Hiccup

Berk is at war with dragons, and Hiccup, chief Stoick's clumsy son, wants to prove he's good for something. With a launcher he built himself, he downs a Night Fury, a dragon no one has ever seen. When the moment comes, he can't kill it.

The dragon has lost part of its tail. Hiccup builds a fin so it can fly again and names it Toothless. Using what he learns on their secret flights, he becomes the star of Gobber's dragon training, much to Astrid's suspicion. When Stoick finds out and uses Toothless to locate the nest, Hiccup arrives on his friend's back and brings down the giant queen. He loses part of his left leg, and Berk starts living alongside dragons.

With peace comes a problem: someone has to teach Vikings and dragons to share an island. Stoick hands the job to his son, who opens the Berk Dragon Academy with Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout and the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut.

Hiccup catalogs species, writes rules and cleans up the chaos dragons cause in the village. He also faces the first enemies who want dragons for themselves, like Alvin the Treacherous and his Outcasts.

Three years after the first film, Hiccup finds the Dragon Eye, a device holding maps of unknown lands and species. He takes the gang far from Berk and builds an outpost on a distant island, Dragon's Edge.

From there, the riders explore and battle dragon hunters. Hiccup starts turning into the explorer who shows up, older, in the second film.

Five years on, Hiccup is 20 and dodging the chiefdom by flying Toothless over new lands. On one trip he finds his mother, Valka, long thought dead: she has spent 20 years caring for dragons. Meanwhile, Drago Bludvist is building a dragon army.

Drago seizes control of Toothless through his giant alpha, and Stoick dies shielding his son. Toothless breaks free, and Hiccup and his friend defeat Drago. Hiccup becomes chief of Berk.

As chief, Hiccup turns Berk into a refuge for rescued dragons, so many the island can't hold them. Grimmel, the hunter who wiped out the Night Furies, comes for Toothless. Hiccup leads his people in search of the Hidden World, the dragons' homeland.

After beating Grimmel, he realizes dragons will only be safe far from humans and lets Toothless go. He marries Astrid. Years later, he takes his kids to meet his old friend.

In 2025, the first film's story is retold in live action. Mason Thames plays Hiccup, and Gerard Butler returns as Stoick, this time on screen in person. The path is the same: the downed dragon, the secret friendship and the fight with the queen. A sequel is set for 2027.

Hiccup comes from Cressida Cowell's books, starting with How to Train Your Dragon (2003), where he's Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. There he trains a tiny ordinary dragon and speaks Dragonese. The films changed nearly everything: the war, the lost leg and the Night Fury are DreamWorks inventions.