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faeandfolks · 1 month ago

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WHY ASTRID'S CHANGES IN THE LIVE ACTION HURT HICCSTRID

Very long post ahead.

I will be VERY real rn. I am a very hardcore Hiccstrid shipper but I HATE stupid pointless fanservice. And in the LA, there’s so much and at that point in the story is really dumb… It fundamentally changes what made them great in HTTYD1, Especially Astrid.

I talked about it here in my Astrid review, but the way those two scenes in particular misunderstood their core dynamic which SHOULD BE ALLIES FIRST AND THEN ROMANCE.

Their scenes felt just so weird to me. Hiccup is an utter simp and not in the good way… He lets Astrid be even meaner to him. Astrid herself feels so much meaner while getting her OG ending is jarring. She legit threatened him to take his house like hello?! Why would she ever say that? Besides the obviously stupid decision to make her want to be Chief out of nowhere and super OOC, making her hate him for being “privileged” adds such an inconsistent and horrible layer to their “romance”. Cause now Hiccup just takes it… Hiccup may have been weak and meek at first but he was NEVER a pushover. And Astrid having a new "motivation" to hate him is a misunderstanding of her character.

Astrid saying "He's never where he should be"

is very important, cause this shows how Astrid really sees Hiccup at first. Someone that is not VIKING LIKE and is a nuisance. He SHOULD be viking like but he isn't, he's not doing what he's supposed to be and he's not really trying in dragon training at that point. Astrid's disliking of Hiccup stemmed STRICTLY from the fact that Hiccup didn't take his position as Berk's future seriously, she just wanted to protect her village and Hiccup was clearly a liability WITH HIS INVENTIONS that caused more harm than good and THAT'S why he was looked down upon, NOT BECAUSE HE WAS PRIVILEGED. It's SUCH a pointless and dumb change that EVEN IF Astrid came from nothing as she said in LA, it would still make no sense. Now listen, THIS LINE right here could potentially mean that Hiccup being cut some slack could be related to being the chief's son, YES. I'm not saying that Hiccup didn't get special treatment by Stoick cause if it was anyone else? Stoick probably would shipped them off a long time ago. But understanding why Hiccup was there has more to do with the fact that Gobber insisted to Stoick, and the more he got older, the more he needed to protect himself somehow. Putting Hiccup in training is something that would've happened sooner or latter whether he liked it or not. Hiccup's arc was never about "humbling" himself or "recognize his privileges" he was bullied because he was weak and non viking ffs like PLEASE stay focused... Him being the Chief's son was never an actual point of contention for Astrid OR the gang.

Pointing out the real reasons Astrid hated him is very important cause she left him well enough alone for the most part even tho she was mildly annoyed he was a liability to their safety (which is what Astrid cared more about, "Our parent's war") stuff started changing AFTER his success, cause Astrid is prideful yes, she wants to be the best warrior, in her core she's still human and she did get jealous Hiccup of ALL PEOPLE started winning cause of UNUSUAL UNVIKING LIKE methods.

Their added scenes in the Book of Dragons and in the Kill Ring absolutely make my blood boil. Not all new Hiccstrid scenes are good just because they’re Hiccstrid.

In Book of Dragons LA scene, he’s actively insisting on Astrid that dragons may be good when at that point in the story he was NOT SURE HIMSELF YET. In the OG Hiccup was ALWAYS VERY cautious. This added scene is so weird to me because yes, why would Astrid listen to him? AND threaten him?

The fact is that Astrid in HTTYD1 left Hiccup well enough alone because she really didn’t care about him until after he started “cheating” in her eyes. They skipped the forge scene where that point is driven further:

“I normally don’t care what people do but you’re acting weird”

Astrid being sus of Hiccup is important because she NEVER CARED for him at first and THEN she started to notice that he was acting weird. And with GOOD REASON, unlike everyone else, Astrid didn't look for the easy way out, EVER. Astrid was methodical, logical and yes viking-like aggression when fighting but most of all FAIR. She EARNED her place and she wanted Hiccup to do the same. She may have not seen a new way yet, but at that point in the story, the methods Hiccup was using might as well have been cheating.

Cause yeah, “No one just GETS as good as you (Hiccup) do, especially you (Hiccup)” "Are you training with someone?" She could sense that Hiccup was getting better out of NOWHERE and his methods were clearly... dishonest for lack of a better word in her POV. like we KNOW that isn't true in Hiccup and the Audience POV since WE know what's happening, but SHE doesn't. She followed Hiccup around for weeks and he was acting super sus and evading questions, clearly hiding something. That alone made her fume. Like Hiccup being an Astrid simp the whole movie is just so... superficial. At first we KNOW he was shooting his shot but LATER, AFTER TOOTHLESS, he's mostly nervous around her because SHE WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT HIS SECRET, his priorities change. He's focused on a far more important thing.

HICCSTRID AS ALLIES FIRST

As I talked here, The Cove scene is so much more deep and important to Astrid becoming an ALLY to Hiccup first. She realized that she needs to protect Toothless.

That's why in the Kill Ring LA scene, I got so angry when they BOTH completely forget about HIM and they make it about ASTRID and her reputation and I absolutely HATED their new dialogue. Astrid didn't need to VERBALIZE she was going to support Hiccup. I don't know if they are allergic to subtlety but her saying "I will be with you whatever may come" was already a given in the last scene. SHE was the one that asked Hiccup "What do WE do?"

And something that DID make my blood boil is how Hiccup cared MORE about Astrid's reputation and her relationship with Stoick (something that was not even shown before even in the LA movie) OVER TOOTHLESS SAFETY?! No. Just no. THIS is cheap ass simping fanservice and I hate it. WHY would Hiccup care about Astrid's reputation in THIS VERY MOMENT? When he's about to expose himself to the whole village about dragons? Why did he suddenly forget he's doing this because of TOOTHLESS and his discoveries about dragons and making the world peaceful?? It also doesn't help that we didn't even SEE a scene with Stoick and Astrid together, it was just TOLD to us that suddenly Stoick always wanted a girl? and that he adores Astrid?? like? show not tell... great. And then because we don't even see a single scene with Astrid and Stoick in the LA, when Stoick suddenly gets super mad at Astrid for helping Hiccup, he's like "AND YOU!" pointing at her, like? why you mad bro? why do u feel betrayed? as if you had ANY interactions with her... but I digress...

What actually happened:

THIS right here, has MORE MEANING than Hiccup wanting to "protect her reputation" and not wanting her to get involved in the LA?? like? again, why would he say that here and not the previous Cove scene when she said she was going to support you? Why make this dumb change in the worst time possible?

Skipping these lines to me is criminal to the FOUNDATION that is their relationship. Both Hiccup and Astrid in the first movie are very interesting in the sense that them becoming allies to me is far more important for the plot than them being a couple. The very base of their relationship SHOULD BE protection of their people and dragons and how THAT is the what aligns them both. I don't want to have changes on their characters if it means romance (and this goes for RTTE as well cause I do NOT like a lot of what they did with Hiccstrid there), that's not why I ship them, it's because they work so GOOD as allies FIRST.

Removing this dialogue that is SO POWERFUL undermines so much not only Hiccup's relationship with Toothless but also Astrid's actual ROLE as an ally. Astrid is not a good ally because she's a die hard for Hiccup at that moment, she's a good ally because she's ALSO protecting Toothless AND WILLING TO DO WHAT IT TAKES AS WELL to protect him in case anything goes wrong. And because her being the very FIRST one to changed her mind, her support is super important to Hiccup- THAT'S why he stayed, NOT because he has a crush on Astrid or viceversa.

Hiccup needed an ally FIRST, not a girlfriend. He was completely alone, he was about to leave, and Astrid being the first one, regardless of if he had or not a crush on her, is valuable to him because he not only admired her but he respected her. She was the model viking, and if he can change her, he can try to change everyone else now that he has backup. Sure he liked Astrid but romance is not in his priority list, especially after Toothless, and quite frankly, it wasn't on Astrid's priority list either. What unites them first and foremost is their drive to protect, and once Astrid saw that in Hiccup, she saw a new side of him; not the weak nerd that messed up and didn't seem to care about being a proper viking, but a protector, which is what made her respect him.

Hiccstrid as a ship is very very fun to explore and analyse but when u actually take into account WHY they started that way and why they work... The Live Action not only changes Astrid but in consequence it changes Hiccup and Astrid's relationship and what makes them good, and to me THAT is what suffers the most in their dynamic. All their scenes to me felt so weird and with 0 build up and chemistry. I don't like fanservice if it has to change the characters for them to work... I HATE Hiccstrid fanservice because in the LA it gives them MUCH more focus than Hiccup and Toothless's actual bond, and the Kill Ring scene is the proof. And god how I hated that dialogue... I don't want them to be putting Hiccstrid above what makes HTTYD great and that is HICCUP AND TOOTHLESS'S BOND. PERIOD. (Something rtte and httyd3 also suffer for btw but that discussion is for another day)

Hiccstrid is great yes, not only because of how they started but because of what they became. I truly appreciate their friendship and ally-ship so much. I love a LOT of their romance and I think it's actually really mature, so it pains me to see ppl reduce it to its bare minimum...

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faeandfolks · 1 month ago

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y'know the funniest fucking post-r*tt reaction from Douxie Enjoyers was seeing how badly was treated and how much he suffered and being disgusted and affronted and resolving that the best thing to do about it to create their own fanworks where he's still treated badly and still suffers but in Much Better Written Ways. the equivalent of seeing a guy get punched in the face and going "UGH i cant believe they did that" and kicking that guy in the kneecap

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faeandfolks · 2 months ago

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most important part of the writing process actually is when you loop a single song on max volume and stare at the word document and imagine the characters doing things for 14 hours. this is known as getting in the zone

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faeandfolks · 2 months ago

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Whatever Matt Stone is doing with Kyle is the opposite of healing your inner child. Giving your inner child AIDS. Putting your inner child in a migrant detention camp. Sewing your inner child into a human centipede. Like whats going on with you man do you need to talk to someone

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faeandfolks · 2 months ago

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I love how the live action movie highlighted for me just how fucking insane Hiccup’s secret was to outsiders.

Like imagine you’re training for some kind of self defense/extermination course because your town has a huge reptile problem. People die from deadly snake and lizard infestations every single day and there’s this one guy who’s dad is the head exterminator but the kid is just such a pain. Like nepo baby to the fucking max. He fucks up their pest control work all the time, makes his mistakes everyone else’s problems, and can’t even say thank you to the people who help him not die because he’s such a whiny little brat about it!! And he has the gall to say shit like “oh yeah I can actually kill a Black Mamba single-handedly.”

Now SOMEHOW he gets the honor of training for their extermination team, right? (Clearly only because of his dad.) It’s a huge badge of pride to most people, and he doesn’t even take that seriously! Everyone else is throwing themselves into the work, already having studied the dangers and safety measures required to handle the deadly venomous snakes and lizards, and he apparently never read the fucking textbook?! He’s not even paying attention, nearly getting himself killed, asking the dumbest questions every day, and then he just runs off the moment class is over like he doesn’t even want to be there.

But THEN halfway through training he’s suddenly just inventing shit on his own and it’s working???? Like he’s still completely disregarding their rules and safety protocol, doesn’t even wear gloves when handling venomous reptiles, but he’s just casually wiping the floor with their asses and he offers no explanation whatsoever. He still doesn’t want to be there. And everyone’s so confused as to how that happened, right? A lot of people are reconsidering their own methods, thinking this could be a new era for their small town’s extermination efforts, but he seems so dismissive and even bothered by the idea?

Only to learn he’s been domesticating a Black Mamba in his spare time!!!! AND HE GIVES IT SCRITCHES

And his reasoning? “Well, personally, I think they make good house pets.”

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faeandfolks · 2 months ago

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Trying to track down as many interviews/behind the scenes things for THW that I can so I can easily check or link to things and MAN. I forgot how upsetting some of these quotes are.

Like I sure do love to see Dean call Toothless "corrupted" in like four different interviews. Love to see him constantly misuse terms like "domesticated". Love to read how that for the Light Fury, this supposed wild pure untainted fierce powerful feral call of the wild wild animal, the sound designers had to "suggest she was female" and so leaned on stereotypes. Love to read that Toothless "kinda forgot" about his former life after only ten years. Love to read that Astrid is meant to be Hiccup's "true support and future". Love to read basically anything regarding the Light Fury and see the filmmakers talk about how she's a female and needs to look like a female and move like a female and act like a female and sound like a female. Love to read how she couldn't look too reptilian despite literally being a dragon and that she couldn't have leopard markings because they looked a little too close to scars. Love to read how she "promises a family and the propagation of Toothless' species" when she's not even actually a Night Fury. Love to read how it was intended that Toothless' "animal instincts"/attraction to the Light Fury become more important to him than his friendship with Hiccup. Love to read how they purposefully changed Valka's design to make her "more appealing". Love to read how one of the functions the Light Fury is supposed to serve is to be "a clarion reminder that wild dragons will attack a human when they see them" like that makes any sense at all to anyone who has seen literally any other piece of HTTYD media. Love to read how the other function she's supposed to serve is to show "that when you find love, that's where you belong" like Hiccup's platonic/brotherly love for Toothless meant nothing when on the official website they're referred to as soulmates. Love to read that the reunion scene is meant to be a "last joyride" and "not an indication that they see each other again".

I hate this movie.

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faeandfolks · 2 months ago

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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.

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