Hiccup hears from his father that Trader Johann is lost near Breakneck Bog, which is supposed to be haunted. He plans to go alone, but the riders insist on coming. Once they find Johann, he tells them that Stoick had asked for a gift for Hiccup, that belonged to his mother. Hiccup goes into the bog, to get the gift and find out who or what stole it.
Tropes
- Amusing Injuries: After scaring Astrid, Fishlegs, and Hiccup with a skeleton, Tuffnut gets pummelled by Astrid and his sister (his sister For the Lulz).
- Black Comedy Burst: When Astrid says the others should put themselves in Hiccup's shoes, Snotlout corrects her by saying, "Shoe".
- Brick Joke: Snotlout and the twins left Trader Johann on a rock in the blazing sun. At the end, when Stoick asks what else he can do in addition to repairing Johann's ship, Johann wants five minutes with "the geniuses who put me back in the ocean!"
- Call-Forward: Valka had made Hiccup a tiny dragon doll. This foreshadows her love for dragons in How to Train Your Dragon 2.
- Cowardly Lion: Fishlegs for the journey. When he finds out that Hiccup is looking for a gift from Valka, Fishlegs offers to let his mother be a Parental Substitute for Hiccup. He also saves the latter from Smokebreaths that attempt to steal Hiccup's peg leg.
- Determinator: Hiccup when the Smokebreaths take the chest. He wants to get it back.
- The Ending Changes Everything: Johann's confession in the final season's premiere ("Since Breakneck Bog...") means the plot of this episode was no accident but that he deliberately sent the riders to Breakneck Bog in hopes of eliminating a potential threat to the dragon hunting trade.
- False Reassurance: After promising to take care of Johann, Snotlout and the twins leave him stranded on a rock in the ocean.
- Gilligan Cut: Hiccup asks Snotlout and Astrid not to tell the others he's going to find Johann. Come the next cut, he's flying with an annoyed expression and the rest of his team.
- Hammerspace: The teens toss away enough weapons to arm a village.
- Innocuously Important Episode: After the Season 7 finale, what seemed like pure filler with no connection to the show's greater Myth Arcs became the first act attempted against the heroes by one of the series' biggest villains.
- Killer Rabbit: Smothering Smokebreaths. Sharp teeth with fog abilities and a weakness for metal makes them formidable against Vikings.
- Logical Weakness: The Smokebreaths go for Hiccup's metal leg. Since Hiccup needs his leg to fly, they end up nearly crashing him and Toothless.
- MacGuffin: The chest containing a gift from Hiccup's mother.
- Missing Mom: Valka has been dead, or at least missing, for a good portion of Hiccup's life.
- Rewatch Bonus: The set-up for the episode (Johann losing something important for Hiccup in Breakneck Bog) as well as certain scenes like the twins and Snotlout leaving Johann stranded at sea and the scowl Johann makes when he jokes about wanting revenge for that take on a whole new meaning once it's revealed Johann was working against the riders the whole time.
- Tragic Keepsake: What Hiccup ends up finding in the chest: it's a dragon doll that his mother made, and that he later on tossed into the sea.
- Wind from Beneath My Wings: The dragons used this to blow away the smoke revealing the Smokebreaths.
- Zerg Rush: Smokebreaths do this when they are stealing metal, with a fog smokescreen.
