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howtodrawyourdragon · 10 months ago

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Hey! Do you really think that pacifist Hiccup is fanon? No judgment, just...again, surprised by this interpretation. I'd imagine that if canon really thought Hiccup was balanced, they would have shown more of a moral struggle over the deaths related to him, no? But it's often left ambiguous (see Drago or random dragon hunter #3 who gets blasted out of the way Idk), which (to me) means people happily lived. Because they disappeared left and right without regard or mourning. We see no dead dragons or people on the ground after the Battle of the Bewilderbeast, for example, which makes the assumption that a lot of humans and animals must have died there, "objectively" wrong. Of course they needed to keep it kids-friendly, but I'd think if Hiccup was truly ruthless towards any threat to his family, they would have made the cost of peace a little more of an apparent theme. Thoughts?

I genuinely believe that Hiccup being a pacifist is a fanon thing because there's nothing in the actual canon to prove that he is.

Does Hiccup oppose war? Yes, he does. Httyd 2 is all about him wanting to prevent it from happening. In R(D)oB the thing with hiding the dragons away from Dagur was also to prevent a potential war with the Berserkers. (A war that did end up happening, although because Hiccup and Berk lied to Dagur and Hiccup fake protected him.)

Does Hiccup entirely oppose violence? Even as a means of settling disputes? No, he doesn't and every battle ever proves that. (More on that in the RttE section)

And if Httyd had a higher rating, we probably would've seen those bodies and we'd probably also see Stoick lying in pieces or at least disembowled from taking a plasma blast to the chest for his son and said son covered in his blood. The fact that we don't is simply because Httyd needs to appeal to all audiences and for the majority kids, like you said.

But this doesn't mean that people aren't actively dying in the tv-shows.

Barely passable screenshots, but these are from 'Heather Report Part 2' when Alvin holds Astrid above a cliff and that's not the face of someone who wants to be careful as he tells his Night Fury to blast him away.

Alvin gave Hiccup a choice in that scene; "surrender or I'll... well, you know the rest." Which in this context means that Hiccup should surrender or Alvin will drop Astrid to her death. Hiccup chooses to instead tell Toothless to "do it." And I doubt this means he holds no value for Astrid's life, but letting Alvin get away with the Book of Dragons just isn't an option either.

And let's not forget 'We Are Family Part 2', in which Hiccup and Toothless are so angry at Alvin for taunting him after hurting them (it's stated for days) that they don't think clearly and turn back around just to hurt him. A calculated move on Alvin's part, who hoped Hiccup would be too angry to think clearly. Angry people don't make for merciful people either.

Moving on from Alvin, shipwrecks are already hard to survive. You would need to wait for help to come to you and that is if you:

Don't drown first

Don't get picked off by predators

Die from lack of food or drinkable water

Die from exposure

Die from sickness

The USS Indianapolis is famous for having most of it's crew survive (like, 800 to 900 men?) the initial sinking of the ship only to lose most except for a little over 300 to exposure, lack of food/water and sharks. This crew started with over 1,100 men and only a little over 300 survived for four days until others learned of the sinking and send help. And that's a ship that sank in WWII, let alone a Viking ship that's mostly wood and doesn't have fancy ways to send for help.

Remember that comedic moment of Dagur vowing he's going to make Hiccup kiss his boots in the 'Smoke Gets in Your Eye' episode? When he's sitting on a piece of driftwood after the Smothering Smokebreaths tore his ships apart by taking all the metal out of them?

A funny moment, but Dagur genuinely could've died from either of the causes listed above and it's not like Hiccup looked back and had second thoughts, he went home and was glad Dagur wasn't terrorizing his village for another day.

There are plenty of times in RoB and DoB in which Hiccup and Toothless hurt people and dragons alike. Is it his intention to kill? Absolutely not, but he doesn't shy away from violence either.

For a character the fandom largely appears to consider a pacifist, he sure does spend a lot of his time committing violent acts.

Even his future wife has a tendency to show love and excitement by punching him in the dorsal fin button before giggling. Would a real pacifist put up with that? He literally spars with her for fun and she gets to throw him around, they both like doing that!

Would a pacifist even survive in a place like Berk? Where everyone is so rough and disputes sometimes easily escalate to violent action with sharp objects involved? If that is the case, we might as well call Stoick a pacifist, because he's the one going around stopping these disputes from escalating that far.

But anyway, moving on to RttE!

In Snow Way Out, this is what Hiccup says:

"If there's one chance to settle this without bloodshed, I have to try."

And seconds after, Hiccup has this interaction with Ryker:

Ryker - "In that case, surrender and you won't meet the same fate as your dragons."

Hiccup - "Okay, here's my offer. Leave now and your men won't have to find out what burning flesh smells like.

Fanon and canon agree that Hiccup is a bad liar. If he wasn't, he probably would've been able to come up with a better excuse then "I'm making... outfits!" when Astrid is on the cusp of finding out about Toothless.

Which means that Hiccup is not lying in this scene. Which means Hiccup intends on following through. Could be just a bluff, he and the rest of the Dragon Riders are kind of cornered in this scene, but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to fight his way out if his only other options are either surrender or die.

And he says it quite easily for a character so many consider a pacifist. A threat to burn Ryker's men alive.

The thing is, Hiccup probably does know what burning flesh smells like, he grew up in a village torn by war in which the other side are fire-breathing dragons. He's also literally one of the oldest children of three (he, Astrid and Snotlout are canonically 20 in Httyd 2 while Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs 19) and the kids that aren't his peers are years younger than him. If you pay close attention to who walks around on Berk in Httyd 1, there are huge gaps in ages that continue into the tv-shows and the other movies.

So Hiccup probably is desensitized to seeing all of that, which could explain his lack of a reaction to taking lives, (a tsunami gets more of a reaction out of him) but that doesn't mean he can't mourn the failure in preventing more loss.

And let's not forget that this is also the episode in which Hiccup gave Toothless the order to shoot down Windshear, Heather and Ryker. Windshear and Heather who he considered friends until recently.

In the Guardians of Vanaheim episode, he has that moment in which he almost kills that Flyer with the Dragonblade in retaliation for the "deaths" of the Sentinels. The Riders genuinely think Hiccup is going to kill that Flyer, you can see it on their faces, which means even they think he's capable of that. Now ultimately, Hiccup decides not to and he tells the twins that they won't be torturing the prisoner. (And it's probably because of moments like that that fans decide Hiccup is a pacifist, despite all the violence he regularly partakes in)

But that doesn't change the fact that Hicctooth, Stormstrid and Snotfang chase after the Flyers with the intention of making sure that they never tell Johann about Vanaheim.

Flyer - "All I know is Johann will be very interested to learn of its existence. The others left to inform him,"

Tuffnut - "We should probably tell Hiccup."

Hiccup - "I heard, Tuff. Let's go everyone. We have to catch those Flyers."

And that is what they do. They catch up to the Flyers and make sure that they don't tell Johann about Vanaheim's existence and Vanaheim isn't mentioned again, implying that Johann never did learn about it.

Now, the show does decide to show us the Flyers surviving (one of the few they actually show us surviving, too) but that has more to do with RttE's rating than whether Hiccup is a pacifist or not. Because Hiccup really did use lightning to down them and being struck by lightning can be very, very lethal. For both the Flyers as well as the Singetails.

(And honestly, are we meant to think that they never left that little island? Considering Johann never found out about Vanaheim? Still leaves their survival kind of up for interpretation.)

In the King of Dragons two-parter, Hiccup tells his Dragon Riders to make sure Johann's ships don't make it out. That is a thing that he says.

Hiccup - "All right. Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout, you take out the ships. Make sure this is their last voyage."

All three of these moments show us Hiccup's willingness to do what it takes and it does include taking lives.

Although Hiccup does draw a hard line at when innocents are involved. Like how he didn't want to hurt the Singetails that were being forced to carry the Flyers. But it's also worth mentioning, that he did not plan on holding back when it came to the Rumblehorn that he believed threatened Gobber's life. (In RoB/DoB he didn't hold back with the Whispering and Screaming Deaths either. Even amongst dragons, Hiccup makes a clear distinction between "good" and "bad".)

That we either don't see the bodies if they're dropped by Hiccup and friends or see the enemy survive somehow (unless someone neutral or the enemy themselves take them out) has everything to do with the rating and Httyd's audience. Even the Red Death's death was bloodless and she exploded. Bits of her should've been everywhere! Instead we had the ash gently falling down to the earth.

This franchise isn't Game of Thrones, it's Httyd and Httyd has a rating that makes it appropriate for all ages. GoT level rating for Httyd probably would've given Hiccup+dragons Targaryen+dragons levels of carnage. And that isn't the case simply because of Httyd's intended audience.

And as for Hiccup's lack of a reaction to deaths supposedly caused by him, if we go back to the desensitization thing, if you used to watch people and/or dragons die in battle every other night for 15 of the most influential years of your life, you're not going to look up when you head into battle as a (young) adult on the back of a fire-breathing dragon and weep for every life snuffed out by you and your best Bud. Because one is a casualty of war and the other murder and something Hiccup hasn't done is murder.

^^^^ That is Hiccup's face as he looks into the water to see if he can spot a single sign that Drago has survived. He doesn't look like he's remorseful for Drago dying, instead he just looks worried. And knowing Hiccup's history with Drago and the reason why he set out to change his mind in the first place, it's not worry for Drago himself. It's worry that he might've survived. That he could come back to hurt his loved ones and (most importantly) his village again.

^^^^ Followed be the face of someone who wishes things had gone differently.

This is probably the biggest proof that Hiccup was meant to be chief. He set out to protect his village and he'll remain worried for his village. Maybe a hottake, but thematically/from a writer's standpoint, that points towards Hiccup destiny to be chief.

Of course, we know Drago canonically didn't survive due to the re-writes of Httyd 3 and the cancelation of The Fire Tides.

Now, I could talk about the Serpent's Heir.

I could talk about the absolute decisiveness in Hiccup's expression and everybody's lack of a reaction to Hiccup setting a guy on fire (the most we get is Astrid stating how she couldn't keep him out of trouble) and how this is the clearest evidence of Hiccup taking lives with his own two hands to protect himself, but most importantly, Toothless. (And just like many villains before him, Hiccup did try to talk sense into Calder)

I could talk about Dragonvine (I don't have an online version of that comic) and how Toothless was poisoned and Hiccup almost hurt young Silkspanners because he believed they were about to make Toothless' last few hours in life Hell. (Meaning each comic gave an example of Hiccup protecting Toothless against a human and dragons respectively)

But the movies and shows are teeming with examples of Hiccup getting his hands dirty (either with his own two hands or through Toothless) to protect either himself or someone he loves. And that makes him the exact opposite of a pacifist. Because Hiccup will use violence to protect who he loves and what he believes in.

But like I said, Hiccup isn't a one-dimensional character and it's true that he doesn't want violence to be his first option. Rather he'll often give his foes the chance to resolve things peacefully if it prevents bloodshed on both sides. I've mentioned it once before in another post, but with how many casualties there are on the opposite side at all times and none on the side of the Dragon Riders (minus the occasional arrow wound or Stoick's death) it's only fair for Hiccup to give his foes the chance the back out. It's just that they never do, always underestimating him and the Dragon Riders.

And with the Red Death that kind of was never an option to begin with and Hiccup knew that.

But we do see him try to forgive his foes even though they've either stabbed him in the back before or are obviously planning to and that is likely where the "naive" part comes from. But Hiccup is also 15 to 20 years old, he doesn't even have half as much life experience as his foes do, who are every single one of them grown-ass adults well over a decade older than him.

And we do see him have moments of remorse, like in RttE when he tells Viggo that things didn't have to end so fatally in Shell-shocked Part 2 or when we see him make a big deal about not hurting the innocent Singetails in season 5 or even when deciding to give the fishing boat with the Scourge of Odin a proper send off. I think that's where the "pacifist" part of the fancanon probably comes from.

Even though we not only see Hiccup actively partake in violence without lying awake about it, but also be smug about both big and small wins and simply enjoy the thrill. (And to repeat once more, he actively enjoys sparring with his wife who likes punching his dorsal fin button to show him just how excited she is about something)

But anyway, a veeeeeeeerrryy long way of ranting about how the proof that Hiccup isn't a pacifist is from Httyd 1 all the way to httyd 2 (And the two comics) and that actual on-screen deaths are only not there purely because the franchise's audience is still largely children. :)

#asks #tenebrius-excellium #httyd movies #httyd #how to train your dragon #rob #riders of berk #dob #defenders of berk #rtte #race to the edge #httyd 2 #how to train your dragon 2 #hiccup haddock

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