Light Fury Design Rant Part 1
So I wanted to ramble about the odd design choice of the Light Fury from How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World. It comes off as the basic stereotypical making the female different from the males, and imposing human characteristics to animals.
So first off while the HTTYD series is fictional, especially with hexapod reptiles not existing in reality. But the series still tries to ground it's dragons by giving them shot limits and treating as well animals. Only needing you to suspend your disbelief a bit with size and behavior at times.
Continuing on just like birds and most notably reptiles, dragons throughout this series from the movies to the shows the dragons remained identical whether male or female. With no problem calling the Nadders, Gronkles, and the Red Death female dragons or ever needing to resort to changing their designs to be more stereotypically feminine. Dragons in the series don't really have a spectrum of dimorphic traits between male and female dragons like many actual reptiles. The only one that could exist based on birds and reptiles is sometimes the females are bigger than the males, or males having traits meant to attract mates such as color, though not exclusive to males and females.
So the Light Fury has shorter antenna which is what I'm calling it, less obvious scales, has rounder features, and is smaller than Toothless. This also isn't Night vs Light Fury adaptations because we see a male and female Light Fury in the movie with the male being larger, having longer antennae, and a less round appearance from what we can see. So the difference is definitely based on the fact they are a female dragon, which is disappointing since the series never did such things with any of the other dragons like Meatlug.
Continuing on it has been pointed out by others that the Light Fury's design has a while not obvious pink pattern on her, and in the center of her head it makes the shape of a pink heart. This alongside the sparkly looking skin and the rest of her design is meant to signify she's the girl dragon, while ignoring what has already been established in this world. All while playing into old and the best way to put sexist stereotypes. Written by Eris the Lorekeeper
Part 2
