#'they didn't have a lot of reading material on berk' Fishlegs had enough to literally embody the stereotypical nerd personality

[westwindy1]

I resent the idea that Hiccup's booksmart.

I’m mostly speaking towards the way people treated Hiccup post the release of the first movie when I say this, however I don’t think Hiccup is anywheres near a conventional genius- or a traditional nerd as the way television portrays it- in the sense that he's great at listing off off stats and is a genius at math and gets 'A's all the time. Not for most of everything we see from him in the franchise.

I don't think he could list off and complete complex calculations in his head off the bat, either.

Things don't come to him immediately, he jots down a copy of toothless' tail fin but doesn't know straight off the bat how to make a verison of Toothless' tail that works, he has to work at his designs it and go through tons of prototypes. He's not a fantastic artist, his sketches are solid but they're messy, a bit 'off', stiff, not great, though everything is translated into cartoon terms if we look at what he draws versus the other things we see in the series his stuff is completely different to how we see other sketches made by other characters in the httyd franchise (like the book of dragons, fishlegs' dragon cards, comparatively he's alright). He's not practiced in things like drawing life and etc and I frankly can't imagine that he'd care too much about improving his skills beyond what he needs to document dragons and scribble down inventions. He can draw something decent if that's what's needed to get things done. I think he gets better as he gets older, though my point still stands.

He's not necessarily a mathematician, even though to make his inventions he has to do a lot of math- he's an inventor working with what he has. His focus is more on the product he's making- that's what all his labor and love goes into, and he's probably not that great at math at all given how many times things blow up in his face- he's average, I think, though his propensity to work at things relentlessly means that he's a lot better than everyone else at it.

He's a genius in the sense that he has some crazy useful ideas but not a genius in the sense that 'he totally has the pieces all down pat.' He has to learn, to figure things out- all of his skills are built. He's innovative, moreso than anyone else on Berk.

Hiccup is really good at taking the initiative, he's a hard worker and he's stubborn. That's why he's able to achieve more. Those are the qualities that allow him to shoot down and make friends with Toothless, that make him a decent mechanic and a phenomenal Viking as a physically average guy in a world full of crazy musclemen.

His talent is putting things together. Half the joy of being able to watch him is being able to experience his process.

Hiccup in any ways being bookish and shy in the most traditional sense is a genuine disservice to that, especially when we already have Fishlegs.