Headscratchers / How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Drago's Bewilderbeast?

• Drago's Bewilderbeast is in the crowd of Dragons bowing before Toothless in the Hidden World, easily recognizable with his broken tusk. Since it was confirmed that Drago is not returning, how did the Bewilderbeast get there?
  • Since his last appearance in the second film was diving into the ocean with Drago on his head, did Drago drown?
  • Drago is no longer a factor, referenced as having been "defeated." Regardless of how it happened, his Bewilderbeast was allowed freedom and ended up finding its way to the Hidden World.

Exodus

• The hidden world is said to be the perfect home for all dragons, so why did dragons leave it in the first place? Did the Red Death force some to follow her?
  • Considering that it’s possible for Alphas to fight one another for control of ‘their’ flocks of dragons like they did in HTTYD2, (even if that was forced by Drago), it’s probably possible that the last Alpha before Toothless came and claimed his throne might have had a splinter group of young, hot blooded alpha dragons(I.E. the Red Queen, Bewilderbeasts) take their own out of the world and just stay there. Considering Drago raised his Bewilderbeast from hatchling that means breeding populations outside the hidden world. It probably went something like this: A few hot blooded alpha dragons decided to leave to establish their own ‘hidden worlds’ with their own little flocks. Over time, those small groups grew to enormous sizes until you have things like the Red Queen nest, or Valka’s Sanctuary, finally humans moved into the area and began fighting them once the dragons see an easy source of prey to appease their queen or just to eat good (for those that are not under control of a queen or alpha). Generations pass in human terms until we get the HTTYD series.
  • Also its a pretty normal thing for populations to move on as they grow and search for new opportunities. The Hidden World is where dragons originated, just as humans originated in a corner of Africa, and over thousands of years spread to many parts of the world. The Hidden World may be perfect for dragons, but its still small compared to the rest of the world and the endless opportunities it held. Its just that over time humans became the dominant species on the planet's surface, slowly pushing dragons outside the Hidden World to extinction.
    • So the Hidden World will just grow overpopulated again and either way it was all for nothing? Especially if, as we know from the Real Life, at this time with no more significant resistance humanity will become even more arrogant, selfish and confident in its dominance, also completely forgetting everything that Berkians had learned (see Giving Up on Living in the Hidden World below). Not to mention the progress.

Giving Up on Living in the Hidden World

• Hiccup's initial plan was to move the people of Berk to the Hidden World, so that the human/dragon utopia could continue there. Yet, this plan is given up on without any explicitly stated explanation. We see various factors that come into play, like the people of Berk really liking the island that becomes New Berk, and the aggression various dragons show when Hiccup and Astrid visit the Hidden World (to the extent that even Toothless' commands aren't enough to stop all of them from attacking). Its also possible that the Hidden World is simply too different from the surface for humans to survive long term (giving up on natural sunlight would be a big deal for humans compared to the dragons). And we have the aspect mentioned a few times in the movie that Berk was becoming too dependent on the dragons. Yet which one of these was the deciding factor, or was it some combination? The dragon aggression for one seems like it could have been dealt with over time with Toothless' help and Hiccup and Valka's taming techniques. I kind of think this part of the movie could have used more explanation instead of having everyone just give up their dragons without even any argument.
  • Hiccup has spent years fighting both evil men and dragons and tried to convince others to accept his beliefs in peace. Just when he thought he succeeds, another fight commenced. He did hoped to move his people to the Hidden World but that plan changed when he witnessed the dragons living there tried to kill them. After remembering what his father had said to him as a child, Hiccup reached an epiphany that there is just too much animosity between humans and dragons to obtain true peace and he cannot drag his people, the dragons and the Hidden World into more conflict. So, Hiccup made the wise decision to let Toothless and the dragons go back to the Hidden World because without the dragons, there won't be anymore hunts. The Berkians stay on the surface to help humanity heal from their past wounds and change their perception on dragons while Berk's dragons do the same.
    • One issue with the idea that the Berkians are going to change perceptions is that within a decade or so of the dragons leaving even the Berkians own children fail to adopt a positive view of dragons until they get to see some themselves. Further, for every enemy Hiccup made in his efforts he seemed to make a lot more friends. The opposition and challenges he faced just didn't seem enough to justify essentially giving up after just six years.

Berk Dragons=/=All Dragons

• So having seen this movie, I gotta say it's pretty good... until the ending when they let Toothless and all the other dragons free to go to the hidden world. The epilogue acts as if Berk's dragons were the only Dragon's in the world, and them going into hiding means all the Dragons did. Except that can't be true; there are clearly dragons outside of Berk and Toothless's reach and control, and if the TV/Netflix shows are canon, there are certain people and even societies that need their Dragons or bad things will happen to them. Though I understand that they could've been convinced to give up their dragons and find new homes and ways of life, the point still stands that there are Dragons free in the wilds, or enslaved and hunted by people, outside of Berk's control. So why do they act like the Dragons 'disappeared' when there's no way that that's possible based on what we've seen and know?
  • I don't think it was saying that there were no other dragons in other parts of the world (Hiccup's ending narration talks about how widespread they once were), just that by the time of the epilogue those dragons no longer exist or they retreated to the Hidden World. We can see from Drago's Bewilderbeast the implication that there was already a migration of dragons underway to the Hidden World. Given too how Drago's warlords became so focused on Berk's dragons its possible that by this time they were the only large dragon population that still existed on the surface world, the others on the retreat or nearing extinction. Those few small human societies dependent on dragons would have had to change their life style, as they simply lacked the power and numbers needed to maintain their way of life in the face of opposition from the outside world, and they would not have risked the lives of their dragons to keep the dragons there. The Defenders of the Wing for instance would have just had to leave their island once the dragon controlling its eruptions had to leave.
  • and what about the tribe of Wingmaidens who essentailly formed a symbiotic realtionship with the razorwhips over generations so deeply that the entire species relies on human involvment to survive to adulthood since adult males of that species eat the offspring while they're still blind newborns. you would't be able to just break that relationshp appart without dire consiquences to the razorwhips.
    • The whole Wingmaiden situation was never really explained in a satisfactory way to begin with. Like how had the Razorwhips survived without the Wingmaidens for presumably hundreds or thousands of years? Why would any animal develop in such a self destructive way? Yes many male animals (and sometimes females) will kill their own young for various reasons, but not to the point that they literally drive themselves to extinction, at most it serves as a way to keep their species from becoming too numerous/remove competition. Perhaps the razorwhips had been imperiled by some unrelated disaster/hunting that caused their population to crash to the point that the behavior of the males became such an issue. Regardless, Toothless and other helpful dragons (we've seen quite a few kinds that will defend young dragons) can doubtless fill the void left by the wingmaidens.

The Not-So-Expert on Night Furies

• If Grimmel knew everything about Night Furies, how come he didn't anticipate Toothless using his cloaking ability? And where did he get the idea that Night Furies don't like the cold when all previous moments of Toothless (both in the moves and tv series) in snowy/icy weather showed him with no ill effects?
  • I think the implication of the NightLight flying scene was that cloaking is a thing only Light Furies do, and the LF wanted to test out if Toothless, being so similar to her in other ways, could also do it. She got lucky in being proved right.
  • Also, its likely Grimmel typically would hunt Night Furies in situations where they couldn't use the ability anyway. He tended to rely on surprise, sedatives, etc.
  • Grimmel also thinks Night Furies hate the cold. Grimmel is an idiot.
  • Or maybe Toothless himself has a few Light Fury genes, because one of his grandparents or great-grandparents mated with a Light Fury. Presumably the Night Fury species' numbers have been declining for generations, even before Grimmel's hunts and other misfortunes left Toothless the Last of His Kind.

The Warlords' fate

• So what happened to them? While one of them is possibly eaten by the Hobgobblers but two of them are locked up in cages. If they got out, won't they and Drago's surviving army will come back to New Berk?
  • Given it looked like the ships they were on sank, it can be assumed they drowned (unless other ships in the armada were able to rescue them). Regardless, without dragons it would be very difficult for them to assault New Berk (New Berk is sheer cliffs on almost every side of the island, making it a lot easier to defend).

Why did the dragons leave?

• The people of Berk love their dragons, and the dragons love them back. So why the heck do all the dragons leave at the end of the movie? Supposedly it's because they'll be safer in the Hidden World, but they're perfectly safe in New Berk (or even Old Berk). They've defeated every villain who ever attacked them, with no casualties at all aside from Stoick and Hiccup's foot. At the end of the movie Gimmel and the armada have just been defeated, and there's no indication that they'll ever face a stronger foe. And even if the dragons just really enjoy the Hidden World, why not commute back and forth? Why can't Toothless drop by in New Berk once a week to hang out with Hiccup, instead of staying away for what appears to be eight years?
  • Hiccup himself stated that Grimmel was just a sign of the times. More poachers and warlord wannabes would continue coming to the Barbaric Archipelago to hunt dragons. Grimmel and the Warlords were hardly the first to do so and probably wouldn’t be the last. For example, the School of Dragons video game shows people like Nikora Stormheart continuing to be a threat even after the events of the Hidden World expansion.

You have an army

• Berk has hundreds of dragons, and Toothless is the king of dragons. So how do the bad guys accomplish anything? When Gimmel shows up in Berk, Toothless should just call down the whole dragon army to attack him. (It's Gimmel plus two dragons vs. Toothless plus hundreds of dragons. Who do you think is going to win?) And with that in mind, why abandon Berk at all? If the trappers show up with their armada, you can just use your army of dragons to defeat the armada. And don't tell me it can't be done, because that's exactly what they did in the climax!
  • This can be Decapitated Army issue. Tothless on his own seem to pay rather small attention to his subjects: remember how he did nothing to stop goregutter from wreaking havoc and possibly wounding someone until Hiccup asked for it, and not to mention the ease with what he abandoned his flock and later traded them for just a promise to not kill his mate. Also Grimmel had stated openly that he was going Straight for the Commander by throwing the Idiot Ball to both Toothless and Hiccup with light fury and speech respectively.
  • Not to mention, it'd go against everything Hiccup and the Berkians have come to believe about dragons, and undermine half a decade's effort to convince other humans that dragons aren't inherently malignant, to start using them so casually as weapons of mass destruction. They want to change the Hunters' minds, not turn them en masse into ashes.

Why not scout ahead?

• Everyone leaves Berk so they can go to the Hidden World...even though nobody knows for sure that the Hidden World exists, let alone where it is or whether it's a pleasant place to live (particularly for humans, since it's the homeland of dragons). This seems like a very bad plan! Why not send some people to go find the Hidden World first, and then decide whether or not to move the whole village there? (And as for how the people of Berk would defend themselves in the meantime, see "You have an army" above.)

The Light Fury coincidentally knows the way?

• The Light Fury was probably born in the Hidden World. We know there's a breeding population of her species there - we see adults with their babies among the crowds of dragons there - and don't know of any in the surface world, so Occam's Razor would conclude that's where she came from. Why would it be a surprise that she'd know how to get home?

Toothless, and Self Control

• So Toothless can fight his instincts about not trusting Humans, and he can fight the literal psychic abilities that certain Alphas have that control lesser dragons... But the biological need to mate, to the point he will abandon everyone and everything else he has ever loved in his life, that's the thing he can't fight. He has to be with the Light Fury, he can't fight this like he could the literal mental manipulations of the Red Death and the Bewilderbeast. I understand that procreation is a powerful tool, and Toothless does deserve a mate, but the way Night Furies do it is super extreme, and you'd think Toothless could find a way to not just be hopelessly (for lack of a better term) enslaved to his new love.

Gimmel and Light Furies

• So Gimmel has made it his life's mission to kill all the Night Furies in the world... But Light Furies, who are essentially the exact same, maybe even more powerful, then Night Furies, those are fine to leave alone unless they're an outright threat. Why? Shouldn't he want all Furies to be dead?
  • Who's to say that Light Furies weren't the next ones on his to-be-exterminated list? He may only have gone after the Night variety first because the Light one could more easily be used to bait them than vice versa.