Hero's Journey

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

The Ordinary World: Hiccup is a young boy who lives on the Island of Berk (a mythical viking world). He is not like the normal vikings who live there. It seems that he is never able to do anything right. This frustrates Hiccup because his father is the chief and he wants to become the kind of person that he is. On their island, dragons come and steal their food. Hiccup wishes to kill a dragon to show that he is a true viking.

The Call to Adventure: During one of the dragon fights, Hiccup feels the urge to sneak away and try and kill a dragon. He feels tha the needs to prove himself to the others for them to see that he does fit in. He hits the dragon but in the process, he ends up messing things up and the dragons get away with all of the village's food.

Refusal of the Call: Hiccup's refusal is when he doesn't kill the night fury. As much as he wants to prove himself, he cannot get himself to kill the dragon because he feels sorry for him and can see the fear in it that he also has himself. By refusing to kill the dragon, he is given a call to learn more about dragons because from what he has learned already, they are not what the vikings seem to think they are. However, at first he refuses this call as well.

Meeting the Mentor: Hiccup has two mentors. Gobber and Toothless. Gobber is his dragon trainer. Toothless, the dragon, does not become Hiccup's mentor right away but as Hiccup gets to know him, Toothless shows him things that he never knew and shows him that dragons are not evil after all. This is able to help him become a great dragon trainer and succeed in his dragon training classes.

Crossing the Threshold: Hiccup crosses the threshold when he decides not to kill a dragon in front of his village for being the best in dragon training. He tries to show them that dragons are not as the vikings percieve them to be. His father does not approve of this and starts a fight.

Tests, Allies, Enemies:  When Toothless hears Hiccup screaming he comes to the rescue to try and save Hiccup. Because the vikings did not believe Hiccup, they capture Toothless to lead them to the dragons nest. They want to destroy it so that they can prevent the dragons from stealing their food. Little do they know that there is something bigger in their nest that they will not be able to defeat. Hiccup knows this so he makes a plan for all of his dragon training classmates to go and save Toothless and the other vikings from death.

Approach to the Inmost Cave: When Hiccup and his friends go to help the others, the king dragon has already come out and his attacking everything in it's sight. They got there too late to stop them from unleashing the king dragon. Now they must improvise to stop the dragon from killing everyone and everything.

The Ordeal: Toothless is trapped in a boat that is on fire and Hiccup cannot get him out. They get knocked into the water and there is a fear that they are both going to drown. Hiccup's father comes to the rescue and gets them both out. Hiccup and Toothless then go and attempt to kill or stop the king dragon from attacking. This is very risky knowing that the king dragon is ten times bigger than them. It was a very close fight but they ultimately won, both getting injured in the process.

Reward: The reward from all this is that now the village knows the truth about dragons. They are not bad after all. Toothless saved Hiccup's life and the dragons assisted them in defeating the king dragon. Hiccup was also rewarded with his life. He was close to death, but overcame it.

The Road Back: After the fight, Hiccup wakes up in his room and sees that Toothless is there with him. At first he thinks that he is dead and has gone to heaven because it was so unbelievable that dragons and vikings could live together without fighting. He then realizes that his village has gone through a huge change.

The Resurrection: As Hiccup wakes up, he realizes that he lost a leg during the fight. He sacraficed himself in order to help his village and dragons. Now both him and Toothless share infirmities, it is able to bring them closer. Together, they conquered death.

Return with the Elixir: Hiccup shared with the others his knowledge about dragons and brought the vikings to love them just as he does. Now that they both live together in peace, it restores balance to the ordinary world. They no longer have to deal with dragons as pests. They now see them as their pets and friends.