#i have so many thoughts about this guy and his brainfuckery

[overmorrowpine]

anyone wanna hear about how snotlout is an npd icon? no? too bad

first of all, the main signposts of npd are typically shame, defensive rage, and low self esteem that is masked by a high opinion of yourself. look at snotlout, and you'll see all of them.

first, npd typically is caused by trauma. and we've seen spitelout be abusive On Screen; key points are in the defenders of berk ("if your sword can't be sharpened anymore, it's time to get a new sword" - him telling snotlout that hookfang, his beloved dragon, should just be thrown away bc hookfang's sick), snotlout near working himself up into a panic attack during the "ceremonial axe" episode in race to the edge only for spitelout to laugh and make it seem like snotlout's overreacting when he sticks up for himself, and countless other interactions where spitelout makes him feel inferior, unsafe, or otherwise upset. like, this fucker DEFINITELY gave snotlout trauma.

edit: here look at this post someone else made it's so much more detailed than this paragraph

then, we have shame. tied into the first part, but; how many times have we seen snotlout desperately try to be good enough? countless times. every mission he wants to do well, he wants to be important, he wants validation of being told he did well, but he fucks up and gets told off instead. we see this happen over and over again, both with the riders and with his dad, where he tries his best and it's not good enough. that episode where spitelout implies that his friends are making him weak and they're just waiting to turn on him, it sends him into a horrible spiral for days. and we don't see him ever show shame, no, but like,, you really think that would fly around spitelout? no way.

then we have defensive rage. i'm not sure we see snotlout show it that much, but there's Definitely been times where it shows up. if i'm not misremembering, there's been a time where he gets mad at hiccup and then flies off angrily. but tbf, i don't really have this symptom either (i overcorrected too hard in the other direction), so whatever.

we also see him deflecting, a lot. i'd bet that all of his annoyingness is a learned "people will be mad at me no matter what i do, so might as well do something for them to be mad about". how many times have we seen him be disrespectful on purpose, make fun of the others, only for them to get mad at him? hell, he finds the wingmaidens because he provoked astrid's ire. it's all a mask, it's all him trying to project "i don't care what you think, i do what i want".

and now, low self esteem. we see him repeatedly struggle with his own importance to others. remember when hookfang was protecting...what was her name, girl hookfang? and snotlout thought he'd been replaced just like that? he was certain that he was less important than a random dragon hookfang just met. we see him push himself harder than anyone else (except maybe astrid) because he thinks he'll never be as good as them, and this is the closest he can get.

and lastly, the high opinion of himself. how many times have we seen him exaggerate his own importance? "that's right, SNOTLOUT got us out of the snow" (glacier island ep, rtte), his constant talking about how everyone must love him. he acts like he's adored because he can't bear to live in the world he does, where he thinks everyone's just waiting for an excuse to get rid of him.

in conclusion snotlout definitely has npd and also deserves better