User blog comment:Dual Energon/What I think makes HTTYD 2 the supremely better movie./@comment-24018437-20151113155518/@comment-24018437-20151120103103

I assume 'fighting with your heart' means something else where you live then. In the Netherlands, fighting with your heart means you fight out of passion, emotion and instincts. Where as fighting with your head means you fight with sense and logic. The expression has nothing to do with morals, so I apologize for the confusion. Let's be honest though: Accepting an enemy you've fought for 300 years is extremely hard. Some things can't be forgiven.

The reason was simple: Stalin had to much power and to much influence. And the fact that a massive war just ended helped as well, exhausting pretty much every kind of resource and made the people tired of war. Plus, a lot of his crimes only became known much and much later, and then it was already to late to declare war. Plus, Stalin had nuclear weapons. And he intended to use them. After seeing what happened to Japan, everyone dreaded and feared the thought of a nuclear war. And if they would attack Stalin, that fear would become a reality.

That's the thing about 'heroes' in the real world: They're not like fictional characters. They're not clear-cut. Now, we can indeed see that splitting up Germany was a bad idea...But at that time, there had been two World Wars, both caused by Germany, with the latter having ended quite recently. If Germany were to re-build itself, who says another Hitler wouldn't have rose again? That Germany would start another war. They didn't want to take that risk. We know what happened after that. We all know the results. We all know what went wrong and they could have done to make things better. So its easy for us to call them foolish. But we must remember that we weren't there, and no one knew what would happen next. In a few decades or centuries, people will look back at us and laugh at we did and the mistakes we made. But at the time, we didn't know we were making a mistake.

I'm going to sound like a true jerk here: I don't care how many children cried over Optimus Prime. In the end, he isn't real. His battle against evil never really happened. He didn't really fight for the forces of good. He never truly fought for a better world. It never happened. His death may be sad (I've honestly never seen that film, so I'll just take you're word on this.). Hiccup never truly stopped a war or went everything the Vikings stood for. Neither did he truly defeat Drago in order to defend Berk. As toutching as these stories may be, that's all they are in the end: Stories. They're not real soldiers who fought in real wars. Their sacrifices and losses meant, in the grand scheme of things, nothing.

I was mainly talking here about their own generations. France and Britten hated Germany, but they didn't want it to be an endless war where their own children would have to fight in as well. Germany most likely thought the same as well during the war: Defeat the enemy so their children don't have to. At the start of World War I, there was a trigger-happy attitude, with most soldiers having a romantic view on war, a chanche to achieve glory. That dream quickly shattered when they actually fought in war.

A sacrifice...That's where it all begins. I know that in war you have to make tough decicions, and no side ever won without taking risks and making sacrifices. But sacrifcing is also dangerous. It starts with one man, or one base. You feel guilty, but you tell yourself their deaths are for the good of all, and they will be avanged. They aren't the last you sacrifice. And eventually, you just...grow accomsted to sacrificing. The soldiers that fight on your side are no longer living individuels to you, each with their own hopes, dreams, thoughts, morals and ambitions. They are just numbers on a casualty list, a few red dots on a map. Pawns on a chess board you sacrifice so you can get the King...This is how it starts. And if you are not careful, you become what you hate and fight against.

And would you really? Do you know the results of the Bombing of Hiroshima? Do you know how many countless of innoscent people, even infants, died? How their deaths were long and painful? How they literally burned and melted to death, their skin falling of and how the effects of the bombing still effect the area even to this day? Is that justice? Were all those hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of innoscent people just a sacrifice for the 'good guys'? War crimes are often that to the people that comitted them: a sacrifice for the good of all. But are they really? In the end, you may be no better then your opponent. You might over time because even worse then him, untill you've taken his place.

And then what? After the next enemy rises from the other? You would just lead your people into a war without end they never asked for? Force them to sacrifice their lives and families for the sake of your moral compass? Would an endless war of fighting the same enemy with a differant face every time really help your morals? Or would it make you stone-hearted? Power changes people. Especially the kind of power that can decide who lives or dies. It changes you, for better or worse. And most of the time, you will think you are in the right. Even if other's will see you as a monster. Tons of villains, both real and fictional, started that way. They first for good, but slowly but surely, they became what they hated.

They don't fight themself. That's the thing. That president or minister may genuiley wants to end the suffering of the people in that country, which is noble, but he ignores the fact his own people will be suffering as well. And while his soldiers fight in the slums and trenches, the politician zips his coffee, thinking about the good deed he just did, not even remebering those who died for him. After all...They're just a sacrifice. And if you lose? Well, then they died for nothing and you can send the next generation to battle, as you put it.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that sacrificing makes you evil per se. Like I said, no war has been won without taking risks or making sacrifices. But its dangerous. That's all I'll say. Or, as we say here, 'dat zwaard snijdt aan twee kanten'. In case you're wondering what it means, the literal translation is 'That sword cuts at both sides'.

And that's the hard part: Very, very few people see themselves as evil. Hitler didn't view himself as evil. He viewed himself as the great hero and leader of Germany, who would make his country great again. Osama Bin Laden didn't see himself as evil. He saw himself as a prophet, who would make his religion wide-spread and strong. We know they are evil. But they themselves, or their followers, will believe they are the 'good guys'. They commit evil acts, but shrug them of as neccerary sacrifices and that history will put them in a positive light. There are heroes and villains on both sides, and neither is often good or bad. Infact, let's ignore Hitler and look at the regular soldiers. The German soldiers were usually just ordinary people, who were fighting for their country and didn't even know what their government was doing. That's not very different from the soldiers of the Allies. They weren't evil or cruel or sadistic, most of them were just...people, like you and me. I know about a few brave German soldiers who I consider to be brave and heroic. Such as Fritz Christen, who survived for three days by himself and destroyed 13 Soviet tanks without assistance. At the same time, Allied soldiers would sometimes kill German civillains for little or no reason. Like I said, both sides have heroes and villains. And most soldiers don't consider themselves to be heroes at all after they what they've been through. And its not indeed not black-and-white. Take the war in the Middle-East for example. To America, the soldiers that went to fight there were brave and noble men who wanted to put an end to terrorism. To the people that lived in the Middle-East, the American soldiers were aggresive and cruel invaders that killed their families and burned their homes, all in the name of doing 'good'. If you are willing to kill innoscent people in order to stop someone who also kills innoscent people, you're no better then the person you're trying to stop.

Then tell me: If you had to choose between saving a family member or a complete stranger, what would you do? Would you make the selfish, but completely natural and understandeble choiche of saving your own flesh and blood, or the stranger?

Now there I agree. Declaring war on a large country with lots of allies and powerful weapons, even for the right reasons, is not a good idea unless you know you can beat them. But you'd think that an African Tribe could be stopped, especially if it was a genocide and not really a war.

Simply put: He hadn't done anything yet. He may have done something in the future, but its kind of hard to kill someone who you THINK may or may not do something bad in the future. Maybe Dagur would have changed with his new responsibilities, they probably hoped. Clearly he didn't, and it did came to war eventually between the Berserkers and Berkians.

The only enemies we know of. What about pirates, dragon hunters, rogue dragons, remnants of Outcasts and Berserkers that are on their own, qonqueres like Drago, other hostile tribes, natural disasters etc? While Stoick and his men would be out hunting, Berk would be vulnereble.

I think he tried to convince Heather to let Dagur go because they were siblings. But more importantly, he didn't know the same pain as Heather. Its easy to condemn someone else, if you have never exsperienced what they have. Once Stoick was dead, Hiccup had no problem being merciless to Drago. Why? He now understood the pain. And yeah, its still a series aimed for children. As much as I'd love to see Dagur's head on a Nadder spike, I highly doubt something like that will happen...Then again, with Stoick's dead, there may be hope we at least see the body.

I actually never had a problem with Astrid's attitue. She was literally the only one of the teens who understood why they entered Dragon Training, and what was at stake. She didn't fight for the sake of wanting to fight (Like the Twins) or to become more popular, like Hiccup did before he shot down Toothless. She knew there was a war going on. And she intended to defend Berk in it. If anything, it explained why she wanted to be the Champion so badly.

...Wow, we really strayed from the subject of HTTYD, haven't we? 0_0 I'm actually enjoying this discussion as I do love debating over topics such as this, but I understand if you rather return to the subject of HTTYD.