Fridge / How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Fridge Brilliance

• The Light Fury having softer, rounder features was derided by fans for making her look too "feminine", but given that she lives in a massive cave at the bottom of the ocean, it makes sense that Light Furies would be more streamlined than their surface dwelling kin.

• The movie opens with a line indicating that an older Hiccup, either in the end or as a framing device, will be reminiscing about his adventures with the dragons. The music from the trailer includes the song "Castle on the Hill" which, despite being rather positive and going for an inspirational feel, is a rather bittersweet song about fondly looking back at the past. It's also about returning to home and loved ones after a long stretch of time spent away.

• It's confirmed that the Dragons are hiding and waiting for the day when they and humanity can coexist. Now if history went the exact course to the modern era, that means later sightings of mythical beasts and cryptids such as the Loch Ness Monster, the Thunderbird, Mothman, Yeti/Bigfoot and UFOs might have been actually the Dragons coming out of the Hidden World to confirm if humanity is ready for them.

• Grimmel's existence actually brings to light Viggo's interest in Hiccup. His status as a Dragon Hunter would have let him hear a word or two about the famous Night Fury Killer. When he learns of Hiccup and Toothless, Viggo realizes that Grimmel has failed to exterminate the entire species. If Viggo catches Toothless, not only would he defeat Hiccup, but he would also humiliate a rival Dragon Hunter at the same time.

• According to Word of God, one of the basis for the Deathgrippers is the scorpion who played a part in a classic fable, "The Scorpion and the Frog". After reading it, then you know what kind of character the dragons' master Grimmel really is, and it wouldn't be surprising when he betrays his allies to kill Toothless at the cost of bringing the wrath of the Alpha's vengeful dragon clan. This made Grimmel's Karmic Death more satisfying, because the Light Fury went with her nature to save Hiccup.

• One might wonder why Grimmel waited to try to kill Toothless, if he really did it just to see the looks on the warlords' faces when he betrayed them. But then one recalls that he wants to get out of this alive, and he knows that if he killed Toothless, he'd make them all his enemies out for his blood. But by waiting until the armada is surrounded by dragons, he hedges his odds that the dragons and armada will destroy each other once Toothless is dead and he will be able to escape in the ensuing chaos.

• Looking at how massive the number of dragons present on Berk and New Berk are, it's more or less consistent with the numbers seen in Dreamwork's Dragons: Riders of Berk. A portion of the dragon population must have been comprised of all the dragons the riders have befriended in Legend of the Boneknapper, Riders of Berk, Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge. And when I mean all the dragons befriended, that would include the titanic Screaming Death who eats islands for food, the highly dangerous Skrill with near limitless supply of lightning attacks, the Catastrophic Quakens that bulldoze a dragon-proof fortress easily and the Submaripper who wiped out an entire fleet of ships. No wonder the Warlords needed Grimmel, going to that island would be suicide!

• One might wonder just how come Hiccup was unharmed when Toothless fried the Deathgrippers. Well, Toothless is shown to also be lightning-proof - or rather, he's basically a Faraday cage - it goes around him and not in him. Hiccup is wearing a suit made from shed scales, so he's also in a faraday cage. Thus the electricity went to the next least-resistant thing - the other dragons holding onto them. Either that, or electricity simply doesn't do any damage or harm to those scales. They may be designed to channel the electricity. Either way though, it's essentially a Required Secondary Power of Toothless's "cloaking" ability.
• Why does Toothless, a Night Fury, need extremely hot lightning to become invisible when his lighter-coloured counterpart only needs a plasma blast? Potentially due to his increased pigmentation.

• Watching the old movies and listening to Hiccup narrate the locations, its not just him talking to the audience about Berk, it could also be him showing his children where he was born, where he came from. The entire trilogy is him telling his children their history.

• Toothless' ability to draw lightning from clouds to himself actually makes sense if you take another Shock and Awe Strike-class dragon into consideration, the Skrill. If the two species are distantly related by sharing a common ancestor it could be the line that became the Skrills concentrated more on their lightning absorption and firing while the Night Fury line still retained that ability as more of a Limit Break.

• By the end of the film, there's a Double Meaning for the title "Hidden World"; not only is it about the titular location but also the secret history between humans and dragons that's kept hidden till even the modern era, at least when the time is right.

• Aside from explaining why the modern world isn't full of dragons, the ending also explains why Hiccup's inventive genius didn't bring about the modern world, several centuries early. Over the course of the films and series, we see him perfect his various devices, from weaponry to flight equipment to apparatus for the village ... but we also see those inventions become progressively more dependent upon dragon byproducts: Gronkle iron, Monstrous Nightmare gel, Deathsong amber, shed scales, etc. When the source of these materials departed forever, Hiccup would've had to start over from scratch to re-create such mechanisms using mundane resources: a task that would've been grueling (because he's not inventing fun new stuff, just slogging away at boring old stuff) and probably impossible in many cases. Between his duties as Chief and his responsibilities as a husband and father, he never really had the chance to pursue his craftsmanship in depth, after the dragons left. And when he did try, he'd constantly be reminded of "If only Meatlug was here to refine this ore..." or "I used the same kind of buckles on Toothless's saddle-cinch ... gosh, I miss flying with him...". So, his inventions became more of an occasional hobby than an obsession, and in the years to follow his death, his existing creations broke down one by one and were never replaced.

Fridge Horror

• Word of God claims that the Light Fury is a different, related species, which begs the question on whether they can successfully cross-breed with Night Furies. If yes, then there is at least some hope for the Night Fury bloodline, even if they are no longer pure-breds, but if not, then Toothless's kind truly is gone for good... Even if they are able to cross breed, it won't save the species, as the Night Fury will eventually be bred out of their descendants. And there is a chance, like with some hybrid crossbreeds (Mules) that their offspring might be sterile and unable to reproduce at all.

• The Night Fury's black scales are perfect for camouflage in nighttime, while the Light Fury has reflective white scales that allow them to become invisible during the day. However, since the hybrid offspring have a mix of both black and white scales, they're at a camouflage disadvantage both at night or during the day, which could negatively affect their survival.

• Grimmel mentions that Night Furies are particularly susceptible to cold temperatures.If you think in the tv series where Toothless survived a cold environment like Glacier Island, remember in the second film, when Valka first encountered Hiccup, and Toothless fell into the icy cold water where the Seashockers carried him to the dragon's nest? How close did Toothless come to succumbing to the cold?

• Berk can be considered a huge hot spot for warlords and dragon hunters who go there and claim dragons for their own. One theory could be that the Barbaric Archipelago is the only home where dragons can thrive but another theory suggests that it might be that all the dragons that lived outside the archipelago (Europe, China, Japan etc) are gone much like how the Night Furies nearly went through except they are gone for real. A Fridge Tearjerker because it means that hundreds and possibly thousands of species of dragons that even Bork and Hiccup might not have heard of, roamed all over the world, wild and free until mankind strikes back and drove them to extinction. Berk is more than a utopia for dragons, it is also their last sanctuary.
  • Indeed, by the end of the movie its made clear all the dragons on the surface and in the seas have retreated to the hidden world or been killed off. For all the incredible destructive power dragons possess, humans proved to be even more dangerous.

• The prosthetic Hiccup made for Toothless is not indestructible. Though it is fireproof, it could still quite likely to be damaged either by force or due to parts eventually wearing out and breaking. So in a sense there’s a risk that Toothless will quite likely become limp almost any time, any time or anywhere.

• Where exactly did Hiccup and his crew get their new fire-proof Dragon Scale outfits from? In the second movie, Drago had a Dragon Scale suit of armor, presumably made from dragons he'd slain. In this one, have there been so many newly killed dragons that Hiccup's entire crew can make their own suits?
  • Explained in the movie as being made from shed scales, not the skins of dead dragons.

• The dragons that the Dragon Riders made friends with might be part of Berk and New Berk. Think about by the time and end of the third movie, what might have happened to the Dragon Riders' allies.
  • Dagur and Heather must have been saddened about releasing Windshear, Shattermaster and Sleuther. They were the siblings' family after learning about the fate of their father.
  • Since the New Protector had to be presumably placed under the protection of Berk, Mala, Throk and the Defenders of the Wing might have been devastated to be forced to leave their island.
  • The Wing Maidens would be equally devastated in letting go their Razorwhip charges. This becomes Fridge Horror when you remember the reason why the Wing Maidens care for the Razorwhips (The Males kill the Children and the Females are too weak to put up a fight); this could ultimately lead to their extinction unless there are Dragons in the Hidden World that naturally do what the Maidens do (and since they claimed that the Razorwhip Species was almost driven to extinction, there probably aren't).
    • Possibly the Razorwhips are natural "nest parasites", like cuckoos or cowbirds, but the dragon species which they'd normally foist their eggs off onto never left the Hidden World or recently died out on the surface. The Wingmaidens took over the job of raising the Razorwhip offspring for a time, but there may still be members of the brood-host species in dragonkind's subterranean homeland.
  • If the Warlords had discovered Dragon's Edge, Hiccup and the riders must have to go back to the island and rescue the Night Terrors(and the Night Swarm). Thinking about it makes you realize that this would make things personal for the riders if they find what was essentially their second home wrecked.
  • The Sentinels are left with an uncertain situation. Vanaheim is their home and they might have either fight to the end or had to abandon the island. Or they might remain there for another decade or so, then realize that there aren't any more dying dragons coming to Vanaheim's "dragon graveyard" and accept that they are free to cease protecting it and migrate to the Hidden World as well. And worse, this would made the dragons' departure all the more depressing as the Dragon Riders knew some of those dragons like Thornado, Torch, Garff, the Fireworm Queen, Scauldy, Bolt & Float, Smidvarg and Darkvarg.

• Given that the dragons of the Hidden World are actively hostile to humans, and its location is kept secret by the vikings to protect the dragons from hunters, did Hiccup put his family in serious danger by coming to visit Toothless? His kids could have been attacked by dragons defending their home, they might have been captured by dragon hunters (particularly as they're the Berk Chief's kids), or worse, they might have accidentally betrayed to location of the Hidden World to some hostiles who could have followed them.
  • That would be bad if Hiccup didn't tell in his stories that many people are coming to regard dragons as nothing more than myths and legends, and that even those who know dragons were real (and are not in on Berk's secrets) regard dragons as simply being gone. And regardless, no human force could enter the Hidden World in numbers sufficient to threaten the dragons. The technology to get there as an army simply doesn't exist yet. It'd be suicide to try.

• In the film's final scene, Toothless aggressively confronts Hiccup before recognizing him. Astrid's soothing remark to Zephyr and Nuffink that "He won't eat your father" raises the question of whether Toothless would have done so if he hadn't recognized Hiccup (admittedly unlikely as Toothless has always had something of a "do not kill humans or dragons unless you absolutely have to" rule to his behavior).

• What if New Berk will continue to be attacked by dragon hunters who will demand from them the location of the dragons? Since some don't believe they all just suddenly "died out" or suddenly disappear.
  • Given that they can only keep searching for so long with nothing to show for it, it's likely that the Hunters soon had to give up their previous profession, becoming hunters of mundane animals and/or straight-up pirates and raiders. For the ones who don't, there are plenty of non-dragon hazards in the wildest hinterlands of the HtTYD world - typhoons, giant eels, shipwrecks, pirates - that will most likely eliminate the ones who press their luck too far.

• In the scene where Grimmel burns down Hiccup's house, several other houses can be seen on fire as well. We don't know if the people living in them managed to escape.

• The Hidden World, although revealed in Dragons: The Nine Realms to have multiple distinct areas, would not be able to sustain every single Dragon species equally. Toothless and Hiccup deciding to move Dragonkind fully into the Hidden World may end up resulting in dragon populations having a lower quality of life, their numbers decreasing even more, or going extinct altogether, the opposite of their intended goal of protection.
  • Tunneling species like Whispering Deaths and Screaming Deaths would not be able to tunnel without the risks of caverns caving in. Eruptodons may face a similar issue trying to find enough lava to feed on.
  • Species that live in specialised habitats such as Snow Wraiths or Sandbusters would be more limited in where they inhabit compared to other dragons.
  • Species that require stuff or food sources only present on the surface such as Buffalords with grass and herbs, Flightmares with algae, or Armorwings with metal items will have these neccesities limited or absent altogether.
  • Numerous Dragon species are predatory cannibals and will gladly eat other Dragons, presenting a risk of this predation becoming too overwhelming now that their prey is more limited in where they can flee.

Fridge Logic

• The ending where the dragons all say goodbye to their riders becomes kinda awkward when you remember Hiccup doesn't have his leg the entire time. So he was standing on one leg the whole time, for a very long period of time, and managing to keep his dignified poise without toppling over?
  • Totally possible to balance yourself on one leg. It just takes practice and finding your center of balance.

• Despite several years having passed in the epilogue, Toothless and the Light Fury's offspring appear to merely be hatchlings. Either the two waited all those years before actually mating, or Night and Light Fury offspring age very slowly. This makes sense for species with almost human intelligence and also can explain why furies are so elusive, conspicious and fiercely protective... and so few. Of course, a third option could be that those hatchlings weren't the first offspring Toothless and the Light Fury had...

• Conflict with Grimmel gives Hiccup Heel Realization that the dragons and humanity are not ready to coexist. Though by this point in the franchise, the Berks have battled lot of similar, arguably even more threatening foes like him, including huge kaiju-like alpha dragon controlled by Drago.
  • The point of the movie is that all the battles throughout the franchise are ultimately the results from the conflict that arise between humanity and dragons and Hiccup and Toothless made the choice to bring all the dragons back to the Hidden World so that humanity can heal from those scars.
  • Its also implied that for all they've beaten in the past, Berk is simply not capable of opposing the rest of the world. For all the talk of using dragons to conquer the world, its pretty well implied that ultimately humans are simply too numerous, smart, and technologically capable for dragons to survive against in an antagonistic relationship.

• It's established in this film that Stoic has always looked for the Hidden World in order to find a way to peacefully get rid of the dragons. This seems to conflict with his "kill 'em all" view in the first movie, where he views the dragons as a dangerous threat that can only be ended with their deaths.
  • It might've been less peacefully motivated as much as a more pragmatic thought that it'd be more efficient to just seal them all away than kill 'em all, until he gave up on the idea.
  • You're a warrior culture fighting a life or death struggle with flying monsters with great a wide variety of elemental powers that have killed many and destroyed homes. "kill 'em all" is a perfectly reasonable rallying cry. His dream for just sealing dragons away in the Hidden World could be progressive compared to the rest of the world (outside of Valka, and later Hiccup). Again, he had yet to find the Hidden World. "kill 'em all" is the only option left that he had.
  • He also hadn't lost Valka yet. It seems clear in the first film that the conflict between humans and dragons only became personal to Stoic after one of them abducted and presumably killed his wife. Before that, they were presumably something like a force of nature, like if your town was susceptible to dangerous seasonal flooding and you swore one day you would dam the river.
  • Stoick made that claim because of Valka. After witnessing his wife taken, this forces Stoick to see that his and his people's methods against dragons are not very effective and because of that, he develops a fear that Hiccup might suffer the same fate as his mother. He's willing to believe anything, even an old viking's tale if that meant Hiccup won't have to fight.

• What about the flightless species of dragons, such as the Speed Stinger or the Cavern Crasher? How did they make their way into the Hidden World?
  • Swimming or hitching a ride on other dragons are possibilities. Toothless' authority as "king" would have enabled the level of cooperation needed for the latter.
  • A Speed Stinger pack from the tv series developed webbing feet to run on water in “The Next Big Sting” and the Cavern Crasher (that was relocated from the Fireworm Island to an island next to the Dragon Flyers Singetail hatchery island) is able to swim at long distance as seen in “Family Matters”.

• What happened to the Deathgrippers? Given that they are predators of other dragons, it's unlikely that they could coexist with the other species in the Hidden World peacefully.
  • Other dragon species like Red Deaths, Death Songs, male Razorwhips (only on their own hatchlings), Skrills (only on Singetails), Slitherwings, Grim Gnashers (only on sick or injured dragons), Cavern Crashers (only Dragon eggs and hatchlings), Changewings, and Scauldrons are also known to be predators of other dragons, perhaps with ample food in the Hidden World, as well as being under Toothless' command, they no longer have to eat other dragons to survive?
  • It's likely the four individuals enslaved by Grimmel were killed by Toothless' lightning shock. The other two that was left on his airship died from drowning and weren’t released.
  • We don't know if other dragons are the natural prey of Deathgrippers. Grimmel may simply have refrained from feeding his slaves anything else, because he was training them to be dragon-killers.

• Speaking of food, what do the dragons eat in the Hidden World? Most species seem to be fish eaters, though no large bodies of water are seen inside?
  • Drago's Bewilderbeast lives among them, it's probable that he's learned how to help the other dragons catch food like Valka's alpha once did.
  • What about the Buffalord? It only eats herbs from one island, and outright refuses to leave its home. Is it still there? Did it become extinct once humans discovered its island?
    • Probably yes.
    • Or possibly the natural food of Buffalords is some kind of plant or lichen indigenous to the Hidden World, and the one from the series only resorted to eating a specific herb because it was the only thing it'd found on the surface that had a similar nutritive content.

• The dragons in the Hidden World *clearly* do not like humans coming in. They chase after Hiccup and Astrid once they're noticed, and would probably have killed them if Toothless hadn't intervened. But Astrid's dragon, Stormfly, was the one that brought the humans in to begin with. Did Stormfly not realize the gravity of what she was doing?
  • These dragons from the Hidden World are different. Think about the situation in the first How to Train Your Dragon, except reversed. The dragons hadn't done anything to upset humans, who were (according to Stoick's tales) intent on attacking their home. It's the dragons who get provoked and the Vikings who attack the dragons without reason. Also, Stormfly was not born in the Hidden World. She didn't know.

• It's established that Grimmel has sedatives at his disposal, yet when he's taken Ruffnut captive and she's driving him crazy, he doesn't simply sedate her to shut her up.
  • Because he follows her to New Berk and that was probably his plan from the start?
    • And not drugging her before he allows her to "escape" ensures Ruffnut can't warn New Berk about his use of such tranquilizers. The Berkians' skills at dragon-derived forms of chemistry are well known to their enemies by then, and Hiccup and Fishlegs could potentially come up with a counteragent if forewarned.
  • He has dragon-level sedatives that would probably kill a human being. Dead people can't be held for ransom or tortured into giving information. Besides, the era doesn't have a mass-production amount of sedatives he can just casually restock from whenever he wants, and if things go sour he might end up fighting an entire army of dragons. He can't afford to waste tranquilizers, especially on someone who seems as useless as Ruffnut does.
    • He (unintentionally) uses one on Fishlegs during their attempt to trap him in Hiccup's home, but Fishlegs is much bigger than Ruffnut (almost as big as his dragon in fact) so maybe the dosage was just enough to make him woozy, which is pretty impressive in that Fishlegs has a constitution comparable to a Night Fury's, if not better. Rule of Funny applies, of course.