Book 3, Chapter 47: Visions, Obscure And Otherwise
There are mountains on Magni's back.
I have just seen them for myself, and wonder at the literal new world that my son has just shown me.
Recording this now, so Fishlegs doesn't get upset with me later…
After dinner, my son Magni came to me, holding a synlengra clutched in his hands, and wanting to show me something. For a moment, I almost told him later, due to my duties, but I remembered being fifteen and my father not being interested in what I had to show him—and how I had vowed to do better.
So I did.
He took me up to the rooftop and told me to point the synlengra at the moon, which was a quarter full. I did so, after joking with him for a moment. And once I did so, I almost fell down in shock.
There are mountains on Magni's back. I could see their shadows, cast by the light of the sun. There are great circular scars on his flanks, caused by what, I do not know. I have done my best to sketch what I saw below.
But my son wasn't content with merely showing me his namesake. He told me to look at Odin next. Still stunned, I did so.
And I saw.
Odin's single eye peered back at me. Surrounding him were four others—who I can only assume to be Huginn and Munnin, and Geri and Freki.
I made these synlengra for looking down at the ground from dragonback. And all of this time, I never thought to look up with them.
Tomorrow, I am going to the lens-grinders, and we are going to plan how to make the biggest lenses we can and how to mount them in a synlengra tube.
My son opened my eyes, and I didn't even know they were closed.
I'm going to give him even better ones.
—From the journal of Hiccup Haddock, June 22, AD 1059
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Adaptational Name Change: In the ATOV timeline, the planet we know as Jupiter is instead named Odin, whilst the moon is known as Magni.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome:
- Hiccup invents the telescope, here called the synlengra, five-hundred and sixty-five years before it was invented in real life.
- As the epigraph above shows, his son Magni will use a synlengra to discover mountains and craters on the surface of the moon (which the Berk Vikings call "Magni") as well as the four largest moons of Jupiter (or "Odin") about five-hundred and fifty years before Galileo would discover them in real life.
- Content Warnings:Chapter Trigger Warnings: Implied Reference To Past Non-Con
- Invisibility with Drawbacks: Changewings can only make themselves invisible, not things that are on them. Eret exploited this in a prank he played on Skuggi by dumping flour on him while he was invisible.
- Mythology Gag: While waking up Mulan and getting ready to train, Shang says several lines based on or are exactly the lyrics from the Mulan song I'll Make A Man Out Of You.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Constantine's motivation for plotting against Sigurd is that he hates the latter for being a foreigner with too much power in the Byzantine Empire.
- Rape as Backstory: Godwif was raped before she joined the Bog Burglars, it is also why she Does Not Like Men.
- Running Gag: Hiccup finally completes his challenge with Astrid this chapter, but realises that he doesn't actually want anything from Astrid as he only pursued the challenge for the sake of the challenge itself.
- Secret-Keeper: Demetrius knows about Sigurd's polycule, but he assures them he'll keep it a secret.
