Uploaded April 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago

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When my sis and I first watched HTTYD, we connected to it with a suddenness and intensity that has no parallel in our lives. The next day we were already claiming our favorites: me, Hiccup, her Toothless. For me, Hiccup is unequivocally the most admirable fictional hero I've known. I value humility above all virtues, for through this, all goodness eventually springs: selflessness, gentleness, understanding, love. Hiccup's core is humility, and I can see that in the way he is not bitter (despite years of being put down by his own father), in how he is quiet with his accomplishments, and in how he would give up the pride of his Dad and tribe in order to do the right moral thing and to protect his best friend. Selflessness is the verb of humility, and in all Hiccup does, I can see that. Having read the book series, my conclusions about movie!Hiccup are so much confirmed, because book!Hiccup is clearly a shining light of nobility and beautifully extreme selflessness.

My sister says this of her favorite character: Toothless is captivating, unique, and beautifully real, like an actual intelligent creature. I'm fascinated by his two-sided personality -- that wildness and lovable charm. But even more deeply, it's his unswerving loyalty. There's a parallel in the Night Fury's power to kill yet his willingness to give his life for his friend, which I can't help but see the same in God. He has breathtaking power to kill, yet He laid down His life to save those He cared for. I just can't get over that kind of love.

HTTYD taught us things about God. Who said a movie can't mature you? Besides the Christian virtues, which HTTYD further made beautiful to me, the movie inspired a novel, which my sister and I write. Planning that story, in tandem with reading the glorious book "If God Is Good" by Randy Alcorn, made us realize things about free will and sovereignty, that even though we the authors love these characters so much, we /can/ do horrible things to them, to grow them in character and maturity. An author keeps a character in-character, meaning, we cannot write them into actions against their will. In the same way, God doesn't force us into actions against our free will, and yet, like the author, He will get out of His story exactly what he wants to have happen. God can mold a story into the plan He has, in all His sovereignty, while still having every person "in-character." It was an insight that was worth the heartache and months of pressure and work that writing a novel entails.

Stuff that didn't fit in the YT wordcount: inhonoredglory.tumblr.com/httydlove

About the Vid
The opening sequence includes music from the movie, since the music is a huge part of what makes HTTYD so special. There's also the animated version of my very first HTTYD edit, fav.me/d51vtky, which was my wallpaper for months. We celebrate their character through "dictionary definitions" of "what defines them," inspired by an early HTTYD art of mine: tinyurl.com/bwvdtu5. "The Call" by Regina Spektor is special since it's one of the first songs outside of my mother's Golden Oldies and other traditional ballads that I heard. I first heard it as a song fic for my Hogan's Heroes fandom. It works wonderfully here because not only is it related to something Christian (The Chronicles of Narnia, an allegory by C.S. Lewis), but it stupendously matches my sister's and my journey in HTTYD. The first stanza represents us coming into the magical world of HTTYD. It started quiet but ended as loud as a battle cry. Similarly, Hiccup's friendship with Toothless started with the quietness of mercy, and ended with what to me is a gunshot heard round the world: a simple declaration of conviction to save Toothless and risk so much for what is right. "Now we're back to the beginning, it's just a feeling and no one knows yet." Our first night with HTTYD, alone with the world asleep, and us, not knowing that our lives were about to be changed. Such with Hiccup, deciding not to kill this dragon, and then Magic Hour, all those secret moments infused with emotions that no one in his world realized were about to change the world. "Just because they can't feel it too doesn't mean that you have to forget." Just because other people don't understand what we see in HTTYD, just because some don't see the mercy and love in it, and don't pay attention to what beautiful things there are to learn and respect in this movie, doesn't mean we have to leave it. In the same way, just because Hiccup's tribe and his own father could not see the love that is possible between dragon and Viking, there's no need to give up or give in. "No need to say goodbye" is our motto. Despite the movie being over, we never have to leave our love for it. We can always let our memory grow stronger and stronger til that first feeling we had is before our eyes. We can come back, when their beautiful character calls us, because to such love and loyalty, there's no need to say goodbye.