let’s talk about the hidden world
not the entire movie, because it would take forever to point out every problem in that monstrosity, but just the concept of the hidden world itself. there are many inconsistencies but i’ve narrowed it down to a few points.
1. it introduces some sort of “magic” into the httyd universe
let me be clear, there has never been any sort of “magic” in the httyd universe. dragons are not these mystical, magical creatures that httyd 3 makes them out to be, they are just normal animals. they think of dragons how we would think of lions or bears.
this is the issue with the writers suddenly trying to bring the books into the picture after completely ignoring them for a decade. they tried to incorporate the books into the third movie, but at this point, the books and the movies are so vastly different that they take place in completely different universes with completely different rules and completely different worldbuilding. the book universe has some elements of magic in it, the movie universe doesn’t, so the idea of a hidden world at the end of the earth where all dragons come from might have fit if it was included in the book universe (which it wasn’t even), but it just makes no sense in the movie universe, so them basing the whole ending of the movie and the whole concept of the hidden world on nothing but the prologue of the first book (yes i’m convinced that that’s the only part of the books they actually looked at) is so stupid and caused the writers to have to destroy everyone’s character to even make that ending work (which it still doesn’t).
2. the earth is flat now???
they have been making flat earther jokes throughout the entire franchise, it’s a running bit and it’s funny every time. but it’s not funny anymore if that’s what actually happens. the whole joke is that even these smart people think the earth is flat because they’re vikings, but if they’re right then it’s not even a joke anymore.
the movie httyd universe has always been just our normal universe but with dragons, but with them suddenly making the earth flat and adding in the hidden world, that completely changes everything we know about this universe up to this point.
3. stoick knows about the hidden world
stoick says in one of the flashback scenes that someday he wants to find the hidden world and “seal it up” to stop the fighting, and it even pretty much says that that was his mission the entire time. but, we know that that’s not true because he directly says what his mission is in the first movie, which was to “find the nest and destroy it” so the dragons will “find a new home” and stop bothering them. he’s not talking about the hidden world, he’s talking about the specific nest that the dragons that have been attacking them are coming from. he doesn’t know where the dragons come from and he doesn’t care where the dragons come from, he just wants them out of his face. he doesn’t see the dragons as the creatures that they are, he still just sees them as monstrous beasts that need to be killed for the protection of his village. he never cared about peace because he never thought peace was an option. if he did then the first movie would’ve have happened because he would have listened to hiccup in the first place. hiccup (and valka, but more on that later) is the only one who believed that peace was possible because he’s the only one who was able to see the dragons for what they really were. that’s literally the whole point, that everyone looked down on hiccup because of his differences when those differences are the reason he was the only one who could finally stop the war.
him being so different from valka is important, too. a lot of people overlook that and act like he’s exactly like her and the exact opposite of stoick when it’s much more complex than that (see my valka defense post). people blame valka for leaving but if you think about it you see that even if she stayed she would not have been able to do what hiccup did. she didn’t create peace with the dragons, she became one of them. hiccup was the only one who thought that humans and dragons really could coexist. httyd 3 makes it look like stoick thought that stopping the fighting was possible, when hiccup (not even valka) was actually the only one with that mindset at that point.
the fact that hiccup is so different from both his parents and yet so similar is a crucial detail in not only the plot but also his character in general, and the fact that they changed stoick’s mindset and tried to gaslight us into thinking that that’s how he was the whole time is crazy.
4. they find the hidden world almost immediately after they start looking for it
hiccup and astrid literally find it by accident while looking for toothless. they and the gang have been exploring very far outside of the archipelago for the entirety of race to the edge and they never even found valka’s sanctuary. valka has been out there for 20 years and she never found it. stoick suddenly has been searching for this thing his entire life and he hasn’t found it. and they find it just like that? boring. yawning. sloppy. lazy. they clearly couldn’t think of a more interesting way for them to have found it so they just decided to take the easy way out. idk how long it takes for them find it from the time that they leave berk, but it’s fast. way too fast.
