Howdy!

I don’t think it’s any secret that I love the How To Train Your Dragon movies. I haven’t actually read the books, or watched the Netflix show, so all I know is the epicness of the movies. But I went and saw the 3rd movie on opening night with some friends, and it was SO EPIC! I laughed, gasped, and I definitely teared up a little.

On my way home from the movie, I thought back over all the movies and reflecting on the journey of Hiccup and Toothless and why they hold such a dear place in my heart even as a twenty-something. And the more I started thinking about it, the more I realized that it extended beyond vibrant animation, an epic world that I would totally live in, cute but fierce dragons, and all of the humor.

~My top 10 reasons to love the HHTYD movies~

In no particular order.

1 It has a strong female character who stands on her own and never once needs saving.

Astrid never belittles Hiccup, even before they were friends. She just sees him as not living up to his potential. She knows she’s stronger than him, but never gloats over it. Instead she figures out how to match her strength to his. And I think that’s why she’s one of my favorite heroines. And why I love them together so much

2 It shows that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.

Every one of the team has different skills and strengths, but again, no one ever belittles what they can do. Instead they accept each other’s strengths and figure out how to work as a team.

3 Dragons.

Do I need to explain this one?

4 It’s not afraid to pull emotional punches

Stoic *sobs*

5 It’s not afraid to make hard choices that impact a character going forward.

Like Hiccup losing his leg at the end of HHTYD 1. One of my favorite scenes is where he’s limping out at the end and you see his injury along with Toothless’s injury. Obviously his leg can’t grow back, just like Toothless’s tail, but in the next few movies, no one thinks less of him for having a prosthetic or anything, instead they just focus on what he can do and trust him to still be the same epic goofball that saved their village a few times.

6 An amazing portrayal of love

Stoic and Volha’s reunion is one of my favorites as well. Mostly because of the song. What can I say? But I also love Astrid and Hiccup’s relationship and how you see it grow over three movies. They also never have huge, stupid disagreements that create needless drama which I also love. They might disagree with each other on some things, but at the end of the day, they still support each other.

7 It tells you not to get discouraged by failure.

Hiccup constantly fails. From the very beginning with experimenting with the tail for Toothless, then on to failing to reach Drago, losing the dragons, and other things in the 3rd movie which I won’t put in here for spoilery reasons. But he never truly gives up. Also because he has an awesome support system to keep pushing him, but he keeps learning from each mistake, and changes his plan to try again in the hopes of being more successful.

8 It’s humorous without being crude

Like seriously. I’m having a hard time remembering any really crude humor, which I feel like is hard to come by in this day and age. Even in kids’ movies.

9 It focuses on peace before conflict

in the first movie, Hiccup is definitely a product of his tribe that goes straight to conflict. But once he realizes that the dragons are different, he applies that approach to any new person and tries to understand their perspective, and goes for peace before war.

10 It’s about friendship before anything else.

Having always loved stories about best friends, and preferring to write the stories about best friends, this is definitely one of my favorite parts of the HHTYD movies.

All gifs from giphy.com

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Anyone else out there a ginormous fan of the HTTYD movies? Have you seen the 3rd movie yet?! Tell me in the comments because I want to talk about it and go see it a million more times!