History Fanfic / AThingOfVikings

** The Hooligans have culturally evolved in a different direction than the mainstream Norse, much less the rest of Europe, due to pressures from the Dragon War forcing them to adapt and adopt practical changes. Specifically:

*** They abolished thralldom because defending their homes from dragons requires as many hands as possible. This is downplayed in that several characters do understand the pragmatic origins of the abolishment, but even thralls are caught off guard by the practice of universal freemanship at first.

*** They have universal literacy to preserve critical knowledge. Should for example, a Lawspeaker die because they attacked a Monstrous Nightmare sorely under-equipped while drunk, someone else will need to know the laws to replace him. And the incident did in fact happen and is cited by Gobber when he explains to Wulfhild why they write all these things down.
*** They have instituted social welfare because anyone could find themselves homeless and destitute because of a dragon-raid, and to make sure the tribe as a whole can survive, they need their worst off to be able to get back on their feet.
*** They abolished thralldom because defending their homes from dragons requires as many hands as possible, and when half their defenders had been injured from one bad raid night, the chief of the time promised every thrall freedom if they took up arms.
*** They abandoned the practice of exposing infants deemed weak due to the tribe's low birthrates resulting in them prizing any child they get.
*** They give their infants absurd or at least unconventional names out of a belief that it protects their children from real and imagined dangers.

** Why are they all literate when in that era, even the aristocracy aren't good at reading? Because writing things down ensures critical knowledge isn't lost in the event of someone's death (and because a Jewish refugee taught them).

* RapePillageAndBurn: Standard operating procedure for most armies at the time. {{Defied|Trope}} however by Berk despite being proud unabashed Vikings who still worship Odin and Thor and indeed Stoick very specifically forbids any raiding using dragons. Most everyone else, however, knows nothing about Berk other than they're Vikings on dragon-back and thus fear the results and take actions based on the ''assumption'' that they will go raiding, regardless of repeated demonstrations and evidence that Stoick and Hiccup will not allow raiding without justification and that attacking them anyway is a lethally stupid course of action.

* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: Because of the need to build new houses quickly after they get burned down by dragons during the Dragon War, the Hooligans developed efficient construction techniques that helps them rebuild quickly. These techniques gets applied to the Dragon Mail stations when the construction expedition begins, with one epigraph noting the expedition can finish constructing one within days of finishing the previous one.

** Berk jumps from a fishing town to a global superpower within a single lifetime, and Medieval Europe and Asia stumble into an early industrial revolution complete with dragons... all because a boy wanted to impress a girl by killing a dragon.

** [[spoiler: Mildew used to be a Hofferson before being banished from his clan, and is Astrid's great-granduncle]].

** In China, dragon attacks are interpreted as symbolic of the emperor losing their heaven's mandate of their right to rule.

* {{Sadist}}: Toiréasa witnesses Savage torture a prisoner, and realises that he's driven by a genuine desire to cause pain for the sake of it.

** Politics: As a direct result of the military advantages of dragons, the Hairy Hooligans tribe which only had about seven hundred members at the start of the story almost overnight became a major world power comparable to entire countries as soon as people heard about it with other nations tripping over themselves to form tangible alliances with them. The first one to succeed, Norway, benefited a lot from that alliance.

* ClosestThingWeveGot: The reason Stoick picked Heather to be his spymaster in spite of her lack of any training for it is because she is one of the few the Hooligans had available to have ''any'' training in spycraft whatsoever.

** The back story of Mildew includes him framing a dragon of burning down a building in Berk much like how he did in [[Recap/DragonsRidersOfBerkS1E5InDragonsWeTrust In Dragons We Trust]] complete with most of the tribe convinced that a dragon was responsible and the ones that don't aren't able to prove it.

** The back story of Mildew includes him framing a dragon of burning down a building in Berk much like how he did in [[Recap/DragonsRidersOfBerkS1E5InDragonsWeTrust In Dragons We Trust]] complete with most of the tribe convinced that a dragon was responsible and the ones that don't

** {{Downplayed|Trope}}; like in the show, [[spoiler: Alvin wants to steal Berk's dragon-riding secrets, and sends Heather as a spy to do that]], but the means, method and [[spoiler:outcome]] of that parallel are completely redone.
** The [[spoiler:avalanche from Animal House is also given a nod, but instead of being a few seconds of ShipTease like it was in the show]], it instead is treated as a life-threatening incident that eats up most of a chapter with search and rescue efforts.
** The discovery of Gronckle Iron (here retconned as being steel, as opposed to some sort of super metal) being the result of Fishlegs and Meatlug indulging in some stress-induced binge-eating.
** [[spoiler: Mildew's use of Blue Oleander and his later betrayal of Berk (albeit to Mac Bethad instead of Alvin).]]

* GlobalCurrency: Dragon scales and teeth becomes in use as a currency far beyond Berk's territories, with even their enemies using them.

*** He accidentally discovers a way to cheaply mass produce steel, eight hundred and fourteen years before it was in real life.

** Two villains are named Michael, the Byzantine Emperor Michael V and the priest Father Michael Henriksson.

** [[spoiler:Henry the Sinister and his wife Joan]] are both evil, with her even being the one to suggest [[spoiler:Henry rape Hawiz to get a bastard heir to Brittany]]. She [[PlayingTheVictim pretends to be a victim of his]] to escape from the Hooligans after [[spoiler:Henry is defeated]].

** Inga Roswynsdoittor looks like Marian Tomas Griffin, when she was 18.

* FalseFlagOperation: [[spoiler:Mac Bethad manages to pull one of these off between Berk and England, framing the latter for luring Hiccup and co. into a trap, prompting the former to declare war on Harthacnut.]]

** In Chapter 2, the lack of options for Ruffnut in men close to her age besides her brother is brought up and foreshadows two different things. [[spoiler: Ruffnut would later find love outside the tribe, ''King Magnus of Norway'', and all as part of an alliance between Berk and Norway. It also foreshadows that Deadly Nadder venom can cause miscarriages if even a small prick hits a pregnant women, which is why there was a lack of options for Ruffnut in the first place]].

** Before TheReveal of [[spoiler: a Jew joining the Hooligan tribe roughly a century in the past and a significant portion of the present Hooligan tribe as well as the ruling families of the Meatheads and Bog Burglars are descended from him]], there was a ''lot'' of foreshadowing. In Chapter 6, Bladewit's patronymic is Drorsdoitter. Dror is not a Norse name. In Chapter 41, Fishlegs mentions that his great-grandfather could speak Evreet and Aramaya, which given that he was from France, is highly unusual. In Chapter 42, Gunvor mentions that the Hooligans traditional way of counting people is to have them pay a coin and count those, which is a [[spoiler: Jewish tradition]]. In Chapter 55, when telling Heather about him, Fishlegs mentioned that by his people's custom of handling patronymics, he was Dror [[spoiler: ben Ezra]].

* GenderReveal: [[spoiler: Gudmund Hallvarsson is actually Heidrun Hallvarsdoittor, a fact she reveals after kissing Sigurd, and while he's sputtering in surprise and confusion, still not getting it, decides to take drastic measures and pulls off her shirt, just to get it through his very dense head]].

* HegemonicEmpire: [[spoiler: Starting with Veisafjord conquering themselves and giving themselves to Hiccup, Berk found itself with expanding territories with people who want to be their vassals due to their high standards-of-living]].

* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Hiccup in spades. He still hasn't gotten used to the transition from being an awkward skinny viking who wouldn't kill a dragon to being the Hero of Berk. He is embarrassed when, in chapter 2, he is called upon to hear and approve a saga written about him. In chapter 51 he even tells his father he feels like a fake hero.

* HonestAdvisor: Lawspeaker Bladewit Drorsdoittor clanhead Ingerman. Constant pain in Stoick's ass, senior jurist, head of the Ingerman clan... and with enough honesty and integrity that she will deliver a legal decision that she hates on a deeply personal level, because ''that is the law''.

* SelectiveObliviousness: Mildew is able to manipulate Taskill so easily because he tailored his slander of Stoick and the Hooligans to fit Taskill's preconceptions of vikings. It's so effective that Taskill dismisses his spies reports that Berk has no intention of attacking Mac Bethad. [[spoiler:It took seeing Berk with his own eyes, months of trying to reconcile the discrepancy between his preconceptions and what Berk's actually like, and Rikard specifically taking time out of his day to talk to Taskill about what kind of manipulative bastard Mildew is for him to realise the Confirmation Bias trap he fell into]].

* StandardRoyalCourt: Given the abundance of characters who are royals and other aristocrats, there's plenty shown courts. Consistent among most is that besides the ruler, there's a marshall in charge of the army, a spymaster in charge of espionage, a steward in charge of finance and other duties, and a herald to be their ambassador. Berk's Royal Court also has the Master of Dragons, who is in charge of all dragon-related issues, and High Almoner, who is in charge of making sure there is enough food and beds to go around for all citizens and visitors. The Pechenegs also have the [[spoiler:Dragon Warlord, a position filled by Drago Bludvist, which combines the positions of marshal and Master of the Dragon into one role]].

* StraightForTheCommander: Hiccup [[spoiler:and later the Roman dragon-riders under Snotlout]] find that dragons make targeting the enemy leader ''really easy''.

** [[spoiler: Meet the Afro-Norse warrior Gudmund Hallvarsson working as a mercenary for the Byzantine Empire, a.k.a. Heidrun Hallvarsdoittor, ''sister'' of Gabriel Hallvarsson.]]