Hey! I've known that the Red Death was a TitanWing. I've assumed that TW's become bigger then the other dragons in their species. I've also thought that RD was a Green Death that became a TW and that the species was a big one already. Becoming a TW made him even bigger and gave him the ability to control other dragons, which he then used to do nothing but eat for at the very least, 300 years. According to you, am I right in assuming this?
Hello there! You’ve extrapolated and put together some small details to interpret a bigger picture. There’s certainly something to be said that your analysis is built on evidence and canonical facts. It’s really cool to read this and I’m happy to hear these ideas. I agree that this could be a plausible theory! Since you’re asking whether or not you’re right in “assuming” this, though, I hope it’s alright if I point out all the areas where this conclusion cannot be assumed. It can be theorized from canonical evidence, but technically it can’t be proven from the canon data we’re given. There’s wiggle room and possibilities for other interpretations.
The Red Death is indeed a Titan Wing dragon. Although this is not mentioned within How to Train Your Dragon itself, the official site Dragonpedia describes her as a Titan Wing:
From its lair deep within the corona of a volcano, this Titan Wing reigned supreme, until Toothless led Stoick, Gobber and the other Berk Vikings to the blighted shores of Dragon Island.
Unfortunately there is very little known about Titan Wing dragons. According to Book of Dragons, Titan Wings are dragons who have entered the final stage in their life cycle. It’s also notable that in episodes like “Total Nightmare,” the Titan Wing Monstrous Nightmare is physically larger. Video games like Rise of Berk often depict the Titan Wings not only as physically larger, but visually also having distinctive forms.
That said, Dragonpedia does give some assistance about how the Red Death was capable of controlling the other dragons. It states:
Similar to the Bewilderbeast’s ability to bend other dragons to its will, the Red Death emitted a honing signal which summoned other dragons to its lava strewn nest. This call was produced by a combination of sub-vocal ululation and the fearsome stare of its many, many eyes!“
The Bewilderbeast is capable of controlling other dragons through ultrasonic frequencies, same as the Red Death (there’s a great analysis on the ultrasonic frequencies by @thecube42-httyd). I also would not be surprised if Valka’s dragon is a Titan Wing, given it is the “king of all dragons” and might have been so for a long time. Still, Drago’s Bewilderbeast is only a few decades old, and I would be surprised if Bewilderbeasts are so short-lived that a twenty or thirty year old mammoth dragon would be a Titan Wing, too. This dragon has the ability to control the minds of other dragons through subvocal ululations, despite it potentially not being a Titan Wing yet.
There is nothing canonically mentioned about whether or not this ability to use ultrasonic frequencies and a hypnotic stare is linked to a dragon becoming a Titan Wing. It is just as possible that dragons like the Bewilderbeast and Red Death develop this ultrasonic frequency at much younger times in their life span. Other dragons, like the common Changewing, are capable of hypnosis before they reach the Titan Wing stage; this could also be the case for the Bewilderbeast and Red Death.
In Rise of Berk, the Green Death is said to be a less aggressive dragon akin to the Red Death. The Green Death in School of Dragons is similar, and also does not control other dragons like the Red Death did. But there is nothing that indicates this is due to age, life stages, temperament, biology, ability, or anything else, so I don’t think that we can make the assumption that the Green Death is a non-Titan Wing form of the Red Death. It is a fun and fascinating fandom theory with some cool implications, but if you’re looking for whether or not you can assume this, there’s technically not enough information in canon that proves your claim.
It’s also up in the air how long the Red Death controlled her nest. Dragonpedia says “centuries,” so it’s been a long time.
According to the opening monologue in the first movie, the Hairy Hooligan Vikings have been fighting dragons on Berk for seven generations, and it wouldn’t be too odd to guess that the same Red Death has been behind this nest since the start of the conflict. I do a quick guesstimate calculation of how long seven generations would be here and came up with about 120 years - that would be assuming a child is born when each new generation reaches twenty years of age. The International Society of Genetic Genealogy also places the length of a human generation between twenty and twenty-five years. But then, as you might have picked up from the quote in How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup says, “Three hundred years, and I’m the first Viking who wouldn’t kill a dragon!” One hundred twenty years is a huge difference from three hundred years, so which is the right date?
I think that both dates can be considered “right”. Hiccup says that his village Berk has “been here for seven generations,” indicating that Berk would have been founded and inhabited for about a hundred and twenty years, maybe a hundred fifty. But Vikings would have been living in the Barbaric Archipelago for longer than Hiccup’s ancestors had been living on Berk. Historically, Hiccup knows that various tribes of Vikings would have been fighting dragons for at least three hundred years. We do, after all, notice that in the television series, many tribes outside of the Hairy Hooligans are fighting dragons. Even though those tribes would likely be too far away to be subject to the Red Death’s raids, these Vikings still made it a habit to fight dragons.
So who knows how long the Red Death has been around? I wouldn’t be surprised if the “centuries of human and dragon conflict” the Red Dragon is said on Dragonpedia to have produced… is those three hundred years Vikings have been notably fighting dragons. We cannot concretely prove it, but it would make sense. So maybe she’s been chilling in that nest for a hundred fifty years, or three hundred, or even more!
There are certainly good ways to argue your idea that the Green Death is a non-Titan Wing form of the same species as the Red Death. You can point out how the Red Death is canonically called a Titan Wing, point out how Rise of Berk and School of Dragons depict the life stages of different dragons, discuss the similarities between Bewilderbeasts and Red Deaths, and talk about how Hiccup’s comment of “three hundred years” might suggest the Red Death has been controlling a nest for centuries.
Technically, though, I would say that nothing can be proven. There’s nothing I’ve seen that suggests that the Green Death is a Titan Wing dragon. There is no way to know why the Green Death isn’t controlling dragons - presumably, Valka’s Bewilderbeast could control the other dragons, but we never see it do it. The Green Death might have the ability and just not be using it. There is no way of knowing when dragons like the Red Death gain the ability to use ultrasonic frequencies and hypnosis to control swarms of dragons. And we also aren’t totally sure how long the Red Death has been in control. Your cool idea can certainly be argued with evidence and reason, but technically, it can’t be assumed.
