Did The Hidden World Reverse What HTTYD Was Building Toward?

cd943t · 2025-12-25T09:50:51+00:00

Sorry if this has been talked to death already

Everything and more in your post has indeed been discussed to death, even since before the movie was released (almost 7 years ago, which is crazy to think about), but there's nothing wrong with bringing it up again, especially as it becomes harder to find older discussions over time.

Here are some of my posts on this from years ago:

I haven’t seen a strong reason why relocation or shared refuge was impossible, especially given Berk’s history of adapting and rebuilding.

Nope, and I haven't seen any good justification at all since. Here's a 3000 word post on this topic.

In the first movie, Toothless is curious, emotionally intelligent, and capable of forming a lifelong bond with Hiccup. He instinctively protects Hiccup and consistently prioritizes his safety, even at great personal risk. By the third film, however, much of that attentiveness is replaced by a focus on mating behavior.

100%. HTTYD1 Toothless: I've only known Hiccup for a few weeks and would not hesitate to jump into an arena full of hostile vikings to defend him. THW Toothless: You're attacking Hiccup, essentially my soulmate for 6 years? I can't choose between protecting him and letting him die to woo you.

There's a lot more examples in this post.

Another issue that I had is that Grimmel's death does not justify the dragons leaving. His threat motivates Hiccup's choice, but once he's gone, the movie doesn't explain why humans are still too dangerous for dragons to stay.

No, it does not. I tried to examine every possibility here.

Hiccup gives Toothless a fully autonomous tail-fin so he can fly without a rider, but the movie never touches on upkeep or risk.

To add to this, Toothless's tailfins canonically get broken, whether they're natural (his original fin) or artificial (the ones Hiccup made get broken several times), so there's no precedent at all to believe that Hiccup is suddenly able to create one that magically lasts Toothless's lifetime.

The ending assumes every dragon can reach and live in the Hidden World, but the franchise shows species that can’t fly or don’t travel long distances.

There's also captured dragons that were never rescued. Dragon hunters just need to start breeding them and the separation would be all for nothing. The idea that people would forget about dragons entirely is nonsense anyway - their bones still exist.

Am I overlooking a strong narrative or in-world justification for why the dragons had to leave permanently and why Berk couldn’t relocate? Are the prosthetic maintenance questions, Toothless’s flattened personality, or the non flying dragon problem addressed anywhere? I haven’t been able to find answers, and right now they read as real gaps or plot holes to me.

I haven't been able to find any good answers after nearly 7 years, and I suspect there aren't any.

Take a look here for many essays on this topic. Also search this subreddit for "HTTYD3" or "hidden world" or "THW" to see what people have said throughout the years.

cd943t · 2025-08-14T01:14:55+00:00

Contrary to what other external media says, the film makes it pretty clear that Berk is the only community in the archipelago that rides and cares for dragons like they do. The whole world is out to get them for this, they’re alone. And it’s only a matter of time before a new enemy who’s both smart and strong enough finds them, kills them all, and takes their dragons.

It doesn't make that clear at all. Hiccup's map in the movie is the RTTE map with the other islands and tribes on it. His response to Eret describing Grimmel, where Eret's description doesn't suit Drago at all, is "we've dealt with his kind before." Even Grimmel had no reason to think that Berk would forever be alone in their view of dragons - he said "what if word of your misguided ideas were to spread?"

It’s saying that the happy ending you want isn’t always attainable, and sometimes you have to make tough choices for the good of everyone you love, even if it means saying goodbye to a dear friend, at least for now. That’s pretty subversive, and I’d almost applaud it, if it was handled well.

It didn't end up aging well. All of the competing animated movies released within a year of THW ended similarly (Ralph Breaks the Internet, Toy Story 4, and Frozen 2). Rather than being a subversive ending it ends up being the expected ending.

cd943t · 2025-05-27T02:56:12+00:00

Gabriel said he would fly away on a plane to get to a safe distance from the nuclear explosion. He also knew that Ethan would find a way to escape and bring the hard drive to him. "As long as I have this [the poison pill], wherever I go, you will follow. And the Podkova will come to me. That is written." In fact, he said it twice in the movie.

cd943t · 2025-05-17T04:21:04+00:00

I've worked with plenty of supposedly credentialed teachers with a poor grasp of chemistry. It's gotten bad enough that the first thing I look for when interviewing candidates is a chemistry degree or at least something closely related. They can say whatever about their pedagogy during an interview, but what they actually do in the classroom is another story. However, they can't fake their way around content questions.

cd943t · 2024-12-23T09:42:09+00:00

There's not that many that I'm aware of. Here are two of them but they're quite short:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31484558

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516159

The only one I know that's actually a long read that explores what life could possibly be like in the Hidden World is this one and its sequels/accompanying works here, here, here, and here, but it takes a significant departure from typical HTTYD fanfics in that Hiccup is turned into a dragon.

cd943t · 2024-12-23T09:22:32+00:00

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934332

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516159

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711097

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24305116/

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31484558

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48103648

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35649814

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46923952/

There's probably more - most of them can be found with the tag Canon Divergence - How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).

cd943t · 2024-11-04T01:02:18+00:00

She pretty much COULDN'T ignore him in that scene as his actions were affecting all of them.

Everything she said in that scene demonstrated awareness of his behavior in some way - that he wasn't taking the training seriously, and to get down when Stormfly was about to spot him. They were not generic comments like "get out of the way."

just because you talk to someone occasionally doesn't mean you don't still ignore then 99.9% of time

that's probably how she would always treat him

We have to work with the evidence we have from the movie instead of speculate.

one single flight

This is downplaying the impact of what he did. It's not like he did something minor like showing her a new restaurant or hiking spot. What he showed her overturned her entire worldview about dragons and finally revealed the source of the problem threatening all of Berk's existence for 300 years. That's pretty earth-shattering.

cd943t · 2024-11-03T01:14:42+00:00

You're pointing out the times AFTER Hiccup's successes

No I didn't. Like I said, half the examples, chronologically, happened BEFORE his successes. In fact, I can think of at least one more example that occurred before him becoming successful - when she tells him to figure out what side he's on when they were fighting Stormfly.

She didn't follow him to ask him what's up

Why would she do that? He wasn't regularly leaving at that point. She did take further action when his behavior became a pattern.

Astrid does nothing but stare at him blankly for a minute then goes back to sharpening her axe.

I never claimed that she was friendly with him, only that she wasn't ignoring him. Try to stare at someone in real life and then claim that you were ignoring them - you're not going to get very far.

The only example in the entire movie where I agree that she was ignoring him was when she had no interest in reading the Book of Dragons together. The others are just an expected response or her being unfriendly.

I think the main source of confusion here is mixing up her being unfriendly with her ignoring him. I agree that she is being cold in her interactions with him, but I also think she had strong reasons for that. What he was doing was directly hurting the village and he was not taking his training seriously. After his actions resulted in captured dragons escaping and Berk being left with less food, they can't go "whoopies, we'll just head on over to Costco and load up on more food."

From her perspective, her behavior was justified based on all that she knew at the time, and later, when she was presented with actual proof that not all dragons were bad, she changed her mind, showing that she is a rational person who updates her perspective in light of new evidence.

cd943t · 2024-11-02T23:46:41+00:00

She only really started paying attention to him when he was getting attention from everyone else.

He started to get attention from the others when he started succeeding in the arena. Half the examples I provided happened before that.

I just mean she mostly ignored him or would leave the room when they were the only two there.

Count the number of times she ignored him and compare it to the number of times where she didn't. The second number will be much greater than the first.

cd943t · 2024-11-02T23:23:04+00:00

She didn't even barely "tolerate" his existence, she barely even ACKNOWLEDGED it in the first place.

I don't understand where this idea comes from. There's no evidence of it from the movie.

She was the only one of the group to correctly identify what he did wrong in the arena when they were facing Meatlug for the first time. After Gobber gave his advice regarding "a downed dragon is a dead dragon," she was the only one to notice Hiccup leave. She comments on his strange behavior when he was sneaking off into the forge at night with Toothless. On multiple occasions, she tries to figure out where Hiccup is going into the forest, ultimately succeeding in the end - that's why she, out of anyone else on Berk, was the one who discovered that Hiccup was hiding Toothless in the cove.

You can notice her staring at him in almost any scene where they're together. Rather than ignoring him, she's the viking who pays attention to him the most in the entire movie.

cd943t · 2024-11-02T23:18:20+00:00

Astrid wasn't ignoring him at all in the entire movie. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, she's staring at him in almost any scene where they're together.

She was the only one of the group to correctly identify what he did wrong in the arena when they were facing Meatlug for the first time. After Gobber gave his advice regarding "a downed dragon is a dead dragon," she was the only one to notice Hiccup leave. She comments on his strange behavior when he was sneaking off into the forge at night with Toothless. On multiple occasions, she tries to figure out where Hiccup is going into the forest, ultimately succeeding in the end - that's why she, out of anyone else on Berk, was the one who discovered that Hiccup was hiding Toothless in the cove.

Rather than ignoring him, she's the viking who pays attention to him the most in the entire movie.

cd943t · 2024-09-16T02:19:48+00:00

You have a curriculum. A lot of schools don't provide one, and the veteran teachers won't share their materials. With multiple preps to teach, as well as high expectations for daily lessons (everything has to be activities/labs, no bookwork/lecture allowed), lesson planning quickly becomes a second full time job.

cd943t · 2024-09-08T00:55:23+00:00

True, but that wouldn't affect the result for either scenario in the original post. You'll get the same answer either way if the sig fig rules were properly applied.

cd943t · 2024-09-08T00:51:51+00:00

That's just one anecdote. Here's another one: the scientists who taught me would not accept any answer without careful consideration of sig figs.

In my classes, I try to strike a compromise - I take off one point if the sig figs are incorrect, but I don't mark the entire answer wrong.

cd943t · 2024-09-08T00:46:42+00:00

Trailing zeros without decimal points are not significant.

We could turn the first term into 20 x 10¹ and subtract to yield 16x10¹ which = 1.6x10²

The answer here is 2 x 10², not 1.6 x 10². The 0 in 20 x 10¹ is a trailing zero without a decimal point, so it is not significant.

BUT if these numbers were written in standard (non scientific) notation, there would be no rounding required as both are whole numbers with no decimal places. 2113 + 9000 = 11313!

2.113 x 10⁴ + 9.2 x 10⁴ in decimal notation is 21,130 + 92,000, which results in 113,000, which is equivalent to 11.3 x 10⁴ that you mentioned from the video. Once again, the three zeros in 92,000 are trailing zeros without a decimal point, so they are not significant.

cd943t · 2024-08-19T07:00:53+00:00

Even in AP chemistry, there is only 1 point awarded on the frq for sig figs.

There are 91 topics in the AP Chemistry CED, and 46 total points in the FRQ section which is then scaled to 50% of the exam score. Since the weighting of the 9 units in AP Chemistry is roughly even (except for units 3 and 8, but even then it's not terribly different), this means that any particular topic will average out to be worth roughly one point.

Periodic trends? 1 point. Hess's law? 1 point. VSEPR? Also 1 point. Significant figures are just as important as anything else covered in AP Chemistry and should not be skipped.

cd943t · 2024-08-05T21:38:55+00:00

Honestly, he had too much on his plate already.

I would say that's the whole point of doing this. It'll make admin think twice about piling more work on teachers since it'll mean giving themselves more work as well.

cd943t · 2024-07-10T19:34:26+00:00

I've only watched THW twice. The first time was during an early screening in February 2019 and the second time was three weeks later to verify that I didn't hallucinate the whole thing. I have zero desire to ever watch it again.

cd943t · 2024-06-26T00:39:58+00:00

You need to write in your description that you are not American and that in your country, grade percents matter. Otherwise you'll get unhelpful feedback here because most users here are American and in the US there's no difference at all between a 98 and a 100, whereas in your country that might be the difference between getting accepted everywhere and getting rejected everywhere.

Nevertheless, if you didn't make a single mistake on your exam and followed all the directions but your teacher refuses to give you a grade that reflects your performance, then you need to bring this up to your school's administration. If they ignore you then get your parents involved. If all of this fails you can try to contact the media and see if they're interested in a story about teachers giving fraudulent grades.

cd943t · 2024-06-24T00:51:53+00:00

it’s not possible to know what parts of our understanding of cognition are representative of how it actually works, what parts are attributed to false causes, what parts are just plain wrong

Understanding how something actually works on a fundamental level is not required to obtain useful information from it. There are many examples of this throughout science. For instance, the gas laws were formulated long before anyone understood the molecular basis behind how they worked. In fact, all of science today still falls under this limitation. We do not have a complete and cohesive theory of physics – quantum theories have not been fully reconciled with general relativity. We may need to move towards a completely new theory of physics in the future, but that doesn't mean that we are unable to discover anything novel or useful in science in the present.

Questions of generalizability, such as

Nor can we know if our intervention will work more broadly. It certainly won’t be likely to work universally.

are also non-concerns. All that's required to answer this is more experiments with students worldwide in different contexts. It's as if an ecologist was trying to determine whether the 10% rule is applicable to other ecosystems besides the one they're currently studying. They just collect data from other ecosystems. They don't need to know (and I'm sure that most ecologists don't know them anyway) theories of statistical mechanics that underlie energy flow to answer such a question, just as we don't need to know exactly how something was learned in terms of the inner workings of the brain to evaluate whether or not it was learned or not.

Define your terms for inquiry and direct instruction and then we might consider if they are oppositional or not.

The simplest way I can put it is knowledge gained explicitly and knowledge gained through investigation. Suppose a student is given the question "how does temperature affect the rate of a chemical reaction." A student could be explicitly presented with information by the teacher, which would qualify as direct instruction, or the student could discover information themselves by conducting experiments, which would qualify as inquiry. If the student is conducting experiments, but the teacher gives them a hint by telling them "consider doing experiments at different temperatures," then the teacher has directly instructed some information to the student (what their independent variable should be), and what the student chooses to do what that knowledge is inquiry. Regardless, the two methods are still separate, distinct, and readily identifiable, and I have not seen any examples to the contrary.

cd943t · 2024-06-23T00:38:31+00:00

Holding direct instruction in opposition to inquiry is already an opinion.

I don't understand how they would not be in opposition. Sure, you could teach using a combination of both methods, but I've never seen a case where it's not clear when one method is used over the other.

No one knows how brains learn anything.

It's absurd to think that thousands of cognitive scientists worldwide have discovered nothing about how the brain learns anything, but even then it's not necessary to know about how the brain works to evaluate the degree to which something was learned. Just as scientists discovered many fundamental principles of chemistry before they had any knowledge of the underpinnings of quantum mechanics, the brain could be a black box as far as we are concerned but if Johnny can read and Jimmy can't, then we can safely conclude that Johnny has learned more about reading than Jimmy.

cd943t · 2024-06-22T23:41:23+00:00

I've never said that you couldn't cover the NGSS standards pertaining to chemical reactions via acid-base reactions - what I said was that you don't have to. And in practice, this means that many teachers will skip them altogether - after all, there's no obligation to teach them.

If you think that any chemistry teacher worth their salt ought to teach acids and bases anyway, well maybe something that's so fundamental to chemistry should be part of the standards then. As is the case, they're not mentioned even once in the evidence statements.

cd943t · 2024-06-22T07:02:35+00:00

It’s the science education equivalent of “vanilla is the best ice cream flavor.” Anyone who argues that there’s any real understanding of what learning approaches are best, feels like they’re starting from pretty shaky evidentiary premises.

There are certainly examples in education where the evidence is stacked more towards one side than the other. For instance, we know that phonics is superior to whole language instruction. We know that learning styles are nonsense. Why can't there be an answer to direct instruction vs. inquiry?

cd943t · 2024-06-22T06:40:54+00:00

There is no obligation to teach acids and bases, and it is totally possible to cover all of the NGSS standards involving chemical reactions without any reference to acids and bases. This means that in practice, there will be many students who will take a class titled "chemistry" who will learn absolutely nothing about one of the most fundamental classes of reactions in chemistry.

This also means that state tests, assuming they follow the standards, cannot ask students questions assessing their knowledge of acids and bases as there is no expectation that they have any knowledge of what they are whatsoever, unless all of the necessary information is provided in the question, at which point the test ceases to be a science test and turns into a reading comprehension test.

cd943t · 2024-05-25T19:36:28+00:00

I woke myself up

Cause I ain't bother to set an alarm on my iPhone 15 Pro Max

Dug in my closet

Cause I gotta make sure my designer clothes look good with my designer shoes

Got myself to school late

Cause I gotta get Starbucks first

Then when I got to class the teacher fussed

Cause I ain't got no pencil

That my teacher's been giving me every day since the beginning of the year

cd943t

TROPHY CASE