the thing i disliked most about httyd 3 was its villain. he's just a worse viggo. at least double down on the "dark mirror of hiccup" aspect, a lanky little inventor who used his gadgets not to save and help dragons but to subjugate and enslave them.
I don't really like Grimmel as a parallel for Hiccup anyway as both Viggo as well as Drago were better examples of this. You can't just grab a lanky guy, make him smart and say "look! he's lanky and smart! And he also faced a Night Fury, except he killed it! 😈"
Like, maybe that could've gone somewhere, but I distinctly remember the mention somewhere of that Night Fury being asleep when he snuck up on it and killed it. At least Toothless was awake and Hiccup had to look him in the eye as he tried to make up his mind about whether he had it in him to actually kill this dragon or not. Grimmel took out a completely defenseless creature and didn't even need to look it in the eye when he did it. Then he ran away with that "honor," thinking it would get him respect. (which supposedly it did? The movie wasn't really clear on that)
And then he supposedly singlehandedly took out the entire Night Fury race, arguably one of the strongest dragon species out there. A dragon so elusive no one on Berk before Hiccup could even describe it in the 300 years since they settled on that island. (And that's not taking the shows in account, with RttE celebrating Berk's 400th! anniversary. That's almost 400 years of not knowing what a Night Fury looked like, just what they sounded like and the kind of damage they could do. Night Furies were the Giant Squid equivalant of cryptids before Hiccup.)
And Grimmel made this claim while missing the single most conspicuous Night Fury for six whole years. Can't say you made sure an extremely elusive dragon species went extinct if you miss the one Night Fury that everybody in the Archipelago and Drago's forces know exactly where to find and you were surprised to hear about.
At least Hiccup can actually say that he killed the Red Death and that is a thousand times more impressive than... killing a sleeping dragon.
Viggo, on the other hand, was so much better for a parallel. Smart, cunning, and as ruthless as Hiccup was compassionate, both living a lifestyle that heavily involves dragons and at the end of the day, they had similar effects on one another.
Viggo was the first villain Hiccup lost to in three years and that made him obsessed with taking him down. Then Hiccup was the one who kept consistently winning and that made Viggo obsessed with taking him down. They really did bring out the worst out of each other before coming to some kind of bittersweet understanding and farewell in Triple Cross.
Drago was better, too. He was the brute force that Hiccup could've been as a Dragon Master. I don't think it's not for nothing that Httyd 2 literally introduces us to three of them. Hiccup, Valka, and Drago. (With Valka representing who Hiccup could've been if he did leave in Httyd 1)
Both amputees, both limbs lost to the dragons both of their entire lives have always revolved around. Except Hiccup didn't let his loss and the fact that he grew up at war with dragons make him hate and use dragons while Drago did. Drago was even as devastating as Hiccup was powerful, both bringing immense change wherever they went, whether for better or for worse. So if we want to look at Hiccup's version of "what if Superman was evil?" then Httyd 2 gave us a good representation of that already.
No need for lanky, smart guys, whose best plans were "hey, maybe we can make this Night Fury horny for a different species of Fury" and "what if Ruffnut just happens to be stupid enough to draw the entire Northern Alliance back to New Berk, besides having 6 years of battle experience herself." (RttE did her right at least)
And don't even get me started on how this Night Fury killer... knows nothing about Night Furies. I'm not even talking about him missing Toothless for six years straight, I'm talking about his statement that Night Furies do terribly in the cold despite nothing in the Httyd movie universe proving as such.
Neither in the movies, nor in either of the Christmas specials. (and that's ignoring the tv-shows and comics, which I refuse to.) Even Homecoming seems to have forgotten as Toothless traveled back to New Berk after 10 years of living in the Hidden World when one is clearly in the middle of winter and the other was still lush and green. He showed absolutely no signs of struggling in this sudden change in temperature. (Not even with a tailfin that should've broken at least 9 years ago from a lack of maintenance or, say, dragon fights or accidents. Can't expect this disabled dragon to "return to the wild" and then not get into fights.)
And then there is Grimmel's statement about how Night Furies... Dragons with a wing span the size of a small jet... AREN'T long-distance fliers when just a tiny little google search is all you need to find out that a long wingspan is perfect for long distance flight!
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