Unflinching Walk: In "Alvin and the Outcasts", Alvin does this as a pair of dragons swoop down on his stronghold, breathing fire all the way.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Astrid and Hiccup; close proximity or a more-than-friendly situation makes them blush and stutter and Astrid punch his shoulder. However, Astrid is over it as of "Thawfest Games", where she kisses him after he decides to throw the competition for Snotlout's sake. Though it becomes resolved in "Blindsided", where they get together.
  • Viking Funeral: They do this at least five times whenever someone dies, and surprisingly, it is almost always played straight, only played for laughs when they throw a funeral for a mace.
  • Wacky Racing: In "Animal House", Astrid and Hiccup use their dragons as flying snowboards to go "Dragonboarding" down the snowy hills.
  • We Can Rule Together: Alvin briefly attempts this in "The Heather Report." Hiccup calls the very idea "insane, demented, delusional and stupid."
  • Wedding Bells... for Someone Else: In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of the series finale, the riders are all attending Dagur and Mala's wedding, the framing and Hiccup's voice over implying to be his and Astrid's wedding before panning out and proving otherwise.
    Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III: As for the lovebirds... [Shows Hiccup and Astrid kissing with a pair of wedding rings, only to reveal Dagur and Mala putting on the rings instead] No, those lovebirds.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy:
    • Hiccup still has shades of this due to his lingering self-esteem issues, even though Stoick is proud of him as he is.
    • "Thawfest" reveals that this is a large reason behind some of Snotlout's more Jerkass tendencies, as his overbearing and emotionally abusive father puts a lot of pressure on him to perform well. When Hiccup points out that his father looks angry Snotlout replies, "So? He always looks like that."
  • We Need to Get Proof:
    • This is the sole reason Mildew isn't punished for his crimes as Hiccup lacked solid evidence.
    • In "In Dragons We Trust", Hiccup realized Mildew knew too much by an off-hand comment regarding what was happening and sought to get proof, knowing he would need it to convince Stoick. He does find proof but Mildew destroyed it. Later, when telling Stoick this, Stoick points out they now need new proof that Mildew was behind it.
    • In "Dragon Flower" Hiccup lacked concrete proof of intent from Mildew and the foreknowledge the flowers he bought would be harmful to dragons. Fortunately, they force him to participate in a search for a cure, which eventually comes down to subjecting him to an agonizing extraction procedure out of his behind.
  • Wham Episode:
    • In the first of the two-part Heather debut episode, Alvin reappears and obtains the Book of Dragons.
    • "We Are a Family, Part One": Hiccup finds a map to an island full of Night Furies. Unfortunately, it's bait for a trap set by Alvin and Mildew, and he and Toothless are kidnapped but the trope is fulfilled in the second part. Alvin can tame his own dragons and his first one is a Whispering Death, the natural enemy of the Night Fury.
    • "A View to a Skrill" has Dagur taking over the Outcasts and did something to Alvin, meaning that both of Berk's human enemies are now under one banner.
    • "Cast Out, Part I" has Alvin revealing that he survived the events of "A View to A Skrill", Dagur launching a full strike on the Berk Dragon Academy, and Stoick being captured by Dagur. Oh, and the Screaming Death is moving towards Berk again.
    • "Have Dragon, Will Travel" starts with a Dragon Rider attacking various ships and it's not anyone from Berk. Turns out, it's Heather who has found her own dragon and was raiding ships affiliated in some way with Dagur. As the episode goes on, it is revealed that her home village was burned down by Dagur, just short of explicitly stated that he murdered her adopted parents, and we learn that she is the daughter of Oswald the Agreeable, and by extension Dagur's sister and a Berserker by blood.
    • "Maces and Talons" sees Viggo get the Dragon Eye and outwit Hiccup.
    • "Defenders of the Wing, Part I" has Viggo again outwit Hiccup, but also reveals a village of those who treat dragons with respect and honor... and see the Riders as no different than Viggo's men. The season ends with their leader, Mala, declaring her intent to kill Hiccup and his people.
    • The end of "Sins of the Past" reveals that Trader Johann is a Dragon Hunter and has been playing everyone for the entire run of the show.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: At the end of "The Heather Report, Part Two", we don't know what became of the Monstrous Nightmare Astrid befriended in the Outcast camp.
  • Where I Was Born and Razed:
    • Alvin the Treacherous came from Berk and did something to be kicked out. He now wants to destroy Berk.
    • Hiccups fear this trope occuring since Whispering Death hatchlings are territorial of their birthplace, and because the Screaming Death is variant of the Whispering Death who can also control his fellow dragons, he is right to worry.
  • Women Prefer Strong Men: While Hiccup wasn't pleased to see himself depicted as a overly-buff man on the chieftain/son shield painting, Ruffnut and Astrid showed a heightened sense of appreciation towards it.
    Tuffnut: Whoa, what happened to Hiccup?
    Astrid: (still looking at the picture with Ruffnut) Who cares?
  • The World Is Just Awesome: Like in the original movie Hiccup takes a person to see Berk in a new light. This time it is Stoick to show him some of the wonders of riding a dragon. Stoick completely agrees as he realized that he knew every tree on Berk, climbed every cliff, and every other facet but never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd see it from air.
  • World of Snark: Everybody in this series has at least a few good lines of snark, usually at somebody else's expense. Even the dragons get in on the act as Silent Snarkers.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
    • Snotlout, apparently. In "Viking for Hire", he at least stops to check if it's Ruff or Tuff he's about to hit.
      Snotlout: You're the guy, right?
    • Averted with Tuffnut, who does hit his sister (she hits back just as often).
  • Would Hurt a Child: Alvin. And he's not shy about letting people know it, either.
    • Viggo as well. Starve innocent women and children to get what he wants? That's just the price of business.
  • Wreathed in Flames: The series seems to have taken a liking to things that light themselves on fire, instead of just breathing it.
    • The Monstrous Nightmare, as in the film. It's a plot point in "Viking for Hire", as Hiccup noted that something must be wrong with Hookfang, since he never lights up when Snotlout's on him.
    • The Typhoomerang in "The Terrible Twos" also does this, lighting itself like a Catherine Wheel spinning firework. Not only does this make it fly faster, it also turns it into an airborne, spinning saw blade.
    • Then there's the fireworm dragons in "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man", which are mouse-sized dragons with flaming skin.
  • Yes-Man: Alvin's right hand man Savage is a very dedicated example of this, though he does chide Alvin occasionally. Alvin uses his submissiveness to prove the point that most people will say anything to keep themselves alive and Savage continues this role while under Dagur's rule.
  • You All Look Familiar: All the Outcasts save Alvin and Savage clearly all use the exact same model and textures. Same goes for all the Defenders of the Wing except for Mala and Throk.
  • You Are Not Alone: In "We Are Family, Part Two" Hiccup and Toothless realize that though they haven't found any more Night Furies, they do have a family with the other dragon riders.
  • You Do NOT Want To Know:
    • Tuffnut says this to Heather when she asks why she isn't supposed to breathe in the gas of a Hideous Zippleback.
    • There are similar reactions to what the twins need a boar pit for.
  • You're Just Jealous:
    • In "The Terrible Twos," Hiccup thinks this when Toothless tries to warn the village that the baby dragon's bereaved mother is a threat.
    • In "Heather Report," the gang thinks this of Astrid when she shows her distrust of Heather, who has been hanging out with Hiccup a lot.

"This is Berk. We've got ice, we've got snow, and we've got more ice. But we've also got dragons. We train them, learn from them, protect them... And they protect us; sometimes from ourselves. One thing's for sure: We wouldn't trade this for anything. Would you?"

Alternative Title(s): Dragons Defenders Of Berk, Dragons Race To The Edge, Dream Works Dragons

Top

"The Longest Day"

The Midnight Sun is an annual two-week long astronomical event where the sun does not set. The perpetual day time is driving the vikings bonkers to varying degrees from a lack of sleep.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / InsomniaEpisode

Media sources:

Report