#dragonpedia

Whatever, go my reptiles. These are for a bejeweled worldbuiling project/physical dragonpedia I'm working on

In order--

1: hackspitter

2: crying veil

3: red midas

4: Hellfeather (angel)

5: wallsticker

6: Whipstorm

Long story short:

I was using the official dragonpedia on howtotrainyourdragon.com to write a book of dragons of my own.

But today when I tried to get on the site again it was gone, replaced by a generic dreamworks site where they only have the information files of 6 dragons or so. I also tried the Australian version of the old site, which is still online, but there they had about 15 files, the oiginal had over 40.

Does anyone know of a way to get all of this information still? Via a wayback machine or maybe somebody has it saved somewhere.

Any literary analysis of this sort can be analyzed two basic different ways. The first way is to analyze things within the universe we are given, taking all information within the universe as given fact, and then construct a best explanation linking together data points. This is how I usually write analyses. It’s fun because it discounts nothing; all it does is synthesize information and provide the best-possible-solution. The other type of analysis is looking at the universe from without, in a meta framework, where you study the source material as a work of fiction.

I’m going to do a rare diverging from my analytical norm and bring up both forms of analysis, the within AND the without.

From the insider’s look perspective: We could point out there is a disparity between what people say and believe versus what is actually true. What Gobber says in Dragon Training doesn’t have to be true. Human beings say incomplete or inaccurate things all the time. We can easily propose that what Gobber says in Dragon Training is not the full story. What Gobber says could be incomplete information in several different ways:

Gobber’s statement about wet dragon heads and lighting fire could be a generalized statement. Gobber knows that most dragons cannot light their flame when they are wet. He knows that there are a few exceptions to the rule, but what Gobber is doing here is laying out the general rule to his students. That’s one possibility.

Gobber could legitimately believe that all dragons fall under this rule. He believes there are no exceptions. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions, and it’s to note that the Hairy Hooligan Tribe has not studied the Night Fury up close before, and they aren’t all-knowledgeable about the other species, either. Scientists do have to rework information when they discover new data about what they’ve been studying. The Vikings, as far as they know, see dragons can’t light their flame when their head is wet. But there is actually more data out there that would put nuance to this claim: there are instances in which different species might be able to do this, or… better yet for what we see in RTTE… various dragons can do this in specific circumstances the Vikings don’t yet know about. Things like biological structure, chemicals used for the different types of dragon fire, and more could affect how good they are at firing when wet.

So what we can say is that Gobber’s information was incomplete and inaccurate. He probably believes what he is saying - he wouldn’t teach the information otherwise to the students - he wouldn’t mislead them - but what Gobber says is not the full story of the dragon world. In RTTE we see multiple dragon species make shots underwater, or shortly after entering water. This can be explained by saying that there is much more to dragons than the Vikings knew in the first movie.

It wouldn’t be the first time something like this happens. Changewings are initially believed to be able to camouflage themselves near to the ground but not in the sky. But then in RTTE, we see them capable of hiding in the skies. The comic book The Legend of Ragnarok has the youths admitting that the Changewings can hide in the sky, despite what they thought they initially knew about the species. As the Vikings learned more about this dragon, they learned more about its abilities and limitations. It turns out that their initial judgments of the Changewing’s limitations were wrong. 

So Gobber could similarly be giving incomplete or incorrect information about dragons here, too.

Now as far as Toothless specifically shooting acetylene gas charges, and from what we know chemically of how that works and interacts with water… yes, we run into more problems. I’ll admit… as much fun as this would be to talk about and as much as I’d be entertained with the discussion… I’m not even going to try to address this. I’m a linguist, not a chemist. I took AP Chemistry in high school seven years ago… I wouldn’t be able to talk about this well at all, unfortunately. XD Haha, it’s probably best for me not to fumble around trying to explain a solution with a science that isn’t my expertise.

From the meta perspective, I will say this: the DreamWorks Dragons franchise has always been inconsistent about how it handles dragon abilities. Dragon ability statistics have been given numbers on Dragonpedia and video games like School of Dragons and Rise of Berk; these numbers have often contradicted each other between the media. 

To give just one example:

In Dragonpedia, the Scauldron is faster than the Gronckle and has equal fire power. The Scauldron has a Speed of 6 and the Gronckle has a Speed of 4. Both of these dragons are listed as having a Firepower rating of 14.

In School of Dragons, the Scauldron and the Gronckle have the same speed: 4.2. And instead of having equal firepower, the Gronckle is listed as having a higher firepower value than the Scauldron, 7.1 versus 6.8.

Technically if you do some rounding, the values aren’t quite so contradictory, but it is to note that the statistics about dragon information can get muddled pretty fast across the DreamWorks Dragons universe. I could find better examples, but I’m not going to spend all my time fishing. ;) You get the point. I’ve seen things get muddled between platforms and shows and episodes and different media.

The DW HTTYD franchise has also given conflicting information with what we know about the dragons from other verbal, non-statistical information said in shows and movies. The numbers we are given for “dragon statistics” are basically useless and have very little real measuring value. 

It’s also to note that the television series has long been inconsistent with information given in the first movie; we see dragons exceeding their shot limit, or dragons shooting fire when wet. The Night Fury is said to have a shot limit of six, but Toothless exceeds that in Frozen and several other DreamWorks Dragons episodes. 

So from a meta perspective, people could say, “The information is inconsistent. The creators probably haven’t focused on creating fully formed attention to these details, or they forgot something when they were writing this moment.”

Regrettably there’s absolutely no way to know what his firepower level is at the end of HTTYD 2. Given as Dragonpedia just tells us Toothless’ firepower is “14,” we don’t know if that’s his normal firepower, his maximum firepower we see at the end of HTTYD 2, or what.

An extra challenge is that these numerical statistics can only convey so much. He’s a 14... out of what? How do we measure what a 14 means? Is the scale additive, multiplicative, something else? How do the Vikings manage these numbers - is it based on intuition? Level of damage? Extent of damage? Efficacy of attack? A combination of multiple traits? There are so many different fire types that it seems so hard to compare them. We don’t even know how much more powerful a 14 is from a 13 by any objective measurement. The numbers, from a scientific perspective, don’t mean too much.

If I’m to be honest, I don’t understand the numbering system whatsoever for the dragons on Dragonpedia. The Snow Wraith is given a firepower of 24, but it’s fire type is described simply as a “frost fusillade.” A fusillade is a series of shots fired in quick succession. So we know that the Snow Wraith can shoot off a bunch of cold stuff really fast. But can that really be that much more powerful than a Night Fury’s 14? I mean, honestly, Toothless should be waaaay above a Snow Wraith. A Night Fury’s acetylene charges can probably be up to 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit. No one is telling me that a Snow Wraith actually beats a Night Fury in firepower.

A Bewilderbeast with a firepower of 60? Sure. Whatever 60 means - it’s high, at least. But then why does a Terrible Terror have a firepower of 12, only two below a NIGHT FURY? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Since the numbers don’t have much background, and there’s no way to measure the scale between one number to the next between dragons, I can’t even estimate what Toothless’ firepower might be like in different circumstances. If there was a little more context, I could analyze Toothless’ firepower in relation to other dragons and try to make estimates. But, unfortunately, as it is, I don’t think I can.

I don’t mean to stomp down on the numbers. As someone who plays tabletop all the time, I’m used to the numbers just being numbers, helping you with rolls of the dice, and things like that. These numbers about Night Furies, Monstrous Nightmares, and Snow Wraiths are all for fun. But since there isn’t a really systematized way I can tell of what number means what, it means I have no idea how to talk about Toothless’ “firepower 14,” what it means 

Unfortunately I don’t know any more information than you do about the characters’ respective ages. They don’t mention anyone’s birthdays or ages throughout the movies, minus Gobber’s one remark that Hiccup is twenty in HTTYD 2. Aside from Dragonpedia, which mentions Fishlegs and the twins are nineteen during the second movie, while everyone else is twenty, we don’t have any canonical age information. I at least do not know of anything. Once the HTTYD wiki mentioned Snotlout being younger than Hiccup, but I don’t think that has any bearing on actual canonical facts, and it appears to have been correctly deleted. As far as the DreamWorks wiki has been considered, I’ve never given any stock to the ages; that Wiki tries to claim Astrid is the oldest, but there seems to be no credible reason to assume this.

So there’s zero reason to feel horrible! I don’t think any fan knows the age from oldest to youngest. 

If I had my personal guess, I’d give the following order for ages:

Ruffnut and TuffnutFishlegsSnotlout (he’s about three years older than Hiccup in the books, but not so in the movies)HiccupAstrid

But this is all headcanon. As far as I know, we really have no idea.