Can’t find the post for the life of me but I saw someone the other day post about the dragon trainer/dragon master titles and I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the emphasis on those titles is weird.
The point of Hiccup and Toothless’ friendship is that it’s symbiotic. They are direct parallels to each other and are equals. Hiccup didn’t “train” him, he earned his trust. They’re best friends. “Training” dragons implies a heavy amount of power imbalance, which simply isn’t true, especially between Hiccup and Toothless.
Also, even ignoring that, it’s plain wrong?? He didn’t train them. “Dragons will be dragons” is a sentiment echoed throughout ROB (and is an actual phrase repeated several times), and yes, they’ve had to learn how to live with each other — dragons more so, considering they’ve come to live on Berk and not the other way around, but those are compromises.
It’s been shown dragons are just as intelligent and complex as humans, idk why they insisted on toeing the line of allies versus steeds.