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What changed on screen
What changed on screen, title by title: 26 in total. Tap a cover to open it. Titles you haven't marked as read stay locked so nothing gets spoiled.
- Referencenod to comics or other movies
- Cameoa familiar face shows up
- Setupplanted now, pays off later
- Behind the scenesproduction trivia
- ChangeToothless is tiny
In the book, Toothless is a very small green dragon, the most common kind, with no teeth. His cousin Snotlout is the one who names him. In the film he is a Night Fury, the rarest and most feared dragon.
source ↗ - ChangeHiccup speaks Dragonese
In the book, Hiccup understands and speaks Dragonese, the dragons' language, and talks with them. In the film the dragons don't talk: the friendship grows from gestures and watching.
source ↗ - ChangeThe giant dragon
In the book, the giant dragon is the Green Death, who arrives on the island in a storm and talks to Hiccup. It swallows him, and Toothless saves him. In the film it is a queen who lives in a nest and makes the other dragons steal food, and Hiccup comes out of the fight missing part of his left leg.
source ↗ - ChangeAstrid isn't in the books
Astrid was created for the film. She doesn't exist in the books, and Hiccup's gang is different, with Fishlegs and Snotlout.
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- Behind the scenesThe treasure stays put
Hiccup finds the treasure of the pirate Grimbeard, his great-great-grandfather, and decides to leave it behind, because the world isn't ready for it.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe man in the coffin
The drifting coffin holds a man who calls himself Alvin the Poor-but-Honest Farmer. He is neither: he's the chief of the Outcasts, a tribe of cannibal Vikings.
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- Behind the scenesThe king of the Nanodragons
Ziggerastica, king of the Nanodragons, calls himself a living god. Since Hiccup saves his life, he promises to come whenever Hiccup calls his name.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesCamicazi arrives
Camicazi, heir of the Bog-Burglar tribe, first appears in this book. She shares a cell with Hiccup and Fishlegs at Fort Sinister.
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- ReferenceThe vegetable no one dares name
The cure is the vegetable no one dares name, from the land that does not exist. It's the potato, and the land that does not exist is America.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesTrial by axe
The Hysterics, a tribe of lunatic Vikings, decide a prisoner's fate by tossing an axe in the air. Whichever side sticks in the ground gives the verdict.
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- Behind the scenesA hero for a bodyguard
Stoick hires Humungously Hotshot, one of the greatest heroes alive, to protect Hiccup. One night the hero looms over his bed with swords in hand.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe stone that hatches
The Firestone, which has to be carried into the volcano on Lava-Lout Island, hatches in the crater and turns into a fire dragon.
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- Behind the scenesBooks are back
Hiccup talks Stoick into seeing that books are useful. The Viking assembly, the Thing, lifts the ban.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesBetween 6 and 7
The spin-off series How to Train Your Dragon School is set between this book and the next. Its first volume came out in 2025.
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- Behind the scenesLast one back wins
The swimming race between tribes has a twisted rule: the last one back wins and gets a wish from the three chiefs.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe Slavemark
Hiccup gets a slave tattoo, the Slavemark. He hides it under his helmet, and it stays with him for life.
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- Behind the scenesThe weeping woman
They say the Uglithugs' beach is haunted by a weeping woman. The legend comes from an old story about Hiccup's family, told inside the book.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesHiccup the Second
An ancestor with the same name, Hiccup the Second, was born a runt like him, left on a mountainside and raised by dragons.
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- Behind the scenesSword school
Hiccup and the young warriors get three weeks at Flashburn's School of Swordfighting to train for a New Year's Day contest.
source ↗ - ReferenceThe king's list
The prophecy says the next king will have a dragon with no teeth, an arrow from the land that does not exist, Grimbeard's second-best sword, a ticking-thing, a rectangular shield, a throne, a crown and the Dragon Jewel.
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- Behind the scenesHiccup on the run
The book opens with Hiccup on the run, disarming dragon traps and freeing slaves. He spends much of the story spying on Prison Darkheart.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe mother who doesn't know him
Valhallarama, Hiccup's mother, doesn't recognize him because of his different helmet. It's one of the book's reunions.
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- ChangeWhat Toothless really is
This book reveals that Toothless is a young Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus. In the films he is a Night Fury.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe audiobook voice
All twelve audiobooks are narrated by David Tennant, who also voices Spitelout, Snotlout's father, in the films and the animated series.
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- Behind the scenesIt ends as it began
The last line repeats the first line of the first book, about the dragons there were when the narrator was a boy.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesWritten and drawn by the author
Cressida Cowell wrote and illustrated all twelve books, from 2003 to 2015. She cites Scotland's Inner Hebrides islands as an inspiration.
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