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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The Night and The Fury: Things that I liked! Post 3


A good story, if it is going to have a villain, deserves to have a good villain. Dagur really served that role in this episode. There are lots of things that go into making a character good. What I mean by a good villain, or just simply a good character is that they are human, that they have some nuance, and that they feel real. Dagur may be insane, but this episode gave us a glimpse into some deeper personality traits that actually made Dagur feel human. Evil, yes, but human. Sadistic, yes, but in some slight ways relatable.


Dagur was really fleshed out in this episode. He was present for about three quarters of the plot, and all that screen-time allowed him to really show his colors. He is displayed as being, yes, deranged, but there is still an intelligence under that crazy coating. He actually did want to befriend Hiccup, and he even seemed grateful to him for "saving" his life. He wanted to be a team, he wanted a companion, but what he wanted to accomplish was still a wicked and cruel thing. Dagur has shown that he really does not even care about the sport or challenge of a hunt, he really is in it for one thing: killing. Dagur has a really nasty case of bloodlust. We saw it in his first appearance when he allowed his men to pin Barf and Belch so that he could kill the helpless creature. He didn't want a challenge, he didn't want the dragon to have a chance, he just wanted to kill for the sake of killing, and that is a frightening personality trait. He doesn't have any sense of honor in his hunting code, death is the end goal, and he doesn't care how he reaches it. "I don't care about sporting! All I care about is killing that Night Fury and wearing his skull as a helmet!"


And yet... almost more striking than Dagur's cruel, sadistic streak was this moment of bitter disappointment and sadness. He's not so much sad that he's not getting to kill Toothless, he is upset that Hiccup has lied to him, made a fool of him, and thinks about dragons in a completely different way than Dagur hoped he would. Hiccup turned out to be the exact opposite of what Dagur was wanting. He wanted someone like him, he even told Hiccup that they were alike, but now Hiccup has proven him wrong, and it bothers Dagur. The person who could have been his brother is now Dagur's enemy, and even with how deranged and wicked this Berserker is, he still shows a twinge of sadness. It is that little bit of humanity that made Dagur such an incredible villain. If he was only a monster, then he wouldn't feel human; he wouldn't feel real. It is complexities and nuances that make humans human. We are not just one thing, and Dagur certainly had a very human moment in this episode.

And now Dagur has a score to settle. Considering he is against Hiccup and Toothless for personal, emotional reasons, and considering that he has a huge army and is mentally unstable, I would say that Dagur (imo) makes Alvin look almost tame. Alvin is in this for conquest, but now Dagur is in it for revenge. I hope to see some equally intense episodes in the future!



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