5 Things You Never Noticed In How To Train Your Dragon

How To Train Your Dragon, released by Dreamworks in 2010, is a beloved children's film with gorgeous animation and a whole lot of heart. However, there are a handful of immaculately placed details you might not have noticed as a casual movie-goer -- or even as a die hard fan. Thus, there are five things you might not have noticed in the first How To Train Your Dragon movie.

1) Hiccup eating fish

After Hiccup bonds with Toothless for the first time, it cuts to a scene where Hiccup sits with the other Vikings and their teacher, Gobber, around a fire. This scene is very important, as it is the one where Hiccup realizes he has to build Toothless a prosthetic tail to fly with, or else the dragon will die. However, one of the more subtle details in this scene has long been a favourite of mine. All the other teens and Gobber are eating chicken, but Hiccup is eating a fish. This is reminiscent of not only the fish he shared with Toothless a scene prior, but also highlights three key things.

The first is that Hiccup's mind is on his new friend, while the other kids revel in stories of losing limbs to dragons or killing them, both foreshadowing things that will happen to Hiccup by the end of the movie. He loses a leg and kills the monster dragon forcing the other dragons to attack.

The second note of worth is that it is a symbolic way of showing Hiccup's isolation from the other teens. He's always been different and has never fit in with his village, but before meeting and befriending Toothless, they at least had the same goal of killing dragons. Now, Hiccup's priorities are about to change to helping his friend survive and thrive at all costs.

The third key thing is the way the fish indicates that Hiccup's loyalties, not just his priorities, are changing as well. Dragons eat nothing but fish as we soon see, and him and Toothless split one evenly beforehand. Fish, then, are associated with the dragons and of the sea, whereas chickens are more dragon-like: flightless and ripe for the picking. Hiccup will soon put his allegiance to the dragons and knowledge of peace above his status in his village, and even his family.

So Hiccup eating fish is a small detail, but one that packs a punch once you have seen the movie more than once.

2) Astrid's arc

Fierce and fearless, Astrid Hofferson is the best Viking of her generation and Hiccup's longtime crush. When he begins out performing her in dragon training class through unknown means, she becomes increasingly resentful and suspicious, determined to get to the bottom of it. Once she tracks him down to the cove where Toothless is kept, she has some demands: "Nobody gets as good as you do, especially you. Start talking. Are you training with someone?"

However, when the truth is revealed, Astrid is horrified and runs back to the village, presumably to tell everyone that Hiccup has betrayed his own kind for the dragons. Hiccup attempts to explain and convince her, buying him and Toothless time by dropping her into a tree, but Astrid is as stubborn as any good Viking, delcaring, "I am not listening to anything you have to say!"

A beautiful flight on dragon back, as well as Hiccup's conviction, is enough to win her over, and Astrid is the first Viking after Hiccup to change, giving him hope that perhaps he can convince the rest of Berk, too, including his father. In one of the movie's most heartfelt conversations, Astrid finds Hiccup alone on the dock after he has lost everything, Toothless forced to lead his father and village to their certain death, and probes him into speaking.

Hiccup at first tries to dissuade her, but Astrid pushes: "I want to remember what you say right now." In just her dialogue, her place as Hiccup's rival, then adversary, and then support has been completed. Astrid has gone from demanding answers to soothe her own ego and fear, to refusing to listen due to each, to being willing to follow Hiccup into battle no matter how crazy it gets, and to believe that his hope of peace is worth fighting for even when he has momentarily forgotten.

A smaller example of Astrid's verbal growth in the first film is the two-line parallel between her asking if Hiccup is really going to prioritize his "pet dragon" over the knowledge Vikings have been looking for since they first sailed to Berk 300 years ago. Hiccup stands his ground, still putting his dragon first when he is prepared to risk his own life: "If something goes wrong, just make sure they don't find Toothless." Astrid's mind is clearly changed by the time she and Hiccup stand on the docks — perhaps by Hiccup's show of devotion, and Toothless' fierce protection of him — as she she calls Toothless Hiccup's "best friend" — a far cry from just a pet.

3) Toothless escapes the cove

Speaking of Toothless' protection from Hiccup, Toothless has his own worthwhile parallels. After the loss of his tail-fin, Toothless drifts down to the cove. A beautiful natural space with a large pond and tall walls that he cannot escape from on his own, not even to save his own life.

Near the end of the movie's second act, Hiccup attempts to show the Vikings that dragons aren't evil by taming a Monstrous Nightmare in the Kill Ring. When the dragon is startled into attacking, Toothless hears the boy screaming from miles away, and finds the strength to get out of the cove and runs to protect him.

What Toothless couldn't do for himself or his own survival, he is able to do for his best friend. It's moments like these that make Hiccup and Toothless' bond all the more impactful, and believable.

4) Only the left ones

Early on in the movie, Stoick's right hand man and Hiccup's mentor, Gobber, remarks that "Trolls exist! They steal your socks, but only the left ones. What's with that?" Not only is this a joke in regard to Gobber's prosthetics, as thanks to his pegleg, Gobber only has a left foot to begin with.

However, it's also clever foreshadowing of the movies' consistent theme of disability. Hiccup loses his left leg, just as Toothless lost his left tail-fin. In the sequel movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Hiccup meets a villain who has lost his left arm, and a brainwashed dragon loses its left tusk.

5) All the foreshadowing for the rest of the trilogy

Warning: Major Spoilers for How To Train Your Dragon 2 and the final instalment, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Given that How to Train Your Dragon was written as a standalone movie, it truly is impressive just how many lines come back to perfectly foreshadow and tie into events in the following sequels. Here are three of the best ones.

"Oh the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug. Not me, I manage to lose an entire dragon!" —Hiccup

Venting after shooting down Toothless, Hiccup has no idea he's foreshadowed the end of the trilogy. At the end of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Hiccup is a young man and chief who comes to the difficult conclusion that the world is too dangerous for the dragons.

He resolves the dragons must leave go to the Hidden World, a secret dragon utopia under the sea, in order to be free, waiting in safety for humans to be worthy of them. In doing so, it means giving up Toothless, and all of Berk's dragons.

Hiccup manages a smile while he says goodbye to his best friend, but the loss definitely hurts. Even if it's not quite as permanent as they feared.

"But the truth is, you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again, he's probably out there now." —Gobber to Stoick

Gobber is often right, impartial in the strained relationship between father and son, especially in the first movie, as a confidant to both Stoick and Hiccup. This line to Stoick rings especially true, as Stoick barely saved Hiccup's life from two dragons within the movie's first ten minutes of screentime.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, Stoick ends up sacrificing his life for Hiccup, saving him from another dragon, and leaving Gobber to give a tearful eulogy to his best friend. Luckily, Stoick also took Gobber's advice about preparing Hiccup, not only of how to live without him, but also how to be a great chief who can protect his own.

"I should have noticed. I should have seen the signs." —Stoick to Hiccup

In one of the first movie's more heartbreaking moments, Stoick has found out the truth concerning his son's sudden skill at disposing dragons and laments his lack of observation. Rather than being a dragon killer like he hoped, Hiccup is a dragon tamer... and the truth both enrages and seems to scare Stoick in equal measure. At the time, fans could only assume this trace of fear and regret was from feeling like his son betrayed him, and feeling as though he'd lost his son outright.

However, the second movie re-contextualizes this scene in two ways. The first is more simple but no less meaningful for Stoick's character.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, we learn that Stoick's wife, Valka, was carried off, seemingly eaten by dragons. But before her gruesome end, she believed in peace as well, a bit of an oddball on Berk just like her son. Now Stoick believes that he's lost the only piece of her he has left, as Hiccup has turned to a full blown traitor, and that it's his fault all over again.

The more interesting reading in some way is that Hiccup's control over the dragons reminded Stoick of a more nefarious foe. Revealed in flashbacks in the second movie, Stoick explains his history with Drago Bludvist, a madman who wanted power and used his control over dragons to take it. When a gathering of chieftains refused to follow Drago's will, Stoick was the only one who survived the subsequent dragon attack. It's possible that Hiccup's taming of the dragons reminded Stoick, at first glance, of Drago's, which was one of the reasons he thought he had lost his son for good.

Luckily, Stoick and Hiccup reconcile later on in the first movie, and have a much closer relationship in the second movie, making Stoick's sacrifice all the more heartbreaking — and heartfelt.

Conclusion

Are there any moments in How to Train Your Dragon I missed? Or are you going to see the movie in an entirely new light? Either way, I hope you enjoyed my latest article concerning Five Things You (Probably) Haven't Noticed in Dreamworks' How To Train Your Dragon.