As childish as the entire series technically is and can obviously seem, theres some decent fun, emotions, and character development and nature that can be seen despite its inherent nature as a series, which can be reflected off some surprisingly deep roots from its book series.
I'll be going over the main cast over a later installment into this series, an offshoot from the movies that is equally as good, and is able to we watched on Netflix.
Hiccup Haddock is a lanky son of a Viking Chieftain, in a world where hordes of dragons consistently kill and a raid from the viking village, and had been doing so for generations, with varying species involved. Hiccup is the propagator for a whole new lifestyle for his people on the island of berk over the course of this movie. While throughout the course of this series, respectively he remains a skinny flimsily muscled pale son of Stoic the Vast, at least he has overwhelming knowledge and capacity of fire breathing reptiles that can fly and swim. But we'll never forget his inferiority as a physical fighter and manly man compared to his father. Keep in mind this is in terms of a society built off of the viking concept in a way of life, so really he is just inferior as a person in their society rather than a lot of today's cruel reversals of being called a woman as an insult (More on that later). He rides the above species of Dragon, as seen there, a Night Fury, named Toothless. The whole reason he became a valued young man in his society, instead of a clumsy useless blacksmith's hand.
Astrid Hofferson is a young woman of Berk who is one of the most physically adept fighters within this cast, and will remain so, when not faced with veteran vikings who stand at 7 feet tall with a ridiculously muscular barrel chested build, anyways. She is the most battle cunning and intelligent of any of them to be seen (a little more on that later too.) She overwhelms every single young man in the group as a fighter, overwhelmingly so. She is complemented story wise by attracting Hiccups romantic desires, though the first movie has them warm up to each other a bit too quickly. The series gives this time to really juggle with the concept, into them being betrothed, them both in their society needing to provide a gift for one another, and having no one or the other take the lead in a partnership that would go on for the rest of their lives in their culture. Norse women have been historically found to be able to be equal to men as warriors. So what helps the series here, is that one, there is no "selling it" like with say English knights being women, as that is historically not seen, and is not even accepted. In at least this Norse culture, the entire series has yet to even bring up any evidence of there being a gender norm that is against either group, though similar to Norse history, seems to be less warrior women running around, though with tones that show every person in this culture is trained to fight and hunt anyways, its just their way of life. She doesn't just compete, amoungst everything seen, she remains top of her class in combat, in routine, and in managing the more troublesome members of her group. She isn't an expert of the knowledge of dragons, but that really isn't to be attributed to her being a woman much. She rides a Nadder, Stormfly, as seen above.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston... Are a pair of idiots. They are shown consistently being equally idiotic, and making habits of trying to be stupid. They have on multiple occasions gotten their whole group killed on the most ridiculous notions, together, and individually, at the support or behest of their other twin equally, in many cases. There are some differences, but usually coming out in the most pressured situations, or when a large disagreement is found between the two. Ruffnut, the girl of two, in her slight differences, tends to later be the more calm and... slightly, rational of the two, not giving into such wild de-railings of a topic or great levels of senseless worrying... Yeah I'll keep it short, Tuffnut is more the comic relief, all the time. In the worst of situations, she's shown to actually be able to stop being idiotic, proving she actually has a real brain under the facade of stupidity. Tuffnut in the same situation has literally never broken this concept of stupidity in an actual situation, he has proven to be able to learn new things though, later proving to be slightly bilingual, and is significantly the more creative twin. They duo ride a Zippleback, of which each head is named Barf and Belch. Real creative guys.
Snotlout Jorgenson, while not as literally idiotic as the twins, he is a blockhead with a lot to prove at times. Trying to be popular with ladies in that kind of former bully way, in that kind of trope. While backing off from a lot of his bragging, as time goes on he has more to prove to his vikings family name, and significantly more courage to actually go through with his endeavors, crazy as they may be. His greed or pride, usually separately gets the group into a lot of trouble as well. Despite all this, he has come through in times where he has not caused an entire problem. While not particularly talented, hes the only one of the group to have that average build that is seen through of the vikings on Berk, though a little short. He rides the Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang, as seen above.
Fishlegs Ingerman, amoung viking culture, kind of a strange character archetype, at first tending to be lumped in with Hiccup due to a much more nervous and anxious personality than a viking "should" have. He is tied with Hiccup for the most dragon knowledge, technically being more knowledgeable about them sooner than Hiccup, though he would have never touched a dragon without the prior. He went from cowardly, nervous, but kind and... What can only be described in our culture as a nerd, to... Less nervous, and very reliable amoungst the team. Despite what seems to be him as a tall, muscular, though chunky viking, his demeanor does not even slightly work with build, which is the standard build of many of the viking warriors on Berk. Even in the times where this build comes into question, his combat effectiveness is the lowest when off of his dragon. Speaking of which, there's his dragon up there, the Gronckle Meatlug.
Through all these characters, Hiccup becomes the responsible leader who doesn't have the strength to take the lives of dragons, and has massive pressure in situations with too much to balance on his shoulders. Astrid is the second in command, and though she is put into situations of being under capture, this kind of happens to everyone, and it starts to happen to Hiccup way more often, (protagonist syndrome anyone?). Astrid proves to be the one as the role model amongst any of them, especially considering her culture is very supporting on aggression and fighting. While Fishlegs takes the role of being equally experienced as they go on in the field of Dragons as Hiccup, he falls off in many other departments. That leaves the idiots who just happen to be able to usually control their dragons long enough to breathe fire on a bunch of viking ships. On a sidenote, someone who appears in the series is Heather. Her and Astrid follow alot of the same policies, read up if you'd like to know a little more.
All of this ends with two very strong, realistic female characters that shine in a pile of manly men, and alot of sloppy looking idiots in a Norse like culture. But one of the things I like is that it doesn't draw this line in the sand between the men and women, which really is just how Norse culture ran itself, funny how the past often tended to have men domineering women on a basis of physical strength and shunning women as all inferior, and yet one of the oldest cultures around shows us that they didn't even start what really isn't true of what we hear today.
Perspective. Matters.
I'll be going over the main cast over a later installment into this series, an offshoot from the movies that is equally as good, and is able to we watched on Netflix.
Hiccup Haddock is a lanky son of a Viking Chieftain, in a world where hordes of dragons consistently kill and a raid from the viking village, and had been doing so for generations, with varying species involved. Hiccup is the propagator for a whole new lifestyle for his people on the island of berk over the course of this movie. While throughout the course of this series, respectively he remains a skinny flimsily muscled pale son of Stoic the Vast, at least he has overwhelming knowledge and capacity of fire breathing reptiles that can fly and swim. But we'll never forget his inferiority as a physical fighter and manly man compared to his father. Keep in mind this is in terms of a society built off of the viking concept in a way of life, so really he is just inferior as a person in their society rather than a lot of today's cruel reversals of being called a woman as an insult (More on that later). He rides the above species of Dragon, as seen there, a Night Fury, named Toothless. The whole reason he became a valued young man in his society, instead of a clumsy useless blacksmith's hand.
Astrid Hofferson is a young woman of Berk who is one of the most physically adept fighters within this cast, and will remain so, when not faced with veteran vikings who stand at 7 feet tall with a ridiculously muscular barrel chested build, anyways. She is the most battle cunning and intelligent of any of them to be seen (a little more on that later too.) She overwhelms every single young man in the group as a fighter, overwhelmingly so. She is complemented story wise by attracting Hiccups romantic desires, though the first movie has them warm up to each other a bit too quickly. The series gives this time to really juggle with the concept, into them being betrothed, them both in their society needing to provide a gift for one another, and having no one or the other take the lead in a partnership that would go on for the rest of their lives in their culture. Norse women have been historically found to be able to be equal to men as warriors. So what helps the series here, is that one, there is no "selling it" like with say English knights being women, as that is historically not seen, and is not even accepted. In at least this Norse culture, the entire series has yet to even bring up any evidence of there being a gender norm that is against either group, though similar to Norse history, seems to be less warrior women running around, though with tones that show every person in this culture is trained to fight and hunt anyways, its just their way of life. She doesn't just compete, amoungst everything seen, she remains top of her class in combat, in routine, and in managing the more troublesome members of her group. She isn't an expert of the knowledge of dragons, but that really isn't to be attributed to her being a woman much. She rides a Nadder, Stormfly, as seen above.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston... Are a pair of idiots. They are shown consistently being equally idiotic, and making habits of trying to be stupid. They have on multiple occasions gotten their whole group killed on the most ridiculous notions, together, and individually, at the support or behest of their other twin equally, in many cases. There are some differences, but usually coming out in the most pressured situations, or when a large disagreement is found between the two. Ruffnut, the girl of two, in her slight differences, tends to later be the more calm and... slightly, rational of the two, not giving into such wild de-railings of a topic or great levels of senseless worrying... Yeah I'll keep it short, Tuffnut is more the comic relief, all the time. In the worst of situations, she's shown to actually be able to stop being idiotic, proving she actually has a real brain under the facade of stupidity. Tuffnut in the same situation has literally never broken this concept of stupidity in an actual situation, he has proven to be able to learn new things though, later proving to be slightly bilingual, and is significantly the more creative twin. They duo ride a Zippleback, of which each head is named Barf and Belch. Real creative guys.
Snotlout Jorgenson, while not as literally idiotic as the twins, he is a blockhead with a lot to prove at times. Trying to be popular with ladies in that kind of former bully way, in that kind of trope. While backing off from a lot of his bragging, as time goes on he has more to prove to his vikings family name, and significantly more courage to actually go through with his endeavors, crazy as they may be. His greed or pride, usually separately gets the group into a lot of trouble as well. Despite all this, he has come through in times where he has not caused an entire problem. While not particularly talented, hes the only one of the group to have that average build that is seen through of the vikings on Berk, though a little short. He rides the Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang, as seen above.
Fishlegs Ingerman, amoung viking culture, kind of a strange character archetype, at first tending to be lumped in with Hiccup due to a much more nervous and anxious personality than a viking "should" have. He is tied with Hiccup for the most dragon knowledge, technically being more knowledgeable about them sooner than Hiccup, though he would have never touched a dragon without the prior. He went from cowardly, nervous, but kind and... What can only be described in our culture as a nerd, to... Less nervous, and very reliable amoungst the team. Despite what seems to be him as a tall, muscular, though chunky viking, his demeanor does not even slightly work with build, which is the standard build of many of the viking warriors on Berk. Even in the times where this build comes into question, his combat effectiveness is the lowest when off of his dragon. Speaking of which, there's his dragon up there, the Gronckle Meatlug.
Through all these characters, Hiccup becomes the responsible leader who doesn't have the strength to take the lives of dragons, and has massive pressure in situations with too much to balance on his shoulders. Astrid is the second in command, and though she is put into situations of being under capture, this kind of happens to everyone, and it starts to happen to Hiccup way more often, (protagonist syndrome anyone?). Astrid proves to be the one as the role model amongst any of them, especially considering her culture is very supporting on aggression and fighting. While Fishlegs takes the role of being equally experienced as they go on in the field of Dragons as Hiccup, he falls off in many other departments. That leaves the idiots who just happen to be able to usually control their dragons long enough to breathe fire on a bunch of viking ships. On a sidenote, someone who appears in the series is Heather. Her and Astrid follow alot of the same policies, read up if you'd like to know a little more.
All of this ends with two very strong, realistic female characters that shine in a pile of manly men, and alot of sloppy looking idiots in a Norse like culture. But one of the things I like is that it doesn't draw this line in the sand between the men and women, which really is just how Norse culture ran itself, funny how the past often tended to have men domineering women on a basis of physical strength and shunning women as all inferior, and yet one of the oldest cultures around shows us that they didn't even start what really isn't true of what we hear today.
Perspective. Matters.
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