I’m doing a Dreamworks Dragon Rewatch on everything we have been given and I noticed something.
In the beginning of the Riders of Berk episode, Gem of a Different Color, Hiccup and Astrid go against each other in Hand to Hand combat. Right before the fight starts, Hiccup starts to say that him going against Astrid is unfair, presumably because her skills are so much better than his; he thought had no chance. Hiccup manages to flip Astrid over, pretty impressive at this point for Hiccup, but Astrid wins very quickly. The whole fight is honestly like 10 seconds.
And it just hit me that this fight parallels the Hiccup and Astrid fight we see at the beginning of the RTTE S5 episode called Dawn of Destruction. In this fight, Hiccup and Astrid are just going against each other for fun. Neither of them are doing it because they have to and neither feel the fight is unmatched. Sure, the fight here is a little different with Hiccup being armed with his flaming sword and Astrid with her double sided axe. But Hiccup holds his own very well, and Astrid asks him if he wants to call it a draw. Astrid still wins, but only because Hiccup didn’t want to call the draw.
My point is that Hiccup has come so far and I am very proud of him.