HTTYD continuity: Are there two Hiccups?
First of all, thank you for all the likes and reblogs on my ‘there are two Hiccups’ post. It’s seriously blowing my mind how popular it is. So, if you read it and thought “what? There are two Hiccups?”
Well, no… but actually yes. I wasn’t being literal (I know, on the reading comprehension website? Shame on me), but the thing is, I’m actually kind of right? Just look at these examples from the wiki:
The entire series is based on the six main Dragon Riders moving away from Berk for over a year. However, in commentary, Dean DeBlois has said that they all lived on Berk between the first two films. The second film’s Art Book elaborates on this saying that they all had responsibilities on Berk which prevented them from leaving.
In other words, as far as Dean is concerned, RTTE never happened.
The series also focuses on the six main Dragon Riders exploring lands outside the Archipelago together, while both Dean and the second film’s Art Book state that only Hiccup and Astrid ventured outside the Archipelago as they were the ones drawing up Hiccup's map. The other four stayed much closer to Berk.
Again, we have a direct contradiction between what Dean claims happened pre-HTTYD2 in his (head)canon, and what we see in RTTE.
Numerous other "dragon riders" are introduced throughout the series, when the second and third films themselves stress how Berk is the only community who rides dragons. Dean elaborated on this during a convention panel explaining that that’s why Eret and Drago were so alarmed when seeing Vikings riding on dragons, and why Eret assumed Valka was one of them.
In an interview with the series creators Art Brown and Douglas Sloan, it was mentioned that the show was originally meant to have 4 seasons, spread out over the span of a year and a half, leading up to the second film. Following the many clues and mentions regarding the passage of time within the story, the last 7 episodes of season 4 were supposed to have happened during the same summer as the film. However, when seasons 5 and 6 were ordered into production, the show writers had to carry on with the timeline they had set up, which inevitably lead to the series continuing into negative time; going past the second film.
In other words, the last two seasons of RTTE aren’t meant to take place before HTTYD2 - they take place after it. If there’s better proof that RTTE is on its own separate timeline, I don’t know what that is.
The majority of film characters are portrayed severely out-of-character in the series compared to the films and film-verse media; most arguably Hiccup and Astrid. Aside from having similar appearance and even voices, their personalities and behaviors in the series portray them as drastically different people than their film counterparts.
I would argue that they are more in character during RTTE, especially Snotlout, the twins and Fishlegs. Isn’t it amazing what being fleshed out characters instead of comic relief can do? But there you have it. RTTE!Hiccup is portrayed as drastically different to his film counterpart. When push comes to shove, there are two Hiccups.
Or, you know, three, if we count the one from the books 😂.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to lamenting the fact we live in the timeline where THW exists and not the timeline where the writers of RTTE were allowed to make a full length conclusion movie.
