User blog comment:Dual Energon/What I think makes HTTYD 2 the supremely better movie./@comment-24018437-20151113155518/@comment-24018437-20151114081345

I'm not saying he deserved to be abused, which he never was. I'm saying he wasn't totally innoscent either, and that he is just as much to blame as Stoick. As treating the war as a game...He didn't take Dragon Training seriously (Not gonna be ultra harsh on him there, because Astrid was the only one who did) and it showed several times. When fighting Stormfly, he cares more about asking questions then the actual Dragon he is currently fighting. To quate Astrid: "Is this a joke to you? Our parent's war is about to become our's!" And she was right. And Hiccup did, over-time, started taking things more seriously. Which I applaud him for.

The thing is: Hiccup didn't use his brains to make the tribe's life better. He mostly used it to make weapons for himself, which is an admireble trait I admit, but its implied those were usually not effective untill he invented the Mangler. Brains are respected indeed, though cultures like this do respect strenght more. Its clear that Astrid and Stoick and even Gobber and Gothi, some of the most intelligent people of the Tribe, are very respected and not just for their strenght. Gobber's advice, though harsh, was true. If Hiccup hadn't focused so much in being a warrior, his intellect might have helped the Tribe indeed. Of course, I don't blame Hiccup for trying.

Again, the Vikings had no idea the Dragons were forced to attack them. They stole their food, killed their love's one's and destroyed their homes on a daily basis. It would be weird if they didn't hate Dragons, wouldn't you agree? Imagine a group of large, firebreathing creatures would suddendly come out of nowwhere and start burning your house and killing yout family. Most people would fight for their survival and their loved one's. Both sides, the Vikings and Dragons, fought for their survival. As Stoick said, it was either them or the Dragons. Would you just stand by and do nothing? That's like saying you would not do a thing when a lion would be attacking one of your parents because its eating to survive. In war (heck, its even called a war multiple times) you look out for your own people. Let's not forget the war went on for about 300 years. In that time, hate and fear grows. Imagine you live out in the middle of nowwhere, and wolves come down every night to raid your food scources and occisionally kill someone from your family. Yeah, they hunt and fight for their survival. But really, does that make you feel better when you look at the body of a loved one, the remains of your home or hear your stomach rumble in hunger? If a feral dog attacked my little brother, then my loved one's survival would be more important then that of the animal. The Dragons fought for their survival, but so did the Vikings. Its hypocritical to say one side has the right to fight for its survival, but the other hasn't. Which I'd like to know now: Why should the Berkians just watch as the Dragons attacked and not fight back? Really, I want to know why. No sane person would just watch. They would either run away or fight back. So why do you think they should have done nothing? Defending your home isn't a barbaric or stupid action, nor is it unnecary violence.

Don't forget this is a completely differant Era and world: in times like where HTTYD takes place, it was common to kill animals that were a threat to the people that lived in the area. It still is, in some places. I'm not condoning killing every animal that CAN be a threat on sight. For example, if you see a tiger in the far distance, leave it alone. But if that same tiger just happened to be attacking you, I fully condone self-defense.

The reason he kept Hiccup away from the fight is very, very obvious: he lost his wife! He didn't want to lose the only family member he had left. I admit this did backfire, but Stoick did agree eventually with Gobber to let Hiccup enter training. And let's not forget Hiccup originally WANTED to train. Beter late then never. In Stoick's mind, he was simply granting his wish. Of course, he didn't listen to his son then, which is not a good trait I admit.

As for forcing his way in Hiccup, again. It was a WAR! If Hiccup hadn't befriended Toothless, he would eventually have to fight Dragons. There would be no choiche, something Stoick refused to admit as he thought he could always protect Hiccup. Gobber simply convinced Stoick he couldn't always do that, and therefore he agreed to let Hiccup finally train with the other's. And he doesn't exspect Hiccup to get-go: that's what training is for. None of the Teens fought in actual battle before their training, they just provides support when it came to small things like putting out fires, while their parents fought the Dragons.

As for Stoick disowning Hiccup, I agree. That was a bad call on Stoick. But its realistic. Hiccup, in a way, had betrayed his tribe. For the better, I think. Because there is no denying his way was better. But no one knew Dragons could be befriended at that point, and Stoick felt betrayed. After he disowns Hiccup, you see how heartbroken is. Why? He felt genuiley betrayed. Most people, as much as they want to deny it, would listen to their emotions and not to their brains in such a situation. This, of course, isn't a real excuse for Stoick not listening. If he had listened, things could have gone very differant and probably for the best as well. Hiccup probably felt betrayed at that moment as well...Screw probably, I'm sure he did!

To make a more human example, it would be like a German soldier and American trooper being friends in the middle of one of the World Wars...OK, maybe that's a bit to extreme, but I think you know what I mean.

In the end, both Stoick and Hiccup made mistakes. Its wrong to blame one entirely, and say the other is totally innoscent. Because none of the two is entirely guilty or innoscent. They both have done things bad and done things good, for reasons they thought was best. Is Stoick a perfect father who did everything right? No, he isn't. Is Hiccup an abused child who never did anything wrong? No, he isn't. Are they both characters that have made mistakes and aren't perfect? Yes, they are. And in the end, Stoick had been right about Hiccup: he would grow to be the strongest of them all. And when you narrow it down, both actually have more in common then you might think. Such as being stubborn Vikings who don't listen to other people, because they do what they think is right. Or, as Gobber said, they're both boar-headed.

Same goes for the Dragons and Vikings in general. Its a rather gray war, because there is no fully evil or fully good side in it. Both just fight for their survival, while neither actually wish to fight. The Dragons only attacked because the Red Death forced them to do so. And the Vikings only raised their weapons because they were attacked. Both sides were forced to fight. And you can't blame either for doing so. Which is why I sympathize both with the Dragons and Vikings. In the end, the Red Death is the only one that can truly be blamed.

As for, 'they never apologised'...Well, I blame that on screentime. There isn't a lot of room for a scene where everyone apologised. But there is that thing called off-screen. The writers of HTTYD confirmed several things within the franchise happened off-screen (Such as Hiccup and Astrid dating during the series, explaining why we didn't see tons of HicStrid scenes in the series itself. And untill the episodes came out, Stoick receiving Skullcrusher, Gobber training Grump and Hiccup inventing stuff like the flight-suit where all done off-screen as well.). So it could have happened off-screen during the time between the two films, as ton of stuff happened off-screen between the two. But that's for you to decide if that happened or not.

Like I said, I think both are too differant to make a clear comparison. But that's my personal opinion. Still, its one of my favorite book series and I've lost count how many times I read them XD I actually started ordering the English versions, because I simply didn't have the patience to wait untill they were translated into Dutch! Cressida Cowell is a briljant author, who plans out everything, makes both small and little twists you wouldn't exspect (I can name tons of those where my eyes almost fell out of my skull, but for the sake of spoilers, I'm not gonna list them here.) and its just very good. I actually don't have any critics on the book series...Which is rare for me, as I even critize things I extremely like XD