#submaripper

— Warning amateur calculations, I'm by no means an expert at media interpretation, I just thought I would add my two cents in this as an experienced diver. Someone's probably done this before, lol.

Although we don't know how deep hiccup goes, we can figure it out from a few clues:

The submaripper is supposedly 15.24 meters tall (50ft), now Hiccup, Astrid and Snotlout dive down to try to move it in the first 10 minutes or so of the episode. From there we can see they are at minimum 7–10 meters deep, if not more. This means in the final submaripper freedom moments, Hiccup is likely 22–25 meters deep. At one point the submaripper swims after gaining freedom, and it is about 8-12m above the ground, while still not breaking the surface. This puts the distance at maybe 27m deep on a conservative estimate.

Why does this matter? Well, contrary to popular belief, you can get the bends from breathing “normal” air (surface air). As long as you are experiencing a rapid change in pressure, without a decompression time/stop, you can get the bends, AKA decompression sickness.

The air in your lungs is still forced into your tissues by pressure, regardless of quantity or quality of air. Yes it's unlikely with shallow free diving, but hiccup was in a box under the sea at roughly 27-30m, and he immediately surfaced with no decom time.

Stretching out the “actual” time vs “true” time hiccup was under there, let's make it 15 minutes which I think is short, but I want to keep it more “real time”.

The chart below shows possible depths as 27m is ~88ft to 30m which is ~98ft. Say he had a bottom time of 15m, I personally would 110% do a 5/3 safety stop (5 meters, 3 minutes to do decom) though according to this chart it's not “required”. But if he was even 2ft deeper (30.4m) he would have needed a decom stop otherwise he would have faced the bends almost certainly. Regardless of how long he was down.

I couldn't find the non-American non-feet chart online, and I use a dive computer, so deal with it. Top numbers are depth, numbers running down are bottom time, if it's grey it's 110% required a decom, but for any dive I would say do your goddamn decom. Don't risk it.

I remain insistent that Astrid being threatened, Hiccup throwing the Dragon Eye into the volcano and Viggo meeting his own end similarly, was what wasn’t changed even after the show writers were allowed the extra two seasons. Because it makes total sense, the only way that it could end, was that the Dragon Eye had to be destroyed, and given how they built up Viggo, there of course had to be a resolution with him as well. 

And think about how season 5 progressed. We didn’t find out Viggo was actually alive until five episodes in, meaning it took a while for them to decide they were actually going to bring Viggo back to life. In turn, tying in the Dragon Eye’s survival for additional conflict.

Had the show not gotten to six and remained at its four, then that means some parts of the two-parter would have been removed, to allow for enough time to show that Viggo did meet his end, and now the Riders could return to Berk. But because they were blissfully given two more, they managed to wind in other elements and have the season end in a cliffhanger with the volcano exploding. (which given that happened makes me surprised that Viggo actually survived that... but I also don’t wanna complain cuz I’m overjoyed we got more of him. and that he was even given a small redemption)

I also think that the ramping up of Hiccstrid was also crucial, because if that was end, then their announcement of a relationship would be proper lead-in for HTTYD 2. Meaning that Viggo’s discovery and call-out to Hiccup of it was also included. But I also will admit that the inclusion of “my dear Hiccup” leads me to think that the whole scene might’ve been improvised. 

What I would like to theorize, is that they elongated the episode plot by having it take longer for Hiccup to accept Viggo’s help. I think of the ending of Shellshocked pt. 1, where Viggo confronts Hiccup alone, and with the handing over of the Dragon Eye, does seem to show that they’ve entered a temporary alliance. But then the next episode starts with the Riders still showing skepticism then coming to lock him in the stables. Perhaps them finding the Submaripper would have occurred earlier instead of what we see where they take the first wave of attack on Dragon’s Edge. I do think a conversation with the Riders was necessary where Hiccup said they were left to accepting their enemy’s offer, although perhaps not to the way we came to see it play out. 

A Dragon for Week 90 – Submaripper

Before commenting anything about the dragon itself, I must admit that I may have used too much black on this drawing. With that said I kinda like this dragon, I like its fish/amphibian characteristics, I like how big it is and it is fun to draw, but something is not quite right… maybe it just needs more kelp on it’s body?

…………………………………….