#uhm. Hiccup could take notes here ngl...

[saturnniidae]

I love how Trollhunters is such an outlier in its genre in the sense that from the very beginning, when establishing the status quo, the notion is set; you can't always win someone over, you have to finish the fight. It is very often kill or be killed, and you can't bank on being able to change that.

And of course in the beginning Jim is horrified, and staunchly refuses to even kill even the troll equivalent of a rodent, and he does manage to win people over by talking, multiple times. And he defies everyone's expectations with these new allies. His ability to do this is one of his strengths and it's incredibly impressive, but in the end he learns and relents to the fact that sometimes of only way you can stop someone is to meet violence with violence and by then he wants to.

It's not just about self defense or damage control anymore, Gunmar killed his friends, and caused those still living to suffer, and indirectly forced him to give up his humanity, his future, his chance of having any semblance of a peaceful life,

(In Jim's eyes anyway. But really, from the moment he picked up that amulet, he lost his chance at normalcy. He was doomed from the beginning. He was also 15.)

And he wants him fucking dead. I don't know, but that's just so unusual for the type of character that Jim is, but it's so very human to break under something so heavy (Young Atlas and all that, I suppose), and it's almost ironic for him because at that point – again, to him, at least – he is anything but human.