First, my deepest apologies for the lengthy delay. You may be aware that I managed to get distracted my new-to-me fandoms last year. There are still some projects connected with those that I need to work on, but I am really going to try to finish the How to Train Your Dragon portion this year. I do thank everyone who has been reading these posts in the meantime. I am…astounded.
Anyways, on with the show!
Season Four: Race to the Edge
The second part of Defenders of the Wing opens the season with Hiccup managing to convince Mala that Viggo has used the Dragon Riders. They were all tricked. Mala agrees to go with Hiccup to save the Eruptadon, though she also threatens to kill him if anything goes wrong. She starts to realize how well Hiccup and Toothless works together and marvels at their harmony in flying; it’s rather magical. They find Viggo’s ship and attack. But there’s no Viggo and no dragon; another misdirection.
No, Viggo is at Dragon’s Edge, with the intention of using the Eruptadon to destroy the Riders’ base going through the crust of the dormant volcano. (Apparently a classic Maces and Talons move.) Hiccup and Mala make it to the Edge to attack Viggo there, Mala having great fun taking out several of the Hunters. She now understands that Hiccup and his friends are not enemies to dragons and that he recognizes the good of the many outweighs the good of the few.
With some help from Gronkles on the island, the lava is stopped from getting to their headquarters. The Dragon Riders and the Defenders of the Wing are now officially allies. The village even puts up with the twins’ antics, though undoubtedly pleased when the Riders head back to the Edge. Viggo is displeased with the outcome; he had been expecting a victory. Hiccup keeps interfering with his plans.
We then find out that Ruffnut and Tuffnut have a cousin named Gruffnut, who comes to visit the Edge. Tuff is excited. Ruff sees Gruff for who he really is and is not happy of the influence he has on her twin brother. Gruff tends to tell tall tales, that Tuff falls for. The others make him come clean that he’s trying to take one of their dragons in order to pay off a debt.
The Riders think they’ve seen the last of Gruffnut, but he pretends to be Tuff and takes his dragon. But Chicken knows the difference and warns the dragons. Tuff manages to escape from being tied up by his cousin and goes with Hiccup to rescue Barf and Belch (Gruff is also now stuck with Ruffnut). Tuff even makes use of Hiccup’s Dragon Fly suit and fights Gruff. Gruff is sent packing and Ruff and Tuff continue to happily annoy everyone else on the island.
Midnight Scrum is one of my favorite episodes; I oddly love my heroes in a bit of peril. The episode opens with Hiccup running from bounty hunters. Turns out, Viggo has put a price on his head. But Hiccup doesn’t want to tell his father right away, partly due to the fact that a big anniversary celebration is coming up on Berk. He doesn’t want to distract the chief. Astrid urges Hiccup to share the burden. That idea gets knocked on its head when Stoick tells Hiccup upon their arrival on Berk that the “needs of the many outweigh the need of the few.” [Yes, Dragons is now quoting Star Trek.]
During the celebration, Gobber praises the youth as “some of the youngest Berkians had the guts to step up and take a stand. The time has come to look towards the future, Hiccup and the Dragon Riders!” They then put on a dragon show, but the stress of the bounty starts getting to Hiccup and he overreacts to some strangers. Astrid advises him again to tell Stoick, yes he’s the chief, but he’s also your dad.
The next morning Stoick goes looking for Hiccup and cannot find him. That’s because during the night a few bounty hunters were lucky enough to catch Hiccup unawares, knock him out, and get him on a boat. Those two indeed got lucky, because otherwise, they’re incompetent. Hiccup makes a break for it, but does not find his friends above deck. Instead, it’s Savage, Alvin’s old second in command. He’ll be glad to deliver Hiccup to Viggo. Hiccup fights smart against Savage, but he’s saved when Throk arrives.
In the meantime, Stoick has gathered the Riders and is riding Toothless, searching for his son. Astrid talks to him about the bounty. Why would Hiccup not share this information with Stoick? “He’s Hiccup. Sometimes, his pride’s bigger than his brain.”
Throk is overpowered by a mystery cloaked man who chains Hiccup up to take him to Viggo. But they find Ryker instead and the sack of gold is actually a sack of rocks. The mystery man won’t release Hiccup for that. The man must now fight the Hunters and Hiccup gets a chance to escape and use his flaming sword. The man and Hiccup get knocked off a cliff and the man clings to Hiccup’s leg. Hiccup is able to knock his prosthetic leg off and the man goes tumbling. But when Hiccup slips, he’s saved…by Ryker. “Viggo wants to kill you himself”. [Getting a bit grim for a children’s show, though this may be geared more for teenagers and young adults.] Stoick and Toothless have been tracking Hiccup and find him just in time. Stoick faces off against Ryker; “you put a bounty on one of us, you get all of us.” He knocks out Ryker, but the man wakes up in time to throw a knife at a retreating Hiccup (helped by Astrid.) It doesn’t land because he’s knocked out by Hiccup’s leg, thrown by the mystery man, who then jumps off the cliff to remain mysterious.
On their way back to Berk, Stoick counsels his son; they are allies, peers. The people of Berk depend on them to keep them safe. To do that, they cannot keep secrets.
Snotlout has his own issues with his father’s teachings in Not Lout. Snotlout is desperate to prove himself to his father, maybe not overtake Hiccup (though I’m sure Spitelout would enjoy that), but be a stand-out second. He messes up an attack, but still tells Hiccup he wants to lead the Dragon Riders when Stoick makes Hiccup chief. The teens are indeed looking to the future and making their own plans. Hiccup warns Snotlout that he cannot force his way into a leadership position; everyone has their own strengths. Snotlout should look for his.
Hiccup also shows his strength as a leader and gives Snotlout the lead on a practice mission. He still messes up and decides to ground himself. However, when he’s on the ground, he realizes that the mission the rest of the Riders are flying into is a trap and takes off after them. He swoops in, messing up their plan, but revealing the trap. Snotlout then takes charge and they accomplish a better mission. Afterwards, Hiccup tells Snotlout that he’s proud of him and asks what Snotlout wants to do. Snotlout decides he doesn’t want to be exactly like his dad. But that makes him not so different after all.
The Riders return to the Defenders of the Wing island in Saving Shattermaster. They find out that Mala and Throk were saved from Hunters by a mysterious figure. On a fun note, it’s time for Snotlout to face a serious of trials to become Mala’s king, after he saved her life earlier. Snotlout is not pleased with the trials, but Hiccup leaves most of the Riders there with him to keep him safe, and takes Heather to investigate whoever saved Mala and Throk.
That new mysterious man is actually Dagur (note: not the same mysterious man who kidnapped Hiccup; he had been at Viggo’s auction, so definitely not a friend). Dagur also does not initially appear to be a friend; he seems to be with the Hunters. Heather attacks him, and Dagur has to reveal that he’s trying to work with the Hunters because he’s trying to save his dragon, Shattermaster. Thus, Hiccup has to remark to Heather at one point: “shall we rescue our brother?” Heather’s not so keen. “I’m going to kill him,” is her response. She ends up saving him and makes her big brother be the distraction so they can get his dragon. He tells Heather that once everything has settled, he will return and answer any of her questions.
Dire Straits is another of my favorite episodes. The trade routes are getting disrupted to Berk, a giant whirlpool is claiming ships. Berk needs trade in order to survive, especially since they lost their stockpile of gold to Viggo at the dragon auction. Stoick has the Riders investigate. It’s a Submaripper dragon, very large, and very territorial. Hiccup makes use of his Deathsong amber goggles to investigate under the water. There are dragon-proof chains holding the Submaripper dragon in place. But Hiccup can’t hold his breath long enough to free him. They have to come up with another solution.
He makes a diving cauldron and uses Deathsong amber as a lens. Hiccup takes the risk himself, though Fishlegs is on standby. When they make their final attempt, Viggo starts an attack to rile the Submaripper up. The Riders don’t want to hurt the dragon, since it’s not it’s fault. Under the water, Hiccup manages to free the dragon, but the winch to bring up the diving cauldron is damaged in the attack. Toothless dives down to save his rider. Hiccup tries to send Toothless away, but his friend refuses. Hiccup admits he’d do the same.
The Submaripper helps out the one who helped him, and brings the cauldron to the surface. Hiccup is eerily still for a minute once they get him out, but he eventually coughs up the water. He’s weakened and can’t fly after Viggo, but the other Riders are more than pleased to do it for him. Except they’re foiled again, because Ryker is using Seashocker dragons to escape.
Trade does return to Berk and the village is saved, thanks to Hiccup. He still feels at fault, since it was his plan that lost Berk it’s gold and it’s his enemy who is doing this to Berk. Stoick gives wise words to his son. Viggo has shown his true colors now; “only a coward endangers innocent women and children as a means of intimidation.” Bravery will triumph over cowardice.
We get a bit of a breather with The Longest Day. It’s the time of the Midnight Sun, when Berk experiences two weeks full of days of sunlight [it is an actual phenomenon that that part of the world experiences, which, kudos to the team for putting that detail in]. Stoick is pleased because Berkians become very productive. But that long of a time awake, makes people a little loopy, being so sleep deprived.
Hiccup gave his Riders a very easy task for the day: wash their dragons. Well, Fishlegs ends up paranoid, Snotlout has mood swings, Ruffnut and Tuffnut hallucinate, Heather can’t balance, and Astrid is giddy. Hiccup, meanwhile, is on Berk with Stoick, discussing plans to deal with Viggo. Hiccup’s first plan is “wipe the psychopath off the map, kaboom!” Eh, kaboom is not exactly a full plan. Okay, he wants revenge. He wants the Dragon Eye back. Stoick insists that Hiccup needs a plan.
The teen does manage to find a new dragon, well, one large dragon that has a squadron of smaller dragons that cling to its wings to provide firepower [reminds me a bit of guns on a warplane]. He ends up quoting Dagur while he figures out how to deal with the dragons: “trappers trap can trap the trapper.” That’s when he knows he’s losing it. When he returns to the Edge, he finds that the dragons have dumped their riders into a hole to get some sleep. Toothless follows suit.
Hiccup starts trying new moves with Toothless during Gold Rush, telling himself he’ll rest when Viggo’s gone. His plans are derailed when Dagur returns, searching for his father. The tales that Dagur killed his father to take over the Berserker tribe were lies. Oswald had gone on a trip and never returned. Dagur wants his sister to join the search, and he has news for his “brother,” Dagur knows where Viggo hides his gold. It will be the perfect strike against Viggo.
Hiccup, Astrid, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout end up captured and discover that Viggo’s new ships are metal underneath the wood, essentially making them dragon-proof. Until Shattermaster shows up (to the theme played on bagpipes, very cool). The Riders get free, Hiccup quickly jumping on Toothless.
Later, he realizes that the gold was hidden in Viking ruins on the island. The hint had been there were no ruins on the map. Heather decides to accompany Dagur on his trip to find their father, but manages to give Fishlegs a kiss before they leave.
Mala returns again in Out of the Frying Pan; the Eruptadon has laid an egg, but it needs transported to its ancient hatching site inside the volcano. But the Eruptadon is very old and spent a lot of energy bringing about the egg. So Hiccup volunteers to help Mala with the egg. As does Fishlegs. But the two, who usually work on the same wavelength, are now disagreeing. Time is running out. Mala tries to run off with the egg, dodging small dragons that attack her. Fishlegs and Hiccup realize that the smaller dragons are actually guardians of the eggs and are meant to take the egg to its site.
Throk and Astrid descend into the volcano as the lava rises, hoping to rescue Mala, Hiccup, and Fishlegs. But Meatlug can’t carry them all. Luckily, the Eruptadon comes to their rescue.
It starts with a broken Macey in Twintuition. Hiccup won’t fix her/it in the middle of the night. But Tuffnut doesn’t want to fly all the way back to Berk either. Instead, Tuff and Ruff head to the Northern Markets and encounter lots of Hunters. And decide it’s a good idea to claim they took out Hiccup. Through their escapades, Macey gets stolen, the twins find Viggo and discover he’s working on a Project Shellfire. Then Viggo sees Macey and is smart enough to recognize the Gronkle Iron mace and knows that the twins are on his island. Tuff is actually brave and goes for the project plans instead of his mace, but he gets Macey back in the end (after Viggo tries to drown the Riders.)
The Triple Stryke dragon returns in Blindsided, with Hiccup now trying to train Sleuther. Their training is interrupted by storms rolling in (not that it was going well to begin with). Astrid checks on the dragon pens and lightning strikes, causing a fire. She’s knocked out in the commotion and the dragons fly off. Hiccup rescues Astrid and they find out when Astrid wakes up that she is blinded. Hiccup promises to stay with Astrid. But, Astrid being Astrid, she wants to help find Stormfly and the other dragons and will not take ‘no’ as an answer. “I’m putting my foot down,” Hiccup tells Astrid. Two seconds later, they are both on Toothless.
Hiccup is also desperate to protect Astrid, particularly since she is vulnerable without sight at the moment. “Of course she’s not going to hide, what was I thinking, she’s Astrid,” he grumbles. At one point, he does get Astrid behind a rock because the Triple Stryke is all riled up now. “You, stay,” he orders. Astrid obeys, for now. Then she catches on to a sound Sleuther makes before making a strike. She uses that sound to distract Sleuther and they get all the dragons calmed down…and back with their proper owners. Now, they have a way to train the Triple Stryke and Astrid does get her sight back. She gives Hiccup a hug and they go sit together.
Earlier, Hiccup assured Astrid “you have me. Okay, whatever that mean, whatever you want it mean. I am with you. There will always be a Hiccup and Astrid. Always.” And Hiccup had been ready to kiss Astrid, but it wasn’t quite the right time. Astrid brings it up as they sit, watching the sunset. Hiccup wanted it to be the perfect moment. Well, now seems pretty perfect. Indeed it does, and the two young adults share a kiss. (So romantic!)
The two-parters Shell Shocked finishes the season. The Riders are on Berk, preparing for Hiccup’s plan to attack the Hunters. They’re joined by Berk’s A-Team as well as Heather and Dagur. Hiccup and Astrid share a secret kiss; they haven’t told their friends yet. All the dragon riders carry out Hiccup’s plan, but find the Hunters’ camp destroyed and Viggo in a hole, happy to see Hiccup. Stoick would rather punch the man who has threatened his people and his son, but Hiccup holds him back. Viggo says that Ryker has turned on him and betrayed him. He plans to wipe out the Riders and their allies using Project Shellfire. Viggo offers to give Hiccup more information if they will help him take out Ryker.
Hiccup has to act. He brings Viggo with him and sends others to check on their allies. Fishlegs gets to see the hatched Eruptadon baby and knows to keep the baby safe. Viggo then manages to escape during an attack at the Edge. Hiccup and Astrid have to learn how to balance their care for each other and being in danger. Ryker runs up a white flag and talks to Hiccup, spinning the same story as his brother, that Viggo betrayed him. Ryker is willing to give Hiccup the Dragon Eye in exchange for Viggo. Now Hiccup is a bit confused on who to believe.
Meanwhile, the twins and Snotlout realize something is going on between Hiccup and Astrid. The twins believe Hiccup is dying, but Snotlout thinks he has a gambling problem…so no one correctly guesses. They do find out what Project Shellfire is. It’s a ship on a dragon. And Hiccup of course, goes after it, but it swims too fast and dives too deep.
Viggo shows back up, with the Dragon Eye, and Hiccup happily locks the man up. Ryker uses the Shellfire to attack the Edge’s volcano, again. Fishlegs brings the baby Eruptadon to help eat the lava. Hiccup is a noble hero and won’t let Viggo die in a fire, hoping he’s not making the biggest mistake of his life. Viggo, trying to be Hiccup’s friend and advisor, notes the conundrum Hiccup is in, to be in love with a girl who is his partner in battle. It looks like Viggo is going to stab Hiccup, but the knife is dropped in the water to bring up the Submaripper, who attacks the Shellfire. The two dragons are natural enemies. Viggo continues to sweettalk Hiccup: “we may be adversaries, but my respect for you is beyond what I can put into words.” [And I kind of respect Viggo, as a villain, for respecting Hiccup as a worthy adversary, for not simply dismissing him as a young kid with no brains.]
Dagur now bonds with the Triple Stryke, and Hiccup continues to call the crazy man his brother [a bit sweet.] Ryker goes down with the ship and for a moment, we think all is well. Until Viggo shows up with a captured Astrid, demanding Hiccup return the Dragon Eye. Is the young man willing to “sacrifice your future, all the wonderful years ahead” for the Dragon Eye? Hiccup throws the Eye into the volcano. Viggo falls and Hiccup is ready to grab him, but it’s too late. Now, it’s over. Finally. Definitely.
Hiccup and Astrid share a sweet moment, and then a kiss, witnessed by everyone. Fishlegs remarks, “this changes everything,” (which is the catchphrase of the show, used in the opening).
And nope. Not over. The volcano erupts. End of season.
Another season full of adventures, and the storyline is getting tighter. There are still side excursions, but the focus is on the battle going on between Viggo and Hiccup. Hiccup is gaining allies. Dagur is firmly on his side, as is Heather, even if we don’t see them every episode. There are now the Defenders of the Wing and we learn a lot about them this season.
I like how Stoick is dealing with Hiccup now. Hiccup and Stoick are both leaders; Hiccup has proven himself as a leader of the Dragon Riders, is keeping an outpost going. Has made allies of his own, as well as enemies. But he’s holding those enemies at bay. However, Hiccup is still young and needs to learn when to depend upon all his allies and recognize that he can go to his father for advice, as a leader, not simply father and son. And Hiccup is shaping up to be a worthy heir to the chiefdom of Berk. While he lives away from the main island, he is still worried about the people.
Viggo is ramping up his actions against Hiccup because Hiccup keeps thwarting him. Again, he takes Hiccup as a serious threat. Not like Alvin the first time; oh, Hiccup is small and skinny, he’s such a disappointment. No. Hiccup was brave enough to face a dragon and befriend it. Hiccup has grown as a character and his opponents grow as well. Viggo tends to come off as classy; he has multi-faceted plans, he treats this as a game of Maces and Talons (kind of like chess), and he tries to teach Hiccup lessons. Now those lessons have bigger consequences. Hiccup has a bounty put on him, Viggo goes after Berk. Stoick is now involved in this fight.
Not surprised that Ryker and Viggo seem to turn on each other. There has always been a power struggle between the two. Ryker is the older brother, but Viggo is the one in charge, supposedly brains versus brawn. But both want Hiccup dead. Ryker was fine with taking Hiccup from the mysterious man because Viggo wanted to kill him. When their plans no longer align, Ryker still attacks the Edge.
The twins still have their moments of brilliance. Snotlout is maturing, a bit, but really just trying to figure out what his role is in the Riders. Fishlegs becomes sweet with Heather and it’s reciprocated. And Astrid and Hiccup finally, officially get together!
Next Time: I have a schedule I’m going to try to keep this year, to finish the How to Train Your Dragon section by the end of the year. But I’m also going to try to work on completely a full draft of two major stories I’m working on (all to feed into the larger fantasy series I have planned). Hopefully, a schedule will work. After Dragons, there will be Chronicles of Narnia, and then finish it off with Lord of the Rings. I do actually have some further plans after that, but we will see how everything works out.
Thank you again, for hanging with this blog series, it has grown larger than I first imagined and I am simply grateful for every view I get.
Dreamer in the Mirror 