Hiccup Horrendous Haddock is the overarching protagonist of Cresinda Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon novels. He is the first Viking to train and ride a dragon and the one who brought lasting peace between the Viking tribes and the Dragons. He is the ancestor of Hiccup III.
What Makes Him Pure Good?[]
- Hiccup I was born during a time in which Vikings waged a brutal war against the dragons, however in spite of this he never activelt sought to murder or hunt dragons.
- When he was personally targeted by Merciless who sent Wodensfang to kill him due to a prohecy stating that he would one day be brought down by a boy named Hiccup, and Wodensfang got stuck in a tree and was severely injured; upon finding the dragon, Hiccup chose to cut him loose and heal his wounds as opposed to the Viking Tradition of killing dragons on sight.
- With time, Hiccup came to befriend Wodensfang and taught him Norse, the dragon in return taught him to speak Dragonese.
- Wodensfang came to trust Hiccup enough to allow him to ride him, turning Hiccup I into the world's first Dragon Rider. He was then entrusted with the Dragon Jewel (which has the power to destroy all the Dragons in the world) and swore to use the gift for good, which he did by wielding the jewel's power to end the war between humans and dragons by threatening to use its power unless peace was established.
- Because of Hiccup's resolve, the Viking Tribes joined with many of the dragons as equals, training hunting dragons and riding dragons.
- The dragons in Hiccup's new society were fed first at every hunt, sat around the fire with the men and were allowed to have opinions before attacks.
- Hiccup then banished Merciless and made him live as a loner in the deepest parts of the ocean, and convinced him to never return to the Archipielago again.
- He then took the world's first Dragonmark, a seal made out of his own blood combined with Wodensfang's, on his forehead as a sign of unity between man and dragon. The mark acted as a symbol of the Kings of the Wilderwest and the dragon riders for around a thousand years.
- Hiccup's descendants kept his promise for thousands of years of maintaining peace, until the time of Grimbeard the Ghastly.
- While he did unify the Tribes under the threat of using the Jewel's awful powers, it was something he had to do as no one would have listened otherwise and he couldn't have banished Merciless. Even then, he likely wouldn't have misused it due to his oath to Wodensfang.
- The book's admirable Standard is nowhere near as high as the DreamWorks series, however Hiccup still has to compete with his descendant who brought a permanent peaceful era with the slow and safe separation of humanity and dragonkind and with another descendant, Snotlout who sacrificed his life so Hiccup III could escale Alvin's forces. However he stands out for the following reasons:
- He was the one who established peace between dragons and vikings in the first place, establishing an era of peace for centuries, not to mention that the only reason that both of the following Hiccups are able to to their heroic deeds is because of I's actions during his lifetime. And this is without mentioning that he prevented Merciless from destroying viking tribes throughout the world.
- And after that, his world peace is the only reason why both of the following Hiccup Haddocks were able to thrive in a dragon society and led to them becoming heroes of their own right
Trivia[]
- Hiccup seems to have been the inspiration for the films’ version of Hiccup III as his story has many more similarities to Hiccup rather than the version of Hiccup III that protagonizas the books.
- Both of them were runts who were not appreciated by their village due to their lack of physical strength until they came upon an injured dragon who they chose to spare and befriend instead of killing, healing him from his injuries and becoming the world's first dragon rider, subsequently allowing them to bring peace between dragons and vikings.