Headscratchers / How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

• If the Red Death devours any dragon that fails to bring enough food back raided from the Vikings to appease it, how is Toothless still alive and serving it? It was established early on in the film, the Night Fury never shows itself or steals any food.
  • Toothless' role seems to have been that of a sniper or cover fire. He doesn't land to steal food, he focuses instead on picking off big targets. Unlike the heavy lifting Gronkles or brawl-oriented Nightmares, Toothless is built for sneak attacks and dive-bombing. Presumably, either some of the others would pass him some food in exchange for the cover fire he provided by sniping catapult towers or picking off really annoying Vikings, or this is his accepted role with the dragons and thus he is never expected to bring food back.
  • Or he could simply be delivering fish caught out at sea, like the other dragons presumably do when they aren't raiding the Viking settlement.
  • Toothless seems agile enough even with his prosthesis that, before his injury, he could've easily been nabbing seabirds on the wing, leaving the less-elusive prey for the clumsier dragons to collect. Less competition that way.
• Why is The Red Death's murder presented as heroic? The message of the film is that by seeing the dragons as evil because they try to preserve themselves, are dangerous, and look scary is wrong. So what about the Red Death meant that it had to be killed? Sure, it was forcing the dragons to bring it food, but that was its only method of self-preservation. Would you rather it ate the dragons? The fact is, The Red Death was no more evil than any other dragon, and by presenting Hiccup's murder of it as just and heroic, the movie was going against its own message. If the fact that the Red Death was just trying to survive as well had been brought up, it would have tainted the moral waters. The Red Death just can't be supported along with the village. So what do you do with it? But in ignoring this and saying "it's evil because it looks scary, attacks when provoked, and is trying to get food", the movie flipflopped completely on its message. Am I the only one a little bothered by this?
  • The Red Death was a cannibalistic, amoral eating machine. The difference between it and the other dragons is that it doesn't care who or what it hurts or kills as long as it gets fed. The other dragons kill and steal out of self-defense and to placate the Red Death that rules them tyrannically with the constant threat of death-they don't attack each other or anything else that is friendly. There was no proof whatsoever that the Red Death had any redeemable qualities. Had it lived, it would have gone on eating everything in sight that had a pulse.
  • Further, the Red Death had some way of dominating the dragons nearby, presumably by it's crooning "song" which was heard when the Vikings were coming up on Dragon Island. They'd have probably abandoned their lair to it otherwise! It's why I originally referred to it as a sort of Eldritch Abomination from the dragons' perspective; it had an unnatural hold on most of them and drove them to do unnatural things.. "Evil" may be too strong a word, but amoral it certainly was, and more or less was the common enemy of both the Vikings AND the dragons. With it gone, the highly social dragons reverted to more normal behavior, and readily integrated into the Viking village with a bribe of lots of free food and a safe roost.
  • But the other strong message of the movie has been solving conflicts without combat. The hero is the only one who can't fight, the vikings kill innocents by fighting and not trying to understand the problem and the only way things turn out right is when it's realized that violence isn't the answer. And then they use violence and it's heroic.
    • That wasn't the point of the movie. It wasn't "never fight", it was "be smart and know the right time to fight". Hiccup took pity on Toothless in the beginning because he saw that he was just as scared as him. When he believed dragons were the main enemy, Hiccup was willing to fight (he created that catapult in the beginning, after all. But when he learned that the dragons were just solving a tyrannical master, he did what he could to help save the dragons from oppression. It's not violence that the movie's trying to resolve, it's mindless violence.
  • But there was no other way out, because trying to reason with the Red Death would have been useless. We saw enough of her evilness and selfishness in the dragon's den scene, IMHO. The heroic part is that they still chose to fight, despite such a powerful adversary, because even if they could have communicated, there's no way the RD would have released her little slaves, and would have still attacked everyone and everything. Plus, even if left alone, would have still searched for another place to conquer and more dragons to enslave and send to pillage other villages.
  • I actually took the message to be "question what you know", in which case defeating the Red Death is the payoff. The older Vikings kept on blaming the smaller dragons for the resource competition they are engaged in, as those are the ones that are constantly stealing their food. What they didn't realize (and what Hiccup discovered) was that the real competition was not dragons vs. Vikings, but The Red Death vs. Vikings. In order to end the raiding problem, they needed to stop The Red Death, not the smaller dragons. It's basically Taking a Third Option that doesn't necessitate the genocide of either species.
  • Consider it this way:The Large Dragon was unnaturally controlling the other dragons and making them do things they would not normally do. If a human were to do that to other humans he (or she) would be considered a despot, and it would be justified to destroy them. So basically, the Red Death was Dragon Stalin.
  • Another thing to consider is that in the book Hiccup did try to reason with the Red Death and in response the dragon told him that he was going to eat Hiccup, the vikings, and the dragons regardless. The reasoning the dragon gave was that he had nothing against Hiccup or his loved ones personally, he was just hungry. So long as that dragon was hungry it was going to eat everyone and thus there was no amount of reasoning that would have helped Hiccup.
  • But all of this ignores the fact of how massive the Red Death was. The thing seems to be built as a dragon-eater; instead of eating dragons, however, it just collected part of their food. If you think about it, this method is the lesser of two evils. Dragons are shown to be sapient, and one could see it as more of a tragedy if they die as opposed to the lesser-intelligent creatures such as sheep and fish. Seeing how massive the Green Death was, it seems unlikely that it would have been able to find enough animals on its own to sustain itself, but it could make do with the other dragons offering it part of their kill. The Red Death may not be nice, but following this logic, its only other options were to either feed on dragons or lay down and starve to death.
  • Basically you're describing an apex species evolved to the point it can only subsist on its own kind. The fact of the matter is, to accuse the story of going against its own message, you'd have to ignore the ethics of the situation. The dragons and vikings can survive with each other, RD was an issue for both of them. If you are trying to justify the survival of it you should at least try to justify the survival and prosperity of the larger population.
  • Part of their kill? Astrid clearly says "They're not eating any of it." The Red Death is starving the dragons to death, eating ones who don't give it enough food, and mind controlling what are at LEAST semi-sentient(or completely sentient in Toothless's case, although it's not known if there are any other Night Furies living with the dragons) creatures. Nope, it's just a poor innocent lizard!
  • The Red Death is one being whose continued existence ensures the death or unending misery of thousands of others. Any moral creature would've sooner killed itself than allow so many to suffer and die for its own gluttony.
    • Uh, it's a dragon? IDK that dragons are really that moral.It sucks for the other dragons, sure, but the Green Death is just doing what it does to survive. Not to mention that, by your logic, humans should exterminate ourselves to quit ruining the planet. After all, we're one species whose continued existence ensures the death or unending misery of thousands of others. Self-preservation is going to trump morals every time. That is why wolves aren't vegan.
  • Clearing things up because this is going to get out of control. The Red Death's usual method of eating is using its song to get other dragons to get it food, eating the ones that don't bring enough to make up for it. It's huge and looks like it will need more food then it could hunt to sustain itself, even if it is a parasite. It's doing what it was to self preserved because nothing in this world with roll over and die because mother nature had it draw the short end of the evolution stick.
  • Aside from the moral conundrum, we should return to the beginning of the film. Why Vikings wanted to fight and kill dragons? Because they were pests eating every share of food they could get their mouth on, and not above killing humans if they fought back (since basically it boiled to feeding the Red Death or dying). After the end, the Red Death is no more, dragons need far less food to get their fills and thus they're no longer pests: they're useful pets.
  • If you look at the 2nd Movie, the Red Death really has no excuses for its behaviour. Look at Valka's Bewilderbeast, the Good Alpha. He feeds his subjects first before feeding himself and treats fellow dragons with respect. You don't see the Red Death doing that now do you?
    • I don't know if this is a factor or not, but they're two different species, therefore, different habits. Honestly, I don't think the Red Death could 'actively' hunt for herself, so it had to resort to other dragons while Bewilderbeasts can actively hunt for themselves.
• Anything that flies needs to be precisely constructed. How did Hiccup manage to build a (mostly) working tail fin for Toothless based on a rough sketch he drew at a distance? Considering these people don't have any flight technology, he shouldn't have any idea how to create a properly functioning tail fin without at least a close examination of the still-present fin...
  • This is likely going to require Bellisario's Maxim, but there are a few attenuating factors. The vikings do kill a lot of dragons, so he's likely seen plenty of (dead) dragon wings and tail fins, not to mention live ones during attacks. The book on dragons he reads near the beginning has various detailed sketches, so he may have cribbed some of those. The quick construction I attribute to him being a Gadgeteer Genius or Wrench Wench (uh, wrench guy mensch). It fits his character and established by the ballista that knocked Toothless out. Still, it did take him several tries to get the thing working right.
  • I imagine that the fin is somewhat a drag on Toothless' abilities. Granted, flight machines have to be well-built, but an intelligent flying machine (a dragon) can probably compensate for a lot in that regard.
  • Wasn't there a sequence with him building and rebuilding the tailfin?
    • Absolutely. The tailfin and fight mechanism went through several versions; dragon and rider only gradually learned to work together, and as they did Hiccup modified the gear based on how Toothless responded. By the time of the battle with the Red Death, they worked together nearly flawlessly, to the point that Toothless could still make shift at keeping airborne with the tailfin all but burned off.
    • Not so. The sequences were of him building and rebuilding the linkages between fin and boy, but the tailfin itself was unchanged.
  • Hiccup makes a sketch of Toothless' tail, then notices that half is missing. He then recreates the other half. It's probably not a perfect match, but it's a relatively "simple" set of struts and fins that he can recreate. It wouldn't have as much flexibility as the real thing probably had, but the issue is more balance. It doesn't need to be as complicated a replacement as, say, a limb... it probably would have worked passably with just a flat fin, but because he's a gadgeteer he makes something much better.
  • Seconding the above poster. The tail fin is essentially a large folding fan. They've been around since ancient Greece and wouldn't be a problem for someone trained to work with leather, metal, and presumably animals since Hiccup is a blacksmith's apprentice.
  • Not just a fan, a sail. As in, the same thing Vikings have been building for centuries to propel ships. The concept of rudders and of trapping the wind with fabric are hardly a stretch for someone who grew up in a sailing culture.
  • Watch the first real flight Toothless and Hiccup have. The artificial tailfin wobbles, for lack of a better word, while the original stays firm. It does the job, but it's far from perfect.
  • I always just figured there were scenes left out of the movie, thus the entire point of a montage, and that time passed in between the scenes, enough time that Toothless trusted Hiccup enough to let him mess around with his tail without Toothless watching him, measuring the existing tail-fin, making Toothless used to his name enough that he'd answer too it... stuff like that. More study then a simple observation.

• At the end of the film, Hiccup awakens from a healing coma that has apparently lasted long enough for the Vikings to build dragon eyries all over the village and learn to ride their new pets and for his presumably crushed and amputated leg to have healed to the point where he can bear the pain of walking on the stump. Fine. But he still has his minor scrapes and burns! His leg is mostly healed but his face is still a mess? What gives?
  • While he was saying goodnight his dad dropped a lantern on his head by accident...no one says they have to be burns and scrapes from the fight after all. Just my WMG on that.
    • Perhaps this is what comes of leaving an agitated, semi-sentient creature with teeth, fangs, and abrasive scales completely unsupervised with its unconscious and injured master? Claws...not a standard nursemaid feature.
    • Toothless is sentient. This is established pretty firmly in the film at least several times, when he shows he's at least as intelligent and self-aware as Hiccup is. Take, for example, the part where he watches Astrid running away after initially discovering him and hiccup, does a picture-perfect copy of Hiccup's eye-roll, and stomps away to solve the problem himself. If he isn't sentient, how does he grasp the reason Hiccup is rolling his eyes to the point that he adopts it himself, and how does he formulate and choose a decision to show Astrid that dragons AREN'T evil monsters?
    • I think you're confusing sentient with sapient. Sentient: able to feel and conscious of self. Sapient: capable of acting with judgement. A dog is sentient, but not sapient. People (and Toothless, at least) are both.
  • If you look closely right after Stoik finds him and in the closeups after he wakes up, you'll see some faint scars along Hiccup's mouth and jaw that weren't there earlier in the movie. The above troper is probably right; Toothless was actively trying to wake Hiccup and even managed to step on him when he finalld did, so it wouldn't be surprising that he accidently gave him a few minor injuries in the process.
    • It's easier to just write this one off as a continuity error. The little scrapes probably are to just indicate that Hiccup is waking up not too far past the battle; shorthand for "time elapsed, but not months in a coma."
    • Actually, Hiccup does have those minor scrapes/burns visible after Toothless saves him from the fireball. In any case, it looks like those eyries and feeding stations were previously anti-dragon emplacements that the vikings just quickly refurbished for the dragons. Building this wouldn't take too long with the collective efforts of every viking and the fact that it would be pretty simple. Also, riding other dragons doesn't seem to be as complex as riding Toothless, mostly because you don't have to manually operate a prosthetic tail fin for proper flight. From what we see when Hiccup trains his peers to ride dragons, all it takes is some understanding and careful movements.
    • Also, Hiccup comments in the beginning how there are lots of new buildings even though the village is old because they have to keep rebuilding after dragon attacks, so the vikings are probably pretty good at construction things so it wouldn't take them long to adapt their village into a dragon friendly place
    • In a version of the script I read, it's said that they were trying to imply that a week or two has passed. Also, his leg could have been... cauterized, to some extent.
  • It's not a continuity error at all. The body prioritizes healing from "important to not-important." If you're in poor health or injured/sick, your hair and nails are going to stop growing and often get brittle/weak while your body focuses on dealing with the biggest issue. An amputation is obviously REALLY high-priority, while minor scrapes and cuts aren't. So while the big injury healed as fast as possible, the little things would heal more slowly. Hiccup's immune system was probably focused mostly on healing his leg stump and once he got well enough to eat and rehabilitate, the minor cuts and scrapes would have healed up in a week or two.
• The way that Astrid became The Heart after she met Toothless. Before that, she was the epitome of what a Berk Viking should be, girl or otherwise, and even after that she at least managed to save Hiccup by smacking a burning dragon with a thrown hammer during the arena ritual, but other than that all she did, combat-wise, was cling on to Hiccup's back and almost get inhaled into the Red Death's maw while all her much less skilled classmates were busy dragon riding and getting their own CMOAs. It woulda been nice to see her show some of the muscle we know she had in the final battle.
  • I think she became a chick, not the chick. She's The Lancer, and we've already seen plenty of her. Given that certain quarters are already crying about what they call a Romantic Plot Tumor, I'm glad they don't have more ammunition.
  • Watch the film again and you'll see that Astrid is directing Berk's new flying corps while Hiccup is busy trying to free Toothless. In short, Astrid has already show how powerful she is with personal combat and the climax shows her how powerful she is as a combat leader. Yes, she almost got killed when the Red Death took personal notice of her, but she's new to this kind of combat and she's smart enough to defer to Hiccup who is definitely practiced in this field.
  • Look closely, after Snotlout got bucked she was the only one left in the fight. The twins were still trying to calm their Zipple enough to turn it around and everyone else was on the beach. She did _something_ to get the Red Death's attention enough to get it to turn around. She was definitely in the fight. While at the same time keeping an eye out for Hiccup and the twins. I'd gladly have her on my side any day.
  • Snotlout mezzed, Astrid tanked, Hiccup nuked.
  • Astrid already had tons of screentime, honestly, I thought it was about time the other vikings had a chance to actually do something.

• Toothless, for the most part, acted like a realistic animal. He got a bad case of Green-Eyed Monster when Astrid entered the picture, and proceeded to try as hard as any wild horse to throw her off! When Astrid finally gives up and cries 'uncle', he suddenly loses the attitude, straightens up and flies right. Why?
  • It's his way of saying "I'm the Big Bad here, and you WILL respect me and my trainer." And since Toothless can at least understand human emotions - if not comprehend human speech - when he hears Astrid's pleading voice he understands he's made his point.
  • Because, in essence, Toothless is NOT a realistic animal. Besides the whole "breathing fire" thing, he was just playing with her, and intended no actual harm.
    • Well, he * acted* in a realistic manner. The research put into his behavior is a good part of what makes him an appealing character. Makes sense, though; once he worked his grumpiness out of his system he warmed to her pretty quickly.
    • You can say that he was establishing dominance over Astrid. Once he was satisfied with Astrid apologizing and knowing she would never attack Hiccup again, he then took her on the rest of the trip to endear himself to her.
    • Bingo. Acting dominant didn't impress Toothless at all. (Neither did Hiccup's sarcasm for that matter). But when she showed fear, he recognized it immediately and gentled down. Perhaps he remembered what it was like to be afraid, himself?
    • You ever introduced a particularly skittish cat to someone new? I've seen them act almost exactly like Toothless.
  • He switches to the smooth ride the second she apologizes. I'm forced to conclude he knows what "I'm sorry" means.
    • Toothless does seem to understand human speech. Notice how he flings Hiccup off his tail when he (Hiccup) yells "I did it!"; the dragon's facial expression that moment is something of "what, I'm doing nothing here or what?". Also, at the finale, Toothless doesn't reveal he rescued Hiccup until after Stoik says "I'm so sorry". So yes, Toothless expressions during certain dialogues imply that he understands human speech, which explains why he smooths the ride when Astrid apologizes.
    • I think it's less that Toothless literally understands human speech and it's more like - as with dogs and cats and other domesticated animals - he can understand the tone of voice. He doesn't need to understand what the words mean, just hearing the tone is enough for him to know that Astrid has had her anger broken.
    • That whole sequence is what made me fall completely in love with Toothless. I love how he communicates non-verbally and completely understands everything. If he could talk he'd be Tall, Dark and Snarky personified. But if you look at that scene it does seem like he's asserting dominance. Look at how Astrid came in. Completely aggressive, Ax-weilding warrior chick. Hiccup tries to stop her and first thing she does? wrestles him to the ground and then hits him while he's down. So she's already asserted her dominance over Hiccup... So Toothless starts asserting his. Or on another level, Toothless just watched his human get knocked around and then he's expected to cart her around like everything's ok? Hell no. Cue apology for her aggressive and demanding nature and he instantly calms down.
  • I'd argue that Toothless has human-level intelligence. Even considering that he understands people dropping their weapons, his grasp of language, his tool use, and the fact that he understood Hiccup's drawing of him and tried to reciprocate, there are a few things that really stand out. First, when Hiccup first shows him the saddle, he instantly runs away; how does he know what the saddle is for? Second, when he catches Astrid after she falls off her dragon, he turns her right side up so he can drop her without losing too much speed. Third, what's with his behavior after Hiccup puts on his prosthetic for the first time? He notices Hiccup strapping something to his tail, looks annoyed, shifts his weight a little, flaps his remaining stabilizer around, goes O_O, and slowly and disbelievingly tries flying to the opposite side of the canyon. He'd obviously given up on escaping by then, so why did he think he suddenly had a chance? Fourth, when he and Hiccup first meet, he gives Hiccup half a fish right after Hiccup says "I don't have any more".
    • Not quite. There's still a lot of feral animal in him, and he doesn't have the intuitive grasp of abstract situations that a human-level intelligent being would have. What he is is the draconic equivalent of a proto-human - something like a scaly Australopithecus. Not quite there yet, but getting really close.
  • Toothless clearly knows the language. Astrid whisper of "kill a dragon" is overheard, his face shows his horror at the idea, and then he takes them to the nest.
    • That actually was a really well-played red herring. Listen closely: right when Astrid whispers to Hiccup, suddenly a crooning is heard in the background - the Red Death's crooning. Toothless' sudden change of attitude and expression starts the moment he hears the crooning - as illustrated later, he's not entirely immune to the monster's siren song. He is compelled to take Hiccup and Astrid to the nest like any other prey - Astrid even lampshades it - "So what does that make us?". Only the fact that he DOES have partial immunity saves Hiccup and Astrid from being dumped down the Green Death's maw, same as all the rest of the food.
    • It's fairly obvious that Toothless is at least as intelligent as Hiccup is, playing off the Not-so-different theme. Take the part where he recognizes why Hiccup keeps rolling his eyes, grasps the emotions and concepts behind it, and then adopts it for his own usage to express his feelings without actually talking. It's more along the lines of Toothless being as intelligent as humans, but having a completely different outlook on the world and social interactions. Think Blue-and-Orange Morality. Besides, it would make zero sense for Toothless to only have partial immunity, especially if he wasn't as intelligent as a human. If he was susceptible enough to take them there, he would have been susceptible enough to dump them, especially with Toothless right over the freaking source of the noise. He probably looks horrified because he realizes there's about to be a delux-size horde of dragons flying by, and if they see Hiccup and Astrid, they'd probably try to snatch them up, too - that being the reason why he takes them to the nest, aside from showing them the Red Death. In fact, if you look closely during the scene where the dragons are shown flying, one of them is carrying a (hopefully) dead viking.

• At the end, everyone's riding around on dragons with ease, no problems whatsoever. Who taught them? Hiccup's the only one who's done it more than twice, so he'd be the only one with any real experience to teach them. Granted, he was probably knocked out for awhile, but I doubt he was out for months or even weeks, or any amount of time for the others to get good at it without help.
  • The other dragons don't need a complicated artificial tailfin in order to fly.
  • Well golly I don't think the other five teenagers that Hiccup taught were knocked out too.
    • You mean the ones that have been on dragons a grand total of once in their lives?
  • Toothless and the other dragons who've had riders are around. At the most basic level, riding a dragon is just a matter of holding on. They may not be as capable as Hiccup, but they won't die.
  • Wasn't Hiccup keeping notes of everything he was learning from Toothless? While we don't know how long he was out, it could have been long enough for his notes to have been found and used by the other villagers.
    • Confirmed. In the scene where he's absentmindedly rolling a pencil on his desk and papa suddenly barges in, he has to scramble to put away a bunch of papers without attracting Stoic's attention to them. And that's probably not all of them either.
  • It seems like dragons are pretty intelligent on their own, and considering that Hiccup had to learn to manage Toothless' missing tail fin while other Vikings probably have healthy dragons, they probably managed to work it out with each other fairly quickly. After all, dragon-riding seems to be fairly easy so long as the dragon's cooperative and the rider has a way to steer. The other kids didn't seem to have all that much trouble, after all.
  • It's been at least a month since the RD battle when Hiccup wakes up. There's been plenty of time for the vikings to familiarize themselves with the dragons.
  • It's hinted that Gobber at least partially can tame dragons. I mean, that Gronkle could've caused a lot of damage if it didn't know to aim for the shield and not the teens themselves. How did it know what to do? Conclusion: Gobber taught it to aim for the shield, possibly using the 'Yell At It' idea from the book.
  • The historical Norse had horses, including some of the largest breeds in Europe. Sure, we don't see any livestock but sheep in the village, but it's possible that Hiccup's people used to have horses before the dragons snatched the last of them in their raids, and the kids had ridden horseback when they were little.

• Why did Toothless needed to soar out of the canyon anyway? He could have used WAIR, or otherwise just made a quick upwards flight like a pheasant, not requiring the tail fin at all!
  • I attribute this to Toothless being weakened by his other injuries, and thus not strong enough to fly for essentially any time at all. After Hiccup feeds him and he heals up, he can fly a bit even without the prosthetic fin.
  • He is clearly panicking, and when determined later in the movie climbs out without flying at all. Also, many kinds of real life birds can't do either of those things you mentioned.
    • Not only panicking, but the injured tail is throwing off his flight balance. Toothless would be smart enough to get out on his own once he calmed down and adjusted to his injury.
  • I'd imagine having had one of your balance mechanisms essentially neutered, as well as the possible internal injuries from the crash, would probably hamper any physical activity, and adding panic onto it makes it so he'd be focusing less on "fly to get out of canyon" and more on "I'm hurting pretty bad, need to find food and let myself heal". Animals in pain aren't logical thinkers; they do whatever comes to them. Traumatic injuries like the sudden loss of a tail fin would make a dragon used to flight extremely skittish.

• How is Toothless able to take full control when he tries to scare Astrid? I think he can still control most of his flight since it's only one half of a tail fin, but Hiccup has his cheat sheet to put the fin in the right positions, and he accidentally crashed into rocks during the test flight. And when the saddle was still being worked out, Hiccup pulled on a string that made Toothless veer off to the side and his face shows he wasn't expecting that to happen. So how is it that Hiccup can't stop Toothless flying all over the place and splashing them in the ocean, even just a bit?
  • Hiccup is controlling one small part of a large creature that has *many* times his muscle strength. If Toothless determines not to cooperate, there's not much he can do about it.
  • He was trying, but was limited in what he could do. (The dives into the ocean might have been him trying to land Toothless, but the dragon simply popping right back up again).
  • You seem to be forgetting that, in this scene, they are over the ocean. If you were in that situation and had the choice between hanging on and not plummeting into the freezing (presumably) Norwegian Sea versus trying to fight him and probably ending up in the drink, which would you choose? It's already shown earlier in the film that Hiccup is adept at keeping Toothless aloft, so it was likely survival instinct that kept him from just letting himself, Astrid, and Toothless fall into the ocean.
  • On the DVD commentary, the producers pointed out that this "whole thing would break down" because Hiccup and Toothless should be totally at odds. Their advice? Don't think too deeply about that. *Awkward beat.* And now, for a completely different topic...
  • The way that I explain it in my head (besides just handwaving it as the producers do) at it is that Hiccup didn't want Toothless to be doing what he was doing, but went along with it so that they didn't crash- Hiccup's surprisingly calm throughout this scene and is fairly experienced riding Toothless at this point, so he probably had enough of a grip on the situation to realize fighting the dragon would have ended REALLY badly for everyone.
  • It is also possible Hiccup was acting and not thinking. As he and Toothless has been flying for a while, he was probably making adjustments without thinking, consider how he passed through the rocks after losing the cheat sheet - acting, trusting his instincts. This was drilled into both Hiccup and Toothless as they needed each other to fly. So he wasn't thinking on his foot, rather trying to calm Toothless by words. After-all, crashing into the sea is a wonderful way to impress Astrid from not talking.
• Why is there only one Green Death? My best guess is that it's some kind of queen, but this would mean that there's a lot of these dragon nests, and they're not something rare.
  • Large predators like tigers and bears in RL have territories that are measured in square miles. Imagine what kind of territory a predator of THAT size would have.
  • It might be like some kinds of animals that are loners: After all, do you think two of those things would live together comfortably? They probably round out their territory in some personal way.
  • It could also be a prehistoric holdover. Considering that the dragons are all terrified of it and glad to see the end of it, it seems like they find it as unnatural as humans do, which I doubt would happen with a dragon queen. Maybe they used to be more common in prehistory, when there were dinosaurs and such to hunt, and then they started dying off as the huge prey animals went extinct. A few(or just that one) may have realized they could use their song to get lots of little prey from the smaller dragons.
  • Wordof God (and the original author) states that once every couple of centuries, a large clutch of Maximus dragons are hatched and released. They spend the next couple of centuries killing each other off, growing larger and larger, until only two are left. They mate, lay their clutch, die, and the whole cycle starts all over again. If the Green Death was one of the final survivors, Hiccup might have actually broken the cycle.
  • A relevant real-world creature to look up? Cuckoos. Study up on brood parasitism and the Green Death starts looking like a pretty good fit - especially with whatever mind-control song it apparently uses to control the (significantly more intelligent than your average bird) dragons.
  • The sequel shows two Bewilderbeasts, which while being a different breed than the Red Death are of a similar size and capabilities. Hiccup's mother, Valka, explains that every dragon nest has a "queen" of this nature.
• How was Hiccup able to carry and aim that ballista of his on his own? Wasn't he supposed to be weak, not superhumanly strong?
  • He didn't carry it. It had wheels. He rolled it like a wheelbarrow. Also, the actual ballista part was set up on a pivot, so that he didn't need to turn the whole thing to aim it.
  • Note that at one point we see him lift (what seems to be) a hammer head about the size of his own head with no problem. It's possible he's just considered weak by the Vikings' standards.
    • If you mean the scene where he replaces one of Gobber's hands, he visibly strains to lift it. In other scenes, being tossed a simple sword or axe throws him off balance.
    • Hiccup also carries the basket of fish that's about the same size as his body. He seems to struggle more with balance and the awkwardness of shape rather than weight. His weakness is often exaggerated by the fans.
  • Well he did sort of make it... one would think he'd make it in a way that he could actually use it.

• Why did the "avert your eyes and don't look directly at them" thing calm Toothless down? It makes sense when it works on horses—they're prey animals, and anything with forward-facing eyes like that looks like a predator to them. But Night Furies are no doubt at the very apex of the food chain; even if they eat mostly fish, they probably have very little to fear from anything else. Why would they be afraid of the "predator look?" Would that mean other dragons ought to frighten them?
  • Probably a dominance thing. Toothless did not feel comfortable at first unless he was in a dominant position (witness how quickly he gentled down once Astrid got scared and apologized). And also, keep in mind, that to Toothless, Hiccup WAS an armed predator, until he proved otherwise.
  • A lot of real life predator animals, such as many dogs and cats, both domestic and wild, will take looking directly in their eyes as a challenge. I've personally come across many cats who will attack your face if you look them in the eyes too long.
    • This is actually a big part of cat training. If you look a cat directly in the eyes, even in what humans would consider a friendly, interested way, they consider you to be threatening or impudent. You need to show them respect (either fearful respect or grudging respect) by looking away from their eyes, such as at or in front of their paws or by glancing at them out of the corner of your eye, or by looking directly at them (with a glazed look? I don't recall) and slowly blinking. Most dragon species would probably take the latter as impudent anyway (a tiny human? Telling me to carry on with what I'm doing? Snacktime), but showing submission instead of offense would make the more intelligent and/or less aggressive breeds take pause and possibly even see you as something (or someone) interesting.
  • As an addition, Toothless is not "afraid" of Hiccup, else Hiccup would have pulled back a stump when he tried to touch the skittish dragon (or worse!). There exists a sliding scale of social acceptance between mortal enemy and heterosexual life partners — Toothless has clearly accepted Hiccup as harmless enough, but isn't ready yet to shack up and let a silly human touch him. Submission as an analog to the human concept of trust is certainly plausible enough. Note that Toothless doesn't quite immediately reciprocate and indeed hesitates slightly before putting his head on Hiccup's hand.
    • Also, being an apex predator only means that you're not another predator's primary food source. Humans are an apex (if not THE apex) predator, but that doesn't stop every other animal from potentially gouging, trampling, mauling or clawing us to death if it feels necessary to do so and is within its power. Dragons do have enemies, like say some pesky Vikings, and the island scene with Toothless and the flock of Terrible Terrors demonstrate that staring at another dragon is part of a dominance display which tends to end poorly for one party.
  • Another theory is that, as Hiccup said, the Vikings have killed thousands of dragons, meaning that the dragons know the Vikings are a force to be feared. Hiccup looking Toothless in the eyes was likely seen as a challenge, whereas when he lowered his eyes, Toothless interpreted that as submission.
  • The way I thought about it is that Toothless is looking for Hiccup to trust him not to, you know, kill him. Because if Hiccup trusted Toothless enough to look away a hold out an arm (which could easily be ripped off or used as a method of holding onto a person while thrashing them about and effectively snapping their neck), then Toothless knew he could trust Hiccup not to hurt him in return. He needed to know that they could reach a point of mutual trust.
    • That entire group of scenes is about trust, Hiccup needs to prove to Toothless that he trusts the dragon. Which he did by disarming himself, his knife, his attention (when he was drawing rather than watching the dangerous creature hanging from a tree that could kill him with it's breath)... When he turned to look away not only is the above true in that looking in the eyes is a challenge to most animals, he's also throwing away his final defense against the dragon, his reflexes. If he can't see, he won't know if the dragon is going to attack him and he can't pull himself away or run. Hiccup spends a lot of the time in series trying to get it in people's head that training dragons is all about trust. In that moment Hiccup was completely defenseless and Toothless is smart enough to know that that it was of his own choosing. Toothless responded to that complete trust with a little bit of his own.

• Why does the harness never work? Hiccup specifically designed it to prevent him from falling off, but it never stops him from doing so, and one time it even worked TOO well, preventing him from getting off. It seem like a crucial part that he really ignores.
  • To be fair it fails the same way every time where it unhooks from a sudden deceleration, which is where the gaps in the anchors are facing. For horizontal pitching and backward motion, the harness seems to be much more efficacious, as the Toothless hissy-fit with Astrid seems to show. But, yes, you'd think Hiccup would have modified the design after that little incident with the cheat sheet.
  • Clearly, what Hiccup actually needs is a Carabiner, but employing some Bayesian analysis on the fact that he doesn't have one indicates that they're beyond the Viking's technical ability to manufacture.
    • Their toolmaking abilities are up to the task. It's just that nobody's thought of them yet, and Viking society doesn't exactly foster lots of inventiveness.
  • Both of the above arguments do not hold up to closer scrutiny. The tools and mechanisms shown (e.g. the bola gun, the lever-operated dragon gates, the steering mechanism) make it clear that a) the vikings have the capability to produce way more than a carabiner and b) that Hiccups inventiveness and methodical thinking are more than up to the challenge. I'd suppose that he has not quite perfected his design. Remember that it needs to hold him in place securely, yet at the same time should release him whenever it needs to, even when it's damaged. Consider that events kind of got away from him with the end of dragon training, the flight with Astrid and the final battle all happening in short order. He simply might not have had the time.

• The whole "Sleeping Upside Down" bit. That was once in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. We see him making a little nest for himself with his breath weapon and sleep on the ground several other times. So what's the deal here?
  • Toothless is raised a good deal off the ground; what with the exasperated look as he leaves the frame from the last shot I just assumed it's a way for him to get some sleep without some nosy, annoying Viking kid poking at him.
  • Further, Toothless's hanging upside down thing was obviously based off of a bat. But bats sleep upside down by hanging by their feet and locking the joints in their feet automatically. Toothless is sleeping by slinging his tail over it. Unless his tail has got some fancy natural mechanisms here, he would have to flex his tail around the branch and hold it there. Such a task would cause soreness and cramps, and he would have to let go within minutes. He would never be able to sleep.
    • Rule of Funny? Rule of Cute? Who knows, maybe he does have some "fancy natural mechanisms".
  • Toothless was hanging onto the tree like that not to sleep, but get a good look at what is wrong with his tail. right after he is seen hanging upside down like that is zooms into a closeup of Toothless staring at his half-tail
    • Except that's where you'd be wrong. Watch the scene again. It is rather obvious that he was sleeping and there are much easier ways for him to look at his tail.
    • No I'm pretty certain he wasn't sleeping. During the 5 second scene where they zoom in on toothless doing this his eyes are Wide Open
    • He was sleeping. If you look closely, Toothless is just opening his eyes from sleep and looking around for Hiccup, not his tail. Besides, why in the world would he go all the way up to a tree and hang upside down just to look at his own tail? He's already shown that he's flexible enough to just turn around and look.
    • To the OP: My theory is that Toothless prefers to sleep on a circle of nicely charred ground. But when there's an irritating Viking poking and pestering him, he'll hang upside-down as a way to try and get away from the distraction.
  • Possibly Toothless sleeps hanging like a bat, but rests curled up on a burnt patch of ground?

• So Toothless gets hit by a device that wholly immobilizes him while he's flying at high speed, causing him to fall out the sky hard enough to break one ancient tree in two, turn another mature tree into a broken stump, and gouge a furrow in earth where he slid unceremoniously to a halt. Most objects, nevermind living creatures, would likely get turned into a fine paste after such highly kinetic displays of physics. Toothless, aside from a suspiciously specific injury to the tail, looks like he hasn't suffered anything more than a trifling cut where the rope dug into the skin. His bones are clearly made of phlebotium.
  • Well, yeah. He's a dragon. He got smacked into rocks with barely a headshake, and he survived a headlong crash into a ball of fire as well, and though injured both times, he recovered and healed pretty quickly. Dragons are just really durable — though that durability isn't infinite. When Hiccup was about to splat himself and Toothless on the rocks after a high-speed stall, Toothless was flat-out terrified. THAT impact would have probably killed him.
  • Don't things like tail fins have bones or cartilage? Fictional creature or not, that injury has got to hurt. Also, hitting the trees reduced his speed. Notice how the rut isn't nearly as wide as Toothless is?
    • Bones in birds are generally hollow and designed for endurance and easy flight, compared to a hard, dense, heavy bone.
• During the Forbidden Friendship sequence, toothless sits down. Not like a dog does, on all fours, but sits down on his hind legs. Even the creators commented on how they had to break the 3d model to get it to do this without weird consequences. The question is "Why?" Animals, especially tetrapods to my knowledge don't do that. You could point to Toothless' high capacity for mimicry, but Hiccup wasn't sitting like that, he never sits like that. At the time Hiccup was backed up on a rock. So whats the deal?
  • Rule of Cute
  • He's seen walking on his hind legs (when he goes to find himself a drawing stick), so it's not hard to think of him going from standing to sitting on his hind legs. And he *is* modeled after cats, which can be seen 'sitting' on their hind legs.
  • He isn't a tetrapod. He's a hexapod. Goodness knows how their bodies work. As for why, I'll go with he's trying his best to mimic Hiccup's posture without actually flopping over on his back. The fact that he's trying to get Hiccup to mimic him and eat the fish, and later tries to mimic Hiccup again with his smile would point to this.

• How is it that Hiccup is constantly a source scorn but Fishleg who is obviously more pathetic then he is is left alone?. sure I get that he's the chief's son but seriously.
  • In Viking society, a nerd with decent muscles may be snickered at, but he/she will still be One Of Us. But a nerd WITHOUT muscles will be a pariah, chieftain's son or not. Fishlegs is the former, Hiccup is the latter.
  • Fishlegs isn't. He's clearly got more muscle mass than Hiccup, and that is something that the Vikings appreciate. The fact that he's just a nerd underneath is just something that they can overlook. Hiccup on the other hand has none of the mindset or the muscle.
    • His fascination with obscure rules and facts can be annoying at times, but he's good enough at his job that his teammates are willing to overlook that. Kind of like Doug Flutie.
  • Also, judging from the opening scene from the movie, Fishlegs (along with the other kids) put out fires and supply aid during dragon raids. Hiccup on the other hand has caused more damage to the town than the dragons. Gobber even claims that Hiccup has left plenty of marks, all in the wrong places.
    • This. While Fishlegs may be pathetic, he's a harmless kind of pathetic. Hiccup, on the other hand, tends to destroy the village in his attempts to prove himself.
  • Also don't underestimate the pressure of being the Chief's son. Hiccup will naturally be in the spotlight more and have greater expectations put on him, so every mistake he makes will be a bigger deal. Your average Viking, like Fishlegs, could get away with being more nerdy and timid than usual as long as they kept their head down and got on with their job. But Hiccup is expected to the strongest of them all, and instead he's the clumsy runt. So he tries to make himself the best in his own way (his inventions) but that only makes things worse.

• If the purpose of a Night Fury's tail fin is to act as a rudder, why is it horizontal instead of vertical?
  • An airplane's tail fin is rigid. A dragon's tail fin can swivel and do double duty.
  • It doesn't act as a rudder, it acts as a stabilizer. And by changing the area and angle of the stabilizer, it can also act as a rudder.
  • No animal has a rudder. Even a whale's dorsal fin isn't a rudder (it's a keel). More advanced airplanes don't have rudders either (Flying Wings, for example). So I honestly want to know what leads you to believe that your posit is true (that the tail fin acts as a rudder), leading to your query (why is it horizontal)? Is there something in the book, Wordof God, or wiki that makes this claim?
    • From a watching of the movie, the intention of the tail fin seemed to be for steering. Thus why I referred to it as a rudder.
  • I think it kind of like the tail of birds?
    • Correct, birds use their tails to help steer and stabilize themselves much like how Toothless's tail operates in the film.
  • It's very similar to a V-shaped airplane tail, like the Beechcraft Bonanza,◊ but with the flexibility of a bird's tail. If you chopped half of the Bonanza's tail off, nearly the exact same thing would happen as happened to Toothless: try to turn, and the wing on the side of the missing half would lift and stall, putting the plane into a spin. Toothless could climb, but not turn, until Hiccup replaced his missing tailfin.

• Why is Toothless the only Night Fury in the movie? I don't recall seeing any in the Nest's group dragon shots. Is he the Last of His Kind or something?
  • That's one possibility. Here are two more: the Berk vikings only think they have more than one Night Fury, it has always been Toothless. Second theory fits with this too: only one Night Fury per region.
  • Alternatively, Night Furies are exceptional at resisting the influence of the G.Death, and thus do not serve it and do not roost on it's island (hence why Toothless was mostly beyond it's control).
  • It might simply be a matter of function. Toothless is unlike every other dragon that ever appears to attack Berk. According to Hiccup's exposition, the Night Fury "never shows itself", "never steals food", and "never misses." From the way everyone cowers, apparently there's never been any Night Fury actually shot down, either. The way Toothless acts in the attack on Berk is not as a gatherer like the others, he's close-air support, blowing up the best defenses so that the other dragons can focus on stealing food and fighting the worse defenses, and he's good enough to only get shot by Hiccup, which was suggested as a lucky break.
  • Tear Jerker theory: Same troper as the first response. Toothless is the only Night Fury who learned this. He had to because the Green Death ate his family.
  • Alternatively, it's possible that Night Furies are more resistant to the song of the Green Death than other dragons, explaining why Toothless seems fine when he takes Hiccup and Astrid to the nest; and Toothless' participation in the raids was less due to the influence of the Green Death and more Toothless wanting to protect the other dragons by providing aerial cover. This explains why he doesn't take any food.
  • It seems like they're mostly solo creatures, it's possible that there are other in other parts of the world they just don't interact any more than necessary.
  • In the sequel, Hiccup's mother, Valka, implies that Toothless might be the Last of His Kind.
• If nobody believes Gobber's claim that the Boneknapper exists in the tie-in short, why is there an entry for that particular dragon in the tome that Hiccup reads in the movie?
  • Gobber was in charge of teaching the dragon fighting class. Who's to say he wasn't in charge of keeping the dragon tomes up to date too, in which case he could write whatever he wanted.
  • Then where does Fishlegs get his 'According to legend ...' stuff, if not from the book?
  • Possibly everyone but Gobber assumes that particular breed is long extinct.

• At the beginning of the movie in the forge scene Gobber has a pair of tongs on his "tool-hand". How the heck does he use them?
  • My only guess is that he pulls them open with his free hand, and they close via a strong spring.
    • I saw a chemistry teacher with a prosthetic that did just that. He used it to pick up and carry test tubes.
• When Stoick first discovers Hiccup's alliance with Toothless (after the fight with the Nightmare in the arena), he mutters about how "he should have seen the signs". Is dragon sympathy in Berk something that happens often enough that it has visible signs?
  • Either that or he was making reference to something else like Hiccup's fighting skills being faked (which probably wouldn't be that hard to notice).
  • He could also have wondered about the long hours his son spends away from the camp. Far longer than to just "stroke his own dragon" and the fact he went from zero to hero on the viking scale, or possibly a negative number to top of the class with a person who was already superbly competent.
  • I wondered the very same thing when Astrid told him to "figure out which side you're on". She makes it sound like there's actually a choice.
  • Funny thing, the second movie actually answers this question. Turns out that Hiccup's mother also believed that humans and dragons could coexist peacefully, thus answering why Stoick would say that and the existence of dragon sympathy.
  • I agree with the first answer even after watching the sequel, it seems pretty out of place for him to be thinking of Hiccup's mother at the time. He was angry and not thinking clearly, not clearly enough to remember (in his mind) insignificant details about his wife.
  • The 'seeing the signs' line could refer to both Hiccup's mother and his sudden success in dragon training. A lot could have been going through Stoic's head and the combination of 'you're similar to your mother and she believed we could make peace' and 'there's no way you got that good normally' all clicked into place for him.

• So, you've got this village with people being terrorized by dragons. At one time, however, you find someone who can actually tame one. Like, tame you worst enemy and make it into a harmless pet. What do you do? Why, you get angry and lock him up and subsequently launch an all-out war against all dragons! Makes more sense than, for instance, training an army of dragons or something, right?
  • This has more to do with tradition and blindness than anything else, really. After all, the vikings had been fighting the dragons for about three hundred years by the time of the movie. After thinking of something as your mortal enemy that can never be redeemed for so long, it would take them save your collective asses while be ridden by one of your own to get them to accept that. Even then, it would be begrudgingly for many of them and it would take some time for everyone to completely accept them. The fact that we don't know exactly how much time there is between the fight against the Red Death and the ending of the movie helps this. Two more things support this. First, Hiccup never really got to show much since Stoik interrupted and made the Monstrous Nightmare attack him. Second, how would you react if one of your own denounced you entire lifestyle in front of everyone? Especially if that person was your own son. You would more than likely be furious. That anger would blind you to what is going on so whatever happens (like, a Night Fury obviously protecting you) wouldn't matter.
    • In Hiccup's Opening Narration, he specifically says that vikings have "stubbornness issues." Tradition and blindness make the most sense in this case.
  • And Stoik probably wasn't the only adult who felt all dragons must die. It would take something big to prove they aren't the enemy, otherwise there would be some who still doubt the claims. The fact the seasoned warriors saw their set of skills fail completely against the Green Death, but those who followed Hiccup's way, the way one finds after renouncing parts of their traditions, not only held their own against the Green Death but bested it was a moving sight. It showed them a union of Dragons and Vikings would be far stronger than either group alone.
  • As Dragons: Riders of Berk shows, there are still people who don't like dragons. Mildew may be an extremist with his opinion, but there are usually always some other vikings agreeing with him. Even though Dragons are accepted into Berk, there are still some people who feel the same as they did before Hiccup tamed Toothless. You don't just get everyone to give up on their way of life just like that. It'll take time for everyone to adjust.
  • Not to mention some similar real world examples, like women engaging in combat.

• When Toothless saves Hiccup from the Monstrous Nightmare, why didn't Hiccup just jump on Toothless's back and fly through the hole Toothless made when he entered the ring, instead of trying to make him leave alone?
  • It wasn't in the script, Hiccup wasn't thinking clearly, or that hole wasn't big enough for both of them (especially since people started to flood through that hole). Take your pick. I'd personally go with the latter.
    • He could easily enlarge the hole at will, or just make another one. Alternate script: Furious at his son's 'betrayal', Stoic promptly orders the all-out assault before more of the tribe 'join the enemy'. Hiccup watches in dismay and sneaks back to meet Astrid after the fleet is out of sight. It would be perfectly legit, but there'd be no awesome double rescue on the sinking burning ship.
  • But you can clearly see the hole he made in one shot when the Vikings are jumping into the ring. No Vikings were around there, and it was very large.
    • Hmm... Hiccup wasn't worried about his own safety, only Toothless's. In that regard, he was only thinking about getting Toothless out of there, not himself. For that reason, it probably didn't occur to do that. Really, they were being stormed by Vikings and Hiccup was just attacked by a Monstrous Nightmare. In times times of great duress, especially when the life of you or a loved one is possibly at stake, the untrained body will either react on instinct or your mind will simply blank out (I speak from experience on this one). In this case, Hiccup's instinct was to get Toothless out of there and what does anyone do when you want someone to move quickly? You push them. In short: At that time, Hiccup wasn't thinking, he was reacting on instinct. If you were put into the same situation (without this knowledge) you probably would have done the same. It is (probably) only in hindsight that you'd be able to see the best course of action. I hope this answers your question.

• So Toothless and Hiccup exploded the Red Death by firing into its mouth, right? So why didn't that kill the Terror that was antagonizing Toothless over his fish?
  • The Terror didn't hit the ground at terminal velocity, and there's also a slight difference of scale between the two dragons. Compare the explosions of a firecracker and a 10,000-pound bomb and you'll understand.
  • It didn't. The Red Death hit the ground rather hard. This compressed the gases inside it to the point where the creatures body could not contain them. This rapid build in pressure caused the gases inside the creature to be released. The gases inside the creature mixed with the air until the fire from the creatures mouth (caused by Toothless) ignited it, thus creating the explosion and fireball. Simple science.
  • Also, Toothless probably wasn't trying to kill the Terror, just scare it off. If Toothless wanted it dead he would of used a bigger bolt and just flash-fried the little guy.

• What on earth happened to that fish between Toothless swallowing it and regurgitating it? He clearly gulped it down whole, but when it came back up it was split cleanly in half. Does Toothless have a second set of teeth in his stomach?
  • He does bite it in half. You can see it when he tilts his head back.

• Where are all the other dragon species that Hiccup read about in the Dragon Manual? There seems to be dozens, maybe even hundreds, but we only ever see the Gronckle, Nadder, Zippleback, Night Fury, Nightmare, and Terror in the movie. It would make sense that these are the common local species, and that the others are "exotic" species that are only ever encountered if you venture far from Berk... but when the dragons started swarming in response to the Red Death (which seems to be able to call dragons to the nest from pretty far away), we still only see six different species (including Toothless) comprising that entire huge swarm. The other species don't even get cameos. What's the deal? Are these the only dragons susceptible to the Red Death's control? Did the vikings hunt the other species to extinction?
  • I got the impression Hiccup had scrolled to the "Mystery class", the kind that like Toothless are rare and dangerous. They probably never heeded the call, and it seemed like a lot of them were This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman type monsters, like the one that spit scalding water.
  • Couple possibilities. One is that, like the above post says, they could just be very rare dragons. Another possibility is that they don't really live in the general area, and the information on them was collected by traveling vikings.
    • Or they used to live there, but weren't as good at gathering food as the other varieties and were eaten into local extinction by the Green Death.
  • This gets even more strange in the Book of Dragons short because not only does it reiterate some of the dragons not seen in the movie or the other two shorts, but the teens also give taming tips, dos and don'ts, for the dragons! Apparently they can be found around Berk without much difficulty.
  • The series seems to imply that the other types don't live on or near Berk. A Thunderdrum suddenly attacking their ships was treated as quite off.
  • Water-based dragons like the Thunderdrum and Scaldron wouldn't have heard the croon of the Red Death in the same way as the six main types. The same applies to a species which lives underground. It's not that far of a stretch to believe that certain dragons would also be able to ignore the call in the movie. Barring that, other dragons are known of to dragon scholars, but simply aren't visible due to living in places inaccessible to humans such as in the sea or underground. Or being able to change their skin like the Changewing does.
  • Maybe those six are just the only ones that get drawn in by the Queen's call. or in light of the sequel maybe all the rest had a different Alpha.
  • Alternatively: making varied, hugely complex 3D models of dragons is time-consuming and expensive, and the animators didn't have a strong need / the resources to produce others for the film.

• The fact that the Green/Red Death can fly. Nothing that obviously heavy could ever get off the ground in real life. How did it possibly fly?
  • None of the dragons should be able to fly, except maybe the Terrible Terrors and even they are probably pushing the limit.
  • Quetzalcoatlus of the pterosaur order was able to fly with a 45-foot wingspan. (Admittedly, it wasn't carrying a Viking.)
  • Maybe the gasses that allow them to breath fire are lighter than air?
  • The majority of modern 'scientic explanation' dragons rely on dragon anatomy containing large chambers of a lighter-than-air gas, isolated (and kept in said chambers) by some highly unlikely biochemistry. This solution works better for jumbo specimens like the Green Death - the percentage of torso that, say, Toothless can dedicate to these sorts of buoyancy cells is much less than that of the huge bloated torso of the dragon-queen. (Yes, I'm cribbing from a book on zeppelins.)
    • So how do they fly when they're "out of juice"?
    • Maybe the dragons always have some extra amount of gas in them that allows them to fly, even if they are "out of juice." They might be contained in a different part of the body or something.

• Is it just me or has anyone actually seen the green death's wings in any scene before hiccup suddenly announces that "that thing has wings!" did they just tack them onto it after that scene?
  • Yes. It's like the Toothless cameo when they show the Dreamworks logo; very hard to see unless you know where to look.
  • Yes, the wings are there, just folded up.

• So, the winner of the training gets to kill their first dragon in front of everyone. That's ok. They are supposed to be learning. But why pit the winner against the Monstrous Nightmare? Even if Astrid came out on top, I have a hard time seeing how she'd have killed that thing solo.
  • By the end of dragon training they're probably supposed to have learned enough to be able to defeat a Monstrous Nightmare. We didn't necessarily see the entire sequence on-screen; if this troper remembers correctly it was a training montage.
  • Actually it's probably because Hiccup was the winner, the now-capable Dragon-Fighter, son of the Chief and the only man to stand a chance against a Nightmare. Had Astrid won instead, they may have selected one of the other dragon species. Hard to say.
  • From my memory, Gobber says in the first lesson that "only one will get to kill the Monstrous Nightmare!" So they were definitely specifically training for that.
  • Also don't forget it is a caged match, removing one of the dragon's natural defenses it's flight. "A downed dragon is a dead dragon" is in effect here. It's also been caged up for who knows how long, so it hasn't had much exercise.

• When the training ends, the winner gets to kill his first dragon. But several of the training missions involve taking out dragons. Hiccup probably was the only one who could do so without killing the dragon (and even more probably the only one to bother). So this "kill your first dragon" thing just seems weird.
  • I don't recall them saying they get to kill their first dragon. Unless I'm forgetting something, they just get to kill a Monstrous Nightmare (supposedly one of the hardest non-Night Fury dragon to kill) in front of the village.
  • Gobber's clear it will be their first. They don't kill the dragons during training, just drive them off.
    • And the only teen we ever see openly attempting to kill one of the dragons is Astrid, of course.
    • Astrid is the only teen we see trying to kill a dragon and not failing horribly. The other teens are simply trying to drive the dragons off, and Snotlout doesn't hesitate to go smack the Green Death in the eyeballs when he gets the chance.

• How is it that all the abuse that Toothless goes through that you never see him suffer any noticeable wounds on his body (aside from the obvious missing left tail fin)? Is it because bruises, burns, mud, and blood doesn't show up very well on his black scales and skin? The alternative of him being nigh-invulnerable/extremely durable shouldn't mean that he doesn't get even so much as a scratch on him from all the crashes, fights, and flames he gets exposed to during the movie, he should at least have at least a single scar or something like that.
  • The scales of a dragon (their 'skin') are tough to the point of insanity. It's the other parts of their anatomy that are more easily damaged; a lot of old dragon-killing tales have the hero go for the eyes or a literal down-the-throat shot.
  • Dragons are generally very tough creatures, even in worlds lacking of magic and mysticism. It seems that the HTTYD dragons have this trait, except around their wings and tails, as Gobber noted in one lesson. So for all the major falls, as long as Toothless landed on his main body he probably was left with at worse a bruise. But when he couldn't control his landing after Hiccup first shot him down, his tail was probably flailing and ended up either hitting a tree or rock at a bad angle or landed on part of it before rolling off and thus lost part of it.
  • Either that, or it's the fact that this is a PG movie. Showing the full extent of his injuries (including how much blood he probably would have lost from losing a tail fin) would probably bump the rating to PG-13 or R.
  • Hiccup did find some scattered scales at the bottom of the depression Toothless was trapped in, so presumably the Night Fury's initial crash-landing and struggles to escape had roughed him up a bit.
  • Toothless has multiple scars from the rope Hiccup caught him with, it doesn't explain the rest of the movie but he does get hurt.
• Over the course of the movie Fishlegs makes several statistical phrases about the dragons and their abilities that sound somewhat like what you would hear from the popular game Dungeons & Dragons. Were they trying to go for a It Will Never Catch On plot where Fishlegs will make a reference to what it would be like if they made a game about fighting dragons and exploring dungeons and no one ends up paying him any mind? That certainly has potential for quite a bit of humor in the sequel.
  • They're quotes from the Dragon Manual. If you look on the movie and books' wiki, you'll notice that the dragons it features have stats.
    • Yeah but those stats in the Dragon Manual we see Hiccup read were written in another language, it wouldn't exactly be easy for a guy like myself who only knows English to realize that Fishlegs was quoting from the book. Well anyway thanks for clearing things up, I was honestly hoping Fishlegs being a nerd was making a reference to Dungeons & Dragons. Though I guess it would be kind of strange for that idea to come almost a thousand years early when board games weren't even in existence.
    • Runes are a writing system not a language. Except for letters being wrong, the book is written in English.
  • It's a joke that works on two levels - on the surface, Fishlegs is quoting stats from the Dragon Manual. But to the viewers, it's clear that he's Wrong Genre Savvy and thinks he's in Dungeons & Dragons.
    • It's not necessarily that he's wrong genre savvy. Someone probably gave the real-life dragons stats for the same reason someone gave the fictional dragons stats. ... Well, you know what I mean. But anyway, it's because it lets you know what the creature can do. If you have a ranking for abilities such as speed, strength, and maneuverability, it lets you know whether a dragon is fast, slow, or average or whatnot. The Dragon Manual exists as a teaching aid, thus anything that boils a concept down and helps young vikings learn is a good idea. "Rank this dragon's speed on a scale of 1 to 10" is thus a good idea.

• I probably wasn't paying enough attention to their mouths but I didn't notice any teeth in the mouths of the Terrible Terrors. I know their design is based off the Toothless in the book (who actually didn't have teeth in comparison to the Night Fury Toothless who has retractable teeth), but somehow they are able to make Tuffnut's (that is the boy twin's name right?) nose bleed, rip apart a fish, and get into a tug-of-war over one of Toothless' fish without having any teeth. How is this possible?
  • You don't need teeth if you can bite hard enough.
  • It is very possible their mouths are like a bird's beak, so they are strong enough to break skin.
  • Or certain frogs, who lack teeth but jaws are strong enough to kill and eat snakes.

• During the first major bonding scene between Hiccup and Toothless, the one where Hiccup feeds him fish for the first time, Toothless sees Hiccup draw himself in the dirt with a stick and then grabs a tree to draw something as well. What exactly was Toothless trying to draw? I have thought of 3 possibilities: 1) It might have been a fish. 2) It might have been Hiccup as a gesture of kindness for him drawing Toothless. 3) Or perhaps it was a maze intended to make Hiccup dance around in circles and find his way to Toothless as a bonding exercise. However this is just me guessing, I really wish I knew what Toothless' intention was.
  • I think Toothless had two intentions in mind. The obvious one was training Hiccup 'keep off', by making very obvious angry/peaceful gestures when he stepped on the line. There's any number of uses he could put this to, like drawing a line around himself when he wanted to be left alone. The second? He thought of a sneaky way to get Hiccup up close without him realizing what he was doing. While it's obvious that Toothless is no dummy, that would easily put him on the level of humans for intelligence and problem-solving abilities if true.
  • Hard to say. You could always subscribe to To Soar into the Sunset's explanation and say that he was trying to draw Hiccup but eventually gave up and "drew" his thoughts.
    • I love To Soar into the Sunset so far one of my favorite interpretations of the How to Train Your Dragon story. However I would say that without a Word of God on the matter what Toothless was trying to draw is most certainly up to your imagination. I prefer the idea that Toothless being inexperienced with drawing tried to draw Hiccup but what happened was that the lines turned into a makeshift maze for Hiccup to dance through to get to Toothless. Regardless the purpose was obviously for Hiccup to bond with Toothless, you know sort of like how two children playing with each other respect each others' toys.
  • I figured he just tried to draw Hiccup, but he's not too good. He's still proud of it, and doesn't want Hiccup to mess it up by stepping on it.
  • He may not have been trying to draw anything, he just mimicked Hiccup's dragging a stick in the dirt. Who knows whether a dragon's brain can make the analogy between the arrangement of lines on dirt and the arrangement of angles, edges, and shadows that make up a face? He'd already been imitating Hiccup's body language; copying him drawing in dirt isn't that different, whether or not Toothless realized the lines were supposed to depict an actual object (him).
  • Also, animals aren't exactly the best of artists. Google paintings drawn by horses or chimps. They often look like an incoherent mess, even when the animal says in sign language it's supposed to be a cat or a person.
  • The maze was intended to train Hiccup, to get him to respect the boundaries Toothless created. By not stepping on it, Hiccup showed Toothless respect and kindness towards Toothless' work. Once Hiccup passed over without touching a line, it garnered him enough respect that Toothless would let Hiccup touch him. The audio commentary on the scene compared it to being trained by one's cat.
  • Word of God. There you go.
• The term generation that they use in the movie, are they referring to the 40 years equals a generation model from the Bible? If that is the case then 7 generations would be 280 years not 300 years. Or does this mean that it has been 300 years but they are waiting until 20 more years passes until they call it 8 generations?
  • "Generations" refers to the number of generations of viking families that have passed, so seven generations back would be the time of Hiccup's great-great-great-great grandparents (plus possibly one more "great", depending on whether Hiccup's generation is being counted). Exactly how long this means is quite vague, and probably differs depending on which family you check.

• Okay, people have been saying that Gobber's story is made up, and the Boneknapper Dragon does not exist, only turns out it's actually real, so what about the hammerhead yak and the hammerhead whale?
  • I am pretty sure that we can reasonably assume that if the Boneknapper Dragon exists like Gobber says then the hammerhead yak and whale exist too. Honestly, dragons in general should be unlike any other creature in nature and they don't seem flabbergasted that they exist, so I find it weird for them not to believe in supernatural whales and yaks and a type of dragon that steals bones. Hell, Stoic showed less disbelief about the Red Death, a dragon almost the size of a mountain, than he did the Boneknapper! What is wrong with these people?
  • But...a hammerhead yak riding a hammerhead whale, out of a crack that Thor himself opened?
    • Thor is a god of Norse Mythology, he can make happen whatever he wants to happen.
    • Okay, reasonable enough, but how did the hammerhead yak burst forth from deep within the burning volcano?
  • The Hammerhead Yak is a volcano GOD!!! That's about all I got.
    • I think this is the point where people reeeeeeally begins to doubt his stories.
    • Just be glad Gobber didn't know what a black hole is. He'd have worked one in.
  • Given the size of the mug that Gobber wears to dinner, I think it's safe to assume that some of his memories might be exaggerated a mite.
• Why is it that all the things Hiccup learns about Toothless hold true in regards to all the dragon breeds? Why do all of them have the same fear of eels, the same weak points when it comes to scratching and the same reaction to that catnip-type-grass? They're all different species, shouldn't there be some differences between them?
  • Well speaking from a dog person, I have found on my various breeds of dogs I have had all share similar spots they like to be scratched or food they like to eat. The fear of eels might not be fear of the thing per se but a dislike of the pungent smell smoked eels have. Dragons seem to have a keen sense of smell and dislike things that are too powerful. As for the spot, as I said with dogs, they have spots that get them wagging their tail and feet. Note that when Hiccup did it against the Nadder, he had to search for it and find it. He didn't know the exact location but did know it existed. As for the grass, I thought of it how any dog would be interested in blood-soaked food regardless of their heritage.
    • For the grass, the better example would be cats: The grass is possibly based off catnip, and despite differences between species a whole chunk of cats looooooove their catnip.
  • Variations in size, weight, and other cosmetic characteristics aside, dragons are anatomically identical. They all share the same diet, basic design, and internal structure. What Hiccup learns from Toothless would surely apply to most dragons.
  • There are some exceptions, for example, the Typhoomerang is revealed to have no problem in eating an eel in the series.
    • I also remember Fishlegs saying somewhere that Meatlug doesn't like chin scratches either. I think it was the Book of Dragons short.
  • This just opens up a whole new headscratcher... Are the different types of dragons different breeds (like dog breeds), or completely different species. One would think that the massive biological differences would indicate they were just related species, but that would mean they shouldn't have all these same weaknesses.
    • Or that the dragons that look a lot like each other are all placed in the same genus, but different species; that's what happens with such things IRL. Like how lions and leopards are in the genus Panthera, maybe Monstrous Nightmares and Boneknappers are both in the genus Flogapteryx, ("flame wing"), but both dragons are separate species (F.anaflegetai, "ignited flame wing", for Monstrous Nightmares, F.ostonktitoras, "bone taker flame wing", for the Boneknapper). Thus, dragons could be put in the following species:
    • Night Furies: Mavropteros nychtadrakos ("night-winged dark fire")
    • Terrible Terrors: Microdraco dendontia ("small dragon (with) no teeth")
    • Monstrous Nightmares: Flogapteryx anaflegetai ("ignited flame wing")
    • Gronkle: Onkodidraco micropterus ("bulky little winged dragon")
    • Boneknapper: Flogapteryx ostonkititoras ("bone taker flame wing")
    • Hideous Zippleback: Duokefalidraco meexipoda ("two-headed dragon (with) six legs")
    • Changewing: Chromastrophidraco mediolopha ("colour-shift dragon (with) twin crests")
    • Red Death: Titanodraco tiskatastrofis ("titanic dragon of destruction")
    • Deadly Nadder: Teratodraco akidaplati ("spike back monster dragon")
    • Timberjack: Xyleiasdraco chorispodia ("timber dragon without legs")
    • And that's only the ones off the top of my head, too.
• A minor one this, but how did Hiccup obtain all the fish he kept bringing Toothless? I doubt he could catch them himself, & bearing in mind Stoic's comment about keeping the village fed it seems odd that no one noticed entire baskets of fish disappearing all the time.
  • To support an entire village you need crops of fruits, vegetables and grains, cattle, and hunting of wild animals, fishing alone is inadequate in meeting the caloric and nutritional needs of an entire village, especially of warriors like the Vikings who are big, tough guys. Besides to properly keep meat fresh on a long-term basis was very difficult in an era without refrigeration and easy access to ice (despite Hiccup's claims there is very little snow in Berk, aside from the mountain tops, we only ever see snow in the special shorts that canonically take place after the first movie), Hiccup probably took the fish that they couldn't adequately cook in time and gave it to Toothless the way a pet owner gives left-overs to their dog. Also keep in mind how popular Hiccup was becoming among the Vikings, they probably had so many parties in his honor that food disappearing bit by bit from various sources wasn't all that noticeable to them any way.
    • The eel was smoked. Also, salt cod.
  • They were constantly raided by dragons for food, with a large amount of disorder during and after. Even if someone noticed the fish vanishing, their first thought would probably be that a dragon got to it during the last raid.

• Minor nitpick, but Hiccup's helmet was noticeably larger than Stoick's, yet they're supposed to be a matching pair, made from a lady's breastplate. Was this lady super lopsided, or did Gobber melt the breastplate down before reconstituting them?
  • I'm pretty sure that was the joke (that she had breasts of dissimilar size, as well as the huge Stoick having a tiny helmet versus Hiccup having a helmet that makes him seem even smaller).
  • Stoick's best friend is a blacksmith, 'nuff said.

• Hiccup finds Toothless trapped in the little canyon where he is unable to fly or climb out and also cannot feed himself while trapped there. So why does Toothless continue to stay in the gorge after they first fly him out? Toothless is then completely dependent on Hiccup to bring him food and fly him out every day.
  • Because by that point they're friends.
  • Toothless knows that he can't fly without Hiccup on his back. He pretty much has to stay with him.
  • Toothless was safer there, the walls could protect him from hunting vikings and wild animals, sure he could defend himself but better to be safe. Plus it was an easy place for Hiccup to find him rather than searching through the woods full of dangerous animals.
• The movie establishes that all dragons have a "shot limit" (number of times they can breathe fire). Official sources say that Night Furies have a shot limit of six, yet when fighting the Green Death, Toothless hits it ten times.
  • The vikings knew virtually nothing about the Night Fury, so they might've gotten that info wrong. The Night Fury chooses specific targets and never misses, so a given raid might not require it to use the maximum amount of shots.
  • It's pretty clear in retrospect that Toothless could have killed dozens of Vikings during that raid if he'd aimed differently, so possibly Night Furys are naturally disinclined to kill people unless they're defending themselves. It could be that a Night Fury once hit a settlement six times, then flew over a seventh but aborted its attack when it saw that another strike would've killed its targets. The Vikings just drew the wrong conclusion about why it didn't blast them again.

• Why was Hiccup so very reluctant to eat a bite of the raw fish to show Toothless it was safe? Gravlax (pickled and salted raw salmon) is a traditional Norse appetizer, so at most Hiccup should have thought it needed salt and vinegar.
  • Given that the characters wear horned helmets and don't call their Christmas "Yule", this is but one of their Theme Park Viking qualities.
  • Hiccup wasn't showing Toothless it was safe; Toothless had already eaten it then apparently decided to share (maybe he thought Hiccup was starving because he's so much thinner than the other Vikings?). Hiccup probably didn't object to the fact the fish hadn't been cooked as much as to the fact that Toothless had eaten it and then spat it out. I don't think even real Vikings would be too keen on eating anything that had been in someone's mouth.

• What positions/directions is Toothless actually in at that point in "Romantic Flight" when the background rotates 270 degrees?
  It's the part when they're flying through bright, sunlit, purple clouds right before coming out into a starry sky looking at Berk in the distance. Toothless is positioned upright and flying straight ahead from our POV, but he's clearly not actually flying straight ahead the entire time. The beautiful shot starts with a flat cloud right on top of them, then the screen rotates 270 degrees clockwise so that this same cloud is directly behind them when they burst through into the night sky. What position was Toothless actually in (flying straight ahead upright, straight ahead upside down, straight down, or straight up) and transitioning to throughout that rotation?
  
  Judging by the position of Astrid's ponytail, they're completely upside down when that flat cloud is directly "below" them (from our POV), meaning that cloud must be the "up" direction in-universe. So when the cloud completes its rotation and ends up "behind" them, and they're flying straight away from it, they would have to be going straight down... but the camera follows them out of the clouds into a clearer sky where we can now see what position they're in, and they're either flying straight ahead or angled up. If they were flying up, the flat cloud should have been "in front of" them from our POV; if they were flying straight ahead, it should have been "above" them from our POV. What are we really looking at here? Do we start with an upside down dragon who's rotating counter-clockwise until he's flying straight up? A dragon flying straight up or down who rotates until he's flying straight ahead? I've watched this scene a million times and just can't come up with a perspective that makes sense.

• Where did those scales come from off of Toothless? When Hiccup goes to the cove for the first time he sees some black scales on the ground that indicate to him (and to us) that Toothless is here. However those scales are pretty large and, from what I can tell, Toothless has very, 'very' few scales of that size, if any at all. But when we see he, he doesn't appear to have any patches on him. Between that and the fact that those scales litter the ground in a way that implies that they were all rubbed off simultaneously from a localized area since they all fell so close together. So where the hell did they come from?
  • Maybe his bigger scales are so close to each other that you can't tell the difference.
• How are Astrid and Hiccup doing when the dragon (essentially a living flying motorbike) flies high in altitude ? Toothless can apparently go up to far above the clouds ! Above 5'000 meters (~16'400 feet) oxygen bottles are a must-have if you want to do any useful effort at all and the temperatures are below "freezing to death" level yet surely, keeping both your brain and your body sharp enough to both pilot Toothless and to fight requires almost indecent amounts of oxygen and energy, especially at sixteen thousand feet up in the air. Judging by their clothes (especially for Astrid, fanservice oblige ...) I wonder how they manage not to go into coldness-induced brain seizure! Any 'rational', if not scientific, explanation for this beyond simple rule of cool ?
  • Clouds in the Berk region seem to be more similar to fog that rises into clouds - they aren't all that high up, the clouds are just exceptionally low in the region. Possibly due to low temperatures. Rule of Cool is also in full play, since this was all the show how amazing dragon-riding is, which would've been downtuned a bit if they both died en-flight.