#doomday

It's fairly simple, but can be complicated!

Benign Reapers, like Sept and Doom, are shattered souls and they can bond with other shattered souls to form more of a whole. They support one another and sort of "fill in the gaps", if you will. The other souls are still their own separate beings - they are still there and still have their own presence and their own thoughts and memories, they are just more in the back seat. In Sept and Doom's case, Sept is the one who is driving, and in Doom's case she is the one driving.

Generally speaking, when shattered souls bond like this, there is overall harmony. When it comes to decision-making, most of the time all the souls can come to an agreement pretty quickly - or near instantaneously - and the driver can act instantaneously as a result.

Like, if you were to ask Doom to protect a loved one from a bullet, she wouldn't even have to think about it - all souls would instantly agree, and she'd take the bullet for them. There'd be no debate, no delay. She'd just do it. But if you were to ask her to do something like what she was considering doing recently - i.e. having her own memories of certain people erased - well, that's a bit trickier. Not all of her souls agreed on that. Some wanted to go through with it while others did not, so there was a lot of hesitation. She could have forced herself to do it, but it would have gone against the will of some of her other souls. In that case, what could have happened is some of the souls could have unbonded from her if they'd wanted.

In essence, shattered souls can unbond from the soul in front at any time if they no longer want to be bonded with them.

Villain feared the jungle, had always done for a good number of reasons. But Hero had cornered them and forced them in, running blinded with fear through the forest. Hoping to get out before it was too late.

Hero jumped Villain and locked them into a fight over who was on top of the other. “CALM DOWN…” A bolt surprised Hero and rendered them unconscious, Villain hurried to their feet and could feel the tip of a spear to their back. 

“Let me go, please. I won’t tell anyone” with a pushed they fell to their knees and frozen by fear letting them tie their hands behind their back. “Please…”

With hitching breathing, they had no other choice but to follow them deeper into the jungle. Seeing a temple which they knew well, it made sense to them to stop. But they had other plans for Villain. Maybe if they run for it? A bolt left them limp on the ground, but aware of everything around them. 

Carried over the shoulder of a strong guard, every weapon and anything they had was gone. As they were hung upside down in a room, as was Hero. Too far away to even consider any ideas to get any help.

Villain swore loud and could hear Hero groan. “Where are we?” They slowly came around to realize the situation and see Villain glare at them, “somehow I thought you were gonna escape without me.” Hero tensed as Villain only got more desperate for escape.

“I would if it hadn’t been too late.” Villain snarled and tried to get free from the bindings. But it was neither a good idea nor a possibility, for now, not when they still felt weak. “This is all your damn fault.” It echoed in the room, Hero couldn’t help but look around for a way out.

“If you just had given up…” Hero started and Villain snarled at them, never again they had promised.

“All I wanted was medicine for my family, I didn’t rob a god damn bank!” Hero froze as people were back, but there was dead calm in Villain. They knew what these people did and why… That was the reason they ran away in the first place. 

They spoke in their own language, they wanted Hero down first, and then it was their turn. Hero was doomed to be sacrificed along with them, “what is going on?” They were nervous and Villain knew that kind of fear.

“If we don’t find a way out of this, we’re gonna die.”

Hero took a look down at the spears under them and the people. “How…?”

“I don’t know! Start to think instead of looking at me, idiot.” 

Ooo this is good food for thought.

My thought is that Hiccup would free Furious regardless. 

Hiccup is the young man who believes in forgiving someone a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, and a sixth time… even if there’s a high likelihood that he’ll get hurt again. Hiccup isn’t a fool and knows that Snotlout might harm him again and never change, but Hiccup isn’t going to change his own thoughtfulness either. Hiccup still believes his own actions are the right way to go. Any time that someone is in trouble, even an enemy who could betray him, Hiccup still believes it’s his duty to help them.

It’s part of what makes Hiccup such a memorable hero in the book series. Whatever your own ethical framework, whatever you think would be the ethical thing to do yourself, how Hiccup is written is memorable. He’s not going to stoop down to something that might make him momentarily dirty for some end good. It’s an idealistic framework with very little sense of realism in a world where realistic horrors abound. And yet in the end, that unending idealism provides changes to the Barbaric Archipelago.

Even in the case that Hiccup could go back in time and knows what the future will bring with Furious, Hiccup’s morality isn’t based upon a utilitarian / consequentialist framework. It’s based upon the idea that we should always act with thoughtfulness, respect, and kindness to everyone we come across. For Hiccup not to free Furious in his miserable state (when Hiccup and Furious first meet) would be a failing on Hiccup’s end, according to Hiccup’s feelings.

The fact that Furious would later go off to kill people and wreak a war would grate upon Hiccup’s thoughts, of course. It would legitimately disturb Hiccup because he doesn’t want other people to suffer. He knows that freeing Furious will bring about that suffering. He may ask himself if this would make him fully culpable for their misfortune. He may ask himself if that means it would be “okay” to leave Furious in the forest of Berserk. 

But Hiccup is someone who believes that our kind actions have meaning. That  someone else may harm you later doesn’t give you an excuse not to give them this kindness now. Leaving a dragon like this would be unaccepted to Hiccup.