Spoilers for Httyd School: Fight of the Flamestrike
Fight of the Flamestrike twice bringing up that the Women of the Wind do not marry means it's important.
Worst case scenario, Camicazi's arc will be about her internal conflict on having feelings for Hiccup while simultaneously wanting to become a Woman of the Wind. People theorised that Camicazi's hinted feelings for Hiccup at the end of Book 12 may be expanded upon in Book 13, and this could be foreshadowed from Gladioli saying to Camicazi that choosing the Woman of the Wind path is worth it only if you follow your heart, so perhaps following her heart would lead to Hiccup instead.
I'm stating the obvious here, but that would truly be a terribly misogynistic, boring, and done plotline. And dare I say, out of character... Which is why I'm very happy with the confirmation in Fight of the Flamestrike that Camicazi does not care about romance and is ecstatic and determined about becoming a Woman of the Wind (currently anyway).
This also fuels my own opinion on Hiccami being ooc/doomed to fail, as I always thought there was no way in hell Camicazi would want to settle down and start a family, whereas Hiccup wants nothing more than to settle down and live a life of peace.
The prophecy of Camicazi becoming Hiccup's enemy one day and Camicazi pocketing the significant Grimbeard's Queen piece were such bombshells because they're so unexpected. Camicazi wanting to become a Woman of the Wind isn't unexpected. So how the hell do all of these fit together?
We are introduced to the Dreadread, King of the Lands of the Barbaric East in When the Windwalker Changed, as well as being told there are other Kings of the East he is rivalled with. This is particularly interesting information as this story is set when Hiccup is a young adult, and the unknowns at the end of the story: Dreardread declaring he will kill Hiccup, the Windwalker becoming known as the Dark Defender, that being a story for another time, and then mentioning Book 13, lead me to believe Book 13 will be set around the time of, or straight after this short story (although it does state that the Windwalker evolves "some time after the end of Hiccup's twelfth memoir", so maybe Book 13 will begin straight after Book 12, but to me it feels like due to the introduction of Young Adult Hiccup in this short story, as well as the setup of Dreadread vowing to destroy Hiccup, that Book 13 is going to be set in this era).
My theory: In Book 13, it's revealed Camicazi is heir to to throne of the Lands of the Barbaric East, which is perfect because it is currently ruled by a tyrannical murderous King who is out to get Hiccup. Maybe Camicazi is excited and entertains this for a a while, or maybe she immediately turns it down. But either way, it becomes apparent that Camicazi doesn't want to be Queen, as she wants to be (or maybe at this point, has been) a Woman of the Wind. Hiccup tries to persuade Camicazi to lead because the East finally has the chance of having a just ruler. But Camicazi is staunch in her decision, leading to Hiccup and Camicazi becoming enemies due to the dispute. Maybe the details don't happen 1 to 1, and Camicazi is heir to the throne of one of the rival East lands instead, as after all, we were given hints about them. But it's still in line with my theory.
So where does the explicit detail of the Women of the Wind not marrying come into play?
Camicazi aspiring to be a Woman of the Wind is so interesting because this is the first time she's ever done something that goes against the typical societal viking expectations. Obviously aside from being friends with and standing with Hiccup and Fishlegs, but Camicazi never experienced any alienation or people disliking her for it, when it's pretty implied that this WILL happen to Camicazi when she becomes a Woman of the Wind.
Wouldn't Bertha immediately be completely against her daughter, everything a chief could possibly wish for in an heir: a natural-born leader, swordfighter, burglar and dragon rider who is more filled with courage and battle spirit than anyone, choosing to go adventuring alone? And to top it all off; swearing off marriage and producing no heirs? Camicazi being in line to some throne out there, East or not, means there'd be even more expectation and pressure for her to have heirs.
And circling back to the worst case scenario I brought up - Camicazi grappling with wanting to become a Woman of the Wind whilst also having feelings for Hiccup - I feel as if this pales in comparison to the arc Camicazi could go through if my theory is correct. I'm really not tooting my own horn here, I just think a woman's arc being about fighting to escape the shackles of an extremely flawed and heteronormative society would be FAR more compelling and progressive than an arc about a woman fighting for the right to... marry a man. And like I mentioned, this wouldn't even make sense for either Camicazi or Hiccup's characters. They both have completely opposite goals in life, and since the very beginning, Camicazi's character has been all about a girl trying to prove that the misogynists are wrong about her.
Obviously the handling of Camicazi deserves criticism with her character being a straw feminist and all. But then wouldn't her new arc being centred around fighting misogyny be even more justified? A chance to redeem the previous poor handling? It seems Camicazi having a whole arc in the future that will be taken seriously is due to Cressida realising Camicazi was seriously neglected in terms of character arc despite being in the main trio, being delegated to pure comedic relief.
We known from TWOO that Cressida isn't a stranger to straightbaiting her audience; hinting at a romance between the main boy and girl to then reveal the two as siblings, and that they never liked each other like that to begin with, it was just the narrator playing a trick on us. So Cressida may want to avoid the main guy and girl from getting together in her most popular series too as it's been done far too many times to count.
I don't expect to be right about any of the points I made here, but this is the most satisfying theory I could come up with with all the pieces we've been given so far. In a year's time Httyd School Book 3 will come out and will probably give us another bombshell reveal to do with Camicazi that throws all our theories out the window, and I'm so excited for that.
That being said, I do want Cami to become a Woman of the Wind... I can't think of a more satisfying conclusion for her
can't wait for the the 3rd book. But also, am I the only one who likes the Hiccup and Camicazi couple? I think it's incredibly plausible. There is respect going both ways between them. I don't know. I think it works. I think it's really cute. I don't usually go for the force fed couple, but this one is really well developed I think.
If Cressida intends to make Hiccup and Camicazi endgame, I feel like making Camicazi explicitly state she is going to become a Woman of the Wind in the future is writing herself into a corner. There's no way out of that where Camicazi's arc won't be misogynistic, in my opinion.
Interesting you bring up Vahallarama, as the new book made me realise she's who Camicazi will become if she doesn't choose freedom over tradition. Val is always away adventuring, and Hiccup laments that she was a neglectful parent because of this. She was never stated to be a Woman of the Wind though, and isn't, because she's tied down with a husband and child. I get the feeling that if Cami married Hiccup, she would neglect her family like Val, not because of a super important quest, but because she can't stand being tied down.
I think that if they become a couple, Camicazi won’t be anything like Val. And the fact that Cressida chose to create a situation where Camicazi has to decide between freedom and “love” shows that she understands her character very well.
Camicazi isn’t that similar to Val and she wouldn’t neglect her family. I believe their children would quite independent and adventurous. Hiccup has tried to trick her and send her somewhere safe on several occasions, and she still chose to stay by his side to help him. It’s also worth remembering that Hiccup never wanted to be king either, but he had to become one because it was what his heart told him to do (and it was his fate)
Let’s see what Cressida is cooking up for us, but I believe she knows her characters well, and if that happens, she’ll know how to make it work.
I always tell people I love these books because of the heavy themes and brilliant narrative later in the series, and while that's true, I forgot how much I adore the earlier books before slavery or war or fate enters into the picture much at all. I just love these two
Alternate versions, because I wasn't quite sure how I wanted this one to look:
also it's very important to me that people know that I KNOW he's left-handed but I think that if it didn't occur to him to try sword fighting with his left hand then he probably writes with his right—I know a lot of people who have different dominances for different tasks and will, say, write with their right and sew with their left. and I suspect that's what's going on with Hiccup. so it was a conscious choice to draw it that way, I did not just forget
Randomly decided to rank movie universe dragons on how well they represent their book counterparts
As you can see, it's not a lot as the movies and its many other projects have decided to create its own species
Terrible terror: Now their is no dragon in the books called a terrible terror. However, since it was the original toothless design, and this was back when toothless was thought to be a common or garden dragon. It works great as an adaptation of the species
Silver phantom: while I have issues with it, opinions aside it still works well as an adaptation of the one in the book and really does a good job at capturing the phantom part of the name
Gronckle and Monstrous Nightmare: theses two are in the same tier for the exact same reason, that being their significantly larger than their book counterparts to the point they would be considered riding dragons in the books but apart from they fit their book descriptions perfectly while adding their own uniqueness
Windwalker: so unlike every other dragon in this list, the reason this dragon can't perfectly match with their book counterpart is due to the design rules of the movies (well the rules they used to have) dragons can't have fur or feathers And unfortunately the windwalkers is one of the few in the books to have those features. I would also say the colors are wrong but I can see the windwalker maybe having some rare color morphs outside of black
Devilish Dervish: I tried to be objective here but the one in school of dragons just doesn't fit. Described as a fast dragon with a very muscular body that has a line of long spikes running down it back, the only thing it kept was the spikes. Had the game used it's own model instead of just reusing the raincutter one, it could of worked but outside of that, the current design doesn't look particularly fast or strong
Deadly spinner: Okay, okay, their no evidence to say that the deadly spinners are the eight legged nadder, but come on a nadder looking dragon with eight legs? The major issue it has is that it based on the movie deadly nadder which I'll address shortly.
Purple death: it's a purple sea dragon that adapts the coral armor really well and that's it. Closer than the red death at the very least
Deadly nadder: Outside of not even remotely matching, why did they use this name in the first place? nadder is a type of snake and their nothing remotely serpent like about the dragon
Prickleboggle: the one in the book is a tiny spider dragon.... of all the species to pick, why this one?
Red death: Originally, the green death was closer to the massive sea dragon from the books, but they went with the more bullish mountain dragon design because the orginal was too elegant to kill off which I don't get personally. Assuming that's one of the reason they changed it to the red death to try to separate it from the green death
The fact that Hiccup thinks Camicazi’s biggest flaw is being a bit too pleased with herself. never mind the k*lling, stealing, occasional annoying behavior, and slightly questionable morals.
I made a watercolour version of the Archipelago map! (some parts are incredibly inconsistent in terms of the colour but watercolour is very hard to work with ok and the messiness was definitely intentional and adds to the overall atmosphere don't bully me)
Here are some closeups if anyone would like to recreate it was so fun to do I would definitely recommend!
