| “ | Toothless didn't just become my friend. He became the friend who gave me my purpose. | „ |
| ~ Hiccup describing Toothless. |
Today we will be re-discussing one of my personal favorite heroes of all time, Toothless.
Thank you to Jester of Chaos for permission.
What's the Work?
How to Train Your Dragon is an animated franchise focusing on a Viking society called Berk, which happens to live in the same world as dragons. One of the Vikings, by the name of Hiccup, ends up forming a bond with a dragon named Toothless, discovering them to be not completely different from human beings and training them to try and integrate them to live alongside humans.
Who is Toothless? What's He Done?
Toothless is the last remaining Night Fury in the world after the rest of his species was hunted to extinction by Grimmel the Grisly, a savage dragon bounty hunter who commands a pack of drugged Deathgrippers. Toothless would eventually end up residing near Berk, an island of Vikings at war with the Red Death, although it is unclear whether or not he was serving her, as unlike the other dragons, he would not steal food. He would eventually be shot down by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, injuring his tail and making him unable to fly. Hiccup comes across Toothless in the woods, but cannot bring himself to kill the dragon and sets him free. Toothless responds by sparing Hiccup's life, although he becomes stuck in a gorge on Berk due to being incapable of flight. Hiccup begins visiting him and the two form a bond, with Hiccup eventually creating a prosthetic tail fin that will allow Toothless to fly again if Hiccup rides him. This enables Hiccup to learn how to train dragons properly, which gains him great praise in the village. Hiccup is eventually selected to kill a dragon in front of the whole village, but can't bring himself to do it and is nearly killed, resulting in Toothless coming to the village to save him. While Toothless does save his life, he is then captured by the villagers, including Hiccup's father Stoick, who has Toothless lead him to the dragon nest. Upon arriving, the Vikings are attacked by the gigantic Red Death, and nearly killed by it. Luckily, Hiccup teaches the other teenagers on Berk, including Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut, how to train the other captive dragons, enabling them to fly to the Red Death's nest and save the other Vikings. Hiccup frees Toothless from the restraints Stoick kept him in, and together the two of them engage the Red Death directly. Toothless manages to defeat it by shooting a plasma blast into its firebox, killing it but injuring both Hiccup and Toothless in the process, to the point that Hiccup loses a leg and needs a prosthetic one built for him. However, with the Red Death gone, Stoick declares the war against the dragons over and they begin integrating into living on berk and being ridden by the Vikings, with Toothless and Hiccup leading them.
Toothless remains at Hiccup's side for the next few years, as the two of them have to deal with the difficulties of Vikings and dragons living together. The two of them go on multiple adventures together, but eventually, the word of Vikings being able to ride dragons reaches other tribes, leading to wars with the Outcast and later Berserker tribes. Hiccup later discovers an artifact known as the Dragon Eye, a telescopic cylinder which contains significant knowledge on dragon species beyond Berk. This leads the dragon hunters from far away from Berk to come into conflict with Hiccup and Toothless after they take the Dragon Eye and decide to establish an island far away from Berk, which they call Dragon's Edge. The dragon hunters are primarily led by the brothers Viggo and Ryker Grimborn, although they are secretly employed as well by Trader Johann. Hiccup and Toothless alongside the other dragon riders are in constant conflict with the hunters, eventually resulting in an outright war where Ryker uses a massive captive ocean dragon known as the Shellfire to launch a full-scale attack on the archipelago. The Grimborn brothers are eventually defeated, with Ryker being killed and Viggo presumably dead and going into hiding. With the dragon hunters gone, Hiccup and Toothless begin considering returning to berk, but the dragon hunters resurface, led by a man named Krogan, who works alongside Johann. Krogan amasses an army of dragon hunters who begin flying Singetail dragons, starting a war across the archipelago to find the elusive King of Dragons, the grand prize for the dragon hunters which only the Dragon Eye can lead them to. Hiccup eventually discovers that the King of Dragons is on Berserker Island, and they travel there to stop Krogan and Johann. In the caves beneath Berserker Island, Hiccup discovers the King of Dragon's egg, which is stolen by Krogan. Toothless goes after Krogan, who attempts to use his techniques as a dragon hunter to subdue Toothless but fails, with Toothless knocking Krogan out and taking the egg to safety. Johann is killed by the King of Dragons, and together Hiccup and Toothless depart now that the dragon hunters are gone for good.
Several months after the war with the dragon hunters, Hiccup and Toothless now reside together on Berk. Hiccup is eventually reunited with his lost mother Valka, who takes him to a secret dragon kingdom led by a Bewilderbeast (the King of Dragons), the current Alpha dragon which is capable of controlling other dragons through telekinetic thought. Unknown to everyone, Krogan was working for a man named Drago Bludvist, the leader of a dragon-trapping army known as the Northern Alliance. He is obsessed with finding a Bewilderbeast and eventually does acquire one through unknown means, wanting to use it to challenge the Bewilderbeast in Valka's kingdom so that it can be the new Alpha and he can control all of the dragons in the world. Drago attacks Berk with his Bewilderbeast, killing Valka and taking its place as the new Alpha. Drago then uses his control over the subjugated Bewilderbeast and has it take control of all the dragons on Berk, including Toothless. Drago then directs it to have Toothless kill Hiccup, which he almost does, only being saved by Stoick taking the plasma blast for Hiccup at the last moment. Despite being mind-controlled, Hiccup sends Toothless away due to him having just killed Stoick, leading to Toothless and the other dragons being called away from Berk by Drago's Bewilderbeast. Hiccup and his fellow dragon riders ride baby dragons, who are immune to the Alpha's control, to reach Drago's army. There, Hiccup calls out to Toothless, and it turns out that their bond is strong enough to break through the Alpha's control and allow the two of them to reunite. Hiccup and Toothless begin facing Drago's Bewilderbeast just like they once did with the Red Death, but are shot by the Bewilderbeast's ice and frozen to what is their presumed death. However, Toothless then breaks out of the ice with a plasma blast, now glowing blue, revealing that he is challenging Drago's Bewilderbeast for the position of Alpha. This causes the other dragons to break free of the Bewilderbeast's control and come to Toothless' aid, and it is defeated by Toothless blowing off one of its horns using a plasma blast, at which point it flees into the sea, making Toothless the new Alpha dragon.
One year later, Hiccup and Toothless utilized his position as Alpha to move countless dragons to Berk, resulting in overpopulation. Hiccup desires to find the "Hidden World", the mythical secret home of the dragons that would act as a safe haven for them. As a result of Drago's defeat, the remaining Warlords of the Northern Alliance hire Grimmel the Grisly to have him hunt down Toothless, as he is the last known Night Fury in the world and the only one to evade Grimmel's hunt. Grimmel uses a female Light Fury as bait, setting it loose in the woods near Berk. Upon seeing her, Toothless quickly becomes attracted to her, and she seems to reciprocate this until being scared off by Hiccup. In response to this, Hiccup builds Toothless an automatic tail fin that enables him to fly on his own, allowing him to meet with the Light Fury, at which point they depart for the Hidden World together. Hiccup and Astrid search on Stormfly for Toothless, and in the process discover the Hidden World, which is now seemingly led by Toothless due to him being the Alpha dragon. Toothless sees Hiccup and Astrid in the Hidden World and takes them back to Berk, at which point he is captured by Grimmel alongside the rest of Berk's dragons. Hiccup and his fellow dragon riders attack Grimmel's ships, freeing their dragons. Grimmel drugs the Light Fury and begins riding it, and is pursued by Hiccup and Toothless. The two of them are attacked by Grimmel's Deathgrippers, but Toothless uses his abilities as the Alpha dragon to channel lightning directly through his body, electrocuting the Deathgrippers and sending them plummeting into the sea. At this point, Toothless and Hiccup free the Light Fury, and Grimmel is sent plummeting into the sea to his death. While the battle is over, Hiccup finally comes to the realization that the Hidden World is where the dragons belong and decides it's time for him and Toothless to separate. They say goodbye to each other, and as the Alpha Toothless commands all dragons to return to the Hidden World and remain separate from the humans.
After this, Toothless and the Light Fury start a family and continue ruling over the Hidden World. Not much is known about Toothless' life while in the Hidden World, but it is shown that on at least one occasion Hiccup and his family sailed to see Toothless once again and at some point began residing in the Hidden World with them, although the existence of dragons remained a secret. Toothless would pass the role of Alpha dragon down to his descendants, a title that would eventually reach the Elder Night Light and Thunder during the events of Dragons: The Nine Realms.
Corrupting Qualities
So there are two main arguments that were used in Toothless' removal, the first of which is that as an animal, he doesn't have full agency to qualify as PG. The issue is, that the How To Train Your Dragon franchise emphasizes on numerous occasions that dragons have the same level of personality as humans, being fully sentient creatures even if they are not humans. And Toothless is the best example of this, being highly intelligent even compared to other dragons, to the point that he exhibits creativity and will create drawings using branches, and will even sometimes disagree with Hiccup whenever he is doing something foolish. For example in the Race to the Edge episode "No Bark, All Bite", Hiccup and his father Stoick have a massive disagreement after discovering Johann's treachery, resulting in the two of them being angry and not talking to each other. Toothless and Stoick's dragon Skullcrusher recognize this and force Hiccup and Stoick together to have them reconcile. This proves Toothless is not just intelligent, but emotionally aware, not to mention the fact that dragons can fully understand speech, as evidenced by Toothless understanding complex instructions by Hiccup. This becomes basically no question after Toothless assumes the role of Alpha dragon, as at that point he has to lead all of the dragons in the world, a level of intelligence that I would argue even exceeds that of the average Viking, so no, Toothless is not just an animal but a fully sapient being that can qualify as PG.
As for corrupting qualities outside of that, there isn't much. The removal argues that he only shows restraint under Hiccup's orders but that's just not the case. He's aggressive in the first film, but that's due to the war between the Vikings and the Red Death, and once the Red Death is defeated, the war ends and Toothless becomes significantly more friendly. He will get aggressive if he or someone he cares about is threatened, but that's just being ready to defend those you care about, he never attacks someone recklessly, in fact as I stated above there are times when Toothless actually acts as the sane mind when Hiccup is acting brash or reckless, so no Toothless does not behave like a "predatory animal" outside of the first film, where there was a war going on due to the Red Death. Toothless also isn't lethal, as he only killed the Red Death and Grimmel's Deathgrippers out of self-defense, and in Race to the Edge he and Hiccup are constantly looking for ways to subdue dragons without hurting them, so killing in those situations was only done because it was absolutely necessary. As for him killing Stoick, that was done under the mind control of Drago's Bewilderbeast, and he defeats said Bewilderbeast without killing it because he didn't need to kill it in order to claim the title of Alpha, so no, Toothless never kills unnecessarily and loses all aggression after the first film, meaning he has nothing really corrupting about him.
Admirable Standards
The second main argument that the removal made was that Toothless' actions are an extension of Hiccup's admirability, or he is acting on Hiccup's orders. This one is just not accurate, especially if you take into account Race to the Edge. Here is a list of all the major heroic actions Toothless has taken:
- He saves Hiccup countless times throughout the animated series. Yes, this is pretty standard heroism, but he will save Hiccup whenever he is in danger without being told to do so, which just right away proves he acts heroically without being ordered.
- While it is true that a lot of his actions are shared with Hiccup, many of them are still admirable enough to be mentioned, such as the events of of the Race to the Edge episode "Last Auction Heroes", during which Hiccup and Toothless crash a dragon auction being held by Viggo Grimborn, freeing dozens of dragons from being slaughtered and sold by the dragon hunters.
- Toothless defeats Krogan at the end of Race to the Edge and gets the Bewilderbeast egg away from him, and he does it without Hiccup even being there. While you might think this isn't that big of a deal since Krogan is a human, Krogan is shown to be an extremely dangerous dragon trapper, to the point where he could successfully subdue a Titan Wing Singetail. So if Krogan can take down a dragon that dangerous single-handedly, then yes it is pretty impressive that Toothless manages to beat him, and in doing so he stops Krogan from delivering the egg to Drago Bludvist, who would have used it in his war against Valka and the dragon riders.
- Toothless manages to overcome the mind control of Drago's Bewilderbeast and then challenges it for the position of Alpha dragon to save everyone, including the people on Berk and the dragons under the Bewilderbeast's mind control. This one is done completely on his own, Hiccup didn't even understand what was happening. Toothless proceeds to free all of the dragons that have been enslaved by Drago, and defeats the Bewilderbeast without killing it, causing it to flee into the ocean and ending the war. After this, humans and dragons essentially live in a utopia together for the next year with Toothless as their new Alpha.
- During the final battle against Grimmel and the warlords he defeats Grimmel's Deathgrippers on his own, without Hiccup's help, thus leaving Grimmel powerless. After Grimmel is killed by Hiccup, Toothless agrees with Hiccup's conclusion that the dragons have to be returned to the Hidden World and leads them back there despite meaning it will separate him and Hiccup forever. Considering dragons are fully sapient beings, this means Toothless acts as a benevolent ruler to a society of sapient beings for years and keeps it safe from the outside world.
With all of these actions in mind, you can't just claim that everything admirable Toothless did was on Hiccup's orders, especially him defeating Drago's Bewilderbeast, since that saved the lives of everyone on Berk and freed countless dragons from its control, I mean this is hundreds of lives saved, far beyond the standard "save the heroes" heroism and very much a highly admirable feat. Also, during Gift of the Night Fury, Hiccup tries to make Toothless an automatic tail, but he refuses and breaks it, showing that he wants to do things alongside Hiccup and isn't just a trained animal following orders. This leaves no question that Toothless meets the admirable standards right next to Hiccup.
Final Verdict
I think he's a solid qualifier, he loses any major aggression after the first film and has several major heroic deeds that are done independent of Hiccup, including saving hundreds if not thousands of lives in the second film.