User blog comment:Annabeth and Percy/Review on Race to the Edge Season 4/@comment-352641-20160628142818

My thoughts on the season:

Enemy of My Enemy

Personally I was always leery of the idea of redeeming Dagur - especially given what happened after. that said, since he seems to have been intended to have genuine redemption, it was nice for him to actually accept that he has little reason to be trusted and that by rights his opponents should hate him, and Hiccup hasn't let it go so easily (remember the stuff Dagur has pulled up until this point - a seeming final betrayal after all of that would anger him a lot).

Though I'm wondering how Dagur got that ship underway so fast all by himself.. then again, the Berserkers did have a massive navy. Though speaking of that, what happened to them? Hmmm... was it even Berserkers that the riders fought in the first Race to the Edge season, or did Dagur have to resort to mercs and such?

Crash Course

Snotlout's bullheaded, but ultimately I think it really mostly was just needing Hookfang and the Queen to mix their incendiaries together. My question though is why didn't they open with that? It didn't look like they tore apart the the nest doing so...

Also, surprisingly graphic having a dragon that outright eats fireworm eggs and babies, though I think part of why the queen could trust Hookfang was way back when - Snotlout broke off part of what was apparently eggs, Hookfang refused to take it so the queen seemed to understand 'Okay, it's a stupid rider trying to save his dragon'. I actually kinda like that - usually stories go for 'total misunderstanding that ends in violence', and now they're showing dragons that actually seem to understand to a degree misunderstandings. Packs learning of these strange humans and their riders and realizing that some humans are just odd/don't mean harm but may make mistakes, yet they will try to make up for them (IE, Fishlegs with the Sea Shocker)

Follow the Leader

Yeah, Hiccup was too harsh on Fishlegs, but it is worth noting that Hiccup himself admits that he was - it was ultimately just the frustation that boiled over becaus he trusted Fishlegs so he thought leaving him in charge would leave things okay, he comes home to find that the twins and Snotlout had been blowing stuff up left and right with Fishlegs nowhere to be seen. Hiccup admits that he was wrong - yeah he was overly harsh, but he also later admitted that he was and it was just in the moment.

That said Fishlegs being treated as a king for his carpentry was hilarious. And those were some smart dragons, using his own invention to keep him there.

Turn and Burn

Stoick might've been harsh on Spitelout, but by the sounds of it Spitelout has similar tendencies to Snotlout. So when he's off for a month, Stoick has ample reason to assume the worst. That said, Stoick was right about planning and such, especially for structures. Then again, Berk probably has construction and engineering down to a daily chore given how many times dragons burned down their village for three hundred years.

Buffalord Soldier

The people on the ship were Viggo's men - he mentions one of his fishing boats and how Hiccup's riders should've stayed well enough away. That said I really liked how Hiccup got back - I was expecting them to strike later to recover the Buffalord, after they had 'let Viggo walk away'. Basically stick to the letter of their terms rather than the spirit Viggo meant and strike back... but letting the Buffalord do it itself? All the more satisfying and a nice bit of payback for Maces and Talons.

Still, another surprisingly and terrifyingly graphic thing. I know we don't see corpses besides that one plagued hand (which was probably a guy lingering before he died), but the fact that Viggo out infect one of his own fishing boats just for the potential profit? Yeesh, way to lay down the evil factor. Guy may not have Drago's world conquering ambitions, but he certainly isn't lacking for evil. Mind you'd think that this incident would be the one way to rally the whole archipelago to hammer him home, concerns about Berk's rising dragon rider military capabilities or not.

Viggo must've pulled a hard PR campaign afterwards though, because bringing back that kind of plague should probably be grounds of war, even if it is limited to 'Viggo, you aren't allowed in here, now turn around before your ships become our catapult crews' next target'. Heck when I saw the first hand my immediate thought was 'dragur', Norse undead. Then again those things aren't typical zombies, so yeah...

A Grim Retreat

Not much to say, though Hiccup being a taskmaster was an interesting flip, though I'm wondering what specifically Hiccup was doing too. He wasn't showing signs of being tired, but IIRC they didn't show what he was doing then either. Kinda wonder what it was - probably a lot of the more inticrate blacksmithing and such given he was Gobber's apprentice, but still. Though fortifying the Edge ,while obviously advantageous, seems limited if they don't have a garrison. After all a castle is just stone walls without people inside them.

As for Skullcrusher eating Tuffnut's chicken, I'm not sure why Stoick would think that if he specifically fed Skullcrusher. Though him actually following through on that "I'll just order him to believe it!" was hilarious.

Mind, I had a random thought... with gronckle iron, they've basically got a very advanced steel. Theoretically, the Berk Vikings could be running around with fully articulated plate armor that would make the knights of the era (who are mostly stuck in mail or the odd coat of plates by this point) envious and would by far outdo Lorica Segmentata (IE, that famous pattern of Roman armor), and with much less weight (though worth noting that any proper armor is designed to disperse the weight to be easier to handle). Though I did notice that other than the first episode, the dragon armor seems to have simply vanished this season after they made such a big deal out of it in the previous one. Kinda sad about that, I would've at least thrown in a comment like it's a pain for the dragons to wear and a lot of their missions are based more on speed and raiding or aren't meant to have combat at all so it's extra and unneeded weight, or even just that it's a matter of travel - lugging that weight around would tire the dragons out too much, so they have to go light to avoid doing that then when they do missions closer to the Edge or have a place to rest and recover first they equip it.

To Heather or Not to Heather

You know it's funny, Heather was originally a one-off character who proved extremely popular, but then there's the fact she isn't around for HTTYD 2. Now of course some of that could simply be 'Heather was on another mission or something and there was no time to get her', but still, she's one of those characters. Yet having her join up fully was also great because she had been kept separate from the Riders for so long, she finally got to join. IIRC it's said she is in that comic coming up so Heather's not going to die gloriously, so that means they do need to find a way to write her out of HTTYD 2, though I think they've sorted that out already.

But yeah, Heather and Fishlegs was discussed long before, back in "Have Dragon, Will Fly" when she and Astrid have their girl talk.

Stryke Out

You know, I have to wonder how many other dragon abusing things there are like this, and how many Berk is going to interrupt. TBH, might be an interesting plotline - the riders are breaking things like this and now ire is being directed towards Berk for using their newfound dragons to enforce their ideas on other people and destroying 'good, honest Viking living and entertainment'. Given how they've handled other relatively complex topics so far, might be interesting to handle, plus they are ranging farther and farther out so Berk gaining this reputation could be interesting, even follow a few young Vikings out to 'save their way of life from those evil dragon riders' could be an interesting episode to address it. I mean when they showed up the riders were somewhat thug-like in breaking it up - for a good cause, but that probably did not make a good first impression amongst those who just were there to see the show. Plus, it does fit the era - might makes right to some degree in the Viking age with diplomacy, whether it's the early parts of it, the height, or as it fades as everyone else gets these fun things like fortified castles and mounted knights ready for war... mind this time William the would-have-been-a-conqueror may need something else for Dragons (though if it is the approperiate time period, he probably would be better able to cope since he was a combined arms kind of guy)

Tone Death

Interestingly this brings up something about birds and cats - if their babies get human scent on them, IIRC they tend to be abandoned because it confuses the cats or something unless said animals are already used to them. So they very well nearly did that with Garf. Though it did raise an interesting question - are there some dragons that are simply innately hostile and can't be calmed down, or is it just upbringing? I know they wanted to try, but  ultimately dragons like the Death Song may simply too much of a threat. The Buffalord got hunted to extinction because it's saliva was needed (not sure why it had to be hunted down, maybe the Vikings just didn't want to dare to risk it's wrath after trying to pull it off?), but the Death Song seems to outright go out of it's way to hunt down dragons to eat. I can't help but wonder if we'll see Graf again, this time as an enemy along with mommy.

Though Hiccup naming the sword Inferno on the spot was rather amusing - though I am hoping that Hiccup will make it properly in the series itself and he'll get to use it in combat against Viggo, perhaps even along with his shield. Seeing Hiccup fully kitted out would be great. course as Balin notes in The Hobbit: "Swords are named for the deeds they do", which is probably what got those groans.

Astrid's jokes were in response to Snotlout making a snarky remark about a comedy routine and she just ran with it to annoy him, I think.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

You know, Fishlegs actually looked pretty evil when he was controlling the Quakens with that hammer. I half expect that to come up and Mala to lose her mind, even if it was to help free them and stop Viggo (and boy it must've been satisfying for the Quaken when they realized that these humans had helped them take revenge, and justice, for their enslavement). That said the series is pretty liberal about destroying islands, isn't it? I mean the Screaming Death took out four, now this one? Sea Stacks are one thing since those aren't really inhabited and there's a ton of them, but full on islands? Yeesh. Does raise the question as to where they are - perhaps in the HTTYD 'verse, the Americas are a bunch of islands as earlier medieval maps indicated (hence part of why Columbus' trip was considered crazy - too much open ocean, not enough solid places to land and resupply)

Family on the Edge

No, Hiccup isn't related to Dagur. The whole 'brother' thing was more 'brothers in arms' when Dagur thought Hiccup was fighting a 'vicious night fury', and well, Dagur's deranged so it stuck. Hiccup finds it incredibly creepy too. Now, the show DID try to make us think that Heather was Hiccup's sister - probably a half-sister/bastard child of Stoick's... which, admittedly, would've had a lot of implications to explore like how did it happen? Though I think ultimately it was for the best that Heather wasn't related, even if it was amusing that the show tried to pull that.

That said... I think that having Dagur admit he didn't actually kill their father cheapened the whole affair. It makes it seem like ultimately Dagur wasn't that bad in the first place when he very clearly WAS. Personally I'm headcanoning that as Dagur doing one last little lie to try and let Heather think they could've had a happy family, because he knows that as long as that exists Heather will never like him in any way. But if it was meant to be truth (IE, the letter of a man who know's he's dead meat coming)... I dunno, it just utterly cheapens everything. Dagur working to redeem himself knowing he's a kinslayer and all that stuff (hey there was a reason Hiccup was so insistant that Heather not kill Dagur), while still a stretch, would've held more weight than saying 'ultimately Dagur didn't do that - he did what we saw on screen, but he didn't actually kill his father'.

That said, this does leave something in the air. WHO leads the Berserker Tribe now? Did someone else take over while Dagur was in jail, or was Dagur still nominally chief but the tribe was more or less inactive? Is Heather now the next in line to take the throne, or is she a rival claimiant to whoever holds it in Dagur's abscence? That honestly might be something for an episode - either Heather is being approached to claim the Berserker throne as the last of Oswald's children (possibly even last of the bloodline), or whoever is in charge sees her as a potential threat but also a way to legitimize his claim (IE, either have her quietly eliminated so she can't come and lay a legitimate claim, or have her enter a marriage so that Oswald's line continues and he can legitimize his claim that way). Might be a great little arc, plus some bluntness about some of the things of the era (and it could be used as a contrast with Stoick - say, Spitelout or someone else in Berk's council suggests that maybe they could have Heather claim the Berserker throne and then arrange her and Hiccup to be hitched to bring the two Viking tribes together to face threats like Viggo, Stoick shoots it down on not being the kind of diplomacy he partakes in since that's some real CK2 stuff right there, and ditto for Stoick refusing the present chief to do it for Heather). Admittedly, that might have Heather out of the way for the whole arc of Fishlegs chasing Ruffnut in HTTYD2 (though I suppose they could always come up with an explanation that Fishlegs is only doing it because his parents are forcing him to, and he has to make it good because of Ingermen honor or something silly like that)

Last Auction Heroes

Go aviking to take it back, noting that for once Berk is actually in a position to be the raider rather than being raided? Honestly that might be a good plot for a followup episode - Hiccup has to get the gold back, and that might mean the old Viking tradition of raiding since they can't find enough honest work elsewhere/don't have time for that. Maybe pay those irritating Northumbirans a visit, maybe one of their monasteries where these funny men kneeling before graven images of a guy being tortured to death on a stick are gathering so much wealth despite piety? Though it's more likely that Hiccup and the gang just raided Viggo's shipping since they're at war with each other and Viggo was the one who stole it, since based on the commentary in the next episode the Riders had been doing a lot of raids so at some point they probably raided a ship carrying gold and took all that Berk needed from it. Stoick probably still wasn't happy about the original gold being lost, but they had options to recover the money if not the exact same coins.

And yeah, putting Snotlout undercover was stupid. They had plenty of people on Berk who could've done it, why did it have to be Snotlout specifically? As for the dragons - they got shipped in with Trader Johan, hence the whole thing about the 'gift for safe passage in your empire' scene. Toothless was the only one who wasn't in there since well, Night Fury, one of a kind. Plus Toothless' lack of tail is a dead giveaway. And yeah, Grump was Gobber's dragon in HTTYD2; with the movie out they're able to tie things together a lot more, hence so many call forwards to the movie like Hiccup starting to design the wingsuit.

It was nice to see Astrid and Heather using their axes in combat. Poor guards never stood a chance. Oh, and Gobber getting to show that he was a fighter not in spite of his prosthetics, but in part because of them.

Defenders of the Wing, Part 1

Yeah. The Defenders of the Wing are pretty much a whacky bunch of zealots, and Mala is the worst of them all. Especially from the eye of someone who knows dragons - throwing people into Speed Stingers for 'the judgment of the dragons'? That's just a way of prettying up an execution because Speed Stingers, while not totally hostile, are one of the more violent breeds of dragons. If it was thrown into say, a nest of more normal dragons that aren't blatantly hostile it might've worked more. 'course if Hiccup could calm Nadders or such she'd just claim he was using foul magicks to make them forget themselves or something stupid like that... but yeah, the Defenders of the Wing seem to just be a bunch of zealots who think they have the moral high ground but ultimately are a bunch of purists who think that they're able to overcome any threat because of their traditions/respect for the dragons/whatever. Boy they're going to have a wake up if they try to attack Berk - not only is Berk battle hardened with every member of the tribe of military age more or less a vetrean of fighting things MUCH scarier than they are, Berk also probably has a much bigger fleet AND it has the best combined arms in the archipelago thanks to Hiccup devising military tactics for dragon riders.

Really the biggest problem of the episode is that despite how much effort Hiccup put into being diplomatic and ignoring Mala's hostility long past the point of being reasonable to hold out for a peaceful solution, Mala was the one who utterly botched the first contact scenario. She KNEW that these were people from abroad, especially after Toothless' stunt... and yet she persisted in looking for any excuse to kill them. You know, I actually half wonder if they'll end up being enemies and Berk has to destroy them because Mala insists on wiping out Hiccup AND 'his people' (Mala's words, not mine) because Hiccup... was attempting to find out why Viggo wanted this island and as a result of attempting a peaceful first contact Viggo had a distraction. Mala has a lot to prove that she's anything resembling a decent leader and not just a higher ranked zealot. Seriously, your village is in danger and the enemy just made off with the dragon keeping it from being flooded with lava... and you decide that the best use of your time is to try to murder a diplomatic envoy that has been attempting first contact (and said envoy doing it more or less right - try to avoid being obvious but they weren't exactly sneaking as Mala claimed, playing along with the native's customs, so on and so forth) AND is an enemy of those who stole said dragon, instead of I dunno, trying to save your Great Protector or perhaps save the men and women who put their lives in your hands with your leadership? I mean seriously, it's like she's TRYING to have Stoick repeat that legend of popping a dragon's head clean off on her... and frankly if I was him at this point it'd be more than tempting to do so after she's repeatedly spurned diplomacy even AFTER admitting to Hiccup's sincerity (and condeming him to death in spite of that) or recognizing that Hiccup had a strong bond that was more than just whipping dragons into

In fairness Mala was not wrong about how the Dragon Riders could look like they're just a softer form of subjugating dragons, but ultimately it's a sybiotic relationship - the Vikings get a lot of help from the dragons, and the dragons get to benefit from specialization and a lot of extra care. I mean by HTTYD 2, Dragons pretty much have it MADE in Berk, so having them help out in military, industrial, and similar tasks to maintain that is ultimately essentially the same as getting a job. Heck, Toothless is a living example of the strength of that - yes Hiccup shot him down, but it was during wartime and ultimately that war ended because Hiccup realized dragons were not all evil (and vice versa) and he then worked to repair the damage he had done to Toothless. Heck given that this is now definitively after Gift of the Night Fury, they could bring back that the automatic tail and have them point out that Toothless was given that freedom back, he CHOSE to stick with his rider, and ultimately the two are stronger because of it (heck that's what HTTYD2 was ultimately about - a dragon and a human alone can't stop things like Bewilderbeasts, but together they can bring down dragons much bigger and much more powerful than them by covering each other's weaknesses, plus humans open up so many options to dragons as already noted).

TBH, I'm expecting either Mala dies horribly from her stubborness (and possibly takes most of her tribe with her), or Hiccup drags her to Berk to see just how they live (probably with Stoick making it clear in no uncertain terms that if she tries hostilities he WILL cut her head off and she's lucky that Berk aren't the types to hold grudges when you try to kill their heir apparent and their finest tribesmen by feeding them to speed stingers after they tried a diplomatic first contact). Mind it's more likely Hiccup will convince her as to play into his stubborness in trying to convince Drago - "I convinced Berk dragons weren't all evil, I got this stupid [censored] to stop being a zealot even after she swore to genocide Berk over a misunderstanding, I can get Drago to stop too!"

Mind it does not help that this was the cliff hanger. If they meant for Mala to become more reasonable in Part II, they've botched it because waiting that long will have the worst traits of Mala settle in. It's exactly what happened to poor Ashley and Kaidan in Mass Effect (along with being the only ones asking reasonable questsions or not having an excuse, while everyone else just accepts it unreasonably, making them look worse in comparion). I suppose the only upside is that since it's clear the next episode will pick up from her being stupid, it might be alleviated by being direct plot from the 'bad' point and 'showing why not so bad' (whereas the incident with Ashley and Kaidan is basically the start of the midgame for ME2 and the thread is not picked up again until ME3)

On the upside, the episode was nicely frank in having actual injuries like Astrid taking an arrow to the knee (and she's still an adventurer!) and mentioning that everyone was worn out by the constant battles. Nice little acknowledgment of attrition, and helps keep Viggo's men a threat even with them being foiled left and right.

Overall the season was great, it's just that Mala is easily the worst part of it because she's too stubborn in her own ideas, too eager to accentuate the negative, and ultimately is just a freaking IDIOT who probably was an okay leader at best within her own in group, but can't handle the fact that there are others who are different from them and can respect dragons in their own way that doesn't match theirs. Frankly, any conflict between Berk and the Defenders of the Wing will probably resemble a squabble between different branches of a religion... if it isn't outright different religions (Norse Paganism versus worshipping dragons in of themselves?)