Do you think that maybe Valka did stop by Berk every once in a while to see Hiccup? Maybe she didn't see him but had some belief that he was alive? Maybe she found the stuffed dragon she made for Hiccup and dropped it off somewhere with a note to deliver to Berk? Maybe she was surprised that the boy standing in front of her, after she kidnapped him, was her son? I'd like to think that she tried to check up on him but was afraid of getting caught or killed by doing so. What are your thoughts?
Thank you for the question! Itâs really touching to think about, Valka returning back home. Quite a sentimental, touching headcanon.
My thoughts say that she didnât, though. I hope you donât mind me elaborating my own viewpoint as to that!
The dragon toy was discovered when it washed up out of the ocean (and Hiccup was the one who threw it in), meaning Valka never touched it since Hiccup was an infant. She would not drop it off into an ocean outside of Berk if she dropped it anywhere to be found. It would have been closer home, in a more obvious location, and in a less destructive environment. Not to mention and Stoick would have⊠reacted⊠if there were a note attached to the toy. For he would have seen it, not just Hiccup. The note would have to be very vague anyway not to indicate Valka was still alive⊠which obviously Stoick and Hiccup had no suspicion of. So I donât think that could happen based upon the canon we are given.
In HTTYD 2, Valkaâs astonishment that the boy she kidnapped was her son is because at first she did not know he was her son. She recognized him by the scar on his chin, not his appearance in and of itself, suggesting that she has not seen him since he was a baby. She recoils as soon as she notices the scar, indicating her genuine shock.
Most importantly, though, the entire point of Valkaâs personality growth in HTTYD 2 revolves around the fact that she has completely abandoned Berk. To write in a different story of her peeping in takes away from that personal growth in the movie. She left them all period. Her family. The entire tribe. We can desire all we want for Valka to have been a good mother with such a great heart that she at least sneaked back her island, but thatâs not her character. Valka has a huge fault. She completely left. Thatâs what makes her reunion with Hiccup and Stoick so shocking. Thatâs what makes her incapable of believing Berk has changed to be dragon friendly. Thatâs why she has such GUILT.
Valka suffers huge guilt, triggered especially upon seeing Hiccup again, because she has gone and never come back. "It broke my heart to stay away,â she says, but the point is she stays away. I donât think she means that generally. I think she means that one hundred percent completely stayed away. The way she speaks in other scenes suggests she has never once seen her son or even returned to Berk at all.Â
- "Hiccup? Could it be? After all this time? How is this possible?â As you yourself postulate, she has not see Hiccup no matter where she has been, but she would be more astonished if her son has not been on her mind and suddenly appeared out of the blue. Meaning she has not focused her thoughts on Berk and has not been there.
- Hiccup asks her, âThis is where youâve been for twenty years?â and she nods. Sure, she flies outside the sanctuary and has explored many areas, but sheâs made a home elsewhere, this place with the Bewilderbeast, and that is the home to which she returns and owes her heart. Berk does not owe her heart so she has less motivation to even slip in for a quick, unsuccessful visit.
- âAll this time, you took after me. And where was I?â She is criticizing herself for her absence, as well as marveling, shocked, that her son is like her. This means she never saw him, and the fact she asks âand where was Iâ means âabsent.â âFar away.â But beyond that, it means, âI abandoned my family.â It hits her hard upon reuniting with Hiccup that she has been gone forever without returning home or caring for her son, and she thinks back on her past actions with huge regret. She has not lived her life checking up on her son⊠she feels the guilt of having never been there at all in even the least action.
- âI know what youâre going to say, Stoick. How could I have done this? Stayed away all these years. And why didnât I come back to you? To our son. Well, what sign did I have that you could change, Stoick? That anyone on Berk could?"Â The other quotes i have could be explained away with some effort, but I donât think this one can.Â
Valka thinks everyone on Berk is a dragon killer. She has motivation to stay away from EVERYONE. She has bad memories of the location and the fact that nobody can change⊠and sheâs the oddball out. That does not exactly motivate someone to visit their old home.
Secondly, listen to how Valka babbles about leaving Berk behind to Stoick. Nothing in her words explicitly say she has not popped in for a quiet, unseen visit, but the pragmatics say she did. Sheâs yammering nervously to Stoick. Sheâs talking straight from her emotions and is going to say the flat out truth in this nerve-wracking scenario for her. Sheâs laying open her heart, and in that open heart moment, she says she has stayed away. She exposes herself as one who has completely abandoned her husband, her son, and Berk because she believes it would be better, and thatâs the extent of it. Her word choice would have differed had she even made a secret or attempted visitation.
Especially later in that same scene, her comment, âI see that now,â regarding how wrong she was to leave Hiccup means that heart, while it might have hurt her, was something she changed her mind on. Valka changed her mind on the fact leaving Hiccup behind was wrong. Meaning she thought it was right to stay away and held to it. This means she did not come to even try and visit her son. This quote I feel is a really strong point against Valka trying to watch after her son⊠the entire point of her guilt is that she didnât.
Valka might have felt horrible emotionally for leaving her family, but she had a different priority: the dragons. Theyâre her everything by HTTYD 2. She acts like the, lives with them, tries to save them, even tries to get her son on board with her dragonly habits. As harsh as this sounds, Valka put her dragons before her family. She made her choice and stuck with it in full.
Itâs a really cute headcanon and you can go right on ahead and enjoy it. Itâs endearing and I donât want to cut things down negatively. I personally do not think it is in Valkaâs character, nor think that the evidence we do have supports it. But fandoming, like always, is about the imagination! Thanks for sending me your thoughts this way. :)
Exactly.
While people try to paint Stoick as the villain and he should be called out for his earlier treatment, why there's this double standard with Valka? Valka DID, for all intents and purposes, abandoned her son. To me, itâs weird how now she is treated like the best mom ever by people when like... she wasnât even present for the majority of Hiccup's life? I didn't sadly get the "best mom" vibe from her. She wasn't held captivity. She could have literally gone back at any time and simultaneously fix the relationship between dragons and Vikings, instead of Hiccup doing it years later when more people and dragons would have logically died. I would have enjoyed the movie more if they focused on the interaction of what that type of abandonment would do to someone than just not focusing on a parent abandoning their child at all. I don't think Stoick is so deranged that he wouldn't take Valka's personal newfound feelings about dragons into account as he did eventually with Hiccup. He might have been rough around the edges but she had a duty, if not as a wife, than as a MOTHER.
You could make the case that she was kidnapped at first, but she had won the favor of the Dragons, likely for years, and never did her thoughts went to:
'Boy, I have a son back in Berk. My husband probably thinks I'm dead and already has a extremely dark light. Let me be there.'
I actually do appreciate Stoick a lot more because of this film. He wasn't the best father, but he did his best, and I draw the line at people saying he was abusive. Ultimately, the dragons were attacking those on Berk *first.* And Stoick just responded in kind.
And people try to compare her and Hiccup's decisions from the first film? The way I see it, there is a massive difference between her situation and Hiccup's. Valka didn't bother to go check on her family once to see if they were still alive. It would be one thing if she was in captivity by Drago or somebody else. But SHE HAD free will. In the first film, Hiccup knew the people he was leaving would be safe. Valka was a grown adult who made her decision to not reach out even once with at least a note to reveal she was alive without the needing to reveal she sided with the dragons. While Hiccup was a troubled teen who was trying to avoid having to face treason the next day. He was leaving but at least for he thought no one was going to grieve for him unlike Valka. While Stoick hunted dragons since he was a kid, his anger for them only increased because he'd thought she was dead. Abandoning and cutting contact with your innocent baby is an embodiment of selfishness to me. Also, to me, it's also unacceptable even if she left only Stoick behind as it's "Till Death Do Us Part" when it's with someone you genuinely love and they don't do unredeemable things. It would be different if it was a loveless arranged marriage but their reunion utterly destroys any notion of that. She made the willing choice to knowingly let him grieve when she knew doing so would only make him very understandably hate dragons more.
I consider it INSULTING to refer to Stoick's relationship to Hiccup as abusive; to both of them and to people who survived abuse like myself when NOTHING suggests that Stoick abused Hiccup.
In the events of the first film, Stoick was also being pulled in three different ways, between the requirements of the village, defending against the dragons and having to raise his son alone without being knowledgeable to deal with just how different his son was from him. He tried to raise him like he was raised: to fight and defend his village and thatâs just not who Hiccup was until he had found who he truly was by Toothless.
Yes, he got furious with him, yes he refused to listen, but only because he loved Hiccup and the island and saw Hiccup's actions as leading to the descent of the village up until he had been able to save it through Toothless. He saw that by locking his son away that he could achieve two of his goals in near perpetuity in a single stroke and that still wounded him to do so. You can see him stagger back after he leaves the great hall.
And ultimately once itâs shown that Hiccup is right, and that humans and dragons can coexist, he supports his son all the way, not just in helping to establish the isle his son wanted, where dragons and humans live as once, willing to fight for his son and the dragons in Riders of Berk and Race to the Edge multiple times, but also ultimately sacrificing himself for his son in the second movie.
Actually, he could have aimed for Toothless and kill him or wounded him greatly, but he didn't because he knows that would destroy Stoick.
All in all, while Valka was living in what was essentially paradise, Stoick had been looking out for his people, protecting his son, being there for him when it was essential for a parent to be. And no matter your views on Stoick, it's indisputable that she abandoned him.

















