User blog comment:Dual Energon/What I think makes HTTYD 2 the supremely better movie./@comment-24018437-20151113155518/@comment-24865409-20151121201346

@ Megadracosaurus

"I assume 'fighting with your heart' means something else where you live then."

Yeah. Yes.

"Accepting an enemy you've fought for 300 years is extremely hard."

Dude. We're talking about animals here.

"Plus, Stalin had nuclear weapons."

Since when?

I thought that was only a US thing back then.

"If Germany were to re-build itself, who says another Hitler wouldn't have rose again?"

Germany was wrecked following their loss after WW1.

Rather than being harsh and then regretting it later to the point of being a pushover (which is how Britain and France let Germany get a lot of power to start another World War), letting them rebuild on their own and observe from a distance would have been the been a better choice.

"That's the thing about 'heroes' in the real world: They're not like fictional characters. They're not clear-cut."

Oh, come on! Am I the only one capable of being a clear-cut person here?!

Oh, Presidents Eisenhower and Wilson seemed pretty clear-cut to me.

"So its easy for us to call them foolish."

No. It's easy for those who study History to call them foolish.

"In a few decades or centuries, people will look back at us and laugh at we did and the mistakes we made."

Good, because I do want our mistakes to be called out.

"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."

Yes, that is you being a big jerk for quite a few sentences.

I hope - solely for your sake - that no Transformers fan ever reads your comment. Because you will get such a huge backlash from them.

"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 touching as these stories may be, that's all they are in the end: Stories."

Then why do you bother trying to defend these fictional tales?

I love great fiction and try to apply it to my real life, so of course I'd study the ins and outs of stories.

And most of my key points in my argument I am going to continue standing by when all's said and done.

I do find a hell of a lot of things wrong with HTTYD 1 and the TV Show.

So why do you bother trying to defend them? To you, they're nothing more than just fiction in the end. So why do you bother?

"Their sacrifices and losses meant, in the grand scheme of things, nothing."

To some of us, they are what we strive to be.

To some of us, their adventures and struggles mean everything to us.

To some of us, those characters are major role models.

To some of us, those tales are just as significant in our lives.

Who says dreams can't come true?

"I was mainly talking here about their own generations. France and Britain hated Germany, but they didn't want it to be an endless war where their own children would have to fight in as well."

Yet because of their actions following WW1, they caused WW2 because they weren't thinking logically.

"At the start of World War I, there was a trigger-happy attitude..."

Yeah, well the trigger-happy attitude is stupid.

"And if you are not careful, you become what you hate and fight against."

Well. I am careful.

And when I say sacrifice - that includes me as well.

"And would you really? Do you know the results of the Bombing of Hiroshima?"

I would sacrifice anything, really. If I were in WW2, I wouldn't have wanted Hiroshima to be bombed, but it had to happen for the Japanese to stop.

"Is that justice? Were all those hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of innocent people just a sacrifice for the 'good guys'?"

Considering the Japanese's war crimes, I'd definitely call it justice.

And those lives were not a sacrifice for the good guys. They were a penalty for the bad guys.

"Force them to sacrifice their lives and families for the sake of your moral compass?"

On the flip-side, we could just hold back for our own safety, until the enemy finishes off everyone else, then comes to crush us.

(SARCASM) Brilliant idea.

"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 others will see you as a monster."

You mean like the Berk Tribe? They weren't called out for their own barbaric atrocities.

That's quite a lot of complexity that HTTYD 1 failed to achieve.

And if you want it your way, first of all explain why there are wars when they could be sorted out through diplomacy.

"Hitler didn't view himself as evil."

I first rooted for Hitler too, until he started unecessarily killing children.

"Osama Bin Laden didn't see himself as evil."

He's clearly blind to the fact that he slaughters all those who disagree with them, even if they're not fighting back.

He's an honourless, piece-of-sh*t hypocrite.

Correction. He WAS. Now he's burning.

"To the people that lived in the Middle-East, the American soldiers were aggressive and cruel invaders that killed their families and burned their homes, all in the name of doing 'good'."

Let's not forget that those Middle-Easterns were the ones who started the fighting first.

"If you are willing to kill innocent people in order to stop someone who also kills innocent people, how much better are you?"

If they started the fighting first, and were killing innocents before we decided to say enough is enough, then I'd say we are the better side.

"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 understandable choice of saving your own flesh and blood, or the stranger?"

Depends on who's younger. If my relative is younger, then I'd rescue them.

If the stranger was younger, then I'd choose to rescue them.

"Clearly he didn't, and it did came to war eventually between the Berserkers and Berkians."

And it was just a war between Berserkers and Berkians?

No other tribes exist (except the Outcasts)?

"What about pirates, dragon hunters, rogue dragons, remnants of Outcasts and Berserkers that are on their own, conquerors like Drago, other hostile tribes, natural disasters etc?"

Well the show has never shown stuff such as pirates, rogues and other (hostile) tribes.

Drago surprisingly seems to be the only conqueror, despite the stories taking place in the age of vikings.

And we haven't seen dragon hunters either, or people who have differenct cultures revolving around dragons.

The Archipelago seems to have only 3 kinds of people living there at the time of Race to the Edge. The Berkians, Outcasts and Berserkers.

"I think he tried to convince Heather to let Dagur go because they were siblings."

Dagur is despicable! Sibling or not, Heather was tight to try and kill him.

And Hiccup seemingly forgot that this was the same Dagur that tried to drown him and used him as knife-throwing practice.

"Once Stoick was dead, Hiccup had no problem being merciless to Drago."

Well that seems pretty hypocritical of Hiccup then.

"And yeah, it's still a series aimed for children."

Well that's a huge problem with the movie-verse.

They deal with mature concepts in childish ways.

Only HTTYD 2 feels satisfyingly mature.

"If anything, it explained why she wanted to be the Champion so badly."

At the cost of actually being a good friend to the others. And she's never called out on this.

And she becomes Hiccup's girlfriend in less than a day after he showed her the truth about dragons. Despite her behaviour towards him previously.

No. That's just mediocre writing.

Other problems I have with her are her violent communication. The writers have greatly toned that down - thankfully - in the 2nd Movie, but I would like to see more development for that in the 3rd Season. I want to see her actually getting called out for using violence as a primary means of communication.