89 Fun Facts About How to Train Your Dragon

In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup is apprenticed to which village craftsman?

The blacksmith. Judged too weak to fight dragons, Hiccup works Gobber's forge instead, and that is where he builds the bolas launcher that starts the whole story.

What kind of dragon does Hiccup shoot down with a bolas launcher?

A Night Fury. Nobody believes he hit one, so Hiccup tracks it into the forest alone, then finds he can't bring himself to kill it and cuts it free.

Why does Hiccup name his dragon Toothless?

Its teeth are retractable. The dragon looks toothless until they snap out to take the fish Hiccup offers, a peace offering that starts to win its trust.

Why can't Toothless fly on his own after Hiccup brings him down?

He lost half his tail fin. Hiccup builds a replacement that he works with a pedal from the saddle, so Toothless can fly again only with Hiccup on his back.

Who is Hiccup's father, chief of Berk?

Stoick the Vast. He disowns Hiccup for befriending a dragon, then rescues Toothless himself in the final battle and tells his son he is proud of him.

Who voices Hiccup in the animated How to Train Your Dragon trilogy?

Jay Baruchel. He kept the role for the TV spin-off series between the films as well, so his voice followed Hiccup from awkward teenager to chief.

Which actress voices Astrid in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

America Ferrera. Her Astrid begins as the star pupil who resents Hiccup's sudden success in dragon training and ends the trilogy married to him.

Who voices Gobber the Belch in the How to Train Your Dragon films?

Craig Ferguson. An early draft of the sequel killed Gobber off, until Guillermo del Toro persuaded director Dean DeBlois that Stoick should be the one to die instead.

Which Doctor Who star voices Spitelout Jorgenson, Snotlout's father, in the first How to Train Your Dragon film?

David Tennant. It is a small part for the man who voices everyone in the books: he narrates the audiobook editions of the original novels.

Which cinematographer was hired as visual consultant on How to Train Your Dragon (2010) to give it a live-action feel?

Roger Deakins. Hiring a live-action cameraman was an unusual step for a cartoon; the Coen brothers regular supervised its lighting and look, and stayed on for both sequels.

Who composed the score for the animated How to Train Your Dragon trilogy?

John Powell. The first film's score brought him his first Oscar nomination, and he came back in 2025 to score the live-action remake as well.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) lost the Best Original Score Oscar to which film?

The Social Network. The Oscar went to a rock star: Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who wrote its electronic score with Atticus Ross and won again a decade later for Pixar's Soul.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar to which film?

Toy Story 3. The result flipped at the Annie Awards, which Disney and Pixar boycotted that year: How to Train Your Dragon beat it to Best Animated Feature and won ten prizes in all.

When Hiccup wakes at the end of How to Train Your Dragon, what does Astrid do just before kissing him?

Punches him, for scaring her. It is her way: after their first flight she hits his arm 'for kidnapping me', then kisses his cheek 'for everything else'.

Which film knocked How to Train Your Dragon (2010) off the top of the US box office after one weekend?

Clash of the Titans. How to Train Your Dragon had the last laugh, climbing back to number one in its fifth weekend.

Which giant dragon rules the nest and is destroyed at the end of the first How to Train Your Dragon film?

The Red Death. It is the reason dragons raid the village at all: the smaller ones must bring it food or be eaten themselves.

What does Hiccup lose in the final battle of the first How to Train Your Dragon film?

His left foot. He wakes to find Gobber has made him a metal replacement, then steps outside to a village that has invited the dragons to move in.

In How to Train Your Dragon, what does Hiccup plan to do instead of taking his final exam?

Run away with Toothless. Astrid follows him to the cove first and discovers the dragon, so he takes her flying to prove that Toothless is friendly.

What species is Astrid's dragon Stormfly?

Deadly Nadder. Stormfly turns the sequel's tide: when she shields an enemy dragon trapper from execution, he changes sides and helps the captured riders escape.

In How to Train Your Dragon, what is the name of Fishlegs' Gronckle?

Meatlug. Fed the right mix of rocks and ore in the TV series, she coughs up a valuable new metal that the Vikings name Gronckle Iron.

In How to Train Your Dragon, Snotlout's dragon Hookfang is which species?

Monstrous Nightmare. The breed has, as Hiccup puts it, a nasty habit of setting itself on fire, and Hookfang is the very dragon he was ordered to kill in his final exam.

In How to Train Your Dragon, what are the two heads of the twins' Hideous Zippleback called?

Barf and Belch. The names fit the job: Barf breathes out a cloud of explosive gas and Belch lights it with a spark, so the twins have to cooperate to make fire.

Which actor voices Fishlegs in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

Christopher Mintz-Plasse. His Fishlegs is the biggest of the trainees and the most timid, a dragon scholar who reels off each species' stats like a role-playing game.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, what do Berk's dragon racers carry to the nets to score points?

Sheep. The sequel opens five years after the first film to show how far Berk has come: the livestock that dragons once stole is now the ball in the village's favourite sport.

Who voices Valka, Hiccup's long-lost mother, in How to Train Your Dragon 2?

Cate Blanchett. Her Valka was presumed dead after a dragon carried her off in a raid; in fact she had spent the years since living among dragons and rescuing them.

Who is the warlord villain of How to Train Your Dragon 2, played by Djimon Hounsou?

Drago Bludvist. He wants a dragon army to conquer the world, and gives his reason: dragons burned his village and took his family when he was a boy.

What kind of giant, ice-breathing dragon rules other dragons as an alpha in How to Train Your Dragon 2?

A Bewilderbeast. The film has two: the gentle one that built an ice nest for rescued dragons is killed by the villain's, and Toothless then beats that one to become alpha himself.

How does Stoick die in How to Train Your Dragon 2?

He shields Hiccup from a hypnotised Toothless. A rival alpha dragon ordered the blast, and the grieving Hiccup drives Toothless away before accepting it was never his dragon's fault.

At which film festival did How to Train Your Dragon 2 have its world premiere in 2014?

Cannes. Ahead of the screening, DreamWorks paraded a Toothless along the Croisette with the voice cast, a stunt staged for the festival's photographers.

Director Dean DeBlois cited which famous sequel as a main inspiration for How to Train Your Dragon 2?

The Empire Strikes Back. DeBlois loved how it 'expanded Star Wars in every direction' and hoped his sequel could sit beside it on the shelf; his other touchstone was My Neighbor Totoro.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, which dragons are immune to the alpha's mind control?

Baby dragons. The alpha's call has no hold on them, so when every adult dragon is turned against Berk, Hiccup and his friends fly home on hatchlings.

Jónsi, who wrote and sang songs for the How to Train Your Dragon films, fronts which Icelandic band?

Sigur Rós. Director Dean DeBlois already knew the band, having made their concert film Heima in 2007, before their singer wrote 'Sticks & Stones' for the first film.

Who voices Grimmel the Grisly, the villain of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

F. Murray Abraham. His Grimmel boasts of having hunted Toothless's kind almost to extinction, and his pursuit is what forces the whole village to abandon its island.

What kind of dragon does Toothless fall for in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

A Light Fury. She is white where he is black, and she is no chance meeting: warlords hand her to the hunter Grimmel as bait to lure Toothless into a trap.

What are Toothless's three hybrid offspring called at the end of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

Night Lights. In the film's closing scene Hiccup and Astrid introduce their own two children to Toothless and take them flying alongside his three young.

In How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, how do the riders reach Grimmel's fleet after he captures their dragons?

Gliding on wingsuits. With no dragons to ride, the whole gang flies in the kind of suit Hiccup first tested in the second film, and the surprise attack works.

Which character's voice was recast for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, replacing T.J. Miller?

Tuffnut. DreamWorks dropped T.J. Miller after he had been set to return, and voice actor Justin Rupple was brought in to dub over his lines.

At the end of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, what do the Berkians do with their dragons?

Set them all free. Hiccup decides dragons will never be safe among humans, and vows they will stay hidden until people are ready to live beside them in peace.

Who plays Hiccup in the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

Mason Thames. He was cast in 2023, but the Hollywood actors' strike shut the production down before filming began, and the cameras did not roll until the following January.

Where was the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon mainly filmed?

Belfast, Northern Ireland. The village was built there as physical sets at Titanic Studios, while some flying scenes were shot around the Faroe Islands sea stacks that had inspired the animated Berk.

Who plays Gobber in the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

Nick Frost. The Shaun of the Dead star's Gobber still teaches the teenagers to fight dragons despite having lost a hand, which he replaces with a set of swappable tools.

In which era is the spin-off series DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms set?

The present day. Set 1,300 years after the films, it treats dragons as mere legend until a group of teenagers find them alive beneath a vast fissure in the Earth.

Who wrote the How to Train Your Dragon novels?

Cressida Cowell. The books grew out of childhood holidays on a tiny uninhabited Hebridean island, where she wrote stories by candlelight and her father told tales of the Vikings.

In the original How to Train Your Dragon novels, Hiccup is one of the few people who can speak which language?

Dragonese. It is all shrieks and popping noises, almost no Viking before him had even tried to learn it, and it gives the third of the twelve novels its title.

In the first How to Train Your Dragon novel, what is the only advice in the Vikings' one-page training manual?

Yell at it. That single line is the whole of Professor Yobbish's manual, itself titled How to Train Your Dragon, so Hiccup has to invent gentler methods of his own.

In the How to Train Your Dragon novels, what is Hiccup's tribe called?

The Hairy Hooligans. Nobody is simply born a member: each boy must catch and train a dragon to be admitted, and those who fail the test face exile.

Which honour did the author of the How to Train Your Dragon novels receive in 2019?

UK Children's Laureate. The post usually changes hands every two years; she held it for three, until 2022, and drew up a charter of what every child should have, including new books at school.

The first two seasons of the TV series DreamWorks Dragons aired on which channel?

Cartoon Network. It ran there for two seasons before DreamWorks took the show to Netflix, relaunching it as a streaming original that lasted six more.

What was the subtitle of DreamWorks Dragons seasons three to eight?

Race to the Edge. The new name came with a move to Netflix, and the story moved too: the riders leave Berk behind to explore new lands and new dragons in the years before the second film.

In the DreamWorks Dragons TV series, what does Berk's old dragon-killing arena become?

A training academy. The ring where young Vikings once learned to kill dragons is handed to Hiccup as a school for riding them, the base for a series that ran to 118 episodes.

Which short film came with the 2010 DVD release of How to Train Your Dragon?

Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon. Gobber leads the young riders on a hunt for the bone-armoured dragon he swears has stalked him for years, his past run-ins told in hand-drawn flashbacks.

How to Train Your Dragon: Isle of Berk is a themed land at which theme park?

Universal Epic Universe. Building began in 2019 and was paused by the pandemic, so the Orlando park and its Berk, set between the second and third films, did not open until May 2025.

Which Game of Thrones star voices the dragon trapper Eret in How to Train Your Dragon 2?

Kit Harington. His Eret boasts of being the finest dragon trapper alive, then changes sides after a dragon saves his life and is a dragon rider himself by the third film.

The How to Train Your Dragon arena show had its world premiere in which country?

Australia. It opened in Melbourne in 2012, a home premiere for its makers: Global Creatures, the Australian company behind the Walking with Dinosaurs arena show.

Which studio distributed the first How to Train Your Dragon film in 2010?

Paramount Pictures. Each film of the trilogy went out through a different studio as DreamWorks changed partners: Fox released the second, and Universal the third after buying DreamWorks Animation.

Chris Sanders, co-director of How to Train Your Dragon, had earlier co-directed which Disney film?

Lilo & Stitch. Hired to take over the troubled production, Sanders called in his co-director from that film, Dean DeBlois, then left the sequels to him while he made The Croods.

Which Scottish actor voices Hiccup's father in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

Gerard Butler. He came back to play the same chief in the flesh in the 2025 live-action remake, the one member of the animated voice cast in its line-up.

Who voices the brash, overconfident Snotlout in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

Jonah Hill. His Snotlout spends dragon training mocking Hiccup, then is among the first to follow him, riding a captive dragon into the final battle.

In the How to Train Your Dragon holiday specials, what is Berk's winter festival called?

Snoggletog. In the Homecoming special, Hiccup and Astrid stage a Snoggletog pageant in the dragons' honour, to show their own two children that dragons are not the monsters they imagine.

Which big cat inspired the animators' design for Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon (2010)?

A black panther was the model for his body, while the artists added large ears and eyes so the dragon could convey emotion better.

In How to Train Your Dragon 2, how did Hiccup's mother Valka vanish from Berk years earlier?

Seized during a raid by one of the attacking dragons, she was presumed dead, but she had spent the years rescuing dragons instead of slaying them.

After two seasons on cable, the TV series DreamWorks Dragons moved to which streaming service?

Netflix took over from the third season, relaunching the show under a new subtitle and releasing six more seasons before it ended.

In the TV series DreamWorks Dragons, Toothless finds his way through dark places using which ability?

Echolocation works for Toothless much as it does for bats: he sends out a sound blast and reads the echoes to steer through places too dark to see in.

Which captured rider annoys Grimmel until he lets her go in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

Ruffnut irritates the dragon hunter into releasing her, then unknowingly leads him straight to the riders' new island home.

Dean DeBlois said How to Train Your Dragon's positive portrayal of disability was influenced by whom?

Soldiers returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan after losing limbs shaped the decision, and the films are praised for characters never shown as less capable.

Which actor, famed as the animated Joker's voice, plays Alvin the Treacherous in DreamWorks Dragons?

Mark Hamill voices the exiled schemer plotting against Hiccup's father, yet the character ends the second season as an ally of Berk.

Hiccup of How to Train Your Dragon first starred in a picture book as a Viking with which problem?

Seasickness troubles the lead of Hiccup the Seasick Viking, a picture book that appeared a few years before the first novel and is not counted in the series.

Which actress, Sarah in HBO's The Last of Us, plays Astrid in the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

Nico Parker, daughter of actress Thandiwe Newton, was cast in May 2023, but an actors' strike pushed the start of filming into the following year.

Which film beat How to Train Your Dragon 2 to the Oscar and to 2014's worldwide animated box-office crown?

Big Hero 6 took the Oscar and grossed $658 million, leaving the dragon sequel as the year's second-biggest animated release at $622 million.

On the set of the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon, what stood in for the dragons opposite the actors?

Puppets worked by a team of puppeteers gave the cast something real to act against, and showed the camera crew where each dragon would be.

With which force of nature does Toothless beat Grimmel's dragons in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

Lightning brings down the hunter's own dragons, the same pack that had earlier destroyed Hiccup's house and much of Berk.

Which filmmaker advised Dean DeBlois that Hiccup's father, not Gobber, should die in How to Train Your Dragon 2?

Guillermo del Toro argued that the chief had exhausted his part in the story and would be a crutch for Hiccup, and earned a thank-you credit.

In the How to Train Your Dragon novels, Hiccup's best friend Fishlegs is unluckily allergic to what?

Reptiles set him sneezing, an awkward condition for a boy expected to train a dragon, and one of several ailments that make him clumsy.

At which London studio was the How to Train Your Dragon 2 score recorded with a 120-piece orchestra?

Abbey Road Studios hosted the sessions in April 2014, when a 100-voice choir, a Celtic harp and a bodhrán joined the orchestra.

After capturing Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon (2010), what does the chief do to his own son Hiccup?

The chief disowns him for befriending a dragon, then uses the captive Toothless to guide his fleet to the nest.

At the start of How to Train Your Dragon 2, what are Hiccup and Toothless doing far from Berk?

Mapping unexplored lands occupies Hiccup while his father presses him to take over as chieftain, a job he is unsure he is ready for.

Who persuaded Dean DeBlois to cut a villain's redemption from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?

Steven Spielberg, a DreamWorks co-founder, argued that redeeming the second film's warlord needed more screen time than the finale could spare.

Which superhero film ended the two-week run of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World atop the US box office?

Captain Marvel knocked the dragon finale off the top spot in its third weekend, after it had opened in first place with $55 million.

Which awards ceremony gave How to Train Your Dragon (2010) ten wins in a single night?

The Annies, the animation industry's own honours, gave the film ten trophies, while it came away from the Oscars with two nominations and no wins.

Which preschool spin-off of How to Train Your Dragon follows twins Dak and Leyla, who were raised by dragons?

Rescue Riders gives its twins the power to talk with dragons, a gift they use to save people and dragons around the town of Huttsgalor.

Which subtitle did the TV series DreamWorks Dragons carry in its second season, the last shown on cable?

Defenders of Berk closed the cable run after 40 episodes; the show had first been announced under the plainer title Dragons: The Series.

In the holiday special How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming, what are Hiccup and Astrid's two children called?

Zephyr and Nuffink grow up fearing dragons after reading their grandfather's old journals, so their parents revive a pageant to change their minds.

In the How to Train Your Dragon novels, the tiny green Toothless appears to be which breed?

Common or Garden is a small breed, so the films reinvented him completely as the rarest species of all, big enough to carry two riders.

Which Hunt for the Wilderpeople star plays Fishlegs in the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

Julian Dennison, who is from New Zealand, also played the fire-wielding teenager in Deadpool 2 before joining the dragon-fighting class.

The company behind the How to Train Your Dragon arena show was known for an earlier arena hit about what?

Dinosaurs came first: Global Creatures staged Walking with Dinosaurs as an arena spectacular, then built 24 animatronic dragons for the Viking show.

Which islands, an inspiration for Berk, hosted flight scenes for the live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

The Faroes supplied the dramatic islets of Tindhólmur and Drangarnir, which had already served as models for Berk in the animated film.

Which Arctic archipelago did the How to Train Your Dragon 2 team visit to see polar bears in the wild?

Svalbard had long been on the director's wish list, and he had learned that setting an animated film somewhere you want to visit can get you there.

Which Bog-Burglar heiress becomes Hiccup's close friend and fellow adventurer in the How to Train Your Dragon novels?

Camicazi is a fierce, impulsive sword fighter who leaps before she looks, the opposite of Hiccup, and she owns the books' version of Stormfly.

In DreamWorks Dragons, the dragon-hating old villager Mildew makes his living growing which crop?

Cabbages are the trade of the cantankerous Mildew, voiced by Stephen Root, who secretly damages the village so that the dragons are blamed and banished.