Headscratchers / How to Train Your Dragon 2

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Valka abandons her family

• Okay, while Valka seems nice and all with taking care of dragons I have to ask: WHAT WAS SHE EVEN THINKING? When we saw the flashback with the dragons attacking Berk, she sees a dragon in her house, it's near her baby, she has sword with her to fight the dragon and/or save her child. But because she "can't kill a dragon" she's not going to do ANYTHING to get the dragon, who even cuts her son's cheek, away from baby Hiccup. Look I get what she's talking about dragons not being as bad as we think but her child was in danger. She even mentions that Hiccup was very coming into the world and that he might not have even made it. Even after being taken by the dragons she never even came back to say or, hell even prove, that dragons aren't killers. She just spent the last TWENTY years away from her family in favor of the dragon because "Stoik wouldn't understand". I'm sorry but she really sucks as a mom if she'll gladly abandon her family, the people that she REALLY loves, to be with dragons.
  • Quite the interpretation you've got there, but you're forgetting one thing: perspective. From Valka's perspective, she witnesses a dragon commit a gentle act. From up close, she sees a dragon playing with a human child, and in that moment Valka sees a future—a future that sees humans and dragons working together. When she saw Cloudjumper with Hiccup, she saw a future that she thought was impossible. Sometimes the most beautiful and impossible thing can stop people who are in the middle of war. The fact that she didn't attack Cloudjumper to protect Hiccup is very telling of her character and of the point in the whole story: dragons are gentle creatures, intelligent and beautiful, and are not natural enemies of mankind. That small moment was her version of Hiccup's own discoveries in the first movies. To her, it was proof that everything they knew about dragons was wrong. Remember her statement, and that even she believed exactly what you're accusing of: she's a terrible person because she "can't kill a dragon." It's a Call-Back to Hiccup's own words in the first movie. He couldn't kill dragons, and because we know this, we know that Valka was mistaken. She wasn't a horrible person for not killing a dragon to protect her child, because she saw that she didn't need to. Cloudjumper wasn't doing any harm. "But he cut Hiccup!" you say. Sure, but how many times have dogs and cats accidentally scratched a toddler while playing with them? It was clear from the animation that Cloudjumper had merely put too much weight on the cradle. In fact, once he realized it, Cloudjumper moved his claw away! And as a final point, her believing that Stoick wouldn't believe her? And that that's the reason why she never came back? Remember how difficult it was for Hiccup to convince his father that dragons weren't so bad? And what happened after Stoick discovered Hiccup had found the dragons' nest? That's exactly what Valka was afraid of in the 20 years she spent away from home. She found herself in a world she belonged in with the dragons, and the more she learned, the more she feared Stoick would simply take it as, "you've found a dragons' nest! Let's go kill them!" And the more she delayed, the more her fears grew. She took too long, and now she feared what her own son would think of her. She was so happy that Hiccup took after her, that reason and rationality ruled his logic, not the kind of Viking logic we saw in the first movie. All in all, there are many factors to consider, and once you do, it's not as fridge logicky that it first seems.
    • Okay first while the dragon was being gentle with baby Hiccup, Valka still should've done SOMETHING to protect her small child. She didn't have to fight or kill the dragon just pick up the baby and get him somewhere safer. Second, there's a difference between a cut from a dog and dragon. Dogs at most have a claw length of at most three inches, Cloudjumper's claw is about a foot long. Had he got any closer to Hiccup with that claw alone it could've REALLY hurt him. Third, she didn't have explain about the dragons to her husband, she could just make up a vague excuse as to what happened, that she escaped or whatever, I mean she's bound to be taught something like that in Berk. She could go see her dragons like every other weekend or something. My point being there were a number of ways she could've gone back to her family without bringing up dragons in a positive light, but decided not to. She just didn't both going back to say hi or checkup on her kid. Be a freaking and instead went to go play and hang out with dragons.
    • Another way to see it is that she took the opposite path from Hiccup. She gave up, on changing her tribe and on her ability to help people and dragons at the same time. She chose to believe that nothing could change (including herself) and remaining near Hiccup and Stoick would only put them in danger. She outright blames herself for nearly getting them both killed, so she decided she was simply "born different" and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was the easy way out, much as how Hiccup was tempted to simply run away in the first movie. She gave up, and it took seeing Stoick and Hiccup again for her to realize how wrong she had been about everything.
• This is surely the weakest part of the entire story. (And by the way, I actually like the movie.) Valka gets kidnapped by a (friendly) dragon when Hiccup is still a baby. Twenty years later, she has never bothered to go back home. I imagine that it took her a few years to learn how to ride dragons so she couldn't return home immediately...but it's been twenty years! She's an excellent rider at this point, and Berk doesn't seem to be more than a few hours away. And yeah, I get it, she's found her calling as a dragon-helper. She likes to hang out with the Bewilderbeast and his colony, and she's convinced that the people of Berk will never change their ways. But she can't even been bothered to visit? Just show up twice a year and say hello to her son and husband? Just inform them that she's not dead, maybe? What the heck?? She says that she felt things would be easier for Hiccup if she stayed out of his life...but how, exactly, would things be more difficult if she simply visited once in awhile? It's been twenty years, for goodness sake!
  • Remember how she reacted when she finally saw Stoick again. She was sure that he would be angry and upset. Her biggest reason for not returning was most likely that she was terrified that her husband and people wouldn't accept her again after leaving. She also was sure that her people could never change and couldn't bear the thought of going back to see more dragons hurt or killed. Sure, she could have went back to explain that she's been with dragons the whole time and that they're friendly, but she was still convinced that nothing would change Stoick's mind. Clearly she was wrong, as she herself realizes, but she's human. She made a mistake and the more time she spent apart, the worse an idea it seemed to go back to her family. In her experience, there was nothing to suggest that Berk would change so drastically and end up welcoming dragons with open arms.
  • If she had returned home and told Stoick about a dragon nest, he would have decided to destroy it. (Just like in the first movie.)
    • First off, she doesn't have to reveal the location of the nest. Secondly, in the first movie part of Stoick's anti-dragon passion was based on the fact that a dragon killed his wife. If his wife turned up alive, and if she revealed that the dragon in question had actually been quite friendly, Stoick may have developed a different attitude.
    • Finally SOMEONE who gets the idea! She doesn't HAVE to say where the dragons are or even how much she knows about them.
  • If she had returned to Berk, there wouldn't be a way to leave again, without causing trouble to either the vikings or the dragons. By the time she learned to ride a dragon, there's possibly some years already passed. Then she would have return from the death, (on the back of a dragon), what she may or may not reveal to the vikings. She would have reunited with Stoick, spend some time with his kid, just to leave again some time later to return to the dragons, and this time, they know that she is alive, so if she had lied something when they asked how she survived and where she have been, they wouldn't have any idea why she has left again, other than she isn't the same as she were, and she doesn't love them and her family enough to force her to stay. Not sure it would be better to anyone. The other end is to reveal her discoveries about the dragons, and try to convince the vikings. Had she failed, she would have no other choice to leave again, except to let the ice nest exterminated (and most of the vikings as well.) Not better either.
    • When Hiccup revealed he could tame dragons, Stoick disowned him. Stoick's attitude isn't biased by just his wife, but by the fact that dragons have always been a threat. There's no guarantee he would have been swayed.
• All this being said, it does seem that Hiccup wasn't taking to her story right away and is visibly uncomfortable interacting with her for a good majority of their initial conversation. When his mother goes on about some of the dragons there that were injured by the vikings—specifically Toothless' injury—notice how Hiccup feels the need to pad the story of Toothless' missing wing by jokingly calling attention to his own amputation, as if he believes that his mother may not accept him if she knew he hurt a dragon. Her actions—or lack thereof—do not seem to make her one hundred percent endearing to Hiccup, and Valka does seem to realize that there is some faulty reasoning behind her willingness to stay away from her family. When Stoick and Gobber walk in, they don't get to hear her story, and Stoick is clearly mesmerized by the discovery of his wife being alive, but had their reunion not lasted only a couple of hours it's possible that Valka's leaving her family would have been discussed with the possible calling out of Valka's decision to permanently remove herself from Berk all because she has discovered that dragons are actually capable of coexisting peacefully with humans.
  • What's perhaps most interesting about the reason Valka gives to Hiccup (that the people of Berk wouldn't understand) is that she seems to have a much more valid reason for not returning that she never explicitly uses. She's been shown to be sabotaging Drago's amassing of dragon power, which seems to be a full-time job in its own right. She's essentially trying to take down what could be considered a cross between poachers and slavers, and she's doing it by herself. Had she returned to Berk, it's clear that the villagers would not have believed in her cause (saving the dragons). What's worse, they might have even engaged in the exact same practice Drago was doing (capturing and enslaving the dragons) out of their own fear of Drago's new army.
  • She probably knew about Drago from Stoick, mainly the story that Stoick nearly died by his hands and that Drago is crazy. Thus, she also has a personal motive for going after Drago, revenge, which seems like a good excuse any viking would accept. These reasons make so much more sense, yet she tells Hiccup the lame excuse of "Berk and Stoick just wouldn't understand."
• Valka is saved for me by the fact that neither she nor the movie consider her to be particularly heroic. She's a good person, like her son, but unlike her son she lacks the courage and strength of character to really challenge the way things are. She clearly understands this and constantly apologizes and offers weak rationalizations for her actions, and once the bad guy appears she is rather ineffectual.She's cool, knowledgeable and kindhearted, but she's not a hero like her son is. That is why she didn't go back (which in fairness Hiccup himself seriously considered in the first movie).
• Another thing to consider is that she was taken at night, and so she would probably have absolutely no idea where she is. The dragon sanctuary is beyond anywhere the vikings knew of at the time, and her claiming that Cloudjumper "thought [she] belonged here" implies he wasn't fond of the idea of just letting her go. After a few years a mix of stockholm syndrome and having created a new life amongst the dragons would make it painfully hard for her to leave if she wanted to go back, and her newfound allies would mean she wouldn't be accepted even if she did go back, which might lead to her being cast out if she tried.
• To the OP: So, there's a fricken huge, potentially dangerous animal near her child, which currently is calm and shows no intention of hurting it. Would it really be a good idea to start doing stuff that might agitate said murder-machine? First rule when dealing with a (non-aggressive) wild beast that could mess you up in a heartbeat: chill the frack out. And then calmly start figuring out options. Vikings, being confronted with wildlife more often than we are today, would absolutely know this, especially Valka, who already sees dragons as more than an enormous fire-breathing fanged-and-clawed avalanche of death. I am fairly certain that she did hold back on purpose. At first, you see practically every fiber of her screaming HoShitMustSaveBabyWithSword!, but she actually gets that instinct under control, which takes much more courage than charging in blindly, and, arguably, actually saved her son's life.
  Secondly, she had grown up in a culture that preached hate against dragons, and her attempts at making peace were pretty much futile. But then she finds a sanctuary, where dragons are free and calm, and she experiences their beauty. For the first time in her life, she's not surrounded by constant death and destruction, but the peace that she yearned for. On top of that, she can start working on the problem of a safer, happier, more peaceful world on the side of the dragons - she was clearly getting nowhere with the vikings. So yeah, she finds something that makes her content, happy, fulfilled, and I bet it made her feel guilty as hell, actually enjoying being away from her family.
  Add in the almost certain rejection of her new insights (dragons are not by default set to <murder>), especially by her beloved Stoic, and it's no wonder that she never actually got up the nerve to go back. After all, guilt and fear are paralytic. Please don't condemn Valka for being so very human. I also find the comparison with Hiccup a bit unfair. Remember that up until the Toothless-incident - which was literally blind luck - our hero was very much on board with the murdering dragons thing. Then he got to know Toothless in a very safe and controlled environment. Not after years and years of rejection, not mid-battle-with-the-house-on-fire-and-a-two-ton-monster-in-front-of-your-baby-while-your-spouse-is-yelling-at-you kind of panic (it's the worst!), but in a peaceful, secluded forest.
  So Hiccup would have been much more relaxed and also less disillusioned about trying to change people. Next thing you know, the very person he has the hots for coincidentally becomes his confidante and is actually supportive, which again, is hugely different from the situation Valka faced. Finally, the discovery of and fight against the Big Bad also happened mostly by chance. His performance there (and the support of the other dragon riders) left the stubborn vikings little choice but accept that maybe dragons aren't all bad. All in all, I'm not denying that Hiccup is a fricken hero, because he is (got brass ones, that one), but I'm saying that chance put him in situations where he could let that heroism shine. As far as we know, Valka didn't have those chances. So yeah. Give her a chance.
• Another thing all those saying she should have told them she was alive should consider; she knew they would have thought her dead. As such she would have expected Stoic to mourn her, then move on. As a widowed Chief with a small child to look after, he would have been prime marrigable material. By the time she learned to ride dragons (and possibly Cloudjumper was reluctant to take her anywhere near Berk for a long time) she probably feared that returning to Berk might not only entail risking being branded a traitor, or a witch, or being under a spell or mad or something, but also the complications and pain of a re-married husband and a son who called another woman 'Mother'. Although the movie didn't show it she was probably quite surprised to learn Stoic had never remarried, and that might also explain why her first reaction to Stoic was so different to her first reaction to Hiccup – she had expected to be nothing more than a vague, fond memory.
  • We also have to keep in mind that she left when Hiccup was too young to have really started growing into himself; she was probably afraid that she'd come back to find that her son had grown into a carbon copy of his father, a determined anti-dragon Viking and a fierce warrior who could have maybe torn a dragon's head off as a child (remember the reference to Stoick having killed a dragon as a baby according to local legend in the first film), and found it easier to stay away rather than face that fear of her husband AND her son being so vehemently opposed to everything she'd come to believe.
• When I first saw the movie, my immediate, instinctive reaction to Valka's Back Story was negative, but immediately after that, I thought of Nora Helmer of A Doll House. It's basically the same premise — a woman whose values contrast sharply with the values of her people realizes she'll never be able to live, function, be happy, or be herself among her people and family, so the only solution is to leave, even though she'll be leaving her child(ren) behind, but she knows personally that they'll be perfectly safe and cared for even without her. The censors at the time were so enraged by a woman doing such a thing, they forced the playwright to change the ending, but, of course, audiences now and even then love it. I don't think we have the right to judge Valka any more than we have the right to judge Nora — physical logistics of living in both worlds aside, it was impossible for her at the time to reconcile her values with her husband's and people's. Was it selfish to choose her values over raising her son? Technically, yes. Understandable? I think yes, especially since, as was said above, she's not meant to be a hero or her actions an example of heroic behavior.
  
  I'd also like to point out she reminds me of another misfit of a young woman who ran away from home to find a place "where I can be who I am without hurting anybody", except no one followed her to drag her back and tell her she was wrong...
  • That other young woman didn't leave her own baby or a loving husband behind. Nor did she allow the one family member whom she did abandon to believe she'd just seen Elsa carried off by a bloodthirsty monster that would devour her alive, and spend two decades grieving for and striving to avenge her.
• What this troper wants to know is, if she'd "clicked" so deeply with Cloudjumper at first sight and could sense the dragon was being gentle with the baby, and she fully trusted it to take her someplace safe, why didn't she try to take baby Hiccup with her? Stoic was a grown man perfectly capable of living without her, but to a baby that young, losing Mom has got to be like the end of the world.

Drago's motivation

• Okay, so Drago fears dragons and wants to control them so they won't be a danger to him.... So where does the "dragon army" and "taking over the world" come into play? I can understand his motivation for hating dragons, not so much the "world conquering", although that could just be For the Evulz, but that would just make him a really flat character.
  • I think has to do with never having to be helpless. After having his family and village destroyed Drago felt weak and helpless. And instead of using those feelings to make things better for everyone like Hiccup did, Drago instead chooses to dominate everyone and everything around him so that he may never feel fear again. That's my theory at least.
    • This is supported by his interactions with other people, he cannot stand ANYONE treating him as anything but superior. When the meeting of chiefs laughed at him he didn't kill them to be evil so much as because they insulted him and treated him as if he were not the superior man he considered himself to be. More than fearing dragons, he may fear anything that makes him feel anything less than all-powerful.
    • Also, Drago has almost no reaction when Hiccup calls him out for building the dragon army to take over the world. It's possible Drago knows his excuse is pretty flimsy.
    • It's a typical rationalization by a conquest-hungry tyrant.
  • Why does nearly everyone forget that actual Vikings were like Drago? Real Vikings were power-hungry, cruel bastards. I praise HTTYD 2 for actually having a character like that. And Drago also serves as a reminder that had it not been for Hiccup, Berk could have possibly gone down that route. Honestly, the lack of crazy, immoral traits in the Viking characters irks me, because the Books handled those kinds of stuff better than HTTYD 1 did. The first movie just flicked away all those immoral traits of actual, historical Vikings. The second movie had those traits in the form of Drago and reminded us that Hiccup is the reason why Berk is so peaceful, just like the books. So yeah, Drago is like an actual viking, so I wouldn't call him a flat character. This is one of the reasons why I view HTTYD 2 as the better film.
    • That is entirely inaccurate, it's like saying that everyone in the USA want's to rule the world. The kind of Viking you describe where only a small part of the whole. Many Vikings where peaceful traders, farmers, craftsmen and what not. Those where normal people as well. The 'typical' Vikings we know, the one plundering and destroying villages where often considered criminals or at least far from normal people back home.
    • You're describing the typical Norse, most of whom were peaceful. In their own era, "vikings" specifically means those of the Norse who were into raiding, plundering, colonization and conquest.

Disappearing Army

• Drago attacks the island of the White Alpha. He's got some dragons, and a large human army. After he takes control of the colony via his personal Black Alpha, Drago sets off to attack Berk. When he gets there, his various dragons are present...but the human army is nowhere to be seen! Where did they all go?
  • His human army are travelling by ship. They are bound to be much, much slower to arrive at their destination. Drago probably don't feel the need to wait around for them now that he already has the dragon army anyway.
    • Running with this; simply put- if one as power hungry as Drago has a dragon army that is now complete and under his absolute control by force (seemingly unaware as to the full extent of their intelligence at that point)...why bother with a measly human army who he may not be able to quite control as easily? That latter option would look kinda flimsy no?
  • The alternative is that the dragon riders blew the crap out of his human army so he had them head home to patch up their wounds or to repair their ships so they could handle armoring up the new dragons they were about to acquire and had acquired. After all, they had just been victimized by enough air support at the hands of Berk's riders to make Mobius One blanch in shock and they need a lot of traps for the number of dragons they would have to deal with. AKA: They were destroyed or too weak to be of much use at Berk, thus weren't brought along.
  • My theory is that Drago left behind what remained of his army after his Bewilderbeast gained control of the Sanctuary dragons. A lot of them would be wounded, their ships would be damaged, and Drago now had a much stronger army. He didn't need them anymore, and the few remained probably upped and left. Not too many people liked Drago, after all.

Hiccup has no idea where he's going

• Hiccup surrenders to Eret so he can meet with Drago. His dad shows up and puts a stop to that plan, but Hiccup insists on talking to Drago. So he gets on his dragon and flies...where, exactly? Does he know where Drago lives, somehow? Did he just pick a random direction and assume it was correct? It's especially odd because there's a later scene where Astrid has to interrogate Eret for that information. But Hiccup seems to think that he doesn't need to interrogate anyone. He can just sorta fly away randomly...and apparently he thinks that this will lead him to Drago. (Incidentally, it doesn't. He finds his mom instead.)
  • He's probably flying in the general direction Eret is going and will just look for signs.
  • By that point, it was clear that he was unsure of what he was doing; Stoick had just told him about Drago's last visit after which he then stormed off proclaiming he could fix this peacefully and change him like he did his father, without having bothered to get any more information out of Eret. The story alone seemed to shake some of his confidence, but on top of that he knew there was no going back for more information since his father would be there; ready to quite literally ground him. Note that he proceeds to throw a short fit of confusion/anger while flying away; then the way in which he tells Toothless he won't let anything happen to him makes it obvious that he seems to be making this up as he goes.
  • This is another weak aspect of the story along with Valka's prolonged (and voluntary) absence. Hiccup seems to have a kind of "Messiah Complex" going on here. I know he's trying to be a pacifist, but deadpan snarker Hiccup is no one's fool either. Yet here, what was he trying to accomplish exactly? He seems determined to show Drago there's another way, a non-violent way. Is he trying to save the man? Or prove himself the diplomatic leader he envisions he'll be?
  • While it is plot contrivance that he flies in the exact direction that Valka happened to be, it's likely that Hiccup just went for a flight to clear his head and took off in a random direction. He had just had a big argument with his father, after all, and had a lot on his mind (Astrid being his wife soon, Stoik wants him to be Chief, exploration, the Map, a mysterious dragon rider, Drago, and more). It's not uncommon for people in our own world to leave and go for a walk or drive to clear their heads after an argument or when they're stressed out.

How can Drago ride Toothless?

• I understand that Toothless is under mind-control, but even so, how does Drago manage to ride him? He wouldn't know how to work the tailfin flap.
  • Drago is no idiot. He was watching/observing Hiccup flying Toothless during the battle. He could also see that Toothless was having trouble flying on his own. He is an intelligent man, despite his power-hungry, hellbent nature; he can put two and two together and realize that Toothless required a greater finesse of riding skill. Given the assumption that Drago could have also flown on dragons himself in his lifetime, it wouldn't be a far stretch to figure out how Hiccup's mechanism worked in helping Toothless fly. However, I don't believe he gained any significant degree of skill with it, given the short time frame. You never did see Drago do wild stunts with Toothless.
  • Or he just needed to figure out what setting Hiccup was using so that Toothless could fly solo. His flight would still be stunted, but it would have been possible.
  • He doesn't use any of the advanced flying techniques Hiccup and Toothelss can do together. No spins, no sharp turns; he just goes from A to B. If memory serves, the tailfin was already set on "extended" when Toothles was seperated from Hiccup and the new mechanism has a locking system, demonstrated during the solo flight. Also, the left stirrup looks like it's made especially for Hiccup's prosthetic leg. Drago probably left the complex mechanism as it was and just flew Toothless as best as possible under the circumstances.
  • Also, Astrid makes a mention of having to fly Toothless when she and Hiccup are talking about his dad wanting to make him chief since he'd be too busy to take Toothless out for flights. Either it means Hiccup has the rig set up to handle both his prosthetics as well as normal people, or he keeps multiple sets of rigs around for Toothless (and given how badly Toothless needs a rider, that makes a decent amount of sense to have a backup in case he's missing)
  • None of the above are supported by the film. Before Drago drags him down, Toothless is doing his usual riderless-flailing thing. Ergo not in "autopilot." Then, drago simply gets on and they fly away. No figuring out, no fiddling. It's a genuine Plot Hole.
    • Even then, he still can fly; by default, Toothless's tailflap is set to the standard configuration by the looks of it. Meaning he can fly straight + basic maneuvering, and flailing around was simply how the Bewilderbeast had him get there, because flying such a short distance wasn't necessary. One good gust of wind would knocked it right off it's position, but from how slow he was flying with Drago on him, that wasn't likely.
  • Toothless' saddle has a lot of controls on it, as seen in the flying scene at the beginning of the movie. First Hiccup was lying flat against Toothless' spine, using two levers, then he used his right leg, the good one, to extend the tail. He does some other stuff, then locks the tail in the spread position before jumping off to wingsuit dive. Drago could have used his right leg, or the hand levers. In his armouring of the other dragons, he may have made flight controls similar to those on the Berkian saddled dragons, and so Toothless' controls are just a small step further.

About mind control

• How does it works? In the first movie, Toothless seems capable to resist them, while he completely lost in the second. I thought it should be easier to resist since he spent longer time with Hiccup. It could be that they are different species, but...
  • The Alpha is a big step up from the Red Death.
    • Pretty much; same concept, but with far more power, enough to override Toothless' resistance.
  • The Red Death ruled through intimidation, as opposed to a Bewilderbeast who can literally assert their rule over others. Toothless was simply not afraid of the Red Death in the first movie.
    • Actually, there was a similar crooning during the first movie. Even Toothless was somewhat affected by it when they fly into the dragon pack as Astrid is talking to Hiccup about his final test the next morning after the romantic flight, here for your convenience [1]. Pay particular attention to Toothless in the scene; he does the same eyes thing that he does when the Bewildebeast is controlling it.
    • The Red Death and Bewildebeasts use a different form of mind control. The Red Death is basically a queen bee who enthralls other dragons to act as her drones(as pointed out by Astrid) while Bewildebeasts actively dominate and control the minds of their subordinates.
  • Another thing to keep in mind: baby dragons are immune to the siren song. Valka confirms that Toothless is Hiccup's age. Considering dragons appear to be pretty long-lived creatures, this would likely make Toothless a juvenile in the first movie and therefore give him at least a vestige of immunity to the Red Death's song.
• The Red Death used sound, the Bewilderbeasts use sound and eye contact, and it's possible that one or both also used pheromones at close range. That's just a guess, but Toothless's reaction looks a lot like chemically-altered behavior to me.
• So how does the mind control ability work, it automically transfers to whichever dragon is the Alpha? Meaning Toothless could now use it as well if he wanted? (Obviously he's the good Alpha so he won't, but hypothetically speaking.) Or is it an ability exclusive to the giant species?
  • It seems to be a racial ability to certain dragon species; Bewilderbeasts are noted for being alphas primarily due to having an easy time at the requirements. Valka never identified Toothless as being an alpha dragon species like the Bewilderbeast, though then again Night Furies are rare enough that she just might not know. Note that Drago's was using its abilities long before it killed the White Alpha, so it's not as if it had to kill it to gain it. Killing it just denied the Glacial Sanctuary dragons the protection it had. So, end result is it's likely that Toothless doesn't have the mind control ability, though as an alpha he might offer some sort of psychological protection if another Bewilderbeast tried to turn Berk's population (AKA "You want to command me? Get my alpha on board first"), though that is pure conjecture.

About Bewilderbeast

• Valka introduced him as king of all kings. One would assume there could be only one (at least, in large territory). And yet, Drago had another, who beats him. How? I'd just assume she was mistaken perhaps, but at first I thought it could control even another Alpha...
  • Valka says there are only a few left. She never says it's unbeatable. Drago trained his, brought it along, and had it take the other's territory. Simple as that.
  • It's also not (that) magical. It's the top of the food chain, and can control other dragons through eye contact and sound (possibly pheromones, too). It's the king of the dragons like a lion is the king of beasts.

Drago controlling the Bewilderbeast

How that hell did that work? The whole thing seems like a Diabolus ex Machina the writers threw in because they couldn't come up with any way Drago could be a threat on his own against people who'd mastered Dragons.

• Word of God is that Drago acquired the Bewilderbeast when it was a hatchling, and had it imprint on him. Then, through a harsh, brutal and abusive upbringing, raised the dragon so that it was too terrified of him to question his orders, despite being many orders of size bigger then Drago.
• It's also been compared to a mistreated circus animal in interviews. Kinda like elephants who get trained when they're little to not fight back against a heavy chain on their leg, then when they're older don't bother to snap a simple rope on their leg, because they believe it's a chain and thus think they can't break it.
• Yes. Animals can be conditioned, ESPECIALLY if they're raised from infancy; the old saw about "Not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." applies here. The Dark Alpha was conditioned that any move against Drago would result in sudden, unbearable pain, and such conditioning would not easily be broken even after it was big enough to swallow him whole. Not coincidentally, it also was why Toothless wiped the floor with the Dark Alpha once he was freed of his control; the Bewilderbeast fought only out of fear of Drago, but Toothless fought out of loyalty - loyalty he always had, even before he met Hiccup.
  • Indeed, Drago's training methods may have backfired there. He'd been beating it into the Dark Alpha's head for its whole life that the tiny creature which roars at it and inflicts small, stinging wounds must be obeyed. All Toothless needed to do to dominate his opponent was to usurp that role of little stinging roaring creature.
    • Holy shit that suddenly makes so much sense... that's practically Fridge Brilliance.
  • It's also possible that the Bewilderbeast was just loyal to him the same way any other dragon is loyal to its rider.

Eret's punishment

• Why was Drago so eager to have Eret walk the plank with the dragon riders? Did Eret commit some past failure? Was Eret a really poor dragon catcher? Did Drago know he let Astrid and Hiccup and their dragons get away? The riders and their dragons were already in his hands anyway, so why would Drago still want to have Eret killed? It just seemed like petty maliciousness on his part. If Drago had just given him a warning, Eret wouldn't have taken his Heel–Face Turn and gone to the good guy's side.
  • Eret had failed to supply enough dragons before, he actually shows Hiccup a brand on his chest that Drago gave him as punishment for that. Drago basically just runs his army with draconian punishments it seems to keep order. Sort of like how the Romans had a very harsh discipline code. Basically, Eret had failed before, and this was just another failure since if Drago hadn't had sentries to ambush the Riders of Berk they might have been able to get away and warn Berk without him knowing he was revealed to an enemy who actually stood a chance against him.

Valka's knowledge of Night Furies

• It is implied that Valka gained her extensive knowledge about dragons through first hand experience, living with them for years. But how did she manage to know so much about Night Furies like Toothless? She states that she hasn't seen a Night Fury in a very long time, and that she thinks Toothless could be the very last Night Fury in existence. Given that Toothless is the same age as Hiccup, this doesn't give Valka very many opportunities, if any, to learn anything about Night Furies from personal experience.

• Some possible explanations:
  • Valka extrapolated to Night Furies things she learned from dragon species closely related to Night Furies. One potential support for this speculation is how Valka's personal dragon is pretty similar to Night Furies in overall shape and form, and could be a closely related species. But if this is the case, then everything she did with Toothless she was actually doing for the first time, as an educated guess, with no idea whether it would really work. (Which is rather impressive, actually....)
  • At some point in the past Valka DID meet and get to know a Night Fury, well enough to learn everything she knows about Night Furies from it. This Night Fury would have had to have met an untimely end, or else Valka would not currently think that Toothless could be the last Night Fury. (Cue tragic backstory....) Presumably she knew one that was older than Toothless, as she knew what a mature male Night Fury's spinal ridges should look like.
  • At some point in the past Valka actually met Toothless, and learned everything she knows about Night Furies from him. Toothless doesn't seem to recognize Valka, so if it happened, it would be most probable during the time when Toothless was a very young dragon. (Combining these last two we get the interesting scenario of Valka meeting Toothless' mother, just after Toothless was born....)
• Another one: Valka, being dragon-obsessed, spent some time tracking down information about Night Furies from books, documents, or other human experts that wasn't in any of the bestiaries or dragonfighter training-manuals available on Berk. We don't know how she spent all those years away from Berk, or if she and Cloudjumper necessarily went straight back to the White Alpha's nest after he found her; they might've wandered for years until her new dragon friend decided she was worthy of joining the Bewilderbeast's hidden haven.

Berk's preparedness

• When Hiccup left Berk to find Drago, the town was locked down. Stoick's actions made it perfectly clear that there was a major threat to both the town and its dragons. Unless he returned to Berk and gave the all clear, the town had no reason to end the lockdown, let alone completely let its guard down. So why was it caught completely by surprise when Drago showed up?
  • They were prepared for Drago showing up with an army of people and dragons like their own, not controlling a titanic icebreathing dragon. Plus it didn't help that they didn't have their own dragons to defend them, since they got put under the Bewilderbeast's spell.

The size and weight of the dragons

• While one can't expect scientific accuracy here, many of the stated lengths, wingspans and weights of the various dragons detailed on the blu-ray's "dragon stats" feature test one's sense of disbelief. Most of the dragons seem to weigh more than makes sense for such skinny, flying animals, and the lengths and wingspans often seem longer than what is actually depicted onscreen. The most egregious example though is something of a reverse, with the bewilderbeast being stated to weigh a lot less than makes any sense. It is a creature larger than the largest dinosaurs, yet it is stated to weigh a mere 9 tons. For comparison the largest african elephants weigh over 6 tons, and the bewilderbeast could likely fit such an elephant in its mouth. Yes it is built very differently from an elephant, but the point remains.
  • If you had a cardboard box filled with socks that scaled higher and larger than the Empire State Building, would it still be heavier? No. Besides, with all the diverse types of dragons, who's to say they are as heavy as they look, Toothless included.

That one Dragon Raid on Berk

• Why did that one Dragon Raid on Berk even happen? The Dragons that kidnap Hiccup's Mom are ruled by the white Bewilderbeast. Not only is the Bewilderbeast kind to both Dragon and Human (Unlike the Red Death of the First Film, or the other Bewilderbeast in this film), but he also provides his Dragons with an abundance of Fish. Where as most Dragon raiding is attributed to the Red Death forcing them to do it, this one just doesn't make sense when you know of the good Bewilderbeast. So why? Why did the good Bewilderbeast's dragons raid Berk?
  • Probably because they were being ruled by a different, less generous Bewilderbeast before it was fought and replaced by the more kind Bewilderbeast that we all know and love sometime in between the twenty years Valka was taken to their nest.
  • Perhaps at one point Cloudjumper left the territory of the Red Death, and entered that of the Bewilderbeast.
  • Or it could be that Cloudjumper was never a part of the Red Death's nest in the first place. He wasn't raiding Berk but just scouting for food and resources for the bewilderbeast like a worker ant. Most likely he just happened to be there where a dragon raid is happening and that's where he met Valka and took her.
  • Could be that Cloudjumper was flying near Berk when the Red Death's flock of dragons came raiding, and descended to see what in the world was going on.
  • Or it's possible that Valka convinced the white Bewilderbeast to not send its flock a-raiding anymore, and prior to that, Berk was attacked by both the Red Death and White Alpha's dragons. This is supported by the fact that the raid appears larger scale than the one that opened the first movie.

Gobbers Archery

• Okay, how did he do it? When they're setting the ship alight Gobber is clearly firing an arrow but also clearly has a mace for a hand. His control over his artificial appendage is amazing, but that feat beggars belief.

Toothless's upgrade

• So what was with Toothless's new Alpha powers in the ending? It's as if he's suddenly able to shrug off a massive ice attack for no adequately-explored reason, and has new glow effects and command powers. Isn't the whole "dragon's have their secrets" message earlier a bit of a weak handwave for a an 11th-Hour Superpower that otherwise comes out of nowhere?
  • Pretty much. I mean, they're not exactly the same as dragons from Skyrim, per say. Not to mention that we will likely get a definite answer on all our questions once the final sequel comes out.
  • It's a Power of Friendship thing. A way of demonstrating that a dragon who fights by your side as a friend will be more powerful than a dragon who serves you out of fear.
  • It also doesn't hurt that ever since the beginning of the first movie, Night Furies have always been played up as being, despite their small size, among the most dangerous and mysterious of dragons. This makes it at least a little bit easier to swallow for him to have a "Holy shit, I didn't know he could do that!" type of incident. Also a few of those effects are explainable without him necessarily getting new powers, for example in the case of his ability to command the other dragons, it's implied that even though a huge dragon like the Red Death or the Bewilderbeast usually ends up in charge, technically any dragon can challenge the Alpha and take over the role by defeating the previous Alpha in a fight.
  • Could also be that it's a Puberty Superpower thing. Valka did say that Toothless was Hiccup's age, and Hiccup himself is attaining manhood in this film. Plus, it makes sense that any dragon with an inborn propensity to become the Alpha would acquire that capacity at the same time it hit maturity, both physically and firepower-wise, because it wouldn't be in any dragon's best interest for an under-powered juvenile to be able to take over the communal nest.

Hiccups's Mother's Breastplates

• It's pretty clear that his mother was never big, and yet his dad gives him a helmet and claims it's HALF of her breastplate? Or was she just big before Hiccup was born? This was HTTYD1 by the way, right after Hiccup's awesome flight test with Toothless.
  • Take a more-or-less flat piece of metal, and hammer it into a hemisphere. Voila, one helmet-made-from-a-breastplate. http://www.thevikingstore.co.uk/larp-platemail--breastplate-dark-drake-1774-p.asp
  • The breastplate probably covers more, like her abdomen as well. So there's more raw metal to work into a pair of helmets than you'd think.
  • Given that the Breast Plate incident in the first movie was kind of a one-off gag, I always assumed it was a simple matter of Broad Strokes being in play, and the writers simply ignoring the fact that that scene occurred.
  • Maybe Stoic just wasn't being specific, and the breastplate Hiccup's helmet came from was one Valka inherited from her mother, whom it fitted much better. No law says a Viking can't have heirloom armor and her own as well.
  • "Made from her breastplate" doesn't mean they kept it the exact same size and dimensions, and that wouldn't make sense anyway because, you know, heads and boobs are different shapes. Stoick probably had it made when Hiccup was still small and he was hoping that he'd grow up to be enormous like the other vikings.
  • Watch the "For the dancing and the dreaming" segment, when she's not wearing her bulky dragon-armour. Her breasts are roughly the size of Stoick's brainpan.

Why Didn't Stoick Barge Toothless?

• I'm going to get this now, here, in case anyone ever wonders this question: Why didn't Stoick, instead of pushing Hiccup out of the way and getting shot, slam into Toothless' head to redirect the shot so it didn't hit his son OR him?
  • Simple: When one of the people you love more than anyone else in the whole world, and your beloved son, to boot, the only thing you care about is them. Basically, since Hiccup was about to get blown to bits, and since there was extremely little time, Stoick was too busy and distracted to think ahead and did the most obvious thing he could do to save Hiccup: get him out of harm's way, not get harm out of his way. In other words, Love Makes You Dumb when it comes to life-or-death split-second decisions.

Why is Hiccup Surprised by Eret?

• Hiccup is shocked that people like Eret exist, and that people are trapping dragons to sell to people... but the primary plot of seasons 3-7 of the show that was supposed to span the time between the first and second movie are all about fighting against Dagur, Riker, Viggo, and Krogan, who were in charge of a very powerful group of Dragon Hunters.
  • It may be that the conflict with Viggo and other Dragon Hunters will end with the complete destruction of the current Dragon Hunters, with Hiccup's surprise thus being based more on the idea that dragon trappers still exist after what the Riders did to the pre-existing operation rather than that the profession exists itself.
  • Seconded. Listening to the way Hiccup says the line "There are other dragon riders?!" still makes sense if he's thinking, There are other dragon riders still around? Didn't we get rid of those guys a year ago? Plus, this other dragon rider is apparently fighting dragon trappers — up to that point, any non-Berk dragon riders were bad guys harming dragons, not good guys protecting them from bad guys like the ones Hiccup and Astrid are meeting at that moment.

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