#simular to toothless

[ethan-acfan]

Thinking about desmond turning into a dragon (think night fury from httyd) and absolutely fucking with his ancestors

I already preach that if desmond survived, he would have electricity/lighting powers. Now take that and turn him into a silly dragon who hangs out in Malik's bureau, causing problems. Or discovering a Tempalr base and absolutely destroying it and accidentally causing rumors about the assassins to start up about how they have a mythical beast on their side. (Their not wrong but they don't need to know that)

Imagine Altair getting cornered in a fight and then turning to the guards with a huge grin before giving an ear piercing whistle, and within seconds, half of their ranks have been struck down with lightning and the other half it actively on fire. Altair disappears from the fight, and people start to speculate that he managed to befriend a god or become one himself. Desmond does not like this but is too proud of his skills to reveal himself. He does make sure to let Altair "slip" from his grasp as pay back.

With Ezio, he gets a reputation for having a huge beast following him everywhere. Anyone who knows Ezio knows that it's just Desmond wanting attention. Also, multiple borgia towers were "mysteriously struck by lightning" (ezio is glaring at desmond while he goes and puts the fires out). Leo also loves studying Desmond. Specifically, his wings and desmond is just happy to be getting treats and ear scratches.

Connor thinks that desmond is some guardian of the forest, although he does have a bad habit of "accidentally" setting haythem's cape on fire. The sailors think he brings Goodluck to the boat and all give him treats for keeping the place safe. He enjoys rolling around on the deck or flying above head up in the clouds and absolutely demolishing any ships who try to attack the Aquila. Connor enjoys having him around the homestead until he manages to get into the house and makes a mess with all the weapons.

[harriettedanielsnarrative]

Before deciding to take the information I have about dragons and plan my essay, I decided to watch one last video before doing so. 

Taking notes from the videos, I have posted the notes written from the video. 

The first page states back to talking about the history of dragons, only this time It goes back to talking about history furthur back- going as far as Back to the Aztecs. ‘Aztecs worshipped Quetzalcoatl before they became fire breathing monsters in western history. He was a God of wisdom and life’

It also goes back to a point I talked about, the Greeks. ‘A serpent dragon Ladon was trusted with guarding immortality granting golden apples, until he was defeated by the demi God Hercules’. 

(I have included links in the bibliography to confirm that his statements are true as some of the statements made int he mans video do not have resources). 

So we can see that dragons were actually worshipped in the beginning as gods and were very much linked with immortality and life. 

However, we can see from the story with Ladon that this dragon is eventually killed by Hercules as we can see in the depictions of the dragons as well as being sacred- they were also something to be fearful of. 

This is because we can tell instantly that depictions of dragons with their scales and general appearance are very much giant reptiles- in particular, snakes. 

‘Our earliest threat to humanity, snakes have been around since 100 million years ago and had around 20 million years of eating placental mammals before predatory birds and carnivorous mammals evolved’

‘Snakes had been eating every interaction of our evolving ancestors for millions of years’ 

‘By the time homosapians evolved and developed language we were talking about our oldest enemy- snakes’ 

As the quotes continue, we can clearly see where the beginning of the of dragons had started.  In fact it goes onto talk to about the ‘snake detection hypothesis’ and talks about how ‘primates evolved to detect dangerous animals- primarily venomous snakes’ as these were our biggest challenging in evolving as a species.

‘In the fruit, the tree’s and the serpent anthropologist Lynne Isbell explains the hypothesis: Snakes evolved to be difficult and mortally dangerous. Surviving the peril of snakes for millions of years required selective pressure favouring primates specialised visual systems.’

To put it into simpler terms- Primates have specialised vision which helps them see snakes- helping them to survive.

‘He unquotes the book and continues- ‘compared to other mammals, the puluinar region of the brain, which helps detect visually relevant objects, is disproportionately large in primates and humans’.

To quote more simply, the sight is precocious in primates and humans- its not something we’re inherently aware of or learned.

So from this we begin to understand where the fear of dragons begins as the majority of dragons always at least share one conman appearance with snakes and this helps me understand more why the Vikings are so scared and angry against the dragons- not just because they are seen as pests, but because through their heritage and natural human instincts- it is natural for us to be afraid of snakes which the dragons in httyd are very mush like as some share the long, thing snake like appearance such as the ‘hideous zippleback’ which has a scaly body, long thing tail that breaks into two almost looking like two snakes and the long, thing heads with bulging eyes and big heads just like a snake. 

However, the video continues to say ‘In an instinct for dragons, David E. Jones writes that the dragon is a composite creature of the three major predators of primates- serpent, carnivore and raptor.’ 

This is because, whilst the hideous zippleback is very simular to a snake- snakes don’t have wings or legs! And we can see that many dragons have wings and legs such as the Ladon. 

‘He believes that combining them into one monster is a natural indexing mechanism performed by the brain to consolidate a message.’

‘That message is to recognise, beware and honour what Georgess McHargue called in her 1968 book the beasts that never “the oldest the first and the most basic monster”. 

‘Humbba demigod, whose dragon like characteristics involved the head of a lion, the claws of a vulture, a body covered in thorny scales and a tail that ended in a snakes head’. 

I feel that this ‘oldest first and most basic monster’ is that it is an old legend to be fearful of such creatures and yet, when broken down- they are pretty simple to figure out- dragons are all things we as humans, as part of our evolution of survival, are terrified of. 

We can see such appearances such as the Humbaba demigod and the terrifying effects it has on people with dragons such as the dragons from httyd. For example the Monstrous Nightmare. 

 at 4:10 Hiccups begins to describe the Monstrous nightmare and when compared to the other dragons, this one is the one ‘only the best vikings go after those’  ‘they have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire’. 

We can tell from this dragon that this is very feared amongst the villagers and vikings. It has a scale like appearance and this time has a tiger like pattern like it as well as monstrously sharp talons and claws as well as horns on the top of its head (almost as if its representing the devil?). It also doesn't have front legs and its wings are actually also its arms, which could be related to birds of prey.

However contradictory to this we see Toothless, at first we see him as an intimidating, vicious dragon that was described as ‘the holy off spring of lighting and death itself’ and we can see that serpent, carnivore and raptor traits come through as he’s intimidating Hiccup and getting to know him. However as Toothless begins to trust Hiccup, we see a puppy like personality come through with big, cat like eyes. He starts to display behaviour that dogs and cats would show when they begin to trust someone.

For example, a sign of trust in cats is ‘Your cat brings you their presents’ in a scene where Hiccup brings Toothless fish, Toothless eats half of the fish then coughs the other half back- presenting it to Hiccup as a ‘present’- a sign of trust. 

With dogs, although I feel its more obvious to tell with dogs that they trust you, an example that you have built a bond with a dog is if it ‘Listens and responds to you’. An example of this in httyd is subtle (quite like the example!) but its when Toothless begins to respond to being called ‘Toothless’ because obviously he didn’t have a name before he met Hiccup! However The first time Hiccup calls Toothless ‘Toothless’ we go into scenes of how Hiccup gains Toothless’s trust and after these, we see Toothless begin to respond to his new name. 

‘Conquering or harnessing the power of this symbol of natures chaos granted the hero the power to create order’   

I feel this is such a fitting quote to the this scene, especially to the introduction of the hideous nightmare as who should be fighting the dragon that ‘only the best vikings’ go for? Stoick- the leader of the village. He is the leader of this village and we see him taking control, fighting each type of the dragon- but it is only him that fights the one that only the bravest vikings go for so this gives Stoick power that the other villagers don’t have, to become the leader. 

And we see that this symbol of dragon slayer, to have power and to granted the hero is so desperately what Hiccup wants as he see’s Astrid and the others being able to do this. He wants to help keep the order- but only makes it worse when he gets involved.