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pinocthepiccolo · 4 months

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To me the solution in the The Hidden World felt disproportionate to the dangers in the film.

The movie says dragons need to leave to be safe from dangerous humans and to live optimally as wild animals. Those concepts I can get behind. Where I hesitate is that I don’t feel the movie showed these problems to be great enough to push our protagonists into the dragons-must-leave solution. I’m not saying this in anger or hate or anything, but mulling reflection of why I didn’t feel THW to be convincing in where the story needed to be most convincing.

I don’t like playing the “Cowell’s books did it better!” card because the DreamWorks franchise and book series are distantly related cousins, each beautifully unique in their own fashions. But I think it’s useful to mention the book series to illustrate my point about why THW needs a bigger sense of problem to make the movie’s solution charitable. The books also conclude dragons and humans need to separate because civilization is too dangerous for dragons; someday the species may be ready to intermingle, but it’s not this era.

But in the books, the incompatibility between humans and dragons is hammered hard. The Barbaric Archipelago is launched into a three way war between dragons who want humans dead, humans who want dragons dead, and humans and dragons who want to unite in peace. Berk is torched to oblivion by dragon armies; the Hairy Hooligans are thrown into slavery; Stoick is stripped of leadership; one of Hiccup’s best friends hesitates to support him; Hiccup flees into exiled hiding to survive; Hiccup is betrayed by family to be interrogated and tortured by enemies; Hiccup nearly loses his best friend; Hiccup watches family die sacrificing themselves to keep him and his goal alive; the entirety of Viking civilization is thrown into war-torn chaos in which the genocide of one or multiple species is a terrifying hair’s width away. All of this is compounded by the archipelago’s deep history, a history which extends into the distant past… and continues to affect the present. It’s the pact Hiccup the First made with the dragons being broken; Hiccup the Second leading a protest with the dragons he grew up with, and his own father murdering him for his “betrayal”; Furious being chained for decades, growing increasingly angry of the injustices against dragonkind; Grimbeard, guilt-ridden, hiding his King’s Things in preparation for someone who could handle the monarch mantle better; and an entire society overflowing with hostile, hateful, brutal Vikings and dangerous dragons.

So, in the books, the reason the dragons leaving makes sense and emotionally feels like the right solution is because:

The incompatibility between humans and dragons in this current time is hammered hard. Whatever environment we’re in, whatever characters we’re meeting, whatever villains we’re fighting, whatever part of the dramatic plot we’re going through, we’re constantly, concretely embedded in a world where we can see the issues between the two species. It’s obviously a dangerous, hostile world.

Hiccup spends his entire life working with dragons to improve society. He never gives up. In fact, he makes significant progress in creating a better world. Decades of his kingship he spends working with the dragon queen to try to build a compatible environment. There’s sense of accomplishment. Still, in the end, it’s a matter of civilization moving in two steps forward, one step back: they’re making progress, but it’s obvious society isn’t ready for true unity. When the dragons disappear, it’s a bittersweet but obviously inevitable solution.

The movies of course don’t need to drill into slavery, torture, and a three-way havoc-wreaking war to make their point dragons need to disappear as the most charitable solution, but it still didn’t feel as though there were danger enough to satisfyingly explain Hiccup’s choice.

The first reason for why THW’s problems don’t feel pressing enough is that the villains don’t feel embedded enough in their own world. The warlords and Grimmel sort of… float… in this universe. We don’t concretely see how they’re impacting the archipelago; they’re hunting dragons, but what do those environments look like after the dragons have been hunted down? They’re conquerors, too, so what do human civilizations look like after they’ve marched through? Where is the rest of dragonkind and humanity in this equation? The only interaction we get between the villains and their world is how they related to Hiccup; it makes them feel much less dangerous and less widespreadly impacting. Grimmel is meant to represent humanity’s hostilities, such that Hiccup knows humanity isn’t ready for dragons. But when all we see is some vaguely-shown warlords who don’t do war, and a dragon hunter who kills one dragon total in the film, it doesn’t feel like the dragons are in such a dangerous situation that their entire archipelago is incompatible with them. Once Grimmel’s defeated at the end of THW, and no one knows where New Berk is located, why can’t we resume a life where peace between humans and dragons was actually working? They might try to say it’s only a matter of time before someone else comes to endanger them again, but does the way the story presents our enemies make that feel believable?

Hiccup’s had mixed luck with humanity and its hostility. But there’s been luck. In the movie franchise, he managed to create peace by changing Stoick and the Hairy Hooligans’ minds about dragons. He managed to convince Eret, a dragon trapper, to live in a dragon utopia. He convinced Valka, an elusive vigilante who hid dragons from humans, that there could be peace between species. Sure, Hiccup didn’t convince Grimmel, his warlords, and Drago… but that’s still just about 50% of his cases. The movie franchise has shown Hiccup having notable success in convincing a good amount of powerful people that dragons and humans can live in harmony. Why would Grimmel be a breaking point? Grimmel doesn’t feel significantly more dangerous - and both he and Drago get defeated *BECAUSE* humans and dragons are working together.

We need to feel a much more overarching, oppressive, widescale hostile environment. Otherwise, it’s hard to emotionally process and logically accept that dragons are in “such” a dangerous position they need to return to the Hidden World’s safety. Are the dangers Grimmel present really so impacting and widespread for the dragons to need to flee the entire world? To me, it doesn’t feel like it. We need more sense of danger, and widespread danger, and widespread ideology, for why humanity and dragons can’t coexist.

And if we want to go beyond the movies into the comics, video games, and television series (which THW references), we have even more instances of Hiccup gaining victory. Mildew, Heather, Alvin, Dagur, Viggo, Bayana, Oswald, Mala and the Defenders of the Wing, Atali and the Wingmaidens, and the Berserkers all started off as threats but became dragon-supporting allies. Sure, there were a few people like Krogan and Johann who remained hostile until the end… but given as Hiccup has such a history of success and making successful ground, and the world has repeatedly shown it can accept dragons and live in peace with them… it doesn’t help THW’s conclusion. Whether we’re looking just at the movie trilogy or the broader DreamWorks universe, we have this issue.

HTTYD 2 hits the idea Hiccup is the dragon uniter. He has “the heart of a chief and the soul of a dragon,” who can “bring [their] worlds together.” He is the one who preached “We are the voice of peace, and bit by bit, we will change this world.” There’s nothing wrong with reversing these messages from HTTYD 2 if presented with strong enough opposition. That can be an interesting, successful move in storytelling. But THW doesn’t present a hostile-enough world, especially not widespread enough of a hostile world, to merit the conclusion “the dragons cannot live with humans - period.”

Especially not when the way every hostility has been defeated… is through the peace between humans and dragons. Again, Hiccup defeated Drago because his love for Toothless was so powerful that it overpowered the Bewilderbeast’s hive mind. The humans and dragons stood together to defeat the enemy, fight back. The Red Death was defeated, bettering lives for all local dragons and humans, because a boy rode a dragon. And THW antagonists were defeated when the dragon riders fought with their dragons (down to Hobgobblers being a help) and Hiccup helped the Light Fury save Toothless. Yes, they wouldn’t have been in conflict with Grimmel in the first place if they weren’t living with dragons. And even if we ignore the question “Isn’t that Grimmel’s blame being a hostile warlord, not Berk’s problem being promoters of positive social change?” …which could be somewhat solved by saying “We still need to protect our own, that’s our responsibility, whatever others are doing”… the challenge is that, obviously, ideologically and strength-wise we’re seeing which way the world is turning: that in favor of a unity between species.

The second reason why THW’s problems don’t feel pressing enough is because of how the dragons’ animal needs are presented. Are the dragons really so dampened in their lives because they’re not in the wild? I don’t think the movie presents that in a strong enough way.

First, we see Berk is overcrowded to the point of ridiculousness; Hiccup has tried to bring every dragon he’s rescued here. As cool as it looks, it is a disaster and cannot keep going this direction. Hiccup’s denying it (as is a theme of the movie: Hiccup denying what needs to be done). But the issue isn’t that humans and dragons are incompatible, as this point tries to suggest; it’s that Hiccup is trying to babysit EVERY dragon he’s come across. Not every dragon needs to be taken in and domesticated. You can rescue wild dragons, return them to the wild, but still live in a society where you ride your own dragon and everyone’s happy. You can have domesticated dragons and rescue other dragons, too, without worrying about draconic overpopulation in your urban areas.

Next, the main crux of the story is highlighting Toothless and his call to the wild. Just like Grimmel is meant to be a symbolic microcosm of an overarching human threat (humans = dangerous), so does the Light Fury mean to symbolically represent the second issue (dragons = wild animals). But it’s not easy to extract an overarching conclusion (all dragons need to be free) from the one case instance we watch. So this is an issue for Toothless. But what about Stormfly? Meatlug? Hookfang? Barf and Belch? We don’t see those dragons having any struggles living a more domesticated life. Stormfly’s got zero restrictions for living with Astrid, from everything I’ve seen. It’s presented in THW as an isolated incident with Toothless, exactly because he hasn’t been in companionship with one of his own kind before. Toothless’ problem is his own and can’t be generalized to every dragon of Berk - and yet in the end of the movie, everyone just magically, wordlessly seems to come to the conclusion “oh yeah all our dragons are incompatible with our lives because they’re wild animals.”

We saw the dragons go into happier existence once they came to Berk. When they were wild animals in the first movie, they lived under the Red Death’s terrifying shadow. If they didn’t bring back enough food to the island, they would be eaten themselves. The dragons found peace, happiness, and satisfaction when they started intermingling with humans post-Red Death. Arguably, by THW’s times, dragons are the safest they’ve ever been with humans.

Yes, there’s absolutely an argument to be made that Drago and Grimmel abuse dragons (they also abuse humans, note note), and there will always be people like them popping up to abuse dragons… so it’s TOTALLY the best move for the dragons to leave… they’ll still need protection… There’s lots of logic to be had there. Self-defensive measures are the right measures to keep everyone alive. THW wants to provide that reasoning. But in light of the fact changes are happening, this is not the right point for the revelation to hit that dragons should go. From the audience’s emotional perspective, it feels “incomplete.” In the movie, characters could have had a large discussion “more dragon killers like this will just keep popping up, over and over and over, and even though we’re winning the fights, it still means putting the dragons in danger” - but I think that doesn’t get presented hard enough in THW to put the could-have-been-there believability… actually there. And that’s my point - not what THW tried to say, which is a good idea, but how it doesn’t come across as enough in its actual addressal of the topic.

Third, the reason why THW doesn’t feel pressing enough is how the relationships between Hiccup and Toothless versus Toothless and the Light Fury were handled. I’m still having difficulty finding the words to say what I mean, but I suppose I can try!

What’s meant to be shown is Toothless being drawn back into the wild. His needs need to be met there. The Light Fury is meant to represent that call back and what a wild animal needs to live a fulfilling life. When he sees her, after so long alone as the only member of his kind, his needs “click,” and he chases after what’s been missing ever since he left his kind.

For me, I feel as though this could have been handled better. Because the story put romantic undertones in Toothless and the Light Fury’s interactions (characters calling her a “girlfriend,” Toothless doing human flirtatious moves and actions, even the soundtrack providing titles like “Third Date”), it comes across to audiences in a romance > friendship angle. Hiccup, a friend of six years, isn’t enough for the Light Fury, a potential mate he barely knows. While the story wasn’t trying to make this about “friendships and romances are incompatible” or “romances are more fulfilling than friendships,” that concept still feels underlying in what THW presents to audiences.

Because of that, it feels like Toothless’ need to go back to the wild… isn’t actually a need to go back to the wild. It didn’t feel like Toothless’ life was stifled from being with humans so much as he was wanting to interact with one female. I know the movie also showed Toothless in the Hidden World, presenting himself as a “true king” (aka, what a real dragon leader can do when in a wild environment), but it was such a small part of the movie that the message of Toothless going after a female overshadows any other facets the story might have wanted to present.

To get the sense Toothless needs to be with his kind for wildness-related reasons, we could have watched him get emotionally fulfilled with others of his kind without a romantic connotation (that way, the “Am I not enough for you?” comment from Hiccup wouldn’t accidentally come across as “friendship isn’t enough”). Showing Toothless interacting meaningfully with other Furies, not just one Light Fury, and feeling particularly restless when with the humans, might have helped. His being bowed to by dragons in the Hidden World doesn’t come across as need fulfillment, after all, so it’s really just about him and our lady Light Fury.

It also might have helped to show Toothless interacting back-and-forth more with Hiccup in conflicted ways, to help us understand what he felt about their friendship. We don’t get enough of Toothless’ thoughts about Hiccup - it’s just him on the Light Fury all the time - that all of Hiccup’s selfless actions to let Toothless go end up feeling too one-sided to me. I know they had Toothless somewhat abruptly whiplash to the Light Fury to show what he needed, but the result was it was hard to feel everything Toothless should have been emoting. We got the sense he was interested in her. I don’t think we got a sense of how he felt conflicted or restricted in a human world. I don’t think we got a good sense of how this was impacting his relationship with Hiccup. While obliviousness of hurt your friend feels is a thing, the lack of Toothless engaging with Hiccup’s feelings throughout the film makes it hard for us to get a sense of his complicated situation and underlying needs.

I also think it might have helped to show more dragon society stuff. To show Toothless needing to protect his kind. This would both augment his needs as an individual, and the whole species’ needs. He’s the king of dragons, but we don’t see him restricted in helping them, or even see him feeling much need to protect them when he’s with humans. He’s focused on one Light Fury, not on concerns of where his entire species will end up or what his species as a whole will need. If all domesticated dragons need wild freedom and Toothless is the protector over them, it could have been interesting to see him interacting on that front. I could take or leave that… but… more to what I thought would help: If Toothless is the leader of all dragons and needs to protect them, it would have been nice to see his characterization and plot arc handle more with what Grimmel is doing to dragons as a whole… not just interacting with the Light Fury and being concerned when he and she get captured. Why can’t we get Toothless trying to help his whole kind integrally in this plot?

So because it turns, unintentionally or no, into this concept that Hiccup’s friendship isn’t enough, and can be quickly snapped out of when another Fury is near, it doesn’t feel satisfying that the solution is “goodbye friendship forever.” The intention is to be a moment of Selfless Sacrificial Love on Hiccup’s part to give Toothless something he uncompromisingly needs. And I LOVE Selfless Sacrificial Love. To be willing to give everything, even your own happiness, for someone you love… is the ultimate gift of friendship. But what should have been Selfless Sacrificial Love in this moment to me felt like “friendship isn’t enough.”

It’s also hard to play these call to the wild aspects, given the rest of the franchise. We see Toothless in GOTNF not go to the island for dragon-raising instincts when he could have flown there free; instead, he spends several days fishing out Hiccup’s helmet from the ocean. We see Toothless manage to break free of a natural Bewilderbeast draconic hive mind because he’s so connected to Hiccup, and fight against a dragon that his species would otherwise accept as alpha. We see Toothless destroy a tail that would allow him to get the freedom he needed… because he’d rather be codependent with Hiccup. We see the friendship needs overpower some of Toothless’ other wild animal instincts. Beyond those instinct moments, the franchise so much plays into how deep Hiccup and Toothless’ love is for each other, that THW’s a pull to the wild has to be very convincing to feel like it’s actually a greater need than Toothless’ emotional needs being met through the friendship of a lifetime.

I’ve had several people say it’s an understandable if bittersweet “growing up story” because, once we’re adults, we don’t see our friends as much. It’s important to be able to “let go” and let everyone live our lives. But that’s to the detriment of our society, not its strengths. There’s a reason younger generations are so freaktastically lonely and emotionally struggling. We’re not getting the human interactions we need. Letting go of a friendship doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you *HAVE* to leave - but unless there’s a VERY VERY VERY compelling reason to leave a friendship - staying in touch with someone will always be a plus. Human interaction is happiness. It’s not an “adult” thing to be less attached. It’s a societal problem that deals with the fact we’re not putting people as important and integral in our lives as we should be.

Wanting to stay friends with someone isn’t selfish. It’s selfish when you’re wanting something so bad that it’s to their detriment and there’s no possible compromise. THW wants to say Hiccup holding on is futilely trying to cling to something that can’t be, unless to Toothless’ detriment. However, it doesn’t feel like there’s enough to actually leave this friendship of a lifetime. Sure, Hiccup and Toothless shall always love each other, but to physically separate? Is THW actually compelling enough in how it frames Toothless’ needs… to suggest these overpower everything his relationship to Hiccup has been?

There are other reasons I’m unconvinced, but I’ll stop here. In short, I feel like neither main reason in THW for the dragons to leave was presented strongly enough that dragons had to leave. THW didn’t do enough to make the human world feel hostile enough. THW didn’t do enough to make the draconic call to the wild feel incompatible enough with humanity.

Since there wasn’t enough weight or danger or pressing issues, Hiccup separating from Toothless didn’t feel like the “necessary” solution. It didn’t feel like he had to let Toothless go. We got what it was going for, but it didn’t actually show us what it needed to make the separation feel the best course of action.

The concepts aren’t bad - they’re even lots of the same concepts of the books! - but this is why I feel a little iffy about how it was handled. Not to say it was terrible, or that I hated it. I don’t. This isn’t meant to be an angry post, because I’m not angry, but a reflective analysis. This is why I think there could have been more done to make what the story was trying to do… feel plausible.

#aaaaa you are so right!!#your analysis is so well written #thank you for putting all of this into perspective #AND in a non-hostile manner #httyd 3 #httyd movies #httyd thw

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