Here's my personal theory on Red Deaths, I don't think they're limited to just Gronkles, Nightmares, Zipplebacks and Nadders just in general. They control dragons that are most common in the area, by Berk those species were most common. If there was another Red Death somewhere else in another area it could probable have Windstrikers, Thunderclaws, Shovelhelms, Snifflehunches, Thornridges, Stormcutters or other dragons. It all depends on the area they are in.
That’s a really fascinating theory! I’m sort of drawn to it. It’s now how I’ve interpreted the Red Death in the past, but it does have some fascinating draws to it and strong explanatory power. I think I might have to revise my theory on the Red Death based upon your personal theory, because I like this a lot! I’ll tweak and propose a slightly variant form of your theory below.
Gronckles, Monstrous Nightmares, Deadly Nadders, and Hideous Zipplebacks don’t have much in common. They’re not closely related evolutionarily, they don’t have many adaptations in common, they don’t have diet in common... they have very little in common. Why would these four dragon species be the “magic four” to be manipulated by the Red Death? What chemical inside the mind would cause these four dragons to be manipulated by the Red Death, but exempt other creatures? It doesn’t make sense for this to happen. If we assume the Red Death can only target these dragons, it’s hard to explain how this comes to be.
For you to propose that the Red Death can create a hive mind out of any dragon in the region makes far more sense. First off, it’s consistent with how the hive mind works in the Bewilderbeast. Both the Bewilderbeast and the Red Death would use the same sort of ultrasonic mind control technique. Then, all we say is that the Red Death can control any dragon in the region. In another location, it might be Thunderclaws or Stormcutters or Hobblegrunts that constitute its nest.
Where I am going to diverge from your theory is on the idea of the Red Death controlling the “most common” dragons of the region. I don’t think that there is any good mind controlling mechanism that would only employ control over the most populous species in a region. I’m not sure how that could work. To simply posit that the Red Death controls all dragons in the region is a bit simpler in the explaining power, and perhaps more consistent with canon. Toothless himself was subject to the Red Death’s control; he snapped out of a romantic flight with Hiccup and Astrid to head straight to the Red Death’s nest with the other dragons of the hive. Toothless was the only Night Fury in that hive, yet still seemed to be affected by the Red Death’s control.
The only thing we would have to explain is why Terrible Terrors are not subject to the control. Terrible Terrors, after all, are present in Berk in quite a large population, yet they never seem to be influenced by the Red Death in the first movie. I feel like we could make multiple guesses to solve this problem.
The Terrible Terrors live out of “range.” Terrible Terrors do not fly to breed on Dragon Island like Gronckles, Nadders, Nightmares, and Zipplebacks. They don’t seem to live on Dragon Island at all from what we can tell. This means that the Terrible Terrors, unlike the other four dragons I listed, consistently live further away from the Red Death. They might be “out of range” to be consistently, effectively influenced by the Red Death. The other dragons can fly in and out of the “main zone of influence,” and thus become caught up in the hive mind... but the Terrible Terrors exist exclusively outside of it, and thus never become a part of the Red Death’s control.
The Terrible Terrors have a special chemical and/or neurological feature that makes them immune to the hive mind. I don’t think this is as good of an explanation as the former - after all, the Terrible Terrors get controlled by Drago’s Bewilderbeast at the end of HTTYD 2.
The Terrible Terrors’ minds are similar to the rebellious “baby dragons” in HTTYD 2. The Scuttleclaw infants don’t get impacted by the ultrasonic mind control of the Bewilderbeasts. We could make an analogy to that and how the Terrible Terrors don’t respond to the Red Death. However, this has the same problem as the second hypothesis I proposed. This means that, altogether, I believe the first explanation I gave is the best one - the “correct” one, at least as much as we can posit it.
Even if all these guesses fail, the Terrible Terror is the exception rather than the rule. We still have very strong explaining power for the high majority of species by this sort of theory. So it’s not a bad theory by and large. I like it! Thanks so much for sharing.
