- In the first movie, Toothless could not save Hiccup's leg. Hiccup, while exasperated, made no fuss about it. In the second movie, brainwashed Toothless killed Stoick, and Hiccup chased him away but ended up reconciling with him. If the third movie follows this pattern, Toothless will kill someone important to Hiccup (Valka, Astrid?) and Hiccup will end up chasing Toothless away... forever. Or even killing him.
- Most other dragon species have eyes on opposite sides of their head looking outwards, which is a common characteristic of prey animals (even fish-eating seabirds), while Night Furies have excellent binocular vision, common in predators. Also, while the breath weapons of most dragons seem to be primarily defensive in nature and short-ranged, good for keeping predators away, Night Furies can attack from a long way off. Their fireballs also explode with enough concussive force to blow wooden structures to bits - perfect for knocking a fireproof dragon out of the sky.
- On the other hand, Night Furies are noticeably poorly adapted to actually catching fish. Monstrous Nightmares, nadders, zipplebacks, and gronckles all have long, needle or hook-shaped teeth and claws, perfect for spearing slippery fish. But Night Furies have short, stubby teeth and claws - not great for fishing, but the shorter, tougher teeth and claws might be just the thing for tearing through tough dragon scales.
- Toothless initially fails due to her current age, and size difference, despite her older sister being a terrible queen.
- Toothless, like any untameable queen dragon, while powerful and having no shot limit, is fairly useless at getting her own food, however when Hiccup gives her a fish, she accepts it, and thus inducts him, as part of her colony. She grows to love the viking as she sees him as her first (and only) loyal worker who always brings her food without fail. She remains in the cove faithfully, for she views this as her temporary Nest.
- The Queen and Workers share a strange... connection. They can hear each other from miles away. Toothless was able to hear the distress of her worker Hiccup no differently than she can hear her workers on the volcanic island.
- Hiccup unwittingly discovers they both have the same weakness, their own speed, if they enter a dive which they can't pull out of, they'll crash.
- She demonstrates while having some greedy tendencies, Toothless is a far kinder queen than her sister. The Red Death eats everyone and everything without restraint. Toothless rewards mercy with mercy, kindness with kindness, loyalty with loyalty. She's no charity or pushover though, and will never let others take from her without first offering tribute. As the fish-eating scenes show: Those that offer some food to her, are given a fraction back. Those that offer up everything, and have nothing left, are kindly given half back.
- She "abducts" Hiccup and Astrid to her original home, forcing them to witness her (and her worker's) plight under her monstrous sister's rule. Though this nearly backfires.
- Toothless becomes simultaneously sad and nervous at the viking's raid on the nest. Sad because what she sees as her hive, has just been structurally breached and her workers are flying off in a panic. Nervous because she knows what will happen to her if her older sister sees her.
- Despite all the chaos, Toothless is determined to overthrow her sister, and demands her servant, Hiccup, help her.
- Upon her tyrannical sister's death, the other worker dragons are like sad lost worker ants, they flock to Toothless, in the hope she'll take them in, though obviously dread the possibility she's even worse. Upon seeing her save her own worker (Hiccup) from certain death, they rejoice.
- Toothless is obviously content and happy by the story's end, not just because she's now queen undisputed and her loyal worker survived, but now she has a new nest, Berk.
- When she does make the inevitable metamorphosis/size jump into a queen of gargantuan proportions, sporting six eyes and a spiky tail, Hiccup would be viewed by his peers as the most powerful chieftain of possibly the most powerful viking tribe of all time. That doesn't matter though. To Toothless, from her perspective, she has become a powerful queen, who has just incorporated humans into her colony, making her head of possibly the most powerful social structure of all time, with Hiccup as her second-in-command.
- In Gift of the Night Fury, Toothless is just as surprised as Hiccup, and somewhat annoyed, that all the dragons unexpectedly migrated south. She communicates with Stormfly who informs her they're having offspring, and a queen isn't going to object to having more subjects. They will return to their queen shortly (hey, even workers deserve a vacation don't they?)
- Toothless is male, according to everyone who meets him (as well as the director), and the Red Death is not the mother of the other dragons, who are different species. Astrid was just making a basic comparison about the feeding dynamics of the nest. The show and second film both clearly show baby dragons, of various species, with the show showing their parents (dragons of their own species).
- Troper above, I love you.
- This may be the most plausible WMG I've ever read.
- None of the dragons speak a human language because none of them have been exposed to it in the shell.
- Hiccup is too old and Toothless is the wrong kind of dragon for it to be a proper prequel.
- Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third in the books, just hiccup in the movie. several characters were changed along with hiccup's mom not being dead. The movie simply precedes the book by several generations, where the same-name chars are descendants, or simply coincidentally unrelated, but with similar personalities, and their lack of dragon respect is result of a shift in ideology over the years. This WMG still works.
- The series begins with the children being sent to the dragons' lair to capture a hibernating baby.
- Hiccup is too old and Toothless is the wrong kind of dragon for it to be a proper prequel.
- The Movie stars Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the First.
- Makes perfect sense. Presumably, Hiccup's children turned out to take after his grandfather, and once Hiccup himself died the Vikings quickly lost the art of collaborating with dragons and fell into the habit of yelling at them to establish dominance instead. The close bond was destroyed...until some generations hence, one of Hiccup's descendants learned it anew.
- And therefore, the name Hiccup Horrendous Haddock is given only to his descendants who seem to resemble him physically and thus carry the mantle of dragon trainer.
- As for the inconsistent depiction of the Night Fury breed, the ones in the books could be the hybrid great-grandchildren of movie-Toothless (the only one of his kind left in the area) and a Terrible Terror. They act like Terrible Terrors and are small like them, but are called Night Furies in memory of their big Badass ancestor.
- This Troper would go one further, and say that Wodensfang from the ninth and tenth books is actually Toothless from the movie, made unrecognizable through his long age.
- There's also a case for suspecting that Tuffnut is an ancestor of Big Hero 6`s Fred. Aside from the identical voices, the seemingly-below-average IQs (compared to their respective communities) and the general physical resemblance the beginning of the movie sees Fred dressing in a costume that bears an eerie resemblance to Barf/Belch.
- Alternatively he is a descendant of Eddie Riggs who never returned to the present from the Age of Metal. By the time of the movie The Metal Went Away and the dragons were the last remnants of any magic in the world.
- He could be the ancestor of all of them.
- That's exactly what it is. It also dominates the dragons by, apparently, singing to them. (The backstory is supposed to be that it is one of many of its kind, who fight one another for centuries until two are left. They mate, lay a huge clutch, die, and the whole cycle starts anew).
- It ain't even red...
- They could also be brothers-in-law.
- Alternatively, Toothless might be the Last of His Kind.
- That makes no sense. Why would one of the fastest and strongest dragons be nearly extinct?
- Well, they could have irregular mating habits or wiped out by some freak disease that only Toothless had survived.
- Or the Night Fury could be one of those powerful, mostly solitary species that inhabits a large territory, which is why you won't see a lot of them in one area.
- This also explains why Toothless apparently wasn't obligated to provide to the Green Death.
- I think he was, or else he wouldn't have been drawn to the island just like all the others. He just made sure to hide when he didn't bring snacks, rather than hover over the crater and be all obvious about it.
- He was partially immune. Were he as in thrall as the other dragons, he would have dumped Astrid and Hiccup down the Green Death's maw like every other dragon was offloading their catch. But he still was drawn by the Green Death's song, allowing the Vikings to use him as a compass to find the nest.
- Alternate theory: Toothless was never in thrall in any way to begin with, or had figured out how to break free of the control before the movie began. He brings Hiccup and Astrid to the next deliberately to show them the Red/Green Death and then deliberately guides the rest of the Vikings to the nest in hopes that they will help kill the Red/Green Death in order to free the other dragons from the Red/Green Death's domination, and perhaps to end the destructive conflict between dragons and Vikings. He just might be smart enough to do something like this.
- Another theory: Toothless was in thrall, but the time it spent away from Dragon Island helped it break free. When Hiccup first finds him at the pond, Toothless is trying desperately to escape, but over time stops his attempts and instead bonds with Hiccup. This could also be why Toothless is able to fight back against the Red Death at the end: he has spent weeks, if not months, bonding with Hiccup. That bond gave him the strength to resist the Red Death's thrall once it returned to the island.
- I assumed something sort of similar to the WMG below: Hiccup specifically mentions at the beginning of the movie that Night Furies never steal food, and Toothless, as mentioned below, went for the catapults. Therefore, if the Green Death is the queen of the "hive," Furies could be the soldiers. Their job is just to make sure a sufficient amount of the other dragons survive to go on providing the Green Death with food.
- I think he was, or else he wouldn't have been drawn to the island just like all the others. He just made sure to hide when he didn't bring snacks, rather than hover over the crater and be all obvious about it.
- He's noticeably more stream-lined and more aerodynamic than the other dragons in the Berk area. BUT in Movie 2 or Movie 3 maybe we'll find out where Night Furies originate from. It makes sense that different regions would have different breeds of dragons and the filmmakers have said that in the next movies they'll have "the whole northern hemisphere" to explore.
- It's not just having a more streamlined designed, everything else about him looks different too. His eyes aren't as bulgy and his wings are much larger. Not only that, but he shoots white-hot fireballs out of his mouth, unlike the other dragons which have traditional fire-breathing capabilities.
- In addition to possibly being solitary, their rarity might simply be because Night Furies are nocturnal (black to blend in with shadows, huge eyes to see well in the dark, no protruding horns or claws which might give their silhouette away or snag on something, it's in their name). Berk might never have seen a Night Fury for the same reason most people don't encounter owls. Yet everyone knows what Night Furies sound like. As for Toothless, he probably adjusted to Hiccup's sleeping patterns, which is why he appears to be the only one around.
- This is almost proved right after Hiccup feeds Toothless the first time. Toothless goes off to sleep after retreating from Hiccup both times, in the day time. After he finds a 'safe' place in the tree he wakes up about sunset, like a biological clock or something. And at the beginning of the scene he was on top of a rock, possibly sleeping and Hiccup's entrance woke him up. He was also sleeping, or at least resting, when Hiccup found him bound in the woods, in the middle of the day.
- Following that, the entire movie is one huge Batman Gambit by Toothless to get the vikings to kill of Green Death.
- Plus, said creature crash-lands from the night sky.
- Well, considering how the directors of Lilo & Stitch also directed this movie...
- Gobber seems to have run into Stitch at one point.
- Gobber's description of Trolls was similiar to Stitch. Perhaps Stitch's DNA is a bizarre mutation of Dragons and Trolls... and Jumba didn't realize that Dragons were actually loveable, and not evil... which explains why Stich was happier after learning to have a family!!!
- All that for stealing socks?
- Yup.
- Trolls are horrible anyway. In Norse/viking mythology, trolls do a lot of nasty things.
- Entirely feasible, seeing as they seem to be playful tool-users like primates and ravens. Which just adds further credibility to an earlier WMG.
- The Gronckle that the kids see at first was quite specifically aiming for the shields, instead of the kids, or the body count would have gotten rather high, rather quickly.
- The Nadder and the Zippleback had opportunities to kill as well, and didn't, though the Nadder wasn't exactly pulling its punches either.
- Finally, the dragons bonded with their riders very quickly toward the end, starting with Snotlout and the Monstrous Nightmare — arguably the LEAST tame of the arena dragons.
Therefor, the dragons are angels, Toothless is Lucifer and the Green Death is God.
- Toothless is Bayonetta?
- Seconded. Very much so.
- YES. YES. SO MUCH SO, YES! It would explain his bravery and fondness for the sea, as well as sword-fighting skills.
- Well, duh.
- While there is some Flanderization (mostly for the twins), there is also some very good characterization for most of the characters (including, funnily enough, the flanderized twins).
- Not necessarily. Like many animals, he cues in strongly on tone of voice. When Astrid was being aggressive toward Hiccup, he saw it as a challenge to his dominance (not to mention a threat to his friend) and threw a temper tantrum. When she was screaming about how sorry she was, he heard the fear in her voice. Perhaps it was her submission that gentled him up, or perhaps he just remembered what it was like to be afraid for your life, and was chastened into behaving again.
- I don't know, Astrid seems a lot more controlled and disciplined than Camicazi. I can't see Camicazi (even a Camicazi a few years older) being as critical of herself as Astrid is in Dragon Training.
- The vikings did colonise Newfoundland, so it's definately a possibility.
- No Purple Death, but there is the Bewilderbeast...
- Towards the end, look at their positions after the reveal of Hiccup alive. It looks a lot like a mother and a newborn.
- Further WMG: It will be revealed when Toothless ends up laying some eggs.
- This.
- In the short film Gift of the Night fury it is revealed that all of the viking children's dragons are female after they all fly off to lay their eggs on some distant island. All except for Toothless but it is also pointed out by Snotlout that without Hiccup Toothless cannot fly and also Hiccup states that no one has ever come across another Night fury so its still entirely plausible for Toothless to be female.
- Not all the dragons are female. The movie doesn't state it, and a lot of dragons are seen in couples of the same species.
- Except that the dragons belonging to the viking children (I.E. Hiccup and his friends) are not seen in couples but all have babies which they appear to be raising as single parents therefore it is reasonable to assume they are all female. The Gronkle and Deadly nadder are outright stated to be female can't remember about the Zippleback.
- In defense of "not all the dragons are female" there are several species of animal that flip our traditional perception of gender parenting roles on their head., like many species of ground dwelling birds where it’s the males that fill the role of single parent while the females just lay eggs and go on their merry way. Considering how many different species of dragon there are, we could be seeing different parenting behaviors across the species.
- Jossed. Valka, unarguably the definitive expert on dragons, refers to Hiccup as a "he."
- I think they regret Shark Tale, and their movies have been getting darker in recent years. I'm willing to bet "Hard PG" on the sequel.
- This WMG theory could also be supported by a statement from the studio that they intend to make the TV series darker and more dramatic than their other works.
- PG it is, and it is quite a bit darker than the first movie.
- Let's bet the third movie will be PG-13.
- If we take it that this viking settlement is in Scotland (this troper would put money on one of the Orkney Isles), we could say this culture had been the celts, or maybe even the monks that inhabited Britain at that time. I'd say monks are less likely, given the demonic connotations dragons are often given, and how St. George's killing of a dragon (Which, in this universe, is assumedly not a red death) is always seen as a heroic action. The celts, however, I can easily imagine becoming dragon riders if the dragon was a native animal, as celtic traditions are almost completely drawn from what was naturally in Britain (They had very little outside influence until the Romans).
- And Hiccup is a Dragonborn who never killed a dragon?
- Wow, that is sad.
- Well, Valka does say Hiccup has the soul of a dragon in the April trailer.
- And Hiccup is a Dragonborn who never killed a dragon?
- That would explain a hell of a lot. Including the horned battle helms.
- Adding the new/second movie info to the mix: maybe the dragons that can control others weren't originally a "singing dragon", but instead a Mad Scientist's creation in it's own right?
That's why Toothless is the only one. This mating is rare and very often the young die in their eggs. And Night Furies are called "The Unholy offspring of Lightning(Skrill) and Death(Red/Green Death)." My theory is that G/R Deaths hit sexual maturity long before they're that size. When they can first breed, they're about the same size as most of the other dragons.
- Cool theory, but the whole "offspring and death" thing was almost certainly made up to indicate the terror the Night Fury brings. After all, the Night Fury was so elusive that there was almost no information about it in the book of dragons. So how would they know that the Night Fury was a cross between two dragon species?
- I wouldn't say 'sterile offspring', but I would imagine Night Furies and Skrills are somewhat related. Think about it, they both have the same general body structure, and Toothless' blue fire is very reminiscent of the Skrill's lightning.
- It could be possible Night Furies are to Skrill what Screaming Deaths are to Whispering Deaths.
Similar to Vincent from Over the Hedge having a cameo in Bee Movie, except it probably won't be a physical appearance. Maybe a cave painting of her or something.
- Jossed.
- Jossed, unfortunately.
- Well, it is very clearly established that dragons have sensitive hearing. Also, Toothless didn't just hear Hiccup screaming, remember, there was an entire crowd of people in an uproar along with a giant dragon. Doesn't necessarily disprove your theory, though.
- Toothless is actually a good distance away from the normal territory of Night Furies. Night Furies are not exceptionally rare, they're just native to a different area. Sometimes one does come to hang around Berk, though. Toothless, for some reason, has found himself unable to leave. Perhaps his egg was laid there, or he ended up stranded there when he was very young. (washed up in a storm, perhaps)
- All the other Night Furies in the area were killed a long time ago, possibly by disease, or maybe the Red Death did it knowing that Night Furies were immune to the song and thus, had no reason to keep them around. Or maybe there were some rogue vikings that killed the local Night Fury group. A few were left around, but the population has yet to recover.
Hence, dragons in Berk were in a perfect situation to be tamed by humans. All it took was one dragon and one human brave enough to work together.
- At the very least Rise of the Guardians and HTTYD. I mean, look at Sophie, she looks like Hiccup and Astrid's kid, right down to the bangs.
- Seconded. It would be very unfortunate if that didn't happen.
- Some reptiles (such as most boas, all garter snakes, and a handful of lizards) are actually oviparous, which means the eggs hatch inside of them and they do give live birth. Unfortunately, Reality Is Unrealistic to most people concerning reptilian reproduction. This theory is quite plausible. To be honest, judging by the design of the Night Fury as compared to other dragons, I did always think of them as live-bearing.
- Jossed.
- Third movie?
- Third time's the charm.
- Third movie?
- Jossed.
You might already be asking "Why?"
Out of all the other Viking teens, who hangs out around the twins the most? Snotlout. It is easy to imagine why. The three of them share similar interests and often joke around. From what we gathered out of Snotlout's personality, he values strength over anything else. The same could be said for the twins (albeit a little more chaotic). It's quite possible that out of all the other kids their ages, they've stuck by each other the most. If you noticed, in the first movie and the show, Snotlout makes no move whatsoever on Ruffnut. It's possible that Snotlout has never considered flirting with her because all he has ever seen her is as a friend. However, I noticed something interesting during one of my re-watches of the movie. Right before Hiccup goes to join the other teens and Gobbler in the great hall, listen and look carefully. As Snotlout is complimenting Astrid, Ruffnut gives an obvious disgruntled expression. That part might have been hinting that Ruffnut has an interest in Snotlout, if only on a subconscious level. Maybe a part of her is jealous of Astrid because she wants Snotlout to give her that kind of attention, but she is too stubborn to admit that she has feelings for him.
Cue the second film. Now that Astrid is off the market, Ruffnut is the last single female Viking of their age group. When the realization finally hits him, Snotlout starts to really notice Ruffnut. He begins seeing her as less of one of his goofy friends and more as another chick to hit on. Ruffnut isn't amused. She thinks that Snotlout now only views her as just another Astrid; a girl he tries to woo at almost every opportunity and doesn't take her opinion into consideration. She's also a little uncomfortable with the fact that her long-time guy friend is now trying to pursue a relationship with her.
But perhaps over the course of the second (and possibly third) movie, Snotlout will realize that something's different about his situation with Ruffnut compared to the one he had with Astrid. Maybe there are genuine feelings that are starting to surface. He'll realize that it is actually serious and it'll terrify him. He'll eventually come to terms with that one simple fact: he cares about Ruffnut more than a friend or just another girl. And when he confesses this, Ruffnut will assume at first that he's just pulling a prank. But when she does discover that he actually means it, the two will become official.
- Jossed, sorry.
- Confirmed.
- Jossed, she doesn't end up with any of them.
- Partially Jossed, as since the film takes place five years after the first one, they've been an Official Couple for some time.
- Jossed
- Valka also tells Hiccup that Toothless is the same age as he is.
- Does dragon age similarly like human do? Their lifespan could be longer/shorter
- Going by above, once he fully matured he would look similar to the other alpha
- Maybe the change won't be that drastic, but there should be some changes.
We see some obvious evidence of this in Toothless' reactions to Hiccup's Night Fury ambitions in the TV Series' two-part episode, "We Are Family". When Hiccup finds the forged Bork notes on Night Furies, he is clearly excited, whereas Toothless seems more or less nonchalant about the situation and pushes the notes out of his hands without even looking at them as if to say, "No, forget about that. There are no more. I'm happy here." He doesn't try any further to stop Hiccup from finding the Isle of Night anyway, because, deep inside, he still holds onto the dying hope that there are more of him out there. By the second movie, Toothless has gotten used to his rider's idealism and allows him to carry on blissfully, and he is completely unfazed when Valka states that he may very well be the Last of His Kind. Because that just doesn't matter to him anymore.
Sadly this seems a very likely scenario with how the book series started "There were dragons when I was a boy...", and DreamWorks did state somewhere (don't remember where now) that they thought of following a similar plotline and end the franchise on a bittersweet note. What's more, there was a leaked page somewhere listing some of the titles of the third film's soundtracks, and what's the name of the last one?
- Confirmed
In "Maces and Talons: Part 1" (Viggo's first appearance) a hunter is brought to him for stealing a hide to trade for food. Later, when talking with Heather, she claims that she won't be expecting him to have forgiven the hunter. He replies that it would be bad business and a scream is heard in the distance, implying that the hunter was either killed or injured for his transgression. It's later shown that Viggo had already marked Heather as the traitor though. So, what if the hunter didn't actually take anything and the whole thing was just an act? A sort of power play move. He's certainly smart enough, and fond enough of devious plans, to pull something like that.
The out-of-Verse reason for leaving out dogs (aside from the added complexity of animating them) is probably so that, once peace is established, there won't be any competition for "best companion animal" between dragons and canines. But in-Verse, it doesn't make sense for the village to lack any doggy residents ... unless, that is, the dragons preferentially targeted dogs as food for their tyrannical mistress, eventually wiping them out.
- Um...Rome never invaded viking lands. In fact, the Western Empire collapsed in the late fifth century. The viking age begins in the late eighth century. The city of Rome did exist during the viking era but it was just a backwater whose only claim to fame was the Pope and the ruins.
- This book series cares nothing for history.
- Jossed, as least for this book. He's not really much worse off than before. And it wasn't the last book. But I agree that it will eventually end with a huge Downer Ending, and that's the reason the author's putting it off.
- Confirmed for book eleven, which did have a Downer Ending and extreme Break the Cutie for Hiccup. Book twelve, Hiccup has assured us in the epilogue to eleven, will be the darkest.
- During the Wodensfang's deal with Furious he says "I will betray whoever is made king" in exchange for getting an opportunity to crown Hiccup. If Alvin is crowned (and it's highly likely), Wodensfang would be bound by his promise to take the jewel and bring Alvin to a duel with Furious. It would probably ease his conscience about having to betray Hiccup, while saving the dragons.
- Hear me out on this one: Hiccup in the epilogues keeps assuring us that he did become a young chief, despite all the evidence in the book that points to the contrary, and that he was able to mend his relationship with his mother while keeping her bracelet. Furious is determined to wipe out all humans, and Alvin is determined to wipe out all dragons. Between them the world will probably burn, leading to a Meaningless Villain Victory on both ends, and Hiccup will gather the survivors to build a new world free of slavery but requires no heroes.
- Confirmed. Not too far from the real ending of the series. Alvin killed by Dragon guardians, Furious and Witch mutual kill, and the Viking tribe relocate to a dragon less island while the dragons hibernate into future.