#- so i'm trying to offer insight on different things rather than just regurgitating the same three points the fandom said thousand times

[countlessofvoids]

Talking about/analyzing the warlords is pretty much meaningless since they're kind of a nothing characters but I'll do it anyways:

Firstly, I feel like three of them is too much. With Grimmel, that makes four antagonists in one movie. Of course it's not impossible to write all four well - but with other things the film focuses on such as The Hidden World and the fury romance - even with enough screentime, one of them is bound to be underdeveloped.

I've seen people say there's no reason for them to exist at all. I disagree, I think removing them is arguably worse. They are Drago's allies, him being defeated puts a dent in their plans and makes Hiccup a threat in need of elimination. They have a reason to be there. Defeating Drago should have consequences; building all this up then having no sign of it in the next installment - while the villain is a hunter with zero connection to anything - doesn't make sense for the worldbuilding and would be a backwards progression.

Another thing is the personalities given to these characters. I do like how even though with their limited screentime and depth, we can see they all have their own, unique personality rather than everyone being the same angry brutes. But do said characteristics make sense for their role?

Chaghatai Khan is who I consider the best fit for his job. He's smartest of the three, calm and collected. Unlike Griselda, he doesn't let his frustrations with Grimmel get to him. He seems to know when someone's useful and when they need elimination. All the attributes you need for a succesfull leader are present.

Griselda is what you'd expect from this character archetype. Quick to anger, doesn't respect failure, harsh and a ruthless fighter. I don't think Griselda's dumb, but with how easily irritated she gets, she'd probably start few extra conflicts on her own if it wasn't for Chaghatai stopping her. I kinda wish there was more of her interactions with Grimmel, the tiny bit of their dynamic that we did get sparked some interest in me.

Ragnar makes the absolute least sense to me. He's shown to be cheerful, a bit of a coward and even childish. Not the personality I'd write for this character trope. You're telling me he raided villages, possibly enslaved both people and dragons, build an army and went on a succesfull conquest so barbaric it earned him rank of a warlord? An explanation for this could be him being in a nepo baby situation. But we can't really speculate on that, since there are no canon implications for it.

Now I don't wanna sound like a snob who thinks they know better than THW's writers, because I definetly don't. So feel free to ignore this part. Personaly to avoid having characters who are/should be important to the plot then end up with no development or arc whatsoever, I'd either:

A) Get rid of one or two warlords, making the cast less bloated - which means there are less characters to focus on, allowing more exploration for the remaining antagonists.

B) Have one of them takes on a role akin to Drago. Whoever that would be stays a warlord and becomes the driving force of conflict, meanwhile the other two are reduced to generals. Grimmel has a role similiar to Eret, as in he's under the warlord's command. This way it's clearer that he works for them and is not a warlord himself. You know, instead of like in the movie where he just walks in and bosses everyone around like he's been their leader all along. Seriously, why were the supposed brutal conquerers letting him treat them like insignificant soldiers while they're just standing around pouting?

C) Remove the trio entirely and leave only Grimmel. Either he's a warlord who disguised himself as a hunter, or he used to be a hunter who then became a warlord. Why am I insisting on not keeping him just as a hunter? Like I mentioned above; to me, going from armies and wars to simpler dragon hunters feels backwards.

So in conclusion: The Warlords should've been given a lot more importance to the plot because they have connections to the previous film's antagonist and I believe both them being empty characters and not existing at all is a waste. Think of the possibilities that could've been done with them, like making them pararells to Hiccup's friends/family.

(Feel free to correct me if I got any information wrong!)