User blog comment:The Woolly Howl/Darkest Kid's Film ever?/@comment-352641-20160707160515

It's certainly darker than would be expected, much like TCW as mentioned below, but I think what it is is, ultimately, being more MATURE, and not in the gratuitous violence and such. Actually I'd say in some ways all the cuts away from what should be blood and gore and more just treating it as it is makes it more mature. It handles darker topics, but it doesn't do it in a "LOOK AT HOW DARK AND EDGY THIS IS!" like say, Warhammer 40K, it just... presents it and lets the viewers draw their own conclusions.

So yeah. It's certainly 'darker', but it's not dark in the 'look at how edgy this world is' so much as it is taking on more mature matters while still managing to be family friendly enough. I think animation is starting to get into a phase of that - the best shows are those that are able to take on mature topics and show that animation is not all fluffy bunnies and idiot sea sponges, the worst ones are the ones that go hard comedy and can't let it come out naturally. I mean let's not kid ourselves, Viggo was going to release a devastating plague and infected ONE OF HIS OWN SHIPS to do it.

And that, I think, is where shows like this, TCW, Rebels, and so on get their strength: they're relatively light hearted in that it allows the characters to enjoy themselves or have fun (IE we regularly see the Riders doing some things for fun in their off time or at least have enough to show that they're not 100% focused on things going down), yet it doesn't force it and still approaches mature topics with careful hands, and most of all respects the viewers and lets them draw understanding without force feeding it to them. We don't need to be told why the poaching of dragons is bad, or that Mildew is a zealous speciesist who can't let go of the past (heck the early episodes made a point that Mildew has valid concerns, and unintentionally he's helping Hiccup solve those problems), and heck they don't even draw any attention to the fact that it was one of Viggo's own ships that Astrid picked up the Scourge on. We already knew that Viggo would sacrifice every piece on the board to win Maces and Talons, so the audience is trusted enough to draw their own conclusions, and we see a major difference in that the Riders clean up that mess themselves even though it's Viggo's men.