#i gotta warn you folks: there is a veritable essay beneath that read-more

[bezzuba]

listen…as much as i love the third film for what it did, i have many, many qualms about its decisions regarding toothless’ character. now, it’s super late and i am super tired and not well-articulated atm but i gotta talk about these things lest i forget to do so later on so here we go! spoilers under the cut.

( many of the things i have to say in the following paragraphs affect the way i understand and hence write toothless as a character, but if you like this film a lot and don’t wanna hear anything negative about it, maybe just skip over this post because my language gets fairly critical. )

before i get into this shit i just wanna say that i love the light fury. i love how pointedly unacclimatised she is to humans and i love how her actions and behaviour consistently portray that. i love her but i don’t love how she was placed in the film as, in the words of many, “toothless’ girlfriend” rather than an individual character of her own right. dean or whatever can talk all they want about how she’s supposed to represent “a call to the wild” because lmao i don’t really buy it. it was so deeply buried beneath all the romantic and sexual subtexts that i just couldn’t and can’t see it.

ANYHOW i already wasn’t expecting much when they talked about toothless “getting a girlfriend” but goddang heck i was somehow still let down anyway?? the way they handled EVERYTHING — from toothless’ interest in the light fury to his reactions to some of her actions — was just. so out of place and off.

i can get behind a curious interest in the familiar unknown and even a drive to propagate to ensure his species’ survival, but that obsessive fixation on one (1) light fury??/? /? to the point where he doesn’t react negatively AT ALL when she literally throws his soulmate off his back??? ? ? like….dude…..idk about you but if anyone were to endanger the life of my soulmate whom i treasure and love, sexual / romantic partner or not, i’d be pretty fucking pissed.

AND I FEEL LIKE IT’D BE EVEN WORSE WITH DRAGONS?? they’re territorial animals and if you attack a dragon’s other half ( if toothless really does consider hiccup his soulmate as dreamwo.rks canonically states + we have seen him showcase in the first two films, i can’t imagine why soulmates wouldn’t be a thing in dragon culture ) without provocation, you can bet your dumb arse that they have all the hecking rights to attack you back on their soulmate’s behalf.

i’m not saying that toothless should’ve or would’ve attacked the light fury when she threw HALF OF HIM into the sea ( because hiccup probably wouldn’t have wished for that to happen and toothless would’ve respected those wishes ), but like. the moment she does that? he throws a goddamn FIT. just a lot of screeching and snarling and “THAT IS HALF OF ME!! YOU WOULD KILL HALF OF ME???”. any interest in her as a mate or flock-member or friend or whatever is completely diminished. i’m not brave enough to say that he would resent her but yeah, he would resent her. at least up until she apologises + tries to make amends.

he absolutely does NOT continue to earnestly chase after her. maybe he would if hiccup insisted and encouraged him to ( “she’s another fury! like YOU! go after her!!” ), but like…..he wouldn’t do it because he wants to.

i can’t remember if there were any other times where she directly endangered hiccup’s life because i’m tired and also because toothless reacted so mildly throughout most of the film, but like. same sentiment.

but stingray, you cry, wouldn’t the fact that she’s a light fury matter to toothless? yeah, i say: yeah, sure, but only in circumstances where she hasn’t committed a big, grievous no-no in dragon society. and it definitely isn’t her fault for doing what she thought was right and natural — toothless is most likely the only dragon alive with a viking soulmate — but it doesn’t excuse the fact that she did it.

does toothless hate, mourn, or is otherwise dissatisfied with the fact that he’s the only night fury in his nest? probably, yes; i just wish they could’ve explored that concept + the idea of toothless encountering another dragon like him after years of being the Only One in a way that wasn’t so contradictory + insulting to the relationship they carefully established and developed over the course of ten years.

another thing that was very weird for me to see was how quickly toothless seemed to disregard hiccup’s absence??? like somehow toothless wouldn’t be just as affected by the notion of leaving him as hiccup is? the only explanation i can think of to justify that is like. maybe he doesn’t actually ever think of leaving hiccup behind? it’s literally unthinkable — it never crosses his mind as an option or a choice. he’ll go after this dragon who is so much like him but not; this dragon who is more dragon than he can claim to be; this dragon who reminds him of what once was and what will never again be; but he won’t go WITH her. because she isn’t home. she isn’t half of me.

i admit that this hc falls apart pretty quickly in the face of the film’s goodbye scene though. it was absolutely heartwrenching to see but again, toothless was so…..mild and understanding and accepting and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing ( it’s very mature of him, in fact ), it was odd af because we don’t once get to see him grieve. we see hiccup grieve and come to terms with it but we don’t see toothless going through the same process, and the picture it all paints is, again, so contradictory + insulting to the bond they share.

so like….fuck that lmao toothless would’ve abso-hecking-lutely protested. would’ve played it off as a joke. would’ve gotten angry, would’ve gotten desperate, would’ve denied the necessity of leaving and physically splitting that bond even though he himself at his very core understands it perfectly. he leaves eventually, as do all the other dragons, but it’s not the rushed departure we see in the film. it takes days. maybe weeks. just. a lot of time is spent clinging to and hesitating and stalling under the guise of helping the humans recover from grimmel’s assault + helping the humans build new berk before the jig is up. before berk’s collective heart can’t take it anymore and the dragons are. gently pushed. “it’s time. you know it. we know it. it’s time…and that’s okay.”

in addition to these questionable character decisions, i really do not like how they claimed toothless was the king of dragons and then not show him actually, y’know, being one?? sure, there’s that scene in the hidden world where all the dragons roar and acknowledge toothless as their alpha / king ( which is a super weird concept in itself considering they’re not actually part of his flock? i’m just. gonna say that they were paying obeisance to him because he’s AN alpha, not necessarily THEIR alpha ) but that doesn’t count because it doesn’t show WHY he’s being acknowledged as so. what has he done to continue deserving this title, to continue deserving this respect? there are undoubtedly many duties and responsibilities that come with being an alpha, but we don’t get to see him fulfil any of them outside of “scold misbehaving flock-member for comedic effect”; and that’s a huge shame because there were so many opportunities where we could’ve seen him in action!!

e.g. i’m sure that dragons who’ve suffered trauma / abuse from the hands of humans do not integrate into the dragon-human nest easily. maybe we could’ve been shown toothless calming one such dragon down, or toothless mediating a fight between a human-averse dragon and a human-bonded one, or literally ANYTHING that involves toothless dealing with a reminder that not all dragon-to-human and human-to-dragon interaction is meaningful or wholesome. it would’ve fit in so well with the whole “humans aren’t ready for dragons” theme, too!!

god this post has gotten super long but you’re in for a big surprise if you think i’m done!

ANOTHER thing that didn’t sit well with me at all was that bit when toothless ordered his ENTIRE??? FLOCK???? ?? to desist and surrender to the warlords ( or whatever they’re called ) when grimmel threatened to kill the light fury. like. would’ve been a great power move if he wasn’t the alpha who’s supposed to be protecting them all but he IS!! he IS the alpha who’s supposed to be protecting them all, he IS the dragon whose first and foremost duty is TO HIS FLOCK-MEMBERS.

god drea.mworks really be out here throwing the terms “alpha” and “king” around like toothless didn’t have to fight for them. like he doesn’t have to CONTINUE fighting for them. he doesn’t have the call of a red death, nor the call of a bewilderbeast. i’m pretty sure that after all the shit his flock has gone through with previous Bad leaders, they won’t tolerate another. toothless really has to DESERVE that title for him to continue keeping it. he has to actually be such a good alpha that nobody questions his judgement, which probably-definitely-absolutely means putting his flock-members before anyone else.

so like. grimmel threatening the light fury would NOT have toothless subjecting his flock to captivity. it would have him pretty conflicted, yeah, but like….there’s no contest. she’s not a part of his flock. and even if she was, she’s one dragon out of many. she’s not the last of her kind either, not like toothless is.

but stingray, you cry, didn’t grimmel say that night furies mate for life? wouldn’t that have had any bearing on toothless’ decision? and maybe you’re right, maybe that would have influenced toothless’ decision in the end, but i really, really don’t think it would’ve mattered. first off, we can’t tell if grimmel actually witnessed that interesting tidbit occur in real life or if he forced it to become true when he, y’know, decimated the night fury population. secondly, the movie very likely means ‘love’ when it says ‘mate’ because i imagine that, what with the existence of soulmates + the typical non-human outlook on procreation, mating is actually a very clinical, matter-of-fact process for dragons. so maybe grimmel meant to say that night furies love for life, which is all very good for the light fury if she is toothless’ One And Only but the thing is?? she’s not?? that’s hiccup, babes!! definitely not in the romantic sense, but hiccup is toothless’ One And Only through and through.

SO BASICALLY i don’t think toothless would have prioritised the wellbeing of one potential mate over those of his entire flock’s, just like how he doesn’t prioritise his other half’s or his own happiness over the safety of his entire flock in the ending. for real, if toothless wasn’t the nest’s alpha, he 100% would have stayed back on new berk with hiccup. but he is, so he leaves even though it kills him to do so.

there’s probably a lot of other things i’ve forgotten to address, but this post is long enough and i am super duper tired so…tl;dr:

the light fury’s great i love her

toothless doesn’t really

he honestly doesn’t want anything to do with her after her punting stunt with hiccup

would only chase after her if hiccup ( and others, but mostly hiccup ) told him to

toothless never actually has any intention of leaving hiccup

until the whole grimmel incident passes and even then, he really super does not want to

toothless is an alpha and he hecking acts like it which means no light fury > his entire flock

that one’s gonna be a bit hard to work around plot-wise but we’ll figure it out somehow

my portrayal of toothless is canon-divergent as heck yeehaw