#httyd3 analysis

[tenebrius-excellium]

You know, for all that happened in Httyd3... the great moments, and the weaker moments... the new moments, the confusing moments, and the moments that made the fandom justifiably doubt if the third movie could properly end the trilogy...

The speech Astrid made to Hiccup on that cliff remains the single most awesome and defining moment for me. That was the turning point. That was incredible. That was significant, and left me speechless, and that was GREATNESS, and that made it all worth it.

[10blue10]

The Timeline of THW

The reason that the pacing in THW feels so off is because it doesn’t take into account how long it would realistically take characters to get from A to B. So let’s go through it chunk by chunk and see if we can figure the timeline out.

The opening scene is the First Night, on the trapper ship, and then by the time they get back to Berk, it’s the next morning/lunchtime. So far so good. Then judging by the lighting in that scene, Grimmel arrives at the warlords base at sunset, so it must be taking place at the same time as the flashback/cliff scene back on Berk. Which we know is the same day, because they reference Gobber’s suggestion to get married. So these two scenes are in parallel.

Except that the Light Fury is seen in a cage at the trappers base at sunset, and  yet a few scenes later, by the Second Night, she’s already on Berk. And it’s not like Toothless went to go look for her in the middle of the night - the sun has only just set. It’s only been a single day! Grimmel can apparently teleport now.

Then we get all the stuff with finding the trap and learning about Grimmel, and the Third Night where they fail to trap him, he sets Hiccup’s house on fire, and Hiccup tells everyone they have to leave. Incidentally, this is the first time he forgoes a good nights sleep, but it won’t be the last! The next day they’re off finding New Berk, and Grimmel pulls ‘facts’ out of his ass about Night Furies.

We get the Fourth Night where Toothless encounters the Light Fury again, and then it’s the next morning...but Hiccup has already pretty much made an auto tail for Toothless, implying he was working during the night. How did they set up a forge that fast? Who knows! Oh, and there’s Hiccup not sleeping again!

Now here’s where things get complicated. A lot happens simultaneously during the Fifth Night. Toothless and the Light Fury are on their ‘date’, we have Hiccup and crew going off to capture Grimmel and failing, then they get back to New Berk, realise Ruffnut is missing, and Hiccup and Astrid go to find Toothless. It’s  the...let’s see, third night Hiccup doesn’t get enough sleep! He’s on a roll!

They find the Hidden World, Toothless comes back with them, Grimmel captures him and the LF, and by the time the final battle starts it’s sunset. The dragons leave just before the Sixth Night...and then we skip ahead to winter if the same year, presumably, and they’ve already built a village and carved a massive statue of Stoick. Say what you will but the Berkians can work fast.

Five days. From beginning to...well, the departure scene, the bulk of the movie takes place over just five days. Or five nights. Hiccup doesn’t sleep for at least 48 hours straight at one point, so I’m not convinced he didn’t make that terrible decision to send the dragons away because he was sleep deprived.

Except we don’t know if it has been five days. We can only assume based on the times of day shown in the movie, because there’s nothing to suggest more time has passed in between. In fact, it’s impossible for there to have been time in between, just based on how the scenes are edited and what characters say.

[queenofthearchipelago]

When Toothless didn't recognize Hiccup in the epilogue I was thrown for a bit but then Toothless remembered him and then I remembered

"I looked at him, and I saw myself"

There is no world in which Toothless would not recognize Hiccup because there is no world in which that dragon would not have recognized himself.

A soul that reflects his own.

[nightfury-2001]

So, I decided to look at the background Light Furies in the Hidden World and point out how they differ from the main Light Fury and theorize what that might mean for the canon Light Fury species.

First up, the one that flies up and then falls back when Toothless and the main LF are about to swoop down.

Right off the bat we can notice some differences here...most notably the pointier tail fins. The wings also look to less smooth, and this Light Fury also seems to have longer ear plates. While some have said that these differences are down to motion blur and/or the angle, I really don't think they are, especially the pointier tail fins.

A lot of people seem to theorize that this is a male Light Fury, and that Light Furies (and possibly Night Furies) display sexual dimorphism...which would suck, because I mean, having females have heart shaped tails, weirdly smooth wings, and smaller sensory organs (because yeah, ear plates actually have uses, they aren't just there for display). Please no. Even though I hated the idea I still agreed at first that this was probably intended to be a male Light Fury considering some of the reasoning behind the main Light Fury's design, and I was pretty annoyed...but then...I remembered...

BUFF LIGHT FURY

Yeah, remember that other Light Fury that everyone thought was a male that was in the second trailer? I finally decided to go look at more screencaps of it now that the actual movie is out, and those extra few seconds that weren't in the trailer really help show just how much larger its ear plates are compared to the main Light Fury's and how its head/face isn't as rounded and does't seem to be as smooshed in... Anyway, if you go by the "male Light Furies have pointier tail fins and wings" then it's a female!

Look at this buff queen!!! I remember when the first trailer came out and I was like "yeah idc what anyone says that's a mother with her adolescent offspring", and y'all it makes me so happy to feel like that might have been the intention...but, if I'm being completely honest with myself it's probably more likely that it's supposed to be a male Light Fury even if it is beside a younger Light Fury. Especially considering that in things released around the time of the first movie, there are bulkier dragons with different features that certainly seem like they're intended to be males, such as this Nadder from GotNF:

HOWEVER, with all that in mind, I'd like to present another theory I feel might be at least somewhat true, and makes me much happier than the alternatives: That there's some variation within Light Furies and other species such as Deadly Nadders, and that traits like longer ear plates, pointier tail fins, less smooth wings, etc. for Light Furies, or having an underbite, longer spines, etc. for Nadders are not due to sexual dimorphism. This helps explain why a lot of the male Nadders and Gronckles we've seen look the exact same as the females, why Fishlegs originally thought Meatlug was a male (even though I imagine Berk didn't know that much about dragons when GotNF happened, I still think a few months had to have passed at the very least, and have you seen one of those buffer/bigger Gronckles? lol), and the differences between the Light Furies.

anyway who's gonna make an OC that’s a buff female light fury with pointier wings and tail fins i know i am

[inhonoredglory]

I honestly can’t really get on board w the ending of httyd 3 for the very fact that it felt like what ppl say happens when you get married, that you leave everyone even your best friend and go to your own little bubble w your partner and kids (maybe occasionally seeing them if your lucky) and being that I haven’t been w anyone ever &that I don’t see my future like that it kinda made me sad that the ending kinda just further reinforced the idea that that’s what’s natural idk

OK. This. This is what has been bothering me pretty hardcore since the film ended and I got over the shine of its shocking newness. I don’t want to really promote negativity in the fandom, but it should be addressed and you bring up what I fear the most in most mainstream narratives, and what I thought we were safe from in the HTTYD franchise.

Because HTTYD as a whole is so strongly and so poignantly about the friendship and fierce love of Hiccup and Toothless: theirs is a Love Story, through and through, and let’s be real: HTTYD3 confirmed that by having Hiccup tell Toothless, “I love you” (if anyone out there was confused before) and by paralleling Stoick’s “love is loss” flashback quote with (not Hiccup and Astrid), but Hiccup and Toothless.

So the narrative definitely elevates the friendship of Hiccup and Toothless. I appreciate that. I appreciate that the film knows this is about “the friendship of a lifetime.” Hiccup is selfless to the point of death for Toothless’ happiness. (Toothless has some development issues and a less-than-stellar portrayal of his own separation anxiety, but that’s another issue written about here in this analysis by @e–wills and @kingofthewilderwest)

The theme of the film is that dragons and humans can’t live with each other because humans are too evil. Toothless must protect his dragonkind. Toothless must lead them to safety. I’m not going to go into the details of how those themes were developed in the film (or if they needed more emphasis). That might be another post once I see the film again.

What I am bothered by is how easily the narrative feeds into what you feared: that friendships must inevitably give way to romantic partnerships. Hiccup says he was paying attention to what he wanted, rather than what Toothless needed. He asks Toothless, “am I enough?” And the narrative is telling us, no. We have so many supporting character relationships turned into romances or hints of romances that weren’t that way before––from Snotlout hitting on Valka, that bit of Valka and Eret, Tuffnut and Hiccup, Gobber and Eret. (Again, I’m not saying romance is bad, but romance––of any stripe––was never the hallmark of HTTYD.) And of course… we get Ruffnut trying to decide which man she wants to fall in love with.. because apparently, even her and Tuffnut can’t be complete with just each other (I’m not the biggest RTTE fan, but I honestly adored that ep where Ruff committed herself to Tuff instead of running off with Throk.)

A hugely disproportionate amount of the jokes in the film were ultimately sexual in nature. And when Toothless is swept off his wings by the Light Fury (literally when he fell into the Hidden World w/ her), the cinematic structure of that scene was that traditional fade to black (read: they had sex) we see in romantic movies since the beginning of movies. Toothless is slobbery and horny. Hiccup and Astrid are on fire (literally, and I could probably get very Freudian about that scene too). The overtness of the sexual undertone in this film felt more powerful to me than the direness of the threat (again, with limited runtime they chose to emphasize developing Toothless and LF’s arc than the villains’).

It bothers me because even though we get the world-scope facts about Toothless having to return to his kind and protect his dragons, we get the emotional and narrative scaffolding of a very, VERY tired and traditional trope. Casual fans are gonna see this movie and knee-jerk right back into the idea that friendships are the things you have as a kid and teen growing up. Those have to ultimately give way to “the real world” where you settle with a romantic partner and have a family.

Are families bad? No. Is romance bad? No. But Hiccup and Toothless represented so much more than that; they represented True Love, which is dedicated, committed, and lifelong. I adored GotNF because it placed the hallmarks and symbology of marriage (willing bondage to another person) in the context of Hiccup and Toothless, the most non-sexual of relationships (bless the fact that Toothless is a dragon because it made friendship the only canon interpretation of their bond). HTTYD3 tries to explain GotNF by saying Toothless had no one to go to when he flew off. But now he does.

I still want to see the film again to really get my thoughts together on this, but at the moment I’m grumbling. I soapbox friendships-as-legit-love a lot and so I was triggered somewhat by the shift. Like you, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship either and I really wonder if the biological drive to get hooked is that powerful in people. Maybe it is…

I lowkey want to write a THW Remix fic putting back in all the themes we know and love into the movie, but with the plot intact, cuz the plot of this film was heartbreakingly beautiful and completely relevant to the biggest Hiccup and Toothless question in their growth: when does a love become selfish?

Anyway, I rambled long enough. Please let’s dialogue about this, fandom. I want to work my feelings out on it and hopefully be proved wrong.

I do recommend reading this post by a friend of mine who believes the friendship was not overpowered by the romance.

[tenebrius-excellium]

Just saw THW salt again and it made me realize that I wouldn't want to change anything about this movie (anymore). I love everything about it. As it is. I LOVE that it's a movie that you have to grapple with. I LOVE that it's not an easy thing to just watch and daydream to. I love how difficult and unsatisfying it is at times; love the realism of a hope not yet fulfilled in this world. I bleed like this every day and it helps to know these characters made the best of what they had and grew content anyway. Httyd3 seems to know a secret that only a few wise people ever want to acknowledge. It's super hard, took me years to accept. I still don't know if it's true in its essence, but it's bold. A satisfied life in the unfulfilled, in the waiting, in perhaps the length of a lifetime - what a message.

[tenebrius-excellium]

I'm reading the Httyd3 film commentary and oh my gosh, so much love went into that movie, even though not every thought came out quite perfect in the final thing. The planning behind it was so in-depth and nuanced though. I now remember how Hiccup always set Toothless free and I believe one thing that may have been missing from the third movie was Hiccup getting to openly admit that he (thinks he) needs Toothless, too. It's implied and shown but never voiced. He's alone with that fear and that's why he never quite overcomes it. Astrid calls him out on feeling inferior and challenges him to be the strong person he was before meeting Toothy. But that's not the kind of strength in question. The reason WHY Hiccup was feeling inferior - the fear of losing his best buddy who made him better - was valid to be expressed and addressed as well. It needs to be ok to feel upset over something like this loss before moving on to letting it go.

Back in big Httyd feels wow.

[tenebrius-excellium]

I love your post about backend motivation vs frontend motivation in the HTTYD series!!! I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the sequels (especially the third movie) that I could never put into words, but the difference in motivation is EXACTLY it. The Hidden World in particular had a specific ending in mind, wich isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but their solution was to force the ending into existence instead of letting the story naturally build up to the ending. And you can feel the story straining soooooo much when Toothless acts like a dog for twenty minutes or Grimmel does something simple/obvious that the narrative treats as an ingenious act of strategy. It’s just not genuine! The characters simply wouldn’t act like that, but the writers let plot dictate characters instead of the other way around, and it’s just. so disappointing. There has to have been a way to keep the natural tensions and eventual triumphs of dragon/human bonds without resorting to flattening everyone’s character and taking the story in a weird, half-baked direction.

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Oh my gosh B. You’re still there??????? THANK YOU for being faithful to my blog even tho I’ve not really posted anything proper in ages!!! I’m so happy to hear from you!!!

I’m glad you liked my post XD Ok so. I remembered that what I tried to express is called “Watsonian vs. Doylish” interpretation in fandom (based on this post), or easier, it’s about giving in-universe explanations vs. ex-universe explanations for something that happens in the plot. The actual literary terms according to Gérard Genette for that would be “intra-diegetic” vs. “extra-diegetic”. 

The specific difference the terms “back-end vs. front-end motivation” makes, seems to be the phenomenon that building a story from the start allows it to better make sense inside the universe, whereas building a story from its ending reveals the circumstances that the author found themselves in when creating it.

Anyway so what I always found strange is that Httyd2 had all those same problems you named, yet no one talks about that and only bashes on the third movie! Wanna enlighten me on why the second movie worked for you???

Ok so this is spontaneously going to turn into the “Ooc Hiccup post” that I promised at the beginning of the year. I hope you’re ok with that. 

WHY IS HICCUP OOC IN HTTYD2?

because his new conflict (”becoming Chief”) was pulled out of thin air and wasn’t already an established extension of Berk’s situation. (a part I always loved about Httyd1 was that Hiccup wasn’t made out to be a Disney Princess who would have to face the duty of leading eventually. I expected the question of succession to be handled far more casually - that someone who wanted to be worthy could be Chief on Berk, not because Hiccup was expected to continue Stoick’s legacy. In fact I wish Stoick would have let him go rampant with the smithy and all his crazy inventions, making him Gobber’s successor first - since Gobber is also canonically older than Stoick - and lining Astrid up to be the next actual Chief. There could have been a sudden plot twist where Astrid realizes she doesn’t want to do it alone and that she needs Hiccup in this with her. It would have made them the ruling couple in a different way.)

because the movie made him immature on purpose so it could justify slapping the “necessary” growth arc on him. (Look, Hiccup has always been reckless and a little bit too trusting when presented with danger, but he was never ignorant of a certain reality or too stupid to see error in his ways. Httyd2 depicts him as a naive dragon geek who can’t see past the destructive potential this has on the humans around him. Eret has had a shit life and a dark past. Drago has his reasons for what he does. Yet Hiccup is far too quick to ignore the trauma that the tribes of the Archipelago suffered because of the dragon plague, and simply forgives his mother despite the fact that she chose to save dragons over raising her own son. It’s all in the name of dragon welfare now and that is just not Hiccup. Og Hiccup took time to engage with Astrid’s valid scepticism. Og Hiccup killed the Red Death to save his tribe. He did not attempt to train that one, if you get what I’m saying. The dragons were never pets.)

because Stoick died only so he wouldn’t get in the way of Hiccup’s leadership. (After all that happens, Hiccup - to me - hasn’t suddenly evolved into a wiser or more experienced person. He just righteously got his ass kicked for the stupidity that was forced onto his character. He then becomes Chief not because he has learned much from the situation, but because Stoick is now dead. It’s true that Hiccup says “Sorry, Dad” to the funeral pyre, but it is never specified what he’s sorry for. To me, he does understand that he got his father killed, but he doesn’t get a grasp on why. He hasn’t the faintest notion of what Stoick did for him, to what extent his father came after him. There was desperation in Stoick to save his son. And Hiccup never feels this guilt much. It is then very convenient that he can freely lead the people of Berk and appear as a competent Chief simply because there is no more Stoick to disagree with him. I loved the version in the books where Hiccup becomes king and Stoick as well as Valhallarama are both alive and well to see it!!!! And Stoick, Chief of the Hairy Hooligans, has to take a step back and let his son shine.)

Right. So that’s that. The second point is by far my greatest criticism regarding Httyd2. Hiccup, in my opinion, was always balanced between the needs of dragons and humans. He is not a “dragon geek”. It simply so happened that a dragon became his best friend because no one else wanted to be his friend at first. Movie!Hiccup is an “invention geek”!!! The time he spends building stuff in the smithy is so important to his character! He doesn’t fix stuff by talking. He fixes stuff by building tools first and explaining them to everyone else second. That’s how I’ve always understood him. Httyd3 Hiccup partly returned to that focus with his fireproof armor, the fully developed flightsuits and the docking contraption for ships that he made on New Berk. The Hiccup I know acts more, gains emotional insight by observation, and talks less.

Of course I agree with all of your criticism of Httyd3. Yes the movie felt strained. But I admit that because I enjoyed Hiccup’s hesitant yet determined character again, I can overlook its flaws much easier than the flaws of Httyd2.

Let me know what you think!