zellephantom

And I sobbed through the last 10 minutes (practically on cue right after Hiccup said 'there were dragons when I was a boy'), as well as the next 10-20 minutes after that. It is a WONDERFUL movie. For more thoughts and discussion of major spoilers (including Race to the Edge spoilers), see under the cut.

One thing that confused me was that they didn't seem to acknowledge dragons coexisting with humans on places other than Berk??? Like I know Race to the Edge stuff wasn't going to majorly feature here, but what about the Berserkers (Heather!!) and the Wingmaidens and the Defenders of the Wing? Did their dragons automatically leave too? Would they agree to make the dragons fade into myth, or would they fight to keep them?

"The world doesn't deserve you." No, Hiccup, you dear precious cinnamon roll, the world doesn't deserve *you* and your selfless love.

Headcanon: Grimmel is Riker and Viggo's dad (not sure if the ages match up or not and there's no family resemblance but !!), or at least their mentor. Their philosophies are too similar for it to be a coincidence. Maybe Grimmel started the dragon trapping business and later passed it down to Viggo (who has the better business sense) so that he could focus on the thrill of the hunt and developing his technology and tracking down the Night Furies.

Is it weird that I tentatively like the idea of Eret/Valka now??

I've read all the books. I knew that ending was coming. I wouldn't have wanted it to end with Hiccup and Toothless together in the end with everything absolutely perfect. That wouldn't be true to the spirit of the books. This ending was satisfying, it worked, and their separation didn't feel unjustified. But I still wish there was a better way, a way that dragons and humans could stay together.

And yet the dragons leaving still felt like defeat. The world doesn't deserve dragons, so the people who love dragons the most, the people who have risked everything for the safety of their dragons and every other dragon in the world, must give them up because the inevitability of human evil ruins any chance of their coexistence lasting peacefully for more than a generation. Until the world is better and worthy of dragons. Which could be in ten years, or a hundred, or a thousand, or never.

It felt like Hiccup saying that it was too much. That evil would always rise again and ruin the small measure of happiness shared by the Berkians and their dragons. That they couldn't always defend the rights of dragons, despite their numerous successes and tireless quest to do so. That people would always try to hunt, trap, and kill dragons, and that Dragos and Viggos and Grimmels would always exist and be a threat, so it is better not to try and have peace and coexistence between people and dragons because bad people will always take advantage of dragons and some dragons will always be trapped by their instincts and hunt and steal from humans.

So it is better not to try at all than to try and fail to build a world where dragons and human can live together without fear. The evil is too great, and facing it is an endless Sisyphean task, and the world is not ready.

I submit that if we are waiting for the world to be perfect and absolutely accepting in order to introduce it to a great and wondrous good that would bring many many people joy and companionship, we will be waiting forever. True, there are always people like Drago and Grimmel, who seek to destroy and enslave others, who only look at rules and think of how to subvert them for their own advantage. But there are always Hiccups, too, who stand up for the downtrodden and look past prejudice and ultimately seek peace and coexistence with others. And Hiccups are the people who change minds and change society.

His bond with Toothless changed all of Berk, and it changed even people who trapped and killed dragons, like Eret and Dagur. It could still change the world if he let it. Sure, there are people who still wouldn't accept it like Drago, or who still think humans are utterly superior and that dragons are a means to an end, like Grimmel, but not all people are irredeemable.

It would be an uphill battle with enemies on all sides and danger to Berk and Hiccup's loved ones, but it is worth the risk, in my opinion, in order for moments like Hiccup and Toothless in Where No One Goes, or Valka's moment of connection with Cloudjumper. Fishlegs' attentive, adoring caring of Meatlug and her baby. Snotlout declaring to Hookfang "You're the reason my heart beats!", because even though they're outwardly bickering with each other, they still care deep down, and Hookfang always saving Snotlout at the last second.

Dragons may be used and targeted by evil, but ultimately, they are a great and wonderous good that the world may not deserve, but that it sorely needs. I want Berk to be in the philosophical position it was at the end of the second movie, where Hiccup's monologue says: "Those who attacked us are relentless and crazy, but those who stopped them - oh, even more so! We may be small in numbers, but we stand for something bigger than anything the world can pin against us. We are the voice of peace, and bit by bit, we will change this world."

Or like this quote from the book How to Speak Dragonese: “However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords…I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams. And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together…and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.”

So I think the movie's ending was good and reasonable, but I'm just gonna go drown myself in dragons-never-leaving AUs now.