How to Train Your Dragon (animation)/WMG

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The movie is actually a prequel to a CG Temeraire Series of movies.

Think about it. The Night Fury is actually a proto-celestial way out of its traditional grounds, which explains its rarity. The movie shows how Europeans first began raising dragons.

    • Troper above, I love you.
    • This may be the most plausible WMG I've ever read.
    • None of the dragons speak a human language because none of them have been exposed to it in the shell.

The movie is a prequel to Reign of Fire.

The quickest fix to the whole Reign Of Fire debacle actually would've been just to train the dragons. Humanity made the same mistake the Viking ancestors made, and unfortunately this time there was no Hiccup to stop them. The male dragon in Reign of Fire is this generation's equivalent of the big bad volcano dragon.

The plot from DreamWorks' film is a prequel to the first in the original book series.

This is before the Vikings realized you can train dragons, and the movie covers their changing respect for them. In the first book, they each have one as a pet! Hmmmm...

    • Hiccup is too old and Toothless is the wrong kind of dragon for it to be a proper prequel.
      • Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third in the books, just hiccup in the movie. several characters were changed along with hiccup's mom not being dead. The movie simply precedes the book by several generations, where the same-name chars are descendants, or simply coincidentally unrelated, but with similar personalities, and their lack of dragon respect is result of a shift in ideology over the years. This WMG still works.
    • The series begins with the children being sent to the dragons' lair to capture a hibernating baby.
  • The Movie stars Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the First.
  • Makes perfect sense. Presumably, Hiccup's children turned out to take after his grandfather, and once Hiccup himself died the Vikings quickly lost the art of collaborating with dragons and fell into the habit of yelling at them to establish dominance instead. The close bond was destroyed...until some generations hence, one of Hiccup's descendants learned it anew.
    • And therefore, the name Hiccup Horrendous Haddock is given only to his descendants who seem to resemble him physically and thus carry the mantle of dragon trainer.

The twins are the ancestors of Skwisgaar

The family resemblance is definitely there.

Snotlout is the ancestor of Eddie Riggs

Which ties in nicely to the above, considering Eddie's appearance as a Dethklok roadie.

    • Alternatively he is a decendant of Eddie Riggs who never returned to the present from the Age of Metal. By the time of the movie The Metal Went Away and the dragons were the last remnanmts of any magic in the world.

Snotlout is an ancestor of Jack Black.

Just LOOK at him!

You're both wrong; Snotlout is the ancestor of Hal Stewart

The movies come from the same company, they both chase after a hot chick with zero interest in them, they're both idiots, they SHARE A VOICE ACTOR...what more proof do you need?

The Green Death isn't the "queen"

It's basically a giant cuckoo, invading other dragon nests and forcing the inhabitants to feed it or else.

  • That's exactly what it is. It also dominates the dragons by, apparently, singing to them. (The backstory is supposed to be that it is one of many of its kind, who fight one another for centuries until two are left. They mate, lay a huge clutch, die, and the whole cycle starts anew).
  • It ain't even red...

Spitelout is Snotlout's father and Stoick's brother.

They have a rather uncanny resemblance to each other. Spitelout is normally seen by Stoick's side and in the original books, Snotlout is Hiccup's cousin, possibly indicating that Spitelout and Stoick are brothers.

  • They could also be brothers-in-law.

Night Furies aren't native to the area.

Might explain why "no one has ever seen it," and why there are no other Night Furies ever seen in the film, not even in the background, or in the crowd of dragons in the volcano.

  • Alternatively, Toothless might be the Last of His Kind.
    • That makes no sense. Why would one of the fastest and strongest dragons be nearly extinct?
    • Well, they could have irregular mating habits or wiped out by some freak disease that only Toothless had survived.
    • Or the Night Fury could be one of those powerful, mostly solitary species that inhabits a large territory, which is why you won't see a lot of them in one area.
  • This also explains why Toothless apparently wasn't obligated to provide to the Green Death.
    • I think he was, or else he wouldn't have been drawn to the island just like all the others. He just made sure to hide when he didn't bring snacks, rather than hover over the crater and be all obvious about it.
      • He was partially immune. Were he as in thrall as the other dragons, he would have dumped Astrid and Hiccup down the Green Death's maw like every other dragon was offloading their catch. But he still was drawn by the Green Death's song, allowing the Vikings to use him as a compass to find the nest.
      • Alternate theory: Toothless was never in thrall in any way to begin with, or had figured out how to break free of the control before the movie began. He brings Hiccup and Astrid to the next deliberately to show them the Red/Green Death and then deliberately guides the rest of the Vikings to the nest in hopes that they will help kill the Red/Green Death in order to free the other dragons from the Red/Green Death's domination, and perhaps to end the destructive conflict between dragons and Vikings. He just might be smart enough to do something like this.
      • Another theory: Toothless was in thrall, but the time it spent away from Dragon Island helped it break free. When Hiccup first finds him at the pond, Toothless is trying desperately to escape, but over time stops his attempts and instead bonds with Hiccup. This could also be why Toothless is able to fight back against the Red Death at the end: he has spent weeks, if not months, bonding with Hiccup. That bond gave him the strength to resist the Red Death's thrall once it returned to the island.
    • I assumed something sort of similar to the WMG below: Hiccup specifically mentions at the beginning of the movie that Night Furies never steal food, and Toothless, as mentioned below, went for the catapults. Therefore, if the Green Death is the queen of the "hive," Furies could be the soldiers. Their job is just to make sure a sufficient amount of the other dragons survive to go on providing the Green Death with food.
  • He's noticeably more stream-lined and more aerodynamic than the other dragons in the Berk area. BUT in Movie 2 or Movie 3 maybe we'll find out where Night Furies originate from. It makes sense that different regions would have different breeds of dragons and the filmmakers have said that in the next movies they'll have "the whole northern hemisphere" to explore.
    • It's not just having a more streamlined designed, everything else about him looks different too. His eyes aren't as bulgy and his wings are much larger. Not only that, but he shoots white-hot fireballs out of his mouth, unlike the other dragons which have traditional fire-breathing capabilities.

The Night Furies are the instinctive guardians of all the other dragon races.

Toothless was partially immune to the Mass Hypnosis of the Green Death, but was unable to do anything about it himself, so he did his best, instead, to protect the other dragons during their raids. Notice how Toothless, in his initial attack, goes straight for the Viking catapults? It also explains his Papa Wolf tendencies once he bonds with Hiccup; he includes Hiccup in his guardian instinct.

  • Following that, the entire movie is one huge Batman Gambit by Toothless to get the vikings to kill of Green Death.

How To Train Your Dragon is a happier version of The Iron Giant.

They both befriend a creature that is not accepted in society.

  • Plus, said creature crash-lands from the night sky.

Toothless was partly responsible for Hiccup's unfortunate mishap.

This movie loves its Chekhov's Gun foreshadowing, and we see Toothless snatch hold of human beings by their arms or legs more than once. And when Hiccup was freefalling into the fireball, he still had both feet quite visibly attached. So how did he lose enough of his leg in the interim for Gobber to take one look and say, "Most of him"? Easy. Our heroes jinked sideways just before impact, and Hiccup's leg was crushed between the saddle/Toothless' side and the knob of bone on the end of the Green Death's tail. The bones of his foot and ankle would have been shattered by the impact. (If it also trapped his foot in the stirrup, the broken bones might have been pulled further apart when he was thrown free of the saddle.) Either way, when Toothless tried to grab him by the leg to stop his fall...well. It's just as well they never showed us what was left of it.

Stitch has Night Fury DNA

When Jumba was creating Experiment 626, he traveled to Earth very briefly to study Earth's most fearsome creatures, the dragon. He only chose the fastest and most powerful of species for his creation though, the Night Fury.

  • Well, considering how the directors of Lilo and Stitch also directed this movie...
  • Gobber seems to have run into Stitch at one point.
    • Gobber's description of Trolls was similiar to Stitch. Perhaps Stitch's DNA is a bizarre mutation of Dragons and Trolls... and Jumba didn't realize that Dragons were actually loveable, and not evil... which explains why Stich was happier after learning to have a family!!!

They didn't learn anything.

Sure, they like dragons now, but they're going to use them to kill trolls in a hypocritical manner.

  • All that for stealing socks?
    • Yup.
    • Trolls are horrible anyway. In Norse/viking mythology, trolls do a lot of nasty things.

Night Furies have the beginnings of sapience.

Toothless occasionally demonstrated abstract reasoning capability impossible for typical animals, and learned at least a little English in context.

  • Entirely feasible, seeing as they seem to be playful tool-users like primates and ravens. Which just adds further credibility to an earlier WMG.

Most of the arena dragons were already semi-tamed by Gobber specifically for training purposes.

  • The Gronckle that the kids see at first was quite specifically aiming for the shields, instead of the kids, or the body count would have gotten rather high, rather quickly.
  • The Nadder and the Zippleback had opportunities to kill as well, and didn't, though the Nadder wasn't exactly pulling its punches either.
  • Finally, the dragons bonded with their riders very quickly toward the end, starting with Snotlout and the Monstrous Nightmare -- arguably the LEAST tame of the arena dragons.

Everyone Is Satan in Hell.

Toothless is midnight black, nocturnal, and uses typical Rogue tactics. Also, he is a dragon, which is a well known demonic shape. He leads a rebellion of other dragons agaist their master.
Therefor, the dragons are angels, Toothless is Lucifer and the Green Death is God.

Hiccup is the ancestor of Captain Haddock from The Adventures of Tintin

Think about it. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock. Names change throughout the ages so it's understandable that the Horrendous part was dropped.

  • Seconded. Very much so.

Astrid actually has a crush on Toothless but is projecting it onto Hiccup for obvious reasons.

Think about it; Astrid isn't willing to listen to Hiccup until he gives her a magical dragon ride on Toothless. Besides, if she liked Hiccup so much, why would she devote so much time to saving the dragons. She's been training to fight dragons her entire life - you'd think that she'd hold some sort of grudge against them, Toothless in particular, since he's the one who takes up most of her "boyfriend"'s time.

  • This is hilarious and awesome and you have my full support.

Hiccup's mom is really Eric Foreman.

Well, this theory is MOSTLY crack. But if Eric was a girl, it would make perfect sense. But seriously, look at Eric. Now look at Hiccup. They look INCREDIBLY similar, enough to be related. And they both are skinny, geeky, sarcastic, deadpan snarkers, inexplicably attract the girl that everyone seems to be after, and they both have the same speech mannerisms. I mean, yeah you're probably reading this and wondering, "what on earth is wrong with you?" but trust me, it's far from the worst thing I have thought of. Anyways, Uh ... how is it possible? Time travel bullshit, obviously. I'm definitely not taking the time to explain how an obvious male could get pregnant, but whatevs.

  • Well, he could be his descendant, but that would be far more logical.

There will be parallels between the books and the new movie/TV show

The first installments included training a dragon. The next book involves learning seafaring skills, then swordfighting, then stealing a potato. The new stuff will have something similar

In the TV show...

There won't be Character Development. Only Flanderization.

    • Well, duh.

Gobber is Fishleg's father

I don't really have anything to base this one, except they have a similar build, and when Fishlegs gets gassed by the Zippleback, Gobber is very concerned, and cries out, whereas the other kids got attacked and Gobber didn't seem to care at all.

Toothless fully understands human language

Or at least, enough of it. If nothing else, he definitely understands "sorry". Both times a human said they were sorry in front of him, he reacted accordingly.

    • Not necessarily. Like many animals, he cues in strongly on tone of voice. When Astrid was being aggressive toward Hiccup, he saw it as a challenge to his dominance (not to mention a threat to his friend) and threw a temper tantrum. When she was screaming about how sorry she was, he heard the fear in her voice. Perhaps it was her submission that gentled him up, or perhaps he just remembered what it was like to be afraid for your life, and was chastened into behaving again.

Astrid is Camicaze, not an Expy

Her name was changed so that it would make more sense. Astrid actually sounds like a Nordic/Viking name. Camicaze sounds Japanese.

  • I don't know, Astrid seems a lot more controlled and disciplined than Camicazi. I can't see Camicazi (even a Camicazi a few years older) being as critical of herself as Astrid is in Dragon Training.

Berk in the Film takes is in the Canadian Maritime- Newfoundland, specifically.

Hence why all the adult characters have strong Scottish accents while the teens all have standard American or Canadian ones. Just throwing it out there. Newfoundland is the 'foggiest place on earth' and has a lot of precipitation after all.

The Purple Death is going to be in the 2013 sequel. And it's going to be 'Block-out-the-sun' massive.

Think about it. You know you want to...

Toothless is a female...

Hiccup just can't tell the difference. Seriously, watch the movie and imagine Toothless as a protective mother figure. Besides, even though Hiccup calls Toothless a "him", how can he tell a dragon's gender?

  • Towards the end, look at their positions after the reveal of Hiccup alive. It looks a lot like a mother and a newborn.
  • Further WMG: It will be revealed when Toothless ends up laying some eggs.
  • This.
  • In the short film Gift of the Nightfury it is revealed that all of the viking childrens dragons are female after they all fly off to lay their eggs on some distant island. All except for Toothless but it is also pointed out by Snotlout that without Hiccup Toothless cannot fly and also Hiccup states that no one has ever come accross another Nightfury so its still entirely plausible for Toothless to be female.
    • Not all the dragons are female. The movie doesn't state it, and a lot of dragons are seen in couples of the same species.
    • Except that the dragons belonging to the viking children (ie Hiccup and his friends) are not seen in couples but all have babies which they appear to be raising as single parents therefore it is reasonable to assume they are all female. The Gronkle and Furious Nightmare are outright stated to be female cant remember about the Zippleback.

The movie is set in the Warhammer 40K verse.

Berk is on a Death World that's a recruiting zone for a Space Marine chapter. The kids that finish at the head of their dragon killing class and slay a dragon in single combat? They're taken as candidates. The huge bad ass Vikings we see punching out dragons with their bare fists? They're the ones that aren't good enough to make the cut.

The sequel will be a HARD PG or PG-13

Given that many reviews praised the film's darker tone (relative to other Dreamworks films anyway) as well as its action scenes and maturity, Dreamwork will push these elements further in the sequels, especially given the good old 'Dark second chapter' staple. Most likely it will be a heavy PG (think Dick Tracy, Prince Caspian and Tron Legacy) with nothing particularly explicit but an increased level of violence (eg, implied stabbings, very mild moments of bloodshed) innuedo and mild curses (the film did throw the word Hell around a bit, so the odd 'Damn' or 'Crap' wouldn't seem so unlikely). While they may just be bold enough to risk a PG-13, knowing that this is the same studio that brought us the... Will Smith fish... it doesn't seem likely they'd take such a big risk.

    • I think they regret Shark Tale, and their movies have been getting darker in recent years. I'm willing to bet "Hard PG" on the sequel.
    • This WMG theory could also be supported by a statement from the studio that they intend to make the TV series darker and more dramatic than their other works.


The dragons have been domesticated by a past civilization.

The dragons in the film weren't too difficult to train, for the most part, and they were very willing to let the vikings ride on their backs. This indicates that a civlization that was around before the vikings came to Berk had domesticated the dragons and had them for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, to ride and do other tasks. This civilization was wiped out by the Red Death, who then forced the dragons to bring it food.

  • If we take it that this viking settlement is in Scotland (this troper would put money on one of the Orkney Isles), we could say this culture had been the celts, or maybe even the monks that inhabited Britain at that time. I'd say monks are less likely, given the demonic connotations dragons are often given, and how St. George's killing of a dragon (Which, in this universe, is assumedly not a red death) is always seen as a heroic action. The celts, however, I can easily imagine becoming dragon riders if the dragon was a native animal, as celtic traditions are almost completely drawn from what was naturally in Britain (They had very little outside influence until the romans).

Berk is located in Skyrim.

You've got your vikings, your dragons, your lush forests and your rocky coasts.

    • And Hiccup is a Dragonborn who never killed a dragon?

The world of the film is After the End

In the scenario I'm proposing, scientists increasingly began to cater to people who wanted "vanity pets". At first it was just different colors of "normal" pets, but than someone was like "why don't we make fantasy creatures?" and it snowballed from there. This is why the dragon's are so easily tamed- they were originally genetically engineered to be "tame". This is also why they act something like cats (they have cat in their background), and why, like dogs, there can be so many different varieties of dragon, but they all have some of the same characteristics (affinities for a kind of grass, scratching them under the chin, etc.) The Green/Red Evil thing was created originally to be a singing dragon, but a Mad Scientist got a hold of it, and changed it around until it was the terror in the movie. At first there were a lot of the giant evil ones, and they eventually destroyed a lot of Earth- but also each other, until there was one left, and no record of the world that used to be.

Night Furies are the sterile offspring of a Skrill and a Green/Red Death.

That's why Toothless is the only one. This mating is rare and very often the young die in there eggs. And Night Furies are called "The Unholy offspring of Lightning(Skrill) and Death(Red/Green Death)." My theory is that G/R Deaths hit sexual maturity long before they're that size. When they can first breed, they're about the same size as most of the other dragons.

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