Sin and Salvation According to How To Train Your Dragon
It's all about who is good, who is bad, and how bad people become good.
Who is good?
Surprise: it's the protagonist! In the morality-system of this movie, Hiccup is good because he is kind. This shows in his nonviolence, his gentle approach to the dragons, and his willingness to give the dragons a chance. He is kind to everyone in a society that doesn't value kindness, and he is kind to dragons he has only ever experienced to be violent and destructive.
Who is bad?
Surprise: it's the antagonists! There are a couple: Hiccup's village--they're bad because they assume that all dragons are bad and they respond violently to the dragons' threat; the dragons--they're bad because they ruin the Viking-ish peoples' lives; and the Red Death, the giant dragon all the others are compelled to serve.
How do bad people become good?
Information and belief.
From beginning to end, this movie is about how bad people become good when they get the right information and decide to act in line with it.
At the beginning of the movie, Hiccup thinks he has to kill a dragon to be a good person, but then he learns the true nature of dragons--he sees their inherent gentleness in Toothless--and he acts in line with that information: he refuses to kill Toothless.
Toothless is initially violent (which equals bad in the worldview of this movie), but when he learns that Hiccup wants to be his friend, he acts in line with that information, allowing himself to be ridden and trained.
The Viking-ish village people think they have to kill all the dragons to defend their way of life, but when they see Toothless's love for Hiccup, they act in line with that new information, allowing dragons to live among them as pets.
In all of these cases, the default state (of Hiccup, the dragons, and the village people) is harmony with all. The problem that caused their badnesses was inadequate information. The implication is that the same is true of the humans who watch this movie: we would all be kind to each other and violence would end if we truly understood each other.
But there's one character who doesn't become good: the Red Death, the giant dragon that forced all the smaller dragons to serve it. The other dragons are redeemed through the course of the story--and their sins included property destruction, causing human suffering, and even taking human lives! But for the Red Death, there is no redemption. She is executed as quickly as possible. No efforts are made to tame her.
What's the difference between her and the other dragons?
The Red Death controlled the other dragons. The unforgivable sin in the worldview of How to Train Your Dragon is controlling others. This holds true in the second movie, too: in the climax, justice is restored to the world when Toothless becomes the Alpha Dragon, not by controlling the other dragons, but by earning their freely given loyalty. By becoming Alpha, Toothless releases the other dragons from the control of an evil Alpha (Why evil? Because control.).
How does the worldview of How to Train Your Dragon compare with the Christian worldview?
It has some things in common and some significant differences. In general, the movie treats as roots what Christianity treats as symptoms.
Where the movie sees two main causes for the sins people commit against other people--ignorance and the desire to control others--Christianity sees one deeper cause from which all sins flows: self-centeredness. Every human is born with an inclination to gratify ourselves even at the expense of others. That inclination is borne out in various ways; in human relationships, it often shows up as a desire to control others for one's own benefit, like the Red Death in How to Train Your Dragon. The same inclination can show up as self-protective prejudice (and the violence that flows from it), though, like it does in Hiccup's fellow villagers. According to the Christian worldview, the sins of the Red Death and the villagers had the same roots.
That makes a lot of room for optimism! Christians believe that no matter how extreme the outflow of a self-centered inclination may be, there is both forgiveness and soul renovation available to every sinner. There is a cure for the problem that is the source of both petty gossip and murder.
As it is in How to Train Your Dragon, in the Christian worldview, the door you have to go through to get to the cure is belief of information. What I mean when I say "belief" is "readiness to act as if an idea is true."1
The difference between the Christian worldview and that of How to Train Your Dragon is which idea needs to be believed.
Christians debate what exactly the minimum idea is that people need to believe to be saved, but everyone generally agrees that it involves at least these elements:2
In How to Train Your Dragon, the idea characters have to believe to be saved involves at least these elements:
Theology
Who is good?
Surprise: it's the protagonist! In the morality-system of this movie, Hiccup is good because he is kind. This shows in his nonviolence, his gentle approach to the dragons, and his willingness to give the dragons a chance. He is kind to everyone in a society that doesn't value kindness, and he is kind to dragons he has only ever experienced to be violent and destructive.
Who is bad?
Surprise: it's the antagonists! There are a couple: Hiccup's village--they're bad because they assume that all dragons are bad and they respond violently to the dragons' threat; the dragons--they're bad because they ruin the Viking-ish peoples' lives; and the Red Death, the giant dragon all the others are compelled to serve.
How do bad people become good?
Information and belief.
From beginning to end, this movie is about how bad people become good when they get the right information and decide to act in line with it.
At the beginning of the movie, Hiccup thinks he has to kill a dragon to be a good person, but then he learns the true nature of dragons--he sees their inherent gentleness in Toothless--and he acts in line with that information: he refuses to kill Toothless.
Toothless is initially violent (which equals bad in the worldview of this movie), but when he learns that Hiccup wants to be his friend, he acts in line with that information, allowing himself to be ridden and trained.
The Viking-ish village people think they have to kill all the dragons to defend their way of life, but when they see Toothless's love for Hiccup, they act in line with that new information, allowing dragons to live among them as pets.
In all of these cases, the default state (of Hiccup, the dragons, and the village people) is harmony with all. The problem that caused their badnesses was inadequate information. The implication is that the same is true of the humans who watch this movie: we would all be kind to each other and violence would end if we truly understood each other.
But there's one character who doesn't become good: the Red Death, the giant dragon that forced all the smaller dragons to serve it. The other dragons are redeemed through the course of the story--and their sins included property destruction, causing human suffering, and even taking human lives! But for the Red Death, there is no redemption. She is executed as quickly as possible. No efforts are made to tame her.
What's the difference between her and the other dragons?
The Red Death controlled the other dragons. The unforgivable sin in the worldview of How to Train Your Dragon is controlling others. This holds true in the second movie, too: in the climax, justice is restored to the world when Toothless becomes the Alpha Dragon, not by controlling the other dragons, but by earning their freely given loyalty. By becoming Alpha, Toothless releases the other dragons from the control of an evil Alpha (Why evil? Because control.).
Evaluation
It has some things in common and some significant differences. In general, the movie treats as roots what Christianity treats as symptoms.
Where the movie sees two main causes for the sins people commit against other people--ignorance and the desire to control others--Christianity sees one deeper cause from which all sins flows: self-centeredness. Every human is born with an inclination to gratify ourselves even at the expense of others. That inclination is borne out in various ways; in human relationships, it often shows up as a desire to control others for one's own benefit, like the Red Death in How to Train Your Dragon. The same inclination can show up as self-protective prejudice (and the violence that flows from it), though, like it does in Hiccup's fellow villagers. According to the Christian worldview, the sins of the Red Death and the villagers had the same roots.
That makes a lot of room for optimism! Christians believe that no matter how extreme the outflow of a self-centered inclination may be, there is both forgiveness and soul renovation available to every sinner. There is a cure for the problem that is the source of both petty gossip and murder.
As it is in How to Train Your Dragon, in the Christian worldview, the door you have to go through to get to the cure is belief of information. What I mean when I say "belief" is "readiness to act as if an idea is true."1
The difference between the Christian worldview and that of How to Train Your Dragon is which idea needs to be believed.
Christians debate what exactly the minimum idea is that people need to believe to be saved, but everyone generally agrees that it involves at least these elements:2
- A powerful, eternal God exists (Rom. 1:21) and
- He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).
In How to Train Your Dragon, the idea characters have to believe to be saved involves at least these elements:
- Violence toward people who aren't like me is usually invalid, and
- Most people have good motives.
On a deeper level, this movie doesn't offer any soil for these two principles to be rooted in. Why shouldn't I treat people who aren't like me with violence? The movie's best answer is that my violence will cause them to be violent toward me. What if, by violence, I can eliminate entirely the person who is unlike me, ending the threat of continued violence? In fact, isn't that exactly what happens in the climax of the movie?
In contrast, the Christian framework supports the principle of nonviolence toward those who are unlike me. (For exceptions, see this helpful article.) The principle is rooted in (1) God's creation of man in His image (Gen. 1:27; 9:6) and (2) Jesus' identification with humans, such that whatever we do to others He counts as having been done to Him (Matt. 25:40, 45).
Stories act on the imagination, and as a result, they can often slip under or around logical analysis. This isn't a bad thing; it's part of the reason C. S. Lewis engaged theological topics through stories, as well as through other means.3 But because we tend to receive stories without analyzing them, they have the power to shape our imaginations in ways that don't fit reality, so it's worth thinking about what stories may be prompting us to believe. That's part of the purpose for this post: I want to defend my imagination from being misshapen.
Another part of my purpose in writing this analysis is outward-focused: I want to get some clarity on the sort of things someone in my culture might believe without realizing they do. Based on the popularity of How to Train Your Dragon (it earned $217 million in theaters alone),4 there's a good chance this story is part of the way an American between ages 5-35 thinks about who is good, who is bad, and how bad people become good. This informs the way I can converse with people about good and evil. I appreciate the fact that stories like this one build categories in peoples' minds for sin and salvation, even with the flaws that are included, and this analysis gives me tools for talking with people about ways in which the How to Train Your Dragon worldview does and does not correspond to reality.
Of course, a post about How to Train Your Dragon would be incomplete without mentioning its fantastic soundtrack, so I conclude with my favorite piece from it.
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1 Dallas Willard coined this definition in his book, Knowing Christ Today. I recognize that this is only one of the senses in which "belief" is used, and by using this sense I don't mean to deny the validity of any other senses philosophers have used. When most people say that they believe something, they mean that they think it to be true, whether or not they intend to act as if it were true. However, I use this sense ("readiness to act as if an idea is true") because it seems to be a natural consequence of actually thinking something is true. If someone doesn't act as if an idea is true, I would draw the conclusion that they must not actually think it is true.
2 See this helpful summary of biblical and theological data in defense of this minimum written by Dr. Mark Bird.
Stories act on the imagination, and as a result, they can often slip under or around logical analysis. This isn't a bad thing; it's part of the reason C. S. Lewis engaged theological topics through stories, as well as through other means.3 But because we tend to receive stories without analyzing them, they have the power to shape our imaginations in ways that don't fit reality, so it's worth thinking about what stories may be prompting us to believe. That's part of the purpose for this post: I want to defend my imagination from being misshapen.
Another part of my purpose in writing this analysis is outward-focused: I want to get some clarity on the sort of things someone in my culture might believe without realizing they do. Based on the popularity of How to Train Your Dragon (it earned $217 million in theaters alone),4 there's a good chance this story is part of the way an American between ages 5-35 thinks about who is good, who is bad, and how bad people become good. This informs the way I can converse with people about good and evil. I appreciate the fact that stories like this one build categories in peoples' minds for sin and salvation, even with the flaws that are included, and this analysis gives me tools for talking with people about ways in which the How to Train Your Dragon worldview does and does not correspond to reality.
Of course, a post about How to Train Your Dragon would be incomplete without mentioning its fantastic soundtrack, so I conclude with my favorite piece from it.
-
1 Dallas Willard coined this definition in his book, Knowing Christ Today. I recognize that this is only one of the senses in which "belief" is used, and by using this sense I don't mean to deny the validity of any other senses philosophers have used. When most people say that they believe something, they mean that they think it to be true, whether or not they intend to act as if it were true. However, I use this sense ("readiness to act as if an idea is true") because it seems to be a natural consequence of actually thinking something is true. If someone doesn't act as if an idea is true, I would draw the conclusion that they must not actually think it is true.
2 See this helpful summary of biblical and theological data in defense of this minimum written by Dr. Mark Bird.
3 For a well-written, brief read on C. S. Lewis's strategic use of imagination in service of truth, I recommend Alistair McGrath's If I Had Lunch with C. S. Lewis: Exploring the Ideas of C. S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life.
4 This statistic cited from BoxOfficeMojo.com; accessed Feb. 27, 2019.
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