Been relistening to How to Train Your Dragon, and something I’ve noticed is:
Hiccup chooses his fate.
Like, I absolutely love the whole fate is ruling Hiccup’s life - playing games with him - I mean he is a walking “lost things magnet” to quote the witch. He seems destined to be king because there are so many signs - the blue snow, the swimming race, speaking dragonese, the dragon mark, the list goes on.
But. (And I only spotted this now) In the very beginning, when Gobber sends the boys in to steal a baby hunting dragon, the first dragon Hiccup ever has to train, he picks out one. He gets a nice easy basic brown (Horracow) and he probably would have been very happy with her. She’s obedient, holds similar non-violent beliefs as him, and would have been easy to train. He could have had a fairly ordinary life with her, nothing impressive but he’d have lived.
But Fishlegs didn’t get a dragon.
Fishlegs would have been banished from the tribe had Hiccup not decided to disobey the ‘only the strong can belong’ mentality and given up his dragon. Because he gives Fishlegs his dragon, Hiccup chooses Toothless. And Toothless. Toothless is the key to everything. Literally. *Looks hard at the lobster claw*
The point is, that because Hiccup chooses compassion over self preservation, he chooses to become king the wilderwest. He would rather do a hard thing, like find another dragon, than let his friend suffer. He would rather pick a dangerous adventure over those he’s responsible for, who he cares about, getting hurt. And that’s why, again and again, he always pick the path toward being king.
It’s the same when he saves Fishlegs by claiming he wrote the letter to Tantrum, and in the quest for the potato, and, finally, in how he defeats his father in the flashburn duel. Because dragons are people he cares about.
Yes, Fate chooses Hiccup, but only because Hiccup chose Fate first.
Just read about what happened with the umbrella academy season 4 and honestly I don’t know if I want to watch it, which is disappointing because it was a silly little show and I liked it very much