There Were Dragons When I Was A Boy

Well, it's taken me a while to get the courage to actually tackle this post. On the one hand, I've been very busy, but the real reason is that writing this, in a way, really acknowledges the fact that the story of How To Train Your Dragon is... over. It's such a bittersweet thing, and I'm so thankful to have been along for the ride. It's the anniversary of HTTYD's release back in 2010, so now is the time to write this thing out. This post will be a sort of homage to the story, especially in how it has changed me as a person. This is my childhood, this is a time when I met a boy and a dragon... and these are the events that happened because of them.

I have loved Dragons for as long as I can remember. I'm not really sure how it started. I think it may have been because I spent the earliest years of my life in the tiny country of Wales, a country that has a gorgeous red dragon as their national flag. I remember my father read The Hobbit to me when I was very little, and I think that that book may have been one of the first I actually picked up and tackled on my own. Smaug was such a powerful, imposing creature, yet with a subtle charisma. I loved that story. The question of what kind of kid I would be was answered pretty clearly when, at around the age of four, my mother rolled a basketball to me, and I grabbed it and sat on it, saying it was a dinosaur egg. Guess I'm just not cut out for sports.

The years went by, and I fell into many different "fandoms" (well, I fanned over stuff with my little brother). Some of them were good, some less amazing in hindsight. However, I found myself constantly rooting for the villains. It was just so rare to find the powerful, reptilian characters presented as being good.

Then, one day in April of 2010, I went with my aunt and cousins to watch How To Train Your Dragon. I hadn't seen any trailers for it, but one or two friends had said it was pretty good. I had seen some adds on cereal and yogurt packages, and I had just one thought: The kid's dragon looks WEIRD. I was a fan of the Dragonology books, and as such, I had really fallen in love with a classical, European-looking dragon. Toothless did not match my expectations or my standards.

I'm sure anyone who has followed me for a while knows what happened next. One of the most distinct memories I have from that first viewing was when Toothless annihilated the tower on Berk, screaming down like some kind of stealth bomber. I was taken aback. This dragon was something else. I'd adored these powerful beasts all my life, but he was so powerful... so mysterious... so different! Then the "Downed Dragon" scene quickly followed, and two things became clear: Toothless was awe-inspiring, and Hiccup was the first protagonist who a deeply related to. 

I left that theater totally amazed. However, I could have NEVER guessed that I would be sitting here, nine years later, posting about that day. Heck, I didn't even note the date (for which I will always be irritated!)! The 3D was stunning, the story compelling, the music so deeply immersive, and best of all... I love Hiccup and Toothless. They were a duo that resonated with me like nothing ever had. My little brother was sick that day, so my dad was planning to take him to see the film when he got better. I jumped on board with both of them, and I had the joy of watching the film twice in the span of 24 hours.

Probably the first truly notable thing that HTTYD sparked was a solid story for an AU game me and my brother had been sorta toying with. We called it Dimension Splash, and I'd been kicking the idea around for a long time. It came from the notion that anyone playing the game should be any character they wanted to be, no matter the genre or source material. These characters would all be tossed together to battle but on an equalized playing field. The roots of the idea definitely came from Super Smash Bros. and HeroScape, so I can't claim I was being super original. However, after seeing HTTYD, my brother and I started to play this game, and before long it became clear we had something special. Soon about six kids had all jumped on board, and we crafted a truly fun story. Hiccup and Toothless sat as the emotional crux of the story, being close friends (and eventually the adoptive brother's) of Link, my little brother's leading character. We played out story after story for over three years, and then I started writing. I have a solid conclusion to that tale in the back of my mind, and over the last two years my brother and I have revamped the world, and it has been brilliantly fun. It's a running gag that it is just an HTTYD AU with how much input the HTTYD characters have on the plots, but... in a way it's true. My brother and I have bonded deeply over this game, and I can promise it would not exist if I hadn't seen HTTYD.

I stuck with HTTYD in the slow years after the initial buzz died down. I was fortunate enough to become Admin of the wiki for a few years, and it was through that site that I met Adrian. Adrain was my first online friend, the first glimpse I truly got of the larger fandom. He actually flew to the US to visit, and we had an absolute blast. Unfortunately, in the years following, business somewhat hindered my connection with him... which was pretty much entirely my fault. However, he did email me just recently after watching the third movie! It was amazing to reconnect with him, and it felt so fitting... considering how HTTYD3 ends!

HTTYD did so much to shape my hobbies, it's hard to really acknowledge everything. When I first bought the art book, I was stunned by all the detail and heart that went into the digital painting concept pieces. That convinced me to save up the money I was earning over my summer break to buy a Wacom Tablet and learn how to paint digitally as well. Truth be told... I'm still quite subpar, but I enjoy doing it immensely. Ha, my current portfolio is 90% HTTYD related images, and I'm completely fine with that! 

Oh, the dorkiness my parents, teachers, and friends have had to suffer through because of this film. I started getting my hair cut to sorta resemble Hiccup's, I started intentionally picking out green and earth tones to wear... and my brother reminded me that I even filmed myself once practicing talking like Hiccup... and I still get pretty excited when people say I look like him. My school notes are chock-full of doodles of Toothless, and I signed all my papers in Viking Runes. I bought a graphic tee in the largest children's size I could get my hands on, but it was still too small! When my dad took me and my brother to Chicago to watch the Arena Spectacular (which was SUCH an amazing trip. I believe it was for my 18th and his 13th bday...), my brother and I spent nearly 300$ on merch! I mean... we hadn't found any adult size graphic tees before that!

Then I got on Tumblr, just for a bit... and I met Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove. That changed, well, just about everything. We quickly became fast friends, bonding over anything and everything imaginable. Gosh darn it, I can still distinctly remember reading their web novel and leaving these massive comments. I was spending the week with my grandparents, and I just kept plowing through. It got so intense that I still kinda think my grandparent's house "smells like How To Train Your Dragon". I spent quite a few nights scared to death after they crafted a Skrill story to target a spooky mental image I had gotten while reading their story... and I don't think I've ever gotten them back for that one! Gah, I had a phobia for years, but I wouldn't change those weeks, those convos, the roots that we were starting to plant for the world. I saw their HTTYD anniversary video on YouTube, and after seeing that I knew that these people actually saw the movie the same way I did... if not with an even deeper and richer lense. I wanted so deeply to be friends with them, and I'm lucky to say, after all the years, the three of us are still in constant contact. They've been better friends to me than I could have ever deserved... I just want to be that way for them. Ha, so, I'm sure their contributions to making my life an amazing ride will pop up a few more times in this post. They really are the dearest, most wonderful and amazing people. We met over a movie, we've never moved past that film, but we've grown to be more than just fellow fans. We're friends, deep, dear friends. Friends 'til the end.

College was an amazing time. I may have had my occasional gripes, but it was honestly one of the most exciting and fun times of my life. I had an AMAZING roommate (who actually paid to take me to go and watch the second film and then teased me about being in "shell-shock after seeing Toothless almost kill Hiccup" for about a week afterward!). I'm fairly certain that I flew under the radar for most people in the small school I was attending, but that doesn't mean I didn't let my nerd side show. I left a Toothless doodle on basically every unguarded whiteboard on campus! I even made a Snow Toothless on one of the few days that it actually got bad enough to shut down the school. I also spent quite a few nights meandering the campus walking trail and getting either spooked by imagining a Skrill or enchanted while wishing for a Night Fury... :)

One of the craziest things that happened while I was at school was when I was commissioned to make a video advertising the society I was a part of. The idea was to show how joining our group could transform someone, so I took dorky pictures of my society mates, showed those pictures, and made it like a before and after comparison... in which after joining our society people had their heads photoshopped onto the bodies of superheroes or famous athletes. Then, I decided to put my head on Hiccup riding Toothless. As soon as the video started (in front of our entire student body) I was suddenly mortified with embarrassment. I didn't know 99% of these people, and I was about to project myself on the body of an animated character for everyone to see. The video progressed, and it was going fairly well. People were laughing and enjoying themselves... and then my picture popped up, and I bowed my head. To my absolute surprise, people started cheering and clapping. I had NO IDEA that my campus would support my love of the film so much, and afterward, I had several people come up to me and say they were hoping that I would do what I had done. So, yeah, that was a truly epic moment. I don't know of any other time I've had an auditorium full of people cheer for me for just being the nerdy guy I am. 

Another deeply impactful moment I had during my college years was between myself and my mom. To put it simply, I value my mother's opinion more than most anyone else in the whole world. She has always been the person I could turn to for counsel and advice, and I always knew that whatever she said would come from a place of genuine care. However, my mom is the farthest thing from a nerd. She had spent the last few years pointing out how my love of HTTYD might very well be an obsession, an idol, something that was unhealthy. I had argued back and forth with her for years, and to a degree, I think she was right: I did spend too much time or focused too much on it. However, I was also certain that the film was a gift that I had been given, something I could genuinely appreciate and love in a way that was both healthy and even God-honoring. So, we continued to butt heads over it, and it left me feeling sad and stressed. Then the preacher Paul Washer came to visit us. He was going to stay in my room while I was in college, and my room was COVERED in HTTYD merch and my own art. My mom asked if she could take all of it, but I asked her not to. The night he stayed at our home, my mom called me very late. She admires Paul Washer very much, and she told me how he had reacted to my room. He had seen my stuff and gotten extremely excited. Mom said he acted so much like me, expressing how amazing the films were and how he loved both HTTYD and LotR. She said she couldn't believe it... it was like looking at a much much older version of me. So, she said that she believed it really was just a personality thing, and that she no longer thought my fanning was inherently dangerous. To make things better, she gave me an HTTYD2 blanket that Christmas, making it utterly clear that she now supported me in my journey alongside this boy and his dragon.

No post about my HTTYD journey would be complete without mentioning this AMAZING Hiccup leg. It was actually sent to me, totally out of the blue, by a big HTTYD fan from the wiki named Baricuda. I had talked a lot with him, but I really wasn't expecting anything like this. He actually smithed it in a class in his high school I believe, and it has to be one of the coolest HTTYD related items I own. I'm just so amazed that someone would put so much effort into a gift for someone they have never met... HTTYD fans truly are amazing!

One of the more recent and most happy moments in my life was getting to meet Inhonoredglory and Toothlesslove in person. Six years after meeting online, we were finally face to face. We spent hours chatting away, analyzing the first and second film, comparing HTTYD to the many other beautiful stories we had been discovering over the years, and debating how the third movie would play out. It was amazing. We even came up with this crazy idea that Toothless should battle the Light Fury in the end (which almost happened XD). I'll never forget the hours we got to spend just talking in the hotel lobby. These two are some of the people who I have honestly grown closest to, sharing absolutely everything with. They supported me constantly through the rougher times in college and were especially encouraged and helped me when I was deliberating whether or not I should leave the unhealthy lab environment I was working in. Because of them, my life is so, so much better... and I a simply stunned to realize that two of my best friends in all the world met me online... because of an animated movie that came out in 2010. If it were not for HTTYD, I would have never met these two... and so for that, I will be eternally grateful that we all fell in love with Hiccup and Toothless. We may live across the country, but I really can't wait to see them again!

Speaking of recent events, I adored the third film. It was funny watching the fandom anticipate it. News swirling around of a "white Night Fury" and seeing characters in somewhat over-the-top scale armor set a lot of us on edge. Then there were the bigger fears of how Hiccup and Toothless would be handled if they were to separate. Many people panicked, and even now I know quite a lot of fans who are either unhappy or unsatisfied. However, I spent the time anticipating movie three relatively calmly. That was mostly because I remembered back in the days that we were waiting for movie 2... and when rumors were swirling around that made it sound like the second film would be some crazy action film in which Hiccup would be wearing biker leather! So, after enjoying the second film so much, it was somewhat easier to trust Dean to do well on the third.

The Hidden World came out, I watched it with my old roommate and my brother, and I really really enjoyed it (despite the fact that I've seen it six times now and cry every single time). Although the third film did kinda veer away from the theme of platonic friendship and the strength it offers, I honestly felt helped by watching it. The second film helped me embrace the notion of growing up. The second film also gave me a newfound respect for just how selfless and brave both of my parents are. Then I started to grow up, and all my friends started getting married. Heck, I was a groomsman to one and I even gave a Bestman speech for another. Even my little brother started dating, and it became scarily clear that they were moving on with their lives. I felt a little betrayed, and definitely protective and scared. Then I saw Hiccup go through the same thing, and even though he started off feeling SO MUCH like how I had been feeling, he once again shone in such a selfless light as he not only embraced change but was willing to grow from it and be genuinely happy for his friend. I've tried to be like that, tried to grow in the way Hiccup did. And it has made me much happier. But it wasn't just Hiccup's selflessness that moved me, it was how enduring and faithful Toothless's love for him was. Ten years passed, but Toothless never forgot him. The sheer excitement and loved that Toothless exuded in the last scene filled me with so much... hope. Even if I've moved away, even if my friends are married and spreading out across the country, even if I have to step aside and let someone else spend their life with my little brother, I am so confident that my friends won't forget me, and I won't forget them.

But now it's done. I'm watching How To Train Your Dragon this evening... and this time I know how the story ends. It's a very bittersweet thing. On the one hand, I'm thrilled at the quality of the trilogy, thrilled that it won't drag on and on until it disgusts every true fan as a studio squeezes every last drop of life out of it. It's amazing to be able to see the trilogy as one, epic whole... something that can be put on a shelf alongside Lord of The Rings or Fullmetal Alchemist. It's a classic now, something that will be timeless and wonderful. However, it is over, and with the end comes something that is truly scary. There will be no more new HTTYD to analyze, no new moments of Hiccup and Toothless to stir the heart or wring a tear from the eye. And with that end... I do have to acknowledge that it is very unlikely that I will continue to actively fan over the story. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can foresee myself drawing Toothless ten years from now! But how long will it be before this blog dies down before I settle down and say everything I have to say about this marvelous story? I wish I could say I'd do this forever, but I know that isn't realistic. That saddens me deeply to think of. However, at the same time, I will never move past this story. Because every story I write, analyze, or fall in love with... will in some way reflect HTTYD. Every time I pick up my tablet to create digital art, every time I work on designing a level in an rpg... it will be because of HTTYD. When I try to be a good friend, a brave voice speaking against the darkness, a selfless man... it will be in some small part because of how these movies changed me. Whether or not I appreciate it forty years from now, HTTYD will still be with me. The bravery and conviction of a single boy, the selfless devotion and power of a legendary dragon... the impact of How To Train Your Dragon on my life will never truly end.

So, that's it. I'm left to wonder what post-franchise-end fandom will be like. However, I do sincerely hope to one day show my kids (or at least my nieces and nephews depending on how things turn out XD) HTTYD. I'd love to see a child's face fill with wonder as Toothless first enter's their lives... much like the end of the third movie! So, I'll look forward to that as I leave my childhood behind, happy to see just how incredible of a time it was. I know it's not original, but there is no phrase I would rather state while looking back over my life:

There Were Dragons When I Was A Boy