I thought he was going to die toothless I mean. They played grimmel off as this nasty hunter. But I have one question why does he want to kill all night furies?
Good question! The basic concept behind Grimmel is that he’s the dark mirror to Hiccup––the Viking who, when pressured by his village, decides to go kill a Night Fury. Why Night Furies? Because, despite all the dragons we’ve seen all franchise long, the Night Fury is THE most dangerous and feared dragon in existence on the archipelago:
“The ultimate prize is the dragon no one has ever seen.”
“The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you.”
We can picture Grimmel as a young man, trying to prove himself to his village. Is he also a chief’s son? Or someone too intelligent and scrawny for his tribe? Someone who always thought differently from his people? Teased for playing mental, not physical, games? Did he try so hard to kill a Night Fury––inventing weapons and traps to nab a black dragon? How many times was he attacked by unsuccessful attempts? Who or what did he lose in each attack? How much of the Night Fury’s rage did he feel as he went head-to-head with them? Where in this process did Grimmel go from a boy to a man, and how was his pursuit of the Night Fury a part of that? And what brought Grimmel to the conclusion that dragons are not just killers, but “murderers”?
Sometime in his life as a young man, Grimmel put into thought just what killing a dragon means. Hiccup’s moral revelation was that Toothless, and by extension, dragons, are good and that they must be saved. Grimmel concludes that the Night Fury, and by extension, all dragons, are evil and must be killed:
“You wish dragons to live free, among us, like equals. A toxic notion. History has shown that we are the superior species. What if word of your misguided ideas were to spread? It would be the undoing of civilization as we know it.”
What I love about Grimmel is that he’s essentially an abstract-thinking fellow. He has a pointed moral statement to say about dragons. They’re not just nuisances or tools, but a threat to the “master race” of the human species (an utterly chilling and culturally relevant moral stance for a villain). And the Night Fury is at the top of that hierarchy. They are symbolic of the danger, the violence, the fear that people have about dragons.
Grimmel has a savior complex of a different kind from Hiccup. He wants to save civilization from dragons. Grimmel achieved fame and respect in his village from killing one Night Fury. He achieved fame and respect in the archipelago from killing all Night Furies. He has a place in this new world: a master trapper that will eliminate the dragon threat from the face of the earth.
