EP119 We Are A Family Part 1

[mordecai626]

During Berk's annual Bork week celebrations, Hiccup is granted access to Bork the Bold's private and personal archives. When he finds information and a map about an island inhabited by Night Furies within Bork's notes, Hiccup is determined to bring Toothless to his family.

[barracuda]

I started to translate the rune text on the notes. I'll add the images one by one to this gallery: imgur.com/a/Pd8Rd

[TheCube]

I suspect spoilers abound on this post since it is IMPOSSIBLE to discuss a cliffhanger episode without bringing up what in the world the cliffhanger is. So, let's get this over with: Admiral Ackbar. Sector 47. You're welcome.

Now that we've pushed... that aside, I have two points:

1) Toothless's new ability: Sonar! It's perfectly appropriate, given his originally nocturnal behaviors should require him to see without really seeing. Though, dragons are reptiles, which would mean that infrared vision would have been more likely from looking at the real-life models On the other hand though, some sort of infrared vision could have been more fitting given that dragons are reptiles (bats and whales, both mammals, are known for echolocation, while many snakes have infrared sensing organs). [EDIT: Rephrased for clarity]
I kinda wonder, since his roar has much wider frequency distribution than bats' signals do, if his ability is much more advanced, allowing him to focus on multiple things at the same time (bats adjust the span and intensity of their signals to adjust their "field-of-view" in a way).

2) Just how in-depth are Fishlegs's knowledge of dragon calls? I don't see how they would be able to notate these calls (unless they can hand-draw spectrograms, which would require quite a skill set) so I would assume that Fishlegs has near-perfect memory of sound along with an absolute sense of pitch, considering he seems to have PERFECT recalling of all dragon calls.

[barracuda]

I already had the presumption that the ability has something to do with echo location. It was even sort of hinted in the audio commentary of the first movie:

"I just loved the notion that he would... that there would be this buzz of dragon echo locating that builds to such a, you know, an ear-splitting level. And then when he hits the sand or the rocks on the island of the hive that they go completely silent."

Although it sounded more like all dragons had this ability.



Didn't know vikings had printed editions of Wikipedia back then. ;D

[TheCube]

If you're referring to the part of the movie where Stoic steps on the island to go for the Red Death, I think the "echo locating" was a bit of a misnomer on the commentary's part. A more reasonable way to view it would be that the dragons are locating each other through sound, not other terrain features. After all, if all dragons could use echolocation, Toothless's ability would not have been THAT incomprehensible to Hiccup.

[conay]

I found Toothless' power very interesting, it seems like an impossibly intense SONAR system that gives him the precise location of all obstacles, twists and turns.

Now if only us humans had that?

[barracuda]

Some blind people are actually able to do that: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

Another translated page:


This is... weird. But still more creative than random characters.

[varthikes]

Mar 15, 2013 21:47:28 GMT -5 barracuda said:

Another translated page:


This is... weird. But still more creative than random characters.

Ah... The inspiration for the Constitution of the United States, written in a Viking's Book of Dragons a thousand years before the United States was even formed.

====================

A very fun episode, although I sort of knew it was a trap from the moment Mildew was alone with Bork's Chest. Though, I was hoping an island of Night Furies was true on some level. It would have been interesting to see how the other Night Furies would react to Hiccup and Toothless caught between them.

Toothless' ability to echolocate was cool and made sense to me. Who cares if reptiles in general rely on infrared, dragons aren't your normal reptiles.

A few problems, though...

The dragon calls were nice, but when Hiccup and Toothless arrive on the island, I don't understand why Hiccup had to make the Night Fury call when Toothless was right there and could make the call himself.

During the Thunderdrum/Changewing attack, Snotlout is captured by the Changewing (which I enjoyed). Eventually, the Changewing is made to drop Snotlout. Hookfang seems to wait for an order from Hiccup before she flies to catch him. True, Snotlout and Hookfang aren't exactly the closest pair, but it still seems strange.

And finally... What is it with villains revealing their evil plans to the heroes? Alvin: "You will train my dragons. Then, I will destroy Berk!" Okay, we already knew his intentions were no good. But it still sounds cliche.

[TheCube]

Mar 16, 2013 2:14:06 GMT -5 varthikes said:

Ah... The inspiration for the Constitution of the United States, written in a Viking's Book of Dragons a thousand years before the United States was even formed.

I hope you meant the Gettysburg address

[varthikes]

Mar 16, 2013 9:33:09 GMT -5 TheCube said:

Mar 16, 2013 2:14:06 GMT -5 varthikes said:

Ah... The inspiration for the Constitution of the United States, written in a Viking's Book of Dragons a thousand years before the United States was even formed.

I hope you meant the Gettysburg address

Ah, yes. I thought I had the wrong monumental collection of words.

In the grand scheme of things, it's all the same thing.

[Berk]

Well, not quite. The Gettysburg Address addresses quite different content than the Constitution of the time.
___________________

I'm kind of sad about Mildew. I mean, I know he was a cantakerous old coot, but still... this means that he'll never be able to return to Berk after the eventual rescue. Which is kind of sad. Because he can make for good plot/comedy sometimes. Or maybe he'll experience some miraculous revelation. Who knows.

I'm quite unsure of his motives though. He hates dragons. He wants good old fashioned Berk with dragon killings. Allying with Alvin doesn't help that. It just means destroying Berk and having Alvin-trained dragons. Unless of course that was his real plan all along.

But yeah... Wonder what Fungus thinks of this. Is he just kind of oblivious or is he some kind of evil sheep. I wonder.

As for Alvin... it's one of his trademarks. He loves to brag and gloat. He's a gloryhog. Plus, it's a theatrical device. "We need to tell the audience what's happening. So we'll have a character tell them".
_______________

I did like this episode. The comedy bit with Snotlout and the Changewing was good. Why Hookfang responded to Hiccup, I'm guessing, is because Hiccup is sort of the pack leader. He was the original tamer, and I think all the dragons have a kind of respect for him due to that.

As for Hiccup, while I'm a bit sad for Toothless, I kind of have to realize that this is kind of his fate for the moment. He's supposed to be the unique one. The lone hero in a way, sort of like Hiccup is (even though now I have to admit Hiccup has his own band, and whether Toothless and the other dragons have done such is unclear). I wouldn't mind him eventually finding a Night Fury or two... but honestly, I think an island full of them would be too much.

Let's say you have a piece of gold. That's really special. It means a lot.
But once you walk into Fort Knox (giant gold depository) it suddenly becomes less important, overwhelmed by all the rest.

Part of me, too, thinks that Toothless has to know other Night Fury's. I mean, he had to have been born from one, no? All the dragons we've seen so far have at the very least had others of their own kind, have laid multiple eggs, and have nurtured their young. Now... whether Night Fury's are a herd kind of dragon... I dunno. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're more solitary creatures. Maybe they lay only one egg only. At the very least though, he had to have known his mother. I think we'll see others in time (though part of me feels like such a highly anticipated event would be reserved for the movie), but not yet. And not so many.


And as for the echolocation, I thought it fit. Toothless especially has been said to be a very mammilian kind of reptile. And for Thor's sake, look at him! He looks like a bat.

Anyways... yeah. Good episode.

[barracuda]

Mar 18, 2013 17:39:32 GMT -5 Berk said:

Part of me, too, thinks that Toothless has to know other Night Fury's. I mean, he had to have been born from one, no? All the dragons we've seen so far have at the very least had others of their own kind, have laid multiple eggs, and have nurtured their young. Now... whether Night Fury's are a herd kind of dragon... I dunno. Maybe they're not. Maybe they're more solitary creatures. Maybe they lay only one egg only. At the very least though, he had to have known his mother. I think we'll see others in time (though part of me feels like such a highly anticipated event would be reserved for the movie), but not yet. And not so many.

It's well possible that his egg has been separated from his parents somehow and traveled a long distance away from the natural habitats before he hatched. In that case, he had never had the chance to see any of his kind except for his own reflections. The Night Fury entry in the book of dragons also seems to be the last one at the time of the movie with the fewest information available, so it probably got added just some years or decades ago.

[TheCube]

Mar 18, 2013 17:39:32 GMT -5 Berk said:

I'm quite unsure of his motives though. He hates dragons. He wants good old fashioned Berk with dragon killings. Allying with Alvin doesn't help that. It just means destroying Berk and having Alvin-trained dragons. Unless of course that was his real plan all along.

I feel like Mildew's action is very shortsighted compared to his past records. Heck, he makes fake Zippleback feet, does exactly what he wants to do, and eliminates the evidence. This is not the way he would... "neutralize" Hiccup. I watched the TV spot (I think?) for the finale from RoB's facebook page, and of course, Mildew ALSO becomes a prisoner (come on, what did you expect?). Given that Alvin doesn't have Mildew restrained at the end of the cliffhanger, Alvin might have sort of cajoled Mildew into doing this, with Mildew's anti-dragon intuition making his rationale justify his decision (I've been reading The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, which has some fascinating stuff about the "intuitive dog and its rational tail"; I recommend reading at least the first third for some insight about how people make moral judgments independently of reason).

Mildew's anti-dragon initiative, ironically, ends up landing him on top of a Nadder. It is kind of the "certain death or probable death" situation, but nonetheless this should be interesting.

One mystery though: Why is Mildew's house completely empty?

[Berk]

I wonder how young Toothless is actually... Is he the only Night Fury Berk's ever known (if so, for how long?) or have there been others?
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Mildew's action seems like something he would do, I'd think. He is crafty and manipulative (honestly, the whole fake Night Fury island and "no one else may come" was in fact a bit of genius).

Putting spoilers aside (for several reasons). I'm not sure of Mildew's motives exactly... but I know he thinks Berk's gone soft and may look to Alvin as more of a strongman, who plans to enslave the dragons moreso than befriend them, which is closer to his ideology.

His house completely empty? My guess is that he knew this was the final traitorship. That there was really no going back after helping to kidnap Hiccup. So... somehow, at least, he moved out, planning now to live on Outcast Island. I'd assume his stuff would've been ferried at night over to the Outcast Island or some such... the only reason I can think of for him bringing everything being that their island is rather... stark.