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chooseyourpaws · 2 months ago

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Here are my theories + thoughts about what's happened so far!!!

I think that we aren't the first time a cat has been created and then dumped into the world. Realistically I'd say it's only been one or two others but my crack theory is that it's going to turn out that the entire clan (other than anyone born in the clan or who came in as outsiders) are also StarClan-grown cats

My extra out-there theory is that the other StarClan-grown cats will also be controlled by a bunch of people in the same way that we're doing with Poppypaw but idk how that would ever come up even if it was the case

I love Snailberry so much :)

I like all of the different possible roles we can choose from! I think it's fun when Warriors fan content diversifies what kinds of jobs cats can have in their clan. I ended up picking gardener because Snailberry but I think the Caretaker role also sounds pretty cool so I wouldn't mind if that ended up winning the poll either

im gonna be so transparent I have to vote on these polls to see the results before they end. I genuinely didn't expect caretaker to get any votes and i'm scrambling a bit to give the kits more personality... especially since otterclan is so small that there's only two. I won't lie, I meant to post a poll asking which clan's allegiances (of the two I've completed) y'all wanna see.

anyways to respond to all of these:

Oh yeah! I definitely did my best to make Corvidcall's behavior and words imply this. I'll reveal more in-story, possibly. Maybe later in asks, I don't know. But Starclan likes to play dolls, and this time, so do you.

Maybe, maybe not exactly, but they definitely have more... otherworldly connections.

Oh stars, same. she's already got a planned consistent (PLATONIC) relationship with Poppypaw. I love this girl, and big props to @doctorjoob for helping me so much with her existence. Joob helped me a lot with the cast we have so far.

Yeah, I hate how much cats in the canon have to do. It's wild, why do these silly cats have 80hr/wk jobs. Give them breaks. Also, I have been splitting the canon healer role into a "psychic" and "doctor" type roleset for a while now. Partly because it diversifies roles, partly because how clearly "Medicine cats" are taken from cultures the Erins have no right to touch in the way they have.

#ask response #erin hunter warriors #warrior cat #warrior cats #warriors #theories and input

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kingofthewilderwest · 4 years ago

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Heya! Glad to hear your thoughts! It’s diverse ideas like this that make fandom headcanoning so cool.

^.^ haha I did chat about how the Wingmaidens and Defenders of the Wing aren’t Viking tribes, how previous Viking chieftains would’ve been part of multi-sibling families, and how the How to Train Your Dragon universe is largely separate from history and past culture. For me, it’s very difficult to marry our world with one where yaks exist as staple livestock in Scotland - or in the case of Cowell’s book series, a world in which the Roman Empire, steam ships, and the Viking Age happened simultaneously. I think it’s awesome that lots of the fandom enjoys taking information from Viking history and culture and inserting it into their headcanons for the DreamWorks HTTYD universe. Go for it! Be wild! Be creative! Have fun! For me personally, I put much less stock into it, given the great divergences, and I focus mostly on the workings inside the cultural system that DreamWorks / Cowell developed.

It’s an interesting point you make about tradition versus law. For me, as I see it, traditions and laws are largely intertwined behaviorally; they’re parts of our overarching social fabric that dictates taboo, perceptions, judgments, everyday behavior, right versus wrong, and internalized societal expectations. It’s true that in HTTYD 2 Hiccup doesn’t want to be chief but accepts the post anyway, but I feel like a large part of that story involves Hiccup situationally both being forced into the role at a tight spot, and learning to accept who his identity is and what he can do in said chiefing role. Regardless, the overarching pattern I tend to see of Hiccup’s behavior is to question the social norm, and in monumental ways: after seven generations of killing dragons, he had enough presence of mind to rethink it and put a stop to it. Hiccup balked against Stoick in HTTYD 2 for going to war against Drago; Hiccup repeatedly disobeyed his father, who presided over the law of their island; Hiccup intentionally intervened with dragon trapping and dragon trade in RTTE, which means intervening against the law; and in the comics, there’s an implication that Hiccup wants to assign Astrid as his chief strategist. If we’re living in a male-oriented society, I would be just as surprised if “war general” were any less ingrained in masculine rolesets as “tribe chief.” It might not have the same line of succession element, but it would be just as deeply encoded into the society’s notion of gender roles and “allowed” occupations.

As you describe it, you find the law of succession extremely deeply encoded into the fabric of HTTYD’s Viking society. For me, I think that fighting dragons for seven generations is more hardwired and encoded into the fabric of society, and Hiccup broke it. I’d say if Hiccup rethinks things enough he wants to break one thing, he’ll break another - whether or not the mere word “law” is attached. Hiccup radically reformed the entirety of what societal values were based on and how daily life functioned: people were judged for their merit based upon how well they killed dragons, people designed their architecture based upon what dragons they killed, people spent their entire lives training to fight this enemy, and Hiccup turned Berk in just the course of a few years into a society where people rode dragons for sport, and their daily interactions revolved around their mutually beneficial relationship with dragons. Everyone’s internal values pivoted with that. He literally changed everyone’s base values. You’ve discussed Berkians as being strict to tradition, but this entire movement was the Berkians foresaking many generations of heavily-ingrained beliefs, traditions, and societal structures. And the reason Hiccup pivoted with that is because he saw new evidence. My point with people like Mala and Atali is that Hiccup has received evidence about women being leaders, so it’s something he has been exposed to, and ergo makes it more likely that it’s something he could act on, as well. And given Astrid’s leadership role in battle - it’s something he already has acted on. (Zephyr could also be the one bringing it up, etc. - he doesn’t have to be the one to generate the idea of Zephyr as chief for him to acknowledge it.)

The Berkians have accepted Hiccup changing their relationship with dragons and all the deep beliefs ingrained in that. The Berkians have also accepted Hiccup foregoing traditions like the Regatta and replacing them with Dragon Racing, or accepted Hiccup creating new Snoggletog traditions to commemorate new cultural values. The Berkians accepted Hiccup removing them from their traditional homeland, something heavily core to their identity. They accepted New Berk wildly quickly. They adopt Hiccup’s inventions and new technologies with ease. They may be stubborn in some aspects, and they definitely live with a healthy sense of their own traditions and culture, but they’ve been shockingly transformative in a short time period, to me.

I do also agree that our current media trends, the metacontext, would encourage something like Zephyr becoming chief - HTTYD is a modern media product that would bank on contemporary values and sensibilities (but for me, that makes it all the more likely to say “Zephyr’s chief” - that’s a move the writing team WOULD make, and is a factor in my own headcanoning).

For me, I think it’s also something to note that the culture in HTTYD is more gender-equal than lots of societies. Viking women and Viking men are equally warriors in Berk. Outside of the line of chiefs in Berk being male, we see almost no direct indication of differing gender roles. Astrid and Ruffnut are just as expected to be armor-wearing, axe-wielding, blood-spilling warriors as Snotlout and Fishlegs, and there’s no point in time in which Astrid and Ruffnut diverge in their role development and “place” in society from the others. They don’t start cooking, for instance, while Hiccup and the others do patrols. Further, Snotlout and Tuffnut are the two characters who are the most interested and knowledgeable in needlework. There’s still a sense of male leadership, sure, but there’s lots Berk’s shown that proves they’re open to male-women equality. Heck, my country now could learn some things about gender equality from the Berkians! Nations across history with far less gender equality than that have been led by women tribe leaders and women monarchs rising up, for various reasons. It might not have been common for those societies, and it might have gone against their usual cultural notions, but it legitimately happened, more than once, and Berk is far, far more ripe for fostering women leaders than these historic times were.

I suppose I feel like if our only reason for saying a female character won’t become a political leader is “well because history”, there’s a point there because it is a factor in the story, but we’re being strangely selective about which history we’re enforcing and which history we remember. Women not-being-political-leaders isn’t such hard historical and cultural fact as people make it. And given as the media we consumed intentionally diverges from history already, why are we so stickler on women being-not-chief but are more fine with creating headcanons or media that break past social and cultural boundaries in other ways? (this isn’t referring to you specifically, btw, my friend, but to trends I’ve seen online). And since internally the story Berk has already shown itself ripe for conditions of understanding women as leaders, I don’t think it’s far-fetched for Berk to lasso this thing in without too much revolutionary upset.

And if we look at the books, women Viking chiefs already exist - albeit in a unique context, but they exist.

It’s always fun to hear what people think, and that you and friends vouch for an idea of potential co-rulership between Nuffink and Zephyr! That’s a fun idea! I haven’t gone for it myself, because Berk’s notions of co-rulership in THW were limited to concepts of spousal arrangements. I think that for them to think outside of the lineage structure for multiple non-married-to-each-other rulers might be almost as revolutionary or unprecedented a move. (But as we’ve both said, the fun is in the headcanoning, and whatever headcanon we take, it’s fun to roll with!)

That said, I could also still see Hiccup sticking to traditions of the line of succession without thinking too much about it, and letting Nuffink lead. There is something to be said about transformation occurring gradually, and not everyone recognizing everything that could be changed at once. Futhermore, Hiccup’s out of the box solutions to problems might be unnecessary if Nuffink turns out to be someone who’d make a good ruler. It’s why I like the concept of Zephyr as chief and it’s my primary headcanon, but I’m pretty open to it being either of the kids, individually. Either is good! :)

Thanks for engaging in this chat with me! It was fun!

Been a while. Out of curiosity out Hiccups two children who do you think is more likely to lead New Berk after him?

I think we could consider who’s more likely from several angles. What customs in Berk are relevant for who becomes chief next? What customs does Hiccup care about or would be willing to discard? Which kid based upon their personality would make a better leader?

Personality-wise, given that Zephyr and Nuffink are both so YOUNG I don’t think we have a good grasp of what they’d be like as respective leaders of New Berk. We might see glimpses of their personality now, but there’s so much bound to change from young childhood. Deciding between the two of them on temperament I ergo don’t think is possible right now, if that is indeed a factor Hiccup (and Astrid and the tribe) cares about. And I do think that once the kids become older, temperament (and desire to lead) will be something Hiccup wants to see in his kids.

As far as tradition and Berk, I talk about that here. Book canon and franchise canon both indirectly suggest that chiefdoms are inherited through the male line, in which case Nuffink hits the requirements.

However, I like to propose Zephyr as chief (the link also talks about this). I think there’s a good case to be made for her becoming chief after Hiccup, and it’s my personal headcanon. She’s the eldest, I think that would factor into Hiccup’s judgment, and I don’t think Hiccup would care about her gender. As I say in that post I linked:

[Hiccup] knows how strong women are as leaders. He’s met Mala. He’s seen Astrid in action. He’s interacted with Atali and Minden. He knows about Bertha and Camicazi. And Hiccup is a revolutionary of his own. This is the kid who brought dragons - Berk’s worst enemy - into the heart of their civilization, and created peace. Hiccup is a part of his society and culture and time, of course, but he’s also someone who pushes the world forward in new ways. If Hiccup finds Zephyr the best candidate for chiefdom, do you really think he or Berk would protest to the concept? Do you think Astrid wouldn’t support the same thing? Berk’s been through wilder shifts. I imagine they can support a woman ruler.

I think that Zephyr could turn out temperament-wise to be a good leader, and I’m rooting for her to do a good job leading Berk!

Either could be good though. Time has yet to tell. We as fans can only toss our guesses and headcanons, and they’re all fun to hear about.

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