A Look at How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois, 2010) from a Queer Perspective

**Fig. 1 - *How to Train Your Dragon* (Dean DeBlois, 2010).**

Based on a book of the same name by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois, 2010) was influential on family audiences, and especially children, when it was released in March 2010, with a unique story about a misfit teenage Viking named Hiccup, discovering his sense of self as he ascends to adulthood. We follow Hiccup on his journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance, and, in the end, he gains the trust and admiration of his peers and the surrounding society (Fig. 1). While not explicitly queer, the DreamWorks adaptation functions as a queer story nonetheless, including the way it navigates many aspects found commonly within queer people’s life stories in ways that create a compelling story of a misunderstood teen becoming a leader of his community.

Hiccup is the son of Stoick (Fig. 2), the chief of Burk, and is therefore next in line to rule this island of Vikings. The Viking society is described in the film as comprised of a stubborn people who never back down. Their societal expectations consist of mainly one thing, protecting their own. This means they must defeat anything that threatens them, which is dragons who attack the community by burning down buildings and stealing the inhabitants’ livestock. In order to defend themselves against such dragons, the Vikings must be burly and strong, which Hiccup is decidedly not. Hiccup is not able to fit into the societal expectations of the Vikings; to defeat dragons he would need to be a different character, more muscular and more violent than he is shown to be. Yet he is trapped inside the expectations of the rest of the Vikings, not able to try to be any other way than how he was taught. The expectations of Viking society are reminiscent of our own societal expectations and the question of normativity, in which being heterosexual and cisgender is perpetuated as the standard (Ott and Mack 2010, 198). Hiccup is portrayed at the behest of these similarly oppressive expectations, and he ends up falling short whenever he tries to conform.

Hiccup, like many queer people, is a misunderstood individual in his community. He is an outcast; that much is clear just by watching the opening sequence, yet in his character design he is weak and skinny in ways that are coded visually as the opposite of the other Vikings, and when he tries to fit in and help kill dragons for the village, is accused of always getting in the way. For example, in the beginning of the film he shows off a contraption he made to help account for the difference in strength and ability between him and all the other Vikings. It then misfires and hits someone during a dragon attack. Hiccup cannot do what everyone else does during an attack because he is so different; he is so “Hiccup” that he cannot possibly actually kill dragons. Killing dragons is a big part of fitting in with the rest of the Vikings, and fitting in, being a part of a bigger whole, is reflective of social and cultural discourses of belonging. A feeling of disconnection from one’s society may cause “a sense of alienation, lack of validation, or feeling judged and rejected” (Sreenivasan and Weinberger 2021). Hiccup’s alienation from his peers and the rest of society in How to Train Your Dragon is cause for much of his strife and propels the film’s plot forward. He is always trying to overcome his differences and is not happy with his place in society, leading him to take great risks so that he can fit in.

**Fig. 2 - Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast.**

Hiccup strives to be accepted by his community and is afraid of not finding his place. This fear of not fitting in led Hiccup to attempt shooting a dragon down, just for a shot of finally being accepted by everyone. He succeeds and shoots down a Night Fury, the deadliest dragon, but when he discovers its survival, he is unable to kill it. Hiccup frees the dragon, later named Toothless, and is left to face his father, who has failed the task that would have led him to acceptance (Fig. 3). His father then tells him he will begin dragon training the next morning. Hiccup panics and immediately tries to tell him that he cannot kill dragons, but Stoick talks over him, arguing that he will learn how with training. This conversation is entirely one-sided, with Hiccup trying to explain himself and Stoick ignoring him in favor of telling him exactly how to conform to societal norms. One-sided conversations are very familiar for queer people, as we are often spoken over when trying to explain queerness so that people can maintain their ignorance of queer people and, with it, the status quo. The relationship between Hiccup and his father is strained by Hiccup’s inability to meet expectations. Stoick wants his son to fit in and is trying to ‘fix’ the issue by training him in the proper Viking ways. He, like the parents of many queer people, is trying to get Hiccup to conform rather than accept his differences.

Hiccup is a problem-solver and is soon able to find a way to conform without changing himself. He begins befriending Toothless after finding him trapped in a canyon, losing his flight capabilities when Hiccup shot him down. With his newfound skill of befriending dragons, he excels in dragon training, getting even the more violent dragons under control and back into their holding cells. Having found a way to conform to societal values without compromising his beliefs, Hiccup has become widely popular with the other Vikings by the time Stoick comes back from his trip to find the dragon’s home island. This pleases Stoick, but he soon finds out that Hiccup is not being entirely transparent about his means of taking down dragons.

Once Stoick finds out that Hiccup has befriended a dragon, he decides to completely disown his son. Stoick has always known Hiccup was different, even saying so himself in one of the film’s very first scenes. Once he is aware of just how different he is in reality (through the direct exposure to his dragon friend), Stoick loses all faith that his son can conform to societal expectations. He is not willing to accept him anymore. This conditional acceptance is all too familiar to queer folks: they may seem different all their lives, but the second they show just how different they are, they are shunned. Eventually Stoick comes to accept his son, differences and all, but only once Hiccup and Toothless nearly die saving all of the Vikings. Not all queer people get the happy ending of acceptance, but it is common to have to fight to achieve it.

The story of Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon, while not explicitly so, is queer in many ways and can be interpreted through a queer lens with its complementary structures of visibility and authenticity held in tension. Being seen as different, as an outsider in society, is not something only queer people face, but it is common across the queer community. The impact the DreamWorks film had on so many people who watched it shows just how important it is to have stories where queerness is celebrated and strengthens a character rather than hurting them. There is a reason so many queer people connected with Hiccup, and that is because his character arc is so similar to their own stories.

**Article published: November 8, 2024**

References

Ott, Brian L., and Robert L. Mack. 2010. Critical Media Studies : An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Sreenivasan, Shoba, and Linda E. Weinberger. 2021. “On Belonging: Why Humans Want to Fit In.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers (December 6, 2021), available at: www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/emotional-nourishment/202112/belonging-why-humans-want-fit-in.

Biography

Trinity Sencindiver is a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, Harry W. Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. Her focus is on pre-production of animation and games, and she has a passion for bringing more diverse stories into the realm of animation. Earlier versions of this text were developed with the help of Dr. Christine Veras and peers from the Animation Studies course.