#i honestly didn’t have beef w valka in the third movie!!!!

[westwiiind]

How do you feel about what they did to valka in thw (reducing her to 'parental figure that sometimes gives okay advice', turning her hair red, making her look over a decade younger, etc)

ok so first of all her hair: i actually have no problem with her red hair!! it reminds me of how book!hiccup has red hair even though i know it probs wasn’t an intentional nod, and im chill with the idea that maybe she just dyed her hair ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ vikings did that sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and they added more gray streaks which i do like!!!! so idrc that the rest of her hair is red

second: making her look younger! i know each of the three movies have kind of their own art styles, and the third one is more saturated, whimsical, and airbrushed. (the more vibrant colors are also why i don’t mind her redder hair, bc to me it’s really just part of that style, and i love how colorful the third movie is bc it also reminds me of the whimsy of the books!!) i chalk some of her “younger” appearance up to the more “airbrushed” art style, so that doesn’t bother me TOO much. but even though i love the style, i do miss the finer lines/details of her face, much like i miss hiccups freckles:( and her face structure was more stylized in the second one so im sad to say i do prefer her second movie face over her third one😔

lastly her role….this is kind of a tougher one and i don’t want to be too verbose. basically my gut reaction when watching it has never been “wow they diminished her role.” i think the role she played in httyd2 — cool vigilante wild mountain dragon woman — is just so unique and interesting, and it’s hard to follow that up with her return to a more traditional/domestic life in a way that doesn’t inevitably feel like a bit of a letdown. but i was happy to see her living her life with hiccup instead of living in self-imposed exile!!! i kinda liked that she was guiding the riders and showing them what she learned, bc up until her entrance they were the experts, so the fact that she took on an advisor/teacher role subtly communicated that however good the other riders are, she’s better and has been doing this for way longer. i kinda fuck with that for her!!!! i personally didn’t feel her character was reduced, i think it’s just that her character even existing was a major plot point in httyd2, while in thw she’s become an established part of the group. i think that’s a fair reason for her character getting less exploration/depth and focus. she’s one of the best and most interesting characters, and i would honestly kill a man for a valka-centric prequel or something. but in the third movie, unlike the second, she wasn’t really the focus of the plot, and theres only so much they can fit into one movie, especially when that movie is the finale of a trilogy. maybe that’s just me trying to be optimistic about a movie series that raised me but of the problems i have with httyd, valkas role in thw honestly kind of isn’t one:)