#Ansson the Abominable

[sarnai4]

Bullies

This is a point that I have seen addressed a little by fans but never by the series. Ansson seriously disturbs me as a bully. Let's start by considering ages.

Here, I have a headcanon of Dagur being 18 or 19 at the oldest (mostly 18). There are multiple reasons I feel this, but the short version is that he had the typical experience of an 18-year-old. Instead of going to college, he was "pushed out the nest" by being given the responsibility of being chief. He was still viewed as a kid by the older Vikings (even getting called "boy" by Alvin), which I feel is something older teenagers can understand. It's like he was technically an adult and wanted to be treated as one, but no one else saw him that way. Another reason is this:

In 3 years, he looks extremely different. Like the Riders, he has a complete makeover. He's more muscular and he's trying to grow a beard (however badly. Poor thing). Overall, he looks older. This is different from the older characters since older people naturally age slower than adolescents. So, I think he wouldn't have had such a drastic physical change had he not been so young. Therefore, I think he is 21 in RTTE and probably just looks a bit older with bags under his eyes and everything because of his time spent in prison. This might seem unrelated, but I now present Ansson.

Can anyone truthfully say that he looks younger than 30? Another detail is a subtle one used in the show. Older characters like Stoick, Viggo, etc. have accents outside of America whereas the younger characters don't. The only exception are people from other lands like the Wing Maidens and Defenders. It's an indirect way of making viewers relate to the leads more since they can have something in common with them. Dagur has an American accent, but Ansson doesn't. Truthfully, I think Ansson is older than 30, but let's be generous. If he is 30 and if Dagur is at his oldest at 22, there is an 8 year difference between them. Bullying anyone is wrong, but it becomes particularly cruel when your target is so much younger than you. On top of this, I bring in my final image:

A tattoo of Dagur's face with a fist on top. This not only indicates the violent nature of the bullying but is also highly unsettling. There is never a line about this. Still, think about the mindset required to tattoo someone you dislike enough to bully onto yourself. This is not just talking badly about someone. It's more than a bully who pushes people in a locker. Ansson has two tattoos. One is of Dagur and the other is of the Scauldron/Thunderbeast. What do they both have in common? They're both Ansson's obsessions. I wish more people spoke about this, but there is something deeply wrong about it existing. At some point, someone should have stepped in - namely Oswald. I think this got dismissed because Dagur is Dagur and he knows how to handle himself. This is true, but as a child, it's not fair for him to have this Viking who is significantly older have an unhealthy obsession with him that led to physically and verbally abusive behavior. So little is known about Dagur's past. This is one of many areas I would like to explore.

[mothratta]

bullying the bully

[geekinator]

Ansson the Abominable (or Incompetent, depending on who you ask) has some pretty telling tattoos. The one on his right arm looks a little like Dagur, who is getting beat up. And the left arm has the Thunderfish aka a Scauldron. Nice extra bits, animation team.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Hi Haddock! I really enjoy reading your analyses and I was just thinking about Dagur, and how it was revealed in In Plain Sight that he was bullied as a kid by Ansson the Abominable. I was just wondering about how you think that might've translated into how he treated Hiccup as a kid, and how it reflects on how he acts as a character through out the whole series. Keep up the awesome work!

Hiya there! This is a really good topic to discuss! A good prompt. To be honest, though, I’d be a little hesitant to talk about this subject because I don’t think I could talk about it authentically. I know I’m good at understanding human motivations, actions, emotions, and choices, which is why I love to analyze characters’ personalities and experiences. However, in the case of bullying, many people would be better talking about this than me. 

I’m an anomaly of society in that I had essentially zero personal experience with bullying. I was a happy, innocent kid growing up - sometime naive to situations around me, or in other cases was in such a positive environment that I never experienced some common types of duress until far later. In the case of bullying, I grew up in a very small private Christian school where I was on good terms with basically everyone in my class (easy to do, as we had about 20-40 students per grade and 350 students in the school total from K-12). I butted heads with kids, sure, and sometimes they were annoying… (and I wasn’t like the “popular” person of the school) but bullying wasn’t really a thing. I’ll be honest… I thought it was a plot device for movies rather than something that actually happened. I thought bullying was fiction. (Yikes).

As is such, I had a VASTLY unusual childhood compared to most of my friends and most of everyone reading this post. Almost everyone I know now was bullied or saw bullies or interacted with bullies. Turns out bullies were everywhere and I just drew the luckiest straw as a child to not experience this. So sure, I can synthesize psychological reasons for Dagur and Ansson’s actions… but I think it’ll go to tell that I hadn’t had much experience with bullies. I could make a mistake from my lack of first hand experience and unintentionaly say some inaccurate things that might make people who were bullied feel uncomfortable, and that’s the last thing I want. This is an important and prevalent topic, after all, that sits close to many peoples’ experiences! My lack-of-experience certainly makes me not-the-best candidate to talk about this. I think people who’ve actually experienced this more closely should be the ones to analyze the topic.

I wish I could do more with your prompt. Sorry about that! But there could be some other people out there who have thought about this and could give some good discussion!