Pardon my Sherlock quote for the title, but this post is going to focus on Drago, and why I think he was such a fantastic character and villain, AND why he scares me to death and makes me really loathe him with a passion! He's NOT the kind of villain I can like, but I can appreciate his complexity and his role in the story along with the fascinating themes he has brought into the world of HTTYD.
When I heard we were going to have a human villain in HTTYD2, I was honestly a little worried. When I saw that Hiccup was older, wearing armor, wielding a fire sword, and battling a warlord's massive armies, I was even more worried. I worried both for Hiccup's character (his pacifism and dorkiness both seemed like they were in danger of being tossed out the window for the sake of making him into an action hero) and Drago's. I worried that Drago would be incredibly one-dimensional, with no real cleverness and with just a big army that he wants to use to conquer the world. Little did I know that, although Drago really is just about as evil as you can get, his character is multifaceted and his plan is far from simple. I am still really impressed when I think about how Drago's worldview and view of himself work together. He's believable, and that helps to make him terrifying.
First off, Drago's appearance is fantastic. He just looks AMAZING. The designers really worked hard to create something completely fresh. I personally loved his dreadlocks and armor design. Drago's earlier designs looked a lot like villains we have seen before, but they revamped his design once they started production, and I'm really happy with what they came out with. Yes, he looks big and brutal, but he also looks strangely alien, like he's passed through many cultures. I want to say he looks like he came from North Africa (that's because of his voice actor, the sun symbol on his belt, the dreadlocks, and the fact that Hannibal [a really incredible military leader] was from Carthage in North Africa). I could be wrong, but the idea of having him climb up through Europe strikes me as being really powerful and sinister. Drago may not look intelligent, he's not your skinny Book!Alvin, but he's not stupid. At first I thought he sort of was, especially when Astrid was smack talking him, but I think he lulled us into a false sense of security. There is real method behind his madness and murder. He's got a purpose in mind, he's got an excellent plan with which to accomplish it, and he's powerful and frightening enough to see his own plan through!
Drago's plan is world domination. Pure and simple. The amazing part about his plan is that he makes people believe that he is doing it in order to protect them. Drago tells the story (a true story) about how when he was a boy, dragons destroyed his village and took his family from him. He also (apparently) lost his arm in that same raid. He describes himself as a boy left with nothing, and it is striking that he and Hiccup have some similarities. Hiccup lost everything thanks to the dragons, he also lost a limb to them. But where Hiccup saw the power of a dragon's love, Drago saw something else... the power of a dragon's terror. Hiccup and Drago, both as young men, saw the ability of dragons to change the world. But they both saw polar opposite sides of the dragons' natures. Hiccup learned just how much love a dragon could show, and Drago learned just how much fear the dragons could instill. Drago saw how terrified he was of dragons, and he vowed to rise above that fear. The lie he tells is that he also vowed to liberate the people of the world from the dragons. He has no intention of doing so. (I am getting most of this from Dean in the art book. THANK YOU DEAN!)
Drago uses the dragons and the fear that they create to conquer others. Drago instills his own fear into the dragons he controls, and because the beasts will bow to him, people think he alone can control them. That is why he covers his injury. He wants to appear invincible to both men and dragons. The tribes and peoples Drago comes to are the ones that are struggling desperately to protect themselves against dragons. Drago promises to remove the monsters, to destroy them because only he can control them, and so those tribes follow him as their only hope. Drago, rather than destroying the dragons, keeps them with him. In doing so he keeps his own men in check through fear. They come to him to be rescued from the dragons, but instead they find themselves surrounded by dragons that only he can control. And that is a crucial part of Drago's scheme. He must appear to be invincible to his men and to the dragons, and he must ensure that he alone controls the dragons. If his men or their tribes see that others can live with dragons, even train and love them, Drago's whole plan will be destroyed. That is why he goes directly after Valka and then later after Berk. He must convince the world that he is the only one who can protect them, while secretly controlling the very dragons he is protecting them from.
What is scary is that Hiccup calls his bluff. He doesn't believe that Drago intends to use dragons to defeat dragons, he uses them to conquer people. He uses them to control those who follow him, and to get rid of those who won't. Drago chuckles in agreement, but there is nothing Hiccup can do to stop him at that point. Drago has seen how powerful the fear of dragons can be, so when Hiccup offers to show Drago what he has learned of dragons, Drago turns and shows him what he has learned over the years. In the hands of Drago, good dragons can become the ultimate source of fear and death. Toothless became that.
As a boy, a boy left with nothing, Drago suddenly saw the power of fear, and he's harnessed it ever since. He comes claiming to be a man of the people, but the entire quest is to make himself all powerful. He will control both the world and the dragons that took everything from him. Everyone will learn what he learned as a boy... what it means to live in fear. All of Drago's actions match his worldview perfectly, right down to him telling Toothless to kill Hiccup instead of doing it himself, right down to letting Hiccup live after seeing his father killed by his own dragon, right down to letting Hiccup try to break Toothless free. In all of this Drago is showing that he alone controls the dragons, and everyone must come to him or be destroyed by the terrifying beasts.
All I have to say is thank goodness Hiccup and Toothless proved Drago wrong in the end, proved that there was so much more to dragons than the fear they produce or the fear they can feel. It took incredible heroism to face such dark, long-lived villainy. Drago, I believe, will return... and I hope Hiccup and Toothless will be ready for him. They've utterly shattered the illusion he tried to create over his lifetime, so I imagine he will have only one goal left: To prove once and for all that the dragons belong to him and no one else can stand against them.
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