Film Theory: How NOT To Train Your Dragon! (How To Train Your Dragon)

Yeah not a great basis here. 1. Hiccup did not intentionally injure Toothless, he only realised the injury after setting him free (e.g. he didn't even consider training him until after the fact). 2. Why drop Stockholm syndrome if lizards do not have any form of emotional capacity? 3. Throughout the movies Toothless actively defends/interacts with Hiccup, for example in the first movie when Hiccup screamed from being attacked in the Dragon arena Toothless ran to defend him, and on other occasions seemed to emotionally care about Hiccup and others. 4. Toothless (and other dragons) do show degrees of higher intelligence other than emotional complexity. In the first movie Toothless stays hidden and only attacks towers and other important offensive structures instead of simply 'going on a rampage' like a simple animal. Showing almost a degree of tactics, something lower lifeforms could certainly never achieve. 5. In the 2nd movie, if Toothless was simply relying on whoever was riding him, then why did Toothless overcome mind control to side with Hiccup instead of the current alpha? Sorry MatPat but we're going to disagree here.

But reptiles CAN be trained. I personally watched Chris Pratt train a squad of raptors.

i love that mat pat ignore that all the other dragons were dommesticated without being beat or forced and toothless didn´t want the tail that make him fly alone a lot of times until the last movie

Mat, in the 3rd movie when hiccup is making toothless a tail he can fly with, it is stated hiccup had made one for toothless and tried to get him to use it but toothless didn't want to, and instead destroyed it.

Here is the flaws with this theory. 1. OK, Hiccup had an injured dragon, but what about stormfly? Hookfang? Meatlug? Literally evey dragon. They join willingly. Also, the dragons aren't domesticated. They are utilized for flying, attacking, defending and target practice. You need to TRAIN the dragon how to do this with a riders command instead of by instinct. 2 Hiccup in a 'Gift of the Night Furry' attempted to give Toothless a tail that allowed him to fly independently and toothless smashed it. TOOTHLESS smashed it. 3. Dragons DO NOT EQUAL LIZARDS. They are way more intelligent than Lizards and that's literally established in the first episode. A lizard does not show compassion, doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, and like you SAID YOURSELF, can't be trained. 4. Dragons show numerous emotions for their own kind and their riders. Saving their riders, demonstrating loyalty, and showing genuine sadness when someone passes away are all obvious signs of their emotional capabilities. 5 They are arguably probably smarter than dogs or cats. For instance, they don't just know basic commands. They can have the capability to understand full sentences. Toothless is easily able to comprehend what Hiccup is saying and responses accordingly with a growl of protectiveness, a purr of delight, an eye roll, and numerous other parts of body language. 6. Dragons still need survival. They fight for their riders and their villages. They aren't just trained, they are utilized for battle as well, like a horse. 7. Although, what Hiccup did was dangerous, that was essentially the point. He was the first so of course He's not gonna do it effectively. In Race to The Edge they demonstrate much more effective ways such as using sounds (like in the episode when Astrid becomes blind). 8. If toothless was so afraid of Hiccup, why didn't he kill him when he had the chance? He sparred him because even though he shot him down, he didn't kill him. That entire time he was with the "dangerous human" he could have easily just killed him with one shot. And prior to him fixing the tail, he had to earn Toothless's trust.

Good theory... BUUUT this is one of my favourite shows so allow me to use a little bit of rebuttal. Firstly the dragons that we see in the first film are domesticated. As in the dragons that wont kill you unstantly. It is directly stated that they protect. Other dragons are shown to be more in line with the wilderness. 2nd I want to talk about toothless. Hiccup shoots down dragon, WITH THE INTENT TO KILL!! This explains why he did those actions, the loss of the tail fin was an accident. The only reason Toothless survived was because Hiccup decided not to kill him. Hiccup then felt bad about rendering Toothless flightless, so he build him a new tail fin. Now at this time hiccup is smart, but not smart enough to make an automated tail. So he builds a basic design, attatches it to Toothless. This is the point where toothless 'runs away from the human predator'. Which is 1000% wrong. Toothless feels like he has his tail back and so just wants to dash into the sky, at this point Toothless completly forgets about Hiccup and just wants to fly. About controll. It is shown that Hiccup can actualy have absolute controll over Toothless. But that has only been shown once, Ever. In fact in the first film we see Toothless use scare tactics on Astrid, as Toothless does not like her at this point. Next up is the auto tail. How does hiccup have ANY controll over it? I must have missed that in my multiple viewings. Also what you didn't say is how it ended. Hiccup saying that Toothless has a tail giving him absolute controll, so Toothless breaks it. Activly willing to be able to fly with Hiccup. What else, oh yeah dragon intelligence. Dragons are smarter then any other creature, meaning that they CAN be trained like a dog. If not better. In fact night furys where supposed to be possiably even smarter then humans. They DO have capacity for emotions. So there is my rebuttle to this theory. If anyone who ever reads this had any questions or any othet form of comment, please reply. I would love to explain my rebuttle more.

There are several times in EACH movie where Toothless has the chance to leave Hiccup, but he CHOOSES not to. In the first movie, when Hiccup falls off Toothless after fighting the Red Death, Toothless could have flown off on his own, but instead CHOOSES to save Hiccup. In the second movie, Toothless could have flown away again while fighting Drago's Alpha, as Hiccup was not riding him, and we saw him earlier in the movie getting better at flying on his own. And of course, in the third movie, Toothless has MULTIPLE chances to leave hiccup, but every time he does, he eventually comes back.

This is one of the MatPat theories we’ve put in the dumpster, I do love whenever I disagree with a theory because I can feel like I might be smart.

Hiccup: Getting ready to finish off toothless to prove himself to his father Also Hiccup: Maybe I really shouldn't kill this dragon, look at him. I'm sorry I shot him down in the first place. Mattpat: I'm gonna leave that part out

I get what you're going for here, but I feel like there's a couple things worth pointing out: 1. You only mention Toothless in this video. Hiccup's peers all have their own dragon by the end of the first video, and none of them have the handicap Toothless does. 2. In virtually any story or myth about Dragons, they are usually much more sentient (of that's the right word) than most other reptiles. Especially in this movie series. Dragons often display much more emotion (among other things) than ordinary lizards. You can see that Toothless and many other dragons express non-primitive emotions. For example, in more than one seen you can see that the dragons actually enjoy being petted. There obviously isn't any scientific basis for this, but dragons always seem to have more advanced brains than you give them credit for. But hey, that's just a theory. A counter-theory. Thanks for reading.

In literally every historical piece of writing that involves dragons they're always depicted as wise Beyond humans understanding or at least in the couple that I've read the dragons and how to train your dragons are actually picked it as stupider than the average dragon

The movie franchise never said that dragons are just glorified reptiles. If I were to guess, their ancestors probably split off from reptiles at about the same time mammals did, maybe even earlier considering most dragons have 6 limbs. For anyone not aware, the reason no terrestrial vertebrate has more than 4 limbs is because their common ancestor, the first fish to come on land, only had four limbs. So it is very much possible that dragons have a completely separate ancestor from the common ancestor of all land vertebrates. An ancestor with 6 limbs. Even if dragons were just lizards, you could take a look at dinosaurs. Dinosaurs split off from the reptile lineage about 250 million years ago, they quickly changed into the largest terrestrial creatures ever. They dominated the lands they lived in. This has nothing to do with how smart they are, just about how quickly they can change. For dragons to have enough time to completely change into creatures who are warm blooded, with a fast metabolism, and an extra set of limbs, they'd need at least 100 million years, probably more because no creature has ever been able to make that shift. And in that time they would easily be able to gain an intelligence equal to or even better than a humans. So your argument that "you can't train dragons because you can't train lizards" is invalid because dragons are not ever stated to be lizards. They have very obviously different behavioral patterns and are physically extremely different from reptiles, except for the fact that they have scales and lay eggs. I know you will never see this as I am a few years late, but I just had to say something.

Toothless: Shows jelousy when hiccup introduces him to Astrid Matpat: I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that

Dragon: clearly displays emotion throughout all 3 movies MatPat: no you can’t feel anything you cat-lizard

Counterpoint: The Christmas special is set only a few months after the first movie, in the winter season. In the winter, the dragons leave Berk to breed, but Hiccup didn't know that. Seeing Toothless eager to leave with the already departed dragons, he designed an automated tail for the him before anyone even knew why the other dragons had left. He didn't even project a retrieving mechanism like it's said in the video, Mat just made it up! There's even a line where it's stated that if Toothless chose to leave, he'd be gone for good, when Astrid asks "But what if he doesn't come back...? Oh, who am I kidding? Of course he will come back! ...Right?". Toothless then promptly leaves Berk, but as his genus seemingly mates for life, he doesn't want to breed since he doesn't have a mate yet. Insted he retrieves Hiccup's helmet, which had fallen in the ocean. After his task is done, Toothless destroys the new tail and asks for the old one to be re-attatched. Now here's a bit of a mini theory of why Toothless came back (other than the fact Dreamworks had money to make): In the end of the first movie, Toothless shows great empathy towards Hiccup's missing leg and does his most to help him get around without it. Hiccup seems to realize the dragon is sensible to his limited mobility, as he states in the second movie, when they're play-fighting: "Oh, come on, you wouldn't hurt a one-legged... Whoa!". Toothless takes pity on his wounded friend, as he himself once lost a body part and thus his ability to move with ease. After being tamed and taught to fly with the new artificial tail, Toothless now thinks his duty as being the wings for this injured human who can't move well anymore, like a service dog. He's more than willing to walk on a metaphoric leash until he feels his duty of taking his dear friend to places he can no longer reach is done, which makes his reaction to seeing older Hiccup in the end of the third movie that much sweeter. He reacts happyly seeing an old friend and that's a very beautiful moment on its own, but he also feels great joy on seeing that Hiccup can now reach the dragons' nest on his own, without the aid of wings. That's when Toothless is really free. Or, you know, maybe not. Maybe it's what Mat said. I'm just a random in the comments overthinking details from an animated movie.

I think Matpat changed his mind about dragons not having any emotions or caring about their owners after he saw Toothless give Hiccup a hug before he left for The Hidden World. It was truly heartbreaking and i think Matpat, if he watched the full movie, cried at that scene just like the rest of us.

This doesn't seem fair of a comparison though, sure in real life lizards aren't emotionally complex, but in the movies and shows they're shown to be intelligent, have emotions and be capable attachment. I think a more fair comparison would be something like birds of prey whom evolved from dinosaurs or maybe other large intelligent predators such as lions, polar bears, etc.

Every instance of Dragon: Smart, intelligent, creatures usually with ancient knowledge and abilities lost to the ages. Matpat: big lizard.

The obvious has already been said here, that you're comparing dragons to lizards when they could really be completely different and much more emotionally evolved, perhaps more like birds. But the one thing that I have to point out here is that, whilst it was wrong of Hiccup to injure Toothless, that's the reason he feels it's his duty to help him regain his freedom after he'd realised he'd harmed an innocent being, even if it's only attainable with Hiccup at his side. Hiccup dedicates his life to righting his wrong, then the wrongs of the rest of his people that have been taught to hate dragons, which is an incredibly noble thing to do. Not selfish at all. Also that look of happiness on his face when his first tail flap works is because he's excited that his invention worked. Soz Matpat but you missed the mark on this one!

One thing to point out is that in the short film "the gift of the night fury" which takes place not too long after the events of the first film. Hiccup gives toothless a tail fin he can control himself, at the end of the film, we see him destroy it and insist on using the saddle and original tail fin controlled by hiccup.