You know, I realized that in all three HTTYD movies, Toothless is always taken away from Hiccup. I think it would be fun to have more fics exploring Hiccup being taken away from Toothless, and itās Toothless going on a quest to save Hiccup. Bonus points if itās someone from another kingdom finding this cool Viking Prince and taking him back for a marriage. So we got a Prince needing to be saved, and a Dragon doing the saving.
(Although by the time Toothless gets there Hiccup has solved quite a few problems of this new place and was about to escape himself.)
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I wish we saw Viggo's reaction to Dragon Eye 2 if he ever learned about it.
Imagine losing your eye and burning your face trying to reach for it and then you team up with Krogan to take over the Edge, sacrificing a dozen men trying to retrieve it from the lava.
Then you learn that your ancestral treasure got reverse engineered by some punk from the boonies. Said punk and his friends who kept interfering with your business operation for some time.
Like Viggo is already impressed with Hiccup's inventions but I'm sure a part of him is a little bit pissed and bitter that Hiccup managed to recreate the Dragon Eye.
Dragon's Edge begins with six riders, five dragons, and an island full of possibilities.
While Hiccup and his friends struggle with construction projects, supply shortages, and the challenge of turning a lonely outpost into a home, they remain blissfully unaware of the dangers gathering beyond the horizon.
They don't know it yet, but while Dragon's Edge rises from timber and stone, others are beginning to take notice of the dragons filling the skies above the archipelago.
For now, the greatest threat facing Dragon's Edge is obviously a lack of soap, an overabundance of fish, and whatever the twins are doing.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Ever think how Berkian's or the Dragon riders would appear insane to the other people.
Maybe the Barbaric Archipelago host an annual Thing and Viggo wanting an intel about the dragon riders (who are clearly from the Archipelago) managed to secure an invite via some other tribe.
He's there rubbing shoulders with Chiefs and heirs up when the Berk representative showed up. He doesn't know the Dragon Riders are from Berk yet.
He learned that:
Berk's Chief, Stoick the Vast is a 6'9ft giant weighing 400 pounds. A renown dragon killer and engaged dragons in hand to hand combat, no weapons or dragon root needed.
Their Viking adult initiation means the top student will fight a monstrous nightmare in a cage fight. (isn't that an execution method in other tribes? What do you mean initiation?)
The Chief's son is last year's winner, he didn't defeat the monstrous nightmare because he decided to go for something bigger. (What does that mean?)
Spitelout, one of Berk Chief's retinue bragged about his son acquiring the most Screaming Death scales out of his peers. And showed scales as evidence (Viggo's execution method literally involves pushing people into whispering death hole. What do you mean someone actually tunneled down there to steal some scales?)
Gobber mentioning that Spitelout's son use to be his apprentice in weapons testing. His apprentice (Snotlout) used to test catapults by launching himself to the sky to see if it works. (Which again sounds like an execution method.)
Gobber also complain about two troublemakers (Ruff and Tuff) who dedicated themselves to serving Loki. Which involves putting a cart of sharp objects on the apprentice's landing spot. (Which still sounds like a method of execution to him.)
There's also Astrid (that name sounds familiar) who was a strict drill sergeant who made everyone do push up until their hands fall off every time they mess up. (Not too bad compared to other things Viggo had heard.)
Everything in Berk is an execution method. (Fishlegs is the model citizen unless hypnotised.)
Hey! Do you really think that pacifist Hiccup is fanon? No judgment, just...again, surprised by this interpretation. I'd imagine that if canon really thought Hiccup was balanced, they would have shown more of a moral struggle over the deaths related to him, no? But it's often left ambiguous (see Drago or random dragon hunter #3 who gets blasted out of the way Idk), which (to me) means people happily lived. Because they disappeared left and right without regard or mourning. We see no dead dragons or people on the ground after the Battle of the Bewilderbeast, for example, which makes the assumption that a lot of humans and animals must have died there, "objectively" wrong. Of course they needed to keep it kids-friendly, but I'd think if Hiccup was truly ruthless towards any threat to his family, they would have made the cost of peace a little more of an apparent theme. Thoughts?
I genuinely believe that Hiccup being a pacifist is a fanon thing because there's nothing in the actual canon to prove that he is.
Does Hiccup oppose war? Yes, he does. Httyd 2 is all about him wanting to prevent it from happening. In R(D)oB the thing with hiding the dragons away from Dagur was also to prevent a potential war with the Berserkers. (A war that did end up happening, although because Hiccup and Berk lied to Dagur and Hiccup fake protected him.)
Does Hiccup entirely oppose violence? Even as a means of settling disputes? No, he doesn't and every battle ever proves that. (More on that in the RttE section)
And if Httyd had a higher rating, we probably would've seen those bodies and we'd probably also see Stoick lying in pieces or at least disembowled from taking a plasma blast to the chest for his son and said son covered in his blood. The fact that we don't is simply because Httyd needs to appeal to all audiences and for the majority kids, like you said.
But this doesn't mean that people aren't actively dying in the tv-shows.
Barely passable screenshots, but these are from 'Heather Report Part 2' when Alvin holds Astrid above a cliff and that's not the face of someone who wants to be careful as he tells his Night Fury to blast him away.
Alvin gave Hiccup a choice in that scene; "surrender or I'll... well, you know the rest." Which in this context means that Hiccup should surrender or Alvin will drop Astrid to her death. Hiccup chooses to instead tell Toothless to "do it." And I doubt this means he holds no value for Astrid's life, but letting Alvin get away with the Book of Dragons just isn't an option either.
And let's not forget 'We Are Family Part 2', in which Hiccup and Toothless are so angry at Alvin for taunting him after hurting them (it's stated for days) that they don't think clearly and turn back around just to hurt him. A calculated move on Alvin's part, who hoped Hiccup would be too angry to think clearly. Angry people don't make for merciful people either.
Moving on from Alvin, shipwrecks are already hard to survive. You would need to wait for help to come to you and that is if you:
Don't drown first
Don't get picked off by predators
Die from lack of food or drinkable water
Die from exposure
Die from sickness
The USS Indianapolis is famous for having most of it's crew survive (like, 800 to 900 men?) the initial sinking of the ship only to lose most except for a little over 300 to exposure, lack of food/water and sharks. This crew started with over 1,100 men and only a little over 300 survived for four days until others learned of the sinking and send help. And that's a ship that sank in WWII, let alone a Viking ship that's mostly wood and doesn't have fancy ways to send for help.
Remember that comedic moment of Dagur vowing he's going to make Hiccup kiss his boots in the 'Smoke Gets in Your Eye' episode? When he's sitting on a piece of driftwood after the Smothering Smokebreaths tore his ships apart by taking all the metal out of them?
A funny moment, but Dagur genuinely could've died from either of the causes listed above and it's not like Hiccup looked back and had second thoughts, he went home and was glad Dagur wasn't terrorizing his village for another day.
There are plenty of times in RoB and DoB in which Hiccup and Toothless hurt people and dragons alike. Is it his intention to kill? Absolutely not, but he doesn't shy away from violence either.
For a character the fandom largely appears to consider a pacifist, he sure does spend a lot of his time committing violent acts.
Even his future wife has a tendency to show love and excitement by punching him in the dorsal fin button before giggling. Would a real pacifist put up with that? He literally spars with her for fun and she gets to throw him around, they both like doing that!
Would a pacifist even survive in a place like Berk? Where everyone is so rough and disputes sometimes easily escalate to violent action with sharp objects involved? If that is the case, we might as well call Stoick a pacifist, because he's the one going around stopping these disputes from escalating that far.
But anyway, moving on to RttE!
In Snow Way Out, this is what Hiccup says:
"If there's one chance to settle this without bloodshed, I have to try."
And seconds after, Hiccup has this interaction with Ryker:
Ryker - "In that case, surrender and you won't meet the same fate as your dragons."
Hiccup - "Okay, here's my offer. Leave now and your men won't have to find out what burning flesh smells like.
Fanon and canon agree that Hiccup is a bad liar. If he wasn't, he probably would've been able to come up with a better excuse then "I'm making... outfits!" when Astrid is on the cusp of finding out about Toothless.
Which means that Hiccup is not lying in this scene. Which means Hiccup intends on following through. Could be just a bluff, he and the rest of the Dragon Riders are kind of cornered in this scene, but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to fight his way out if his only other options are either surrender or die.
And he says it quite easily for a character so many consider a pacifist. A threat to burn Ryker's men alive.
The thing is, Hiccup probably does know what burning flesh smells like, he grew up in a village torn by war in which the other side are fire-breathing dragons. He's also literally one of the oldest children of three (he, Astrid and Snotlout are canonically 20 in Httyd 2 while Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs 19) and the kids that aren't his peers are years younger than him. If you pay close attention to who walks around on Berk in Httyd 1, there are huge gaps in ages that continue into the tv-shows and the other movies.
So Hiccup probably is desensitized to seeing all of that, which could explain his lack of a reaction to taking lives, (a tsunami gets more of a reaction out of him) but that doesn't mean he can't mourn the failure in preventing more loss.
And let's not forget that this is also the episode in which Hiccup gave Toothless the order to shoot down Windshear, Heather and Ryker. Windshear and Heather who he considered friends until recently.
In the Guardians of Vanaheim episode, he has that moment in which he almost kills that Flyer with the Dragonblade in retaliation for the "deaths" of the Sentinels. The Riders genuinely think Hiccup is going to kill that Flyer, you can see it on their faces, which means even they think he's capable of that. Now ultimately, Hiccup decides not to and he tells the twins that they won't be torturing the prisoner. (And it's probably because of moments like that that fans decide Hiccup is a pacifist, despite all the violence he regularly partakes in)
But that doesn't change the fact that Hicctooth, Stormstrid and Snotfang chase after the Flyers with the intention of making sure that they never tell Johann about Vanaheim.
Flyer - "All I know is Johann will be very interested to learn of its existence. The others left to inform him,"
Tuffnut - "We should probably tell Hiccup."
Hiccup - "I heard, Tuff. Let's go everyone. We have to catch those Flyers."
And that is what they do. They catch up to the Flyers and make sure that they don't tell Johann about Vanaheim's existence and Vanaheim isn't mentioned again, implying that Johann never did learn about it.
Now, the show does decide to show us the Flyers surviving (one of the few they actually show us surviving, too) but that has more to do with RttE's rating than whether Hiccup is a pacifist or not. Because Hiccup really did use lightning to down them and being struck by lightning can be very, very lethal. For both the Flyers as well as the Singetails.
(And honestly, are we meant to think that they never left that little island? Considering Johann never found out about Vanaheim? Still leaves their survival kind of up for interpretation.)
In the King of Dragons two-parter, Hiccup tells his Dragon Riders to make sure Johann's ships don't make it out. That is a thing that he says.
Hiccup - "All right. Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout, you take out the ships. Make sure this is their last voyage."
All three of these moments show us Hiccup's willingness to do what it takes and it does include taking lives.
Although Hiccup does draw a hard line at when innocents are involved. Like how he didn't want to hurt the Singetails that were being forced to carry the Flyers. But it's also worth mentioning, that he did not plan on holding back when it came to the Rumblehorn that he believed threatened Gobber's life. (In RoB/DoB he didn't hold back with the Whispering and Screaming Deaths either. Even amongst dragons, Hiccup makes a clear distinction between "good" and "bad".)
That we either don't see the bodies if they're dropped by Hiccup and friends or see the enemy survive somehow (unless someone neutral or the enemy themselves take them out) has everything to do with the rating and Httyd's audience. Even the Red Death's death was bloodless and she exploded. Bits of her should've been everywhere! Instead we had the ash gently falling down to the earth.
This franchise isn't Game of Thrones, it's Httyd and Httyd has a rating that makes it appropriate for all ages. GoT level rating for Httyd probably would've given Hiccup+dragons Targaryen+dragons levels of carnage. And that isn't the case simply because of Httyd's intended audience.
And as for Hiccup's lack of a reaction to deaths supposedly caused by him, if we go back to the desensitization thing, if you used to watch people and/or dragons die in battle every other night for 15 of the most influential years of your life, you're not going to look up when you head into battle as a (young) adult on the back of a fire-breathing dragon and weep for every life snuffed out by you and your best Bud. Because one is a casualty of war and the other murder and something Hiccup hasn't done is murder.
^^^^ That is Hiccup's face as he looks into the water to see if he can spot a single sign that Drago has survived. He doesn't look like he's remorseful for Drago dying, instead he just looks worried. And knowing Hiccup's history with Drago and the reason why he set out to change his mind in the first place, it's not worry for Drago himself. It's worry that he might've survived. That he could come back to hurt his loved ones and (most importantly) his village again.
^^^^ Followed be the face of someone who wishes things had gone differently.
This is probably the biggest proof that Hiccup was meant to be chief. He set out to protect his village and he'll remain worried for his village. Maybe a hottake, but thematically/from a writer's standpoint, that points towards Hiccup destiny to be chief.
Of course, we know Drago canonically didn't survive due to the re-writes of Httyd 3 and the cancelation of The Fire Tides.
Now, I could talk about the Serpent's Heir.
I could talk about the absolute decisiveness in Hiccup's expression and everybody's lack of a reaction to Hiccup setting a guy on fire (the most we get is Astrid stating how she couldn't keep him out of trouble) and how this is the clearest evidence of Hiccup taking lives with his own two hands to protect himself, but most importantly, Toothless. (And just like many villains before him, Hiccup did try to talk sense into Calder)
I could talk about Dragonvine (I don't have an online version of that comic) and how Toothless was poisoned and Hiccup almost hurt young Silkspanners because he believed they were about to make Toothless' last few hours in life Hell. (Meaning each comic gave an example of Hiccup protecting Toothless against a human and dragons respectively)
But the movies and shows are teeming with examples of Hiccup getting his hands dirty (either with his own two hands or through Toothless) to protect either himself or someone he loves. And that makes him the exact opposite of a pacifist. Because Hiccup will use violence to protect who he loves and what he believes in.
But like I said, Hiccup isn't a one-dimensional character and it's true that he doesn't want violence to be his first option. Rather he'll often give his foes the chance to resolve things peacefully if it prevents bloodshed on both sides. I've mentioned it once before in another post, but with how many casualties there are on the opposite side at all times and none on the side of the Dragon Riders (minus the occasional arrow wound or Stoick's death) it's only fair for Hiccup to give his foes the chance the back out. It's just that they never do, always underestimating him and the Dragon Riders.
And with the Red Death that kind of was never an option to begin with and Hiccup knew that.
But we do see him try to forgive his foes even though they've either stabbed him in the back before or are obviously planning to and that is likely where the "naive" part comes from. But Hiccup is also 15 to 20 years old, he doesn't even have half as much life experience as his foes do, who are every single one of them grown-ass adults well over a decade older than him.
And we do see him have moments of remorse, like in RttE when he tells Viggo that things didn't have to end so fatally in Shell-shocked Part 2 or when we see him make a big deal about not hurting the innocent Singetails in season 5 or even when deciding to give the fishing boat with the Scourge of Odin a proper send off. I think that's where the "pacifist" part of the fancanon probably comes from.
Even though we not only see Hiccup actively partake in violence without lying awake about it, but also be smug about both big and small wins and simply enjoy the thrill. (And to repeat once more, he actively enjoys sparring with his wife who likes punching his dorsal fin button to show him just how excited she is about something)
But anyway, a veeeeeeeerrryy long way of ranting about how the proof that Hiccup isn't a pacifist is from Httyd 1 all the way to httyd 2 (And the two comics) and that actual on-screen deaths are only not there purely because the franchise's audience is still largely children. :)
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One thing that is I think not discussed enough in regards to Hiccup and Stoick's relationship, especially in the beginning of the first movie, is that Hiccup was a preemie.
We know that Valka feared that he wouldn't make it, and even though she says Stoick said that "he'd be the strongest of us all," he probably did too--to me, this quote sounds more like 1, reassuring Valka 2, wishful thinking. There was most likely real danger, a limbo for weeks, possibly, and that leaves a mark.
Here's the thing: when I was a kid, our house bordered a cul-de-sac, just two houses deep, at the end of that cul-de-sac lived a family with a son just six months younger than me. Only he wasn't their first child--his older sister died as a baby, before he was born.
Now I was raised to be independent by default--that happens when your parents are disabled and literally cannot keep up with you--, but that kid? He was the opposite. By the time I was wandering around the whole town, visiting school friends left and right, biking over to the town next for fun, he was still limited to the cul-de-sac. He was sheltered way beyond reason, and it greatly hurt his socialization. (There were some disturbing stuff over the years, but he got out, doing great now as far as I know.)
It's not hard to imagine that Stoick's reaction would be similiar, especially after Valka had been taken too. So it's probable that it's not "Hiccup is terrible at Viking stuff by nature" but "Hiccup is never truly given a chance to learn Viking stuff because Stoick's too protective." Like, why couldn't ha be part of the fire brigade? The thing (presumably) all of his age mates, even the twins, are totally capable of? (Especially since if given the chance, he probably would have come up with the fire prevention system sooner.) No, he needs to be kept inside, or the forge tops, where it's safe.
Is it good parenting? Not really, no. Is it understandable for Stoick to react this way? Absolutely.
I know why for story telling purposes that they had other people ride toothless, but I wish it was established that only hiccup can really fly him. Or if someone else can fly Toothless-- that it takes a good deal of practice and failure bc it's a hard thing to do. Like maybe Astrid gets decent at it, or a few of the other teens after awhile.
They write it in the first movie that it takes hiccup a lot of trial and error to figure it out, so having a random character hop on Toothless and nail flying him first try is lazy writing to me. I want it to be tricky. I want the scenes of Hiccup flying Toothless to be extra impressive of Hiccup's prowess at controlling Toothless's tail.
Hi! Dont know if youll see this, but this sent me down a rabbit hole and I ended up on a reddit page with this same thought, which you can find here, and I think some of the answers might interest you. Anyway, one of the commenters said this:
And under the cut, also a comment i saw from the same thread, which doesnt exactly answer the original question but that I found really interesting, having to do with the physics behind toothless' tail
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I messed with around with the levels on one of my current paintings and tbh! I kinda like it, so Iāll leave this here before I get back to finishing and posting the whole thing :)
Modern au or Canon timeline but Hiccup's teenage children being so frustrated because they keep on discovering that their friends or maybe even boy/girlfriends are only with them because they want to fuck their dad.
Basically the song 'Stacy's Mom has got it going on'
Oh. My. God. Yes!
Zephyr is used to her friends giggling and being complimentary to her dad, they've been that way since she was like...eleven? For almost her entire life she's heard;
"Your dad is like...so cute?" And she supposes that its true enough? Even Zeph can tell Hiccup is handsome and funny and smart. She's his daughter, not DEAD.
Nuffink HATES it when his friends and girlfriends swoon about his "cool, hot dad", he handles it with less grace because he's the youngest and has to already deal with feeling inferior to Zephyr, having to compete with his DAD too is crippling????
Hiccup is totally aware of this and is both flattered and horrified, occasionally he will entertain the masses by being complimentary in return, or even accidentally being a bit too...hiccup-y and not realize he's been wandering around the groundfloor of their house shirtless and ranting to mom about dragons- totally unaware or uncaring that Zephyr has her boyfriend over and Nuffink is stuck there with his two friends bc all three are oogling Hiccup.
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As a critiquer, your job is not to āmake this piece of writing betterā but to understand what the writer wants to achieve and help them to achieve it
not to be a nerd but itās so crazy how he (Bernini) really did that from cold hard stoneā¦ā¦. truly a spectacle, truly breathtaking, an honor to behold
this is the one art form I genuinely just cannot get my brain to accept as real. Iāve watched sped-up videos of it being done, read about it, seen in-progress marble statues and I still just canāt get it to sink in or stick. My mind doesnāt want to believe that any person has ever been able to start with a big block and break little bits off of it until it looks like a finely detailed person. At some point it has no recognizable shape and they still know where and how deep they should take a chip out of it thatāll still be the right decision 50,000 fucking chips later?!?
