Well met, my fellow Furians! Welcome to another HTTYD post! Today, we'll be doing another Snotlout post, and today's topic is about something that I've had for a long time but am only now writing about.

What would happen if Hiccup had won? And what would happen if Snotlout had lost the Thawfest Games?

I had watched the "Thawfest" episode multiple times and every time I did, I had always asked myself these two questions.

And, of course, every time I watched this, this scene would pop up:

(I’m sorry in advance for any blurry map images, but I can only do so much. If you guys have clearer copies of this, please let me know.)

Hello everyone! Today I’ll write another article that I think you’ll find interesting. I know I haven’t written an article for the Books in, like, a very long time, but now I’ve got myself a topic to talk about. 

As you know, Outlawry and Outcasts are among the main antagonists and themes in the Books. That being said, and in spite of it, there isn’t really a whole lot of info concerning this, aside from the few hints, theories, and mentions we get from it.

In the Books, Outlawry and Piracy kinda go hand-in-hand, though they’re not exactly the same thing. 

Hello, my fellow Furians! Here's another HTTYD article for you today. We'll be talking about another Outcast topic.

Why Outcast Island?

Why would the Outcasts live on a barren, unforgiving, dragon-infested, desolate, and volcanic island that, at best, makes a decent base for pirating and not much else? Maybe a hideout where they can restock on supplies and use it as a halfway point to various islands that they can raid — such as Berk, Meathead Islands, and various other islands and Tribes.

However, I just can't believe that is their primary residence. Food would be difficult to come by, and none of the land is arable for growing crops or husbanding livestock. Also, even if there was, you're constantly having to deal with dragons who aggressively attack, and thus livestock would be slain, and crops would be burned or taken.

Hello, my fellow Furians! Welcome to another HTTYD article. We'll be diving into another Outcast question today.

After reconciling with Berk and defeating Dagur's forces, would Alvin and his Outcasts JOIN Berk and become a permanent part of their community — essentially getting absorbed — or would they remain as an independent Tribe, allies but not subordinates?

The short answer? No, they would remain independent allies of Berk.

Long answer? Well, we'll be getting into that in this article.

As you know from my previous article, you'll know that I have a hard time believing that Outcast Island is their only island, as, at best, it's good only as a forward base for raiding or resupply, or even as a prison. But as a place to grow food and raise families, no, it's impossible. So I suspect they have another island somewhere, albeit smaller than Berk. Or perhaps they find a better island for themselves after the events of Defenders of Berk.

However, we mustn't ever forget that they are OUTCASTS. A Tribe full of outcasts, outlaws, criminals, murderers, pirates, rebels, traitors, and political and religious rivals. Even if the feud between them and Berk is over, it doesn't mean that they cease being outcasts and pirates. After all, Berk wasn't the ONLY enemy that the Outcasts made for themselves. In reality, by becoming an Outcast, everyone becomes your enemy. The pursuit of your head becomes a free-for-all. So, until a certain high-rank individual approves, the Outcasts must always attack, and others must attack them until they become legitimate or perish.

So, as a result, Berk cannot absorb them without themselves being under scrutiny by the other Tribes. Also, as I've said, many of the Outcasts are murderers, criminals, thieves, pirates, etc, so there'll definitely be those who won't have any desire to live with the Berkians, and vice versa. After all, there are a few reasons why many Outcasts joined Dagur and stayed with him despite Alvin having shown himself still alive. The Outcasts aren't a monolithic and united "tribe," but a motley blending of various persons from various walks of life and of various personalities.

In fact, in Episode 1 of Race to the Edge, "The Dragon Eye of the Beholder," there were Outcast traitor(s) who helped Dagur escape from Outcast Island. And there were Outcast prisoners who were in cells along with Dagur and his Berserkers. Which means that there are Outcasts who refuse to adhere to Alvin's authority and obey his orders. I also suspect that several of them disapproved of Alvin's change in policy concerning Berk. I wouldn't even be surprised if there were some who left Outcast Island for other hunting grounds.

So I cannot think of any situation that could realistically incorporate the Outcasts into the Hooligan Tribe successfully without negative or even fatal consequences.

The only way I could see Berkians and Outcasts conjoining together into one mega-tribe is for survival's sake. Or the Berkians became Outcasts themselves — an alternate universe where the other Viking Tribes, upon hearing that Berk befriends and rides dragons, remember Drago, and declare Berk a Tribe of Outcasts, and declare war on them.

Aside from some Outcasts with families possibly wanting to migrate to Berk, I believe the Outcasts will remain an independent community and find themselves an island they can live on properly with Outcast Island as their outpost/prison. And as shown in Race to the Edge, the Outcasts became staunch allies for Berk against Dagur's forces (who were also Outcasts) and the Dragon Hunters.

Assuming, of course, there was a more realistic reason to abandon Berk (aside from the nonsense we got in "Hidden World"), such as... an earthquake or volcano or some other trouble, or perhaps they wanted to live on a larger island, I believe that they could've left Berk to Alvin and his Incasts, ironically fulfilling Alvin's once-held ambition and goal from his Outcast days, having once been a Berkian himself.

What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments or in your reblogs. The Outcast Tribe is always a wonderful topic to write about. I think there's probably one more article left for the Outcasts I'll write for before I move on to the Berserkers next.

Thank you for reading. I hope you have a wonderful Monday.

Long Live the Night!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to another HTTYD article! Once again, we'll dive into another Berserker article/theory/question.

So I'm not sure about you guys, but I've always wondered who was managing the Berserker Tribe while Dagur was enjoying a 3-year vacation in Alvin's dungeons. Granted, different production companies made Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge. And since the Dreamworks Dragons series usually doesn't get into details of external family and stuff, we can only speculate.

But hey, that's why you guys are here, right? lol 😂😉

But anyway, while Dagur was sipping the ale of losers in Alvin's dungeons, just who was leading the Berserkers? We know Captain Vorg was in prison with Dagur and the others. One possibility is Savage, since he was able to escape; and this could explain why he was able to rally a coup d’état against Dagur when he turned traitor and became soft for dragons and Berk in particular. However, with Savage the way he is, I doubt it. Also, we see that after Dagur's absorption into Viggo's camp, and then eventual desertion, Savage wasn't anywhere to be found.

Eventually, we see him in "Darkest Night" when he captures Hiccup, now as a mercenary/bounty hunter/still-Outcast. So it's likely that's what he was doing before he broke Dagur free. Of course, we don't know why or how he ended up returning to Outcast Island to free Dagur. Due to the unfortunately added "Traitor Johann Arc" (I can't STAND that arc!), it could be assumed that Johann had led him there or even hired him and a team to free Dagur. After all, I highly doubt that Savage would've bothered doing it by himself if he hadn't tried to free Dagur sooner. Three years is a long time, you know.

Again, though, we can't know for certain. It could be that Savage had tried several times but couldn't get past the defenses; or maybe he wanted to wait for the right moment when the Pro-Alvin Outcasts had their guards down; or maybe there's another reason we're not aware of.

And we know that, with Osvald dead, Heather living peacefully with her adopted Tribe, Great Uncle Haggard long dead as well (probably), there wasn't any other family member that we know of who could've taken over the Berserker Tribe after Dagur's defeat. That we KNOW OF, at any rate.

It's also possible that some subordinates were ruling as de facto, temporary substitutes until either Dagur came back or somebody else took over. But that's also very unlikely.

However, there's an important clue that Seasons 1 and 2 give us: After Dagur is freed, he doesn't return to Berserk! Why? Besides the fact that he's deranged, he should know better than to fight the Dragon Riders without the support of his Tribe, right? What's interesting to note is that his ships and men are significantly less than during his war against Berk 3 years before! Also, he had to "P-A-Y" for new ships after being released, since he only had the one ship that he stole after escaping imprisonment.

Again, why? Why would he do that? Was he that desperate for revenge against Hiccup? I mean, yes, but there's more to it than just that. Why would he not return to his Tribe and reclaim his authority and rally his fleets and warriors to attack Berk again? Why did he have to buy ships, only have his men that escaped with him and some outcasts/mercenaries, and had to turn to the Dragon Hunter power in order to defeat Hiccup? Did he realize he couldn't win by himself or by his Tribe's strength? No, because Dagur is stubborn and is a Berserker supremacist.

Don't forget this important detail: Dagur is an OUTLAW. A CRIMINAL. A WANTED MAN. As such, several Tribes will want his head and won't stop until they do. Even if he was able to return to his Tribe, they won't have the strength. As such, when he couldn't defeat Hiccup by himself, he turned to the Dragon Hunters for sanctuary and to help him defeat Hiccup and the Riders.

Also don't forget that Dagur is a LOSER. He was DEFEATED. In Viking society, no matter if you're the leader, if you are known to lose a lot of battles, no one's gonna want to follow you. Vikings want to follow leaders who are generous, charismatic, ambitious, and, most of all, VICTORIOUS. Nobody wants to join a loser. Berserkers most of all. That's just not the done thing. It's not common sense. Remember that they lost to Berk over 50 years prior and had to have a non-aggression treaty with Berk for that long due to Osvald's passive stance and preference for peace. For Berserkers, there's no greater shame or weakness than losing battles or refusing to take part in them. Raiding, after all, is in a Viking's nature. Dagur was popular because he promised to bring back the Berserker traditions and to go back to raiding. He was aggressive and pro-war. And he had many victories. However, once he started losing to Berk repeatedly until his eventual complete defeat at the hands of the Berk-Loyalist Outcast Alliance, he lost his popularity and his support after that. Even if they ignored his outlaw status, just the fact that he had failed his people and had too many defeats under his belt was enough to justify not reinstating him as Chieftain.

But there's also one other important and possible clue: there's a possibility that someone who's plausibly a family member of the Berserker Royal Family has taken control of the Throne — like, say, a cousin or uncle or whoever. It makes sense since a Tribe without a legitimate leader wouldn't be very good. And a subordinate can't do as good a job as a proper leader would, usually.

Of course, you might wonder why would that supposed family member then relinquish his rule for Dagur to take over again? Good question! I haven't a clue either! That family member would have to be as agreeable as Osvald to let a deranged person like Dagur to take control again. Even if he is "reformed" or "enlightened", there's no way in helheim that I would've let him back into the fold. In fact, I would've killed them then and there. But blame that on Netflix scriptwriting. Realistically, Dagur reforming, when he is a deranged being, is impossible (unless he was an excellent actor and pretended to be deranged). And he was rather great as a villain, but then to just... "reform" him like this is just lame.

So in my headcanon, Dagur is still Dagur, and thus, if he had a family member ruling the Tribe in his stead, and since he's still an Outlaw and a Wanted Man, it stands to reason that he wouldn't be able to have the strength to survive let alone defeat the Dragon Riders, and couldn't return to his Tribe and resume being their leader; thus, Dagur had to turn to the aid of the Grimb(j)orn Tribe led by Viggo and Ryker, as seen in the first 2 seasons of RTTE.

A new leader, like said unknown relative, could've risen up to lead the Berserkers if Dagur had died in "Twinsanity", had Stoick gone through with his assassination plot as I detail in my article (here).

Another possible death scene was when Dagur lost the battle against Alvin, and after the war, Alvin ends up executing him with his head put on a spike in quite the treacherous fashion. 💀

Personally, I think it would've been cooler if, after Dagur's death, Heather traveled to Berserk Island to become its new ruler. "High Chieftess Heather" just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? 😏😉😂

Hail Heather Iron-maiden, High Chieftess of the Berserker Tribe! O Hear Her Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh! Long may she reign! 🤣

What do you guys think? Is it a plausible theory?

Long Live the Night!

Frequenting hidden caves and subterranean passages as they did, the outlaws themselves become bergbúar, inhabiting the rocky lava inside the landscape. The dangerous, uninhabitable, and geologically unstable terrain of the inner country is thus made disturbingly inhabitable indeed — by beings no longer legally human, cloaked in ambiguity and ambivalence."

I’m reading Eric Hobsbawm’s book, Bandits, an in-depth look at the importance not only of the facts but also the fictionalization of banditry. The bandits he focuses on are what he calls ‘social bandits,’ that is, bandits that have a place in society as a sort of safety valve — when the disparity between the rich and the poor becomes too obvious, when the peasantry cannot even count on the most basic restraints on the greed of landowners, when injustice rules the land, popular myth calls forth a time honored defender — a character that is free to act outside the law, a character who is of the people and dedicated to helping the poor by redistributing the wealth of the rich, a robber who represents a sort of basic wish-fulfillment of vigilante vengeance.

The tension between reality and fantasy is an important aspect in studying these bandits. The following are Hobsbawm’s nine elements that define the ‘noble robber,’ the champion of the weak and poor. First, this Robin Hood-type gets his start on the wrong side of the law because he is singled out by corrupt authority or unjust laws. Secondly, he is out to reverse any and all instances of injustice, plus, thirdly, he is out to redistribute wealth gained by unjust men. Fourth, he only ever kills people in self-defense or as an example of justice served. Points five and six are important to consider together, as they both serve to assert that the noble robber never ceases to be a part of his community; Hobsbawm’s fifth point states that the robber will return to live with his people if he is allowed to survive his exploits, the sixth point is that ‘he is admired, helped and supported by his people.’ The seventh element is that the ‘noble robber’ is only killed through betrayal, and the eighth states that he is ‘invisible and invulnerable’ — taken together these points illustrate that his powers are such that his enemies would never be able to capture or kill him except through the collusion of a close associate. And the ninth point states that the noble robber never breaks faith with the highest powers of law and order, only with ‘local gentry, clergy or other oppressors.’

It seems unlikely that any outlaw ever lived up to all of these points in reality, but, in the case of bandits from a long time ago it hardly matters — fact gave way long ago to fiction, and so who cares what the ‘real’ Robin Hood was like. In the modern day, it becomes almost impossible to ignore the ugly fact that an outlaw is an outlaw because he does unpleasant things and really has to be out for number one if he’s going to survive — regardless of what his ideals might be. Here I am looking to understand once again, when do we accept a rebel as a hero rather than perceive him merely as a criminal? Eric Hobsbawm writes about a number of outlaws that were formative, sometimes directly, sometimes merely as fictional ideals, to struggles for social change in societies where wrongs needed righting and the weak needed protection. But he also keeps in his focus criminals who really didn’t do much for anyone but themselves and yet still were important in the minds of the downtrodden — a bandit who was a selfish monster is still accomplishing something if he is demonstrating to the high-and-mighty that they aren’t anything special — that they aren’t the only men capable of being selfish monsters. A ruthless villain is still a symbol of defiance and strength if he is your home-town villain and not some villain imposed from outside the community.

On July 25th, 1853, law enforcement killed Joaquin Murieta, a notorious outlaw living in the mountains of central California. It is worth remembering that California had only been governed loosely by the United States for less than a decade at this point — having only been won from Mexico in 1847 as part of the spoils of the Mexican-American War. The story of Murieta revolves around another important event that occurred around this time — gold was discovered in California and over 300,000 people came to California during the Gold Rush to make their fortunes. To the best of our ability to separate truth from fiction, Murieta and his family arrived in California from Hermosillo in the Mexican state of Sonora in 1849. He set up to work panning for gold but something led him instead to become a robber and horse thief and eventually at least 40 murders were attributed to his gang. The State of California assembled a team of California marshals to put an end to Murieta’s career; after they had killed him the marshals went around for a while with Murieta’s head preserved in a jar full of alcohol, ostensibly to prove the identity of their catch so they could collect the governor’s reward, but also so they could exhibit Murieta’s head among the mining camps — you had to pay a dollar to see the famous outlaw’s head.

The legend of Murieta was built up as the story of a resistance fighter — the Anglo takeover of Mexican lands, plus the overwhelming influx of strangers during the Gold Rush, made California a rather frightening instance of society breaking down along ethnic lines. Although no official records tell the story, Murieta seems to have been driven to brigandage after being mistreated by Anglo miners jealous of his gold claim. A dime novel, “The Life And Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit,” published only a year after his death, reports that he was beaten, forced to watch as his wife was raped and that he was later horsewhipped and his half-brother hung by a second mob of Anglo-Americans. This novel seems to have been highly influential in fixing the ‘facts’ of Murieta’s exploits in peoples’ minds; both historians and observers who had been on hand during Murieta’s life have absorbed some of the novel’s disproven points, but, again, the social bandit is a figure that society desires and fabricates requiring only the barest framework of facts.

The man who wrote “The Life And Adventures of Joaquin Murieta” is another fascinating character, a Cherokee writer known as Cheesquatalawny (Yellow Bird) or by his Anglo name, John Rollin Ridge; he was born just as the Cherokee people were being officially driven off their lands by the US government. His father and grandfather had both signed the Treaty of New Echota that put the stamp of law on the Trail of Tears; at the age of 12, Cheesquatalawny was forced to witness his father’s murder at the hands of 25 Cherokee men angry about the New Echota treaty; a decade later Ridge murdered one of the men he believed to have been involved with his father’s killing. Ridge was less than successful as a gold miner in California, and, although he is credited as the first Native American novelist, his book never made a profit during his lifetime. He became a journalist but died at the age of 40 from encephalitis. His portrayal of Joaquin Murieta demonstrates some of his somewhat difficult and twisted attitudes towards race in America — in his novel Murieta is steadfast and true, a worthy Mexican who leaves his native land in pursuit of the lofty ideals represented by the policies of an enlightened United States, and as a bandit in California he remains dedicated to a vision of American life that Anglo Americans deny him. However, Ridge maintains an ugly hierarchy in representing race in his novel, his Anglo Americans and Mexican Americans are not blameless but they are depicted as reaching towards higher goals of civilization, whereas he portrays the California Indians as greedy, cowardly and lazy — truly savages in comparison to his own Cherokee people; as well, Ridge presents his Chinese-American characters in a less than flattering light. Murieta too appears not to have let the downtrodden status of Chinese immigrants influence his treatment of them — his gang seems to have victimized Chinese communities just as much if not more often than Anglo settlers.

The song I present this week is a traditional ranchera song, “Cruz De Madera” — I picture it being sung by Joaquin Murieta’s head, preserved in a jar, on display for curious goldminers. My translation is probably a bit clumsy, but here goes:

When to the graveyard you take me, There’d better not be crying from nobody — All of you’d better be singing, some song that once made me happy — bring me to the funeral in the best of spirits!

This world is so small, and I’ve walked it round and around — so when they take me away, I hope there will be a band playing — Sing, don’t cry my comrades, you’d best be enjoying yourselves!

So what, if, as the years pass along, my grave should become abandoned, And that rough wooden cross become weathered and broken; You can go and scratch out my name, and bury that cross in the dirt, But, truly, you must remember — to die, it really is nothing.

Being declared an unlawful person, and hence unrecognized by the courts, is a huge problem. You will be unable to notarize contracts and seek restitution in the courts, you will also be unable to defend yourself legally. You're essentially alone in the wilderness. 

This is compatible with the non-aggression principle. No one is calling for your explicit harm, simply expressing the right of free association. Courts are like any other business, in a stateless context, so they have every right to refuse you service. 

A similar example would be if society, en masse, decided to stop selling you food. They are not committing any crime by libertarian standards, since you have no right to another man's property.