Lessons from my Favorite Fictional Characters — Part 4

Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon, Thorn from Murtagh, and Theodore from The House in the Cerulean Sea

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Welcome to part 4 of my ongoing series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite fictional characters. You can read the previous installment here. I thought it would be fun to focus this particular installment on dragons! Well, two dragons and a Wyvern, to be precise. I’m currently a tad sick and trying to fit this into a schedule packed with studying and searching for summer internships, so apologies if it’s a bit choppy at points. I really just wanted to gush over some dragons for a moment.

Toothless: How To Train Your Dragon — Knowing When Not to Use Your Power.

Toothless is the dragon who began my obsession with dragons. This series meant so much to me when I was in high school, and then came to mean even more to me as I finished up college. It’s a wonderful story of a young Viking, Hiccup, who doesn’t quite fit in and realizes that the ways in which his Village and fellow Vikings see the world and see dragons isn’t accurate. Hiccup doesn’t change who he is, but shows his village and the people he meets that they’re wrong, and that dragons aren’t as evil as they thought.

Hiccup wouldn’t be able to change anyone’s mind without Toothless. The two become friends in the first movie, and they show everyone that dragons and Vikings can work together.

There’s one scene in particular that I want to talk about. In the second film, Toothless becomes the dragons’ alpha. He can essentially tell all the other dragons what to do. And yet, despite this power, there’s a scene of him in the third film where he’s playing fetch with Hiccup’s prosthetic leg, and another dragon (Stormfly, the dragon Astrid flies) comes along, clearly trying to get at the leg. At this point, Toothless could use his Alpha powers to send Stormfly away, but he doesn’t. He growls at her a bit, but it comes across as more playful, like two dogs fighting over the same toy. In that moment, Toothless isn’t acting as the alpha — he’s just a dragon trying to enjoy his favorite chew toy.

With all Toothless’ power, he doesn’t abuse it. He knows when it’s important and necessary to go full alpha, and when it’s time to just have fun with his fellow dragon. One of the most impressive aspects of someone with power is their ability to let go of that power.

No one should be all powerful all the time. I don’t think Toothless should necessarily have the power to control the dragons at will, but he does, and I admire his willingness and ability to only use that power in the face of villains intent on destroying dragons altogether. Many world leaders could learn from Toothless, and practice letting go. There is a wisdom in knowing when not to use your power.

Thorn: Murtagh, by Christopher Paolini — Putting Aside Your Fears and Helping Others.

Spoilers for Murtagh incoming.

I was so excited when I heard there was a book about Murtagh coming out. I loved the Eragon series when I was a kid. It’s not necessarily the most well written series I’ve ever read, and sure, book 1 is basically Star Wars: A New Hope but if the Jedi were replaced with Dragon Riders and in a high fantasy setting, but I loved it all the same.

This new book follows Murtagh, son of Morzan the Forsworn, as he travels the lands tracing clues of a mysterious new threat. Of course, he isn’t alone. Murtagh is accompanied by his dragon, Thorn.

The bond between a dragon and their rider is strong. In the original series, we see just how much Saphira and Eragon are there for each other. The relationship between Murtagh and Thorn is a little different. They’re close, certainly, but there’s a gruffness to them as well. Thorn and Murtagh want different things, and they need to figure out how to work together. It’s a tension that’s sort of alluded to in the book but not really expanded on all that much. I would have liked to see a little more of it, but oh well.

What I did enjoy, however, was that despite Thorn pushing against Murtagh’s goals, Thorn remains by his side. And not only is Thorn fighting his desire to simply leave and live free without the weight of the world on their shoulders, he’s also fighting some real trauma. Throughout the book, Thorn practices going into tight spaces, and we learn that when he was imprisoned by Galbatorix, he was placed in a dungeon where he barely had any space. As a dragon, Thorn needs a good amount of room to spread his wings. He associates small spaces with torture, and he panics whenever he can’t open his wings fully.

And then, of course, Murtagh goes into a tunnel at the end of the book in order to find the villain and save the world. Things don’t go exactly as planned, and he needs to be rescued. The only one around, obviously, is Thorn.

For a moment, I really thought Thorn wasn’t going to rescue Murtagh. Throughout the battle, he keeps failing to follow Murtagh into the tunnel. Thankfully, at the final moment, Thorn decides that his fear isn’t more powerful than his connection to Murtagh. They might not have as smooth a relationship as Eragon and Saphira, but that doesn’t mean Thorn will leave Murtagh behind. Relationships of any kind have their hiccups and things that both parties need to work for, and Thorn certainly works for his relationship with Murtagh.

Whatever differences they have, as much as Thorn doesn’t want to play a role in shaping society, he’s there for Murtagh and will do his part, even if it means crawling into a tight space and reliving some of his worst memories. I just want to protect Thorn and make sure he’s okay.

Theodore: The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune — Pursue Your Passions.

I wanted to end on a more light-hearted note. Theodore is a wyvern, so technically not a dragon (they’re very similar but wyverns have two legs instead of four), but I wanted to write about him anyway.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is such a heartwarming tale of a government worker, Linus, just doing his job realizing that he wants more from life than just filing paperwork. Linus is tasked with inspecting different orphanages for magical beings and determining whether or not they should be shut down. There’s a lot of prejudice against magical beings in this society, and the kids at this specific home have faced plenty of it.

Linus learns that he can’t be the cold and heartless government official that he pretended to be, and helps the kids and the person who runs the house remain open when the order comes to shut them down. He also gets the kids off their island and brings them into town where they can get to know the villagers and the villagers can get to know them. Linus fights for them so that they can live the lives they want to live and not the lives that non-magical people have told them they have to live. One child is a gelatinous being that just wants to work as a bellhop. Another is a sort of werewolf-esque person who wants to be a writer. There are more, but my favorite is the wyvern, Theodore.

Theodore doesn’t get as much time in the story to shine as some of the other characters. He can’t really speak, and I think Linus is a little more concerned about some of the other kids at first. He’s a little scared of Theodore at first, but quickly realizes that all Theodore wants is a shiny button from Linus’ shirt to add to his hoard.

I thought that was adorable.

Most dragons and wyverns with hoards typically hoard valuable gems. Smaug literally sleeps in a mountain of gold in The Hobbit. In so many stories, these creatures are these fearsome, greedy, terrible things. That’s what Theodore is supposed to be. And yet, despite everything written about wyverns, all the stories passed along through the generations, all Theodore wants is to collect buttons. Also have a nice and loving family, I suppose. That’s actually probably the more important thing, but the button collecting is the cute part.

Whatever you look like, whatever people think of you, your hobbies don’t have to be defined by anything other than what you want. So what you have wings and can breathe fire? You want buttons, you go and collect those buttons. Smaug isn’t what Theodore is, Smaug is what other people have told themselves Theodore should be.

In Conclusion

At the end of the day, these three dragons (well, two dragons and one wyvern), are good people. Toothless knows when not to use his power, Thorn is selfless and willing to put himself in danger to help a friend do something that Thorn doesn’t necessarily want to do, and Theodore pursues his own hobby no matter how strange it may seem to others. They all have an incredible sense of who they are and what is important to them. They exhibit vulnerability and compassion despite being scary fire-breathing lizards. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Consider checking out my podcast, “Determination, Deliberation, and Dragons.” My friends and I workshop original stories, analyze books and films, and interview authors and other creative people.