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How to Train Your Dragon 2 turns ten! Come and share your memories on the thread.

Posting reply to When did Stoick actually get married?
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Clickable Emoticons	Cartoon Freak wrote: > [quote]1. Yes, societies do change, but I wouldn't say the fact that forced > marriages don't exist in the movies means nothing to the hypothetical > near-past either. Stoick would have been the chief during most if not all > of that time, and he's not exactly a progressive when we're first > introduced to him. His resistance to change is even a fairly notable plot > point in the movies. For that matter the majority of the village doesn't > seem any less conservative initially. So while it's not impossible for a > custom like that to have been thrown off in the 30 years or so immediately > preceding the first movie, I'd consider it highly unlikely.[/quote] > > Stoick is certainly conservative, but it's mostly in regards to one > particular thing: dragons. Pretty much everything else stems from that. > Heck, one could even make the argument that Stoick having to deal with > Valka's pro-dragon ways actually provided a good argument against marrying > children. Once a person is an adult, you tend to know the gist of where > they stand, but when they're a child, there's still a lot of ways they can > change. Or heck, maybe he just didn't want anyone else to be forced into > marrying a dragon-lover. > > In the end, however, it's a bit of a moot point why Berk's stance on > marriage changed, since the evidence suggests that it did. I suppose it > could make for an interesting discussion, but we kind of need to agree that > it happened first. > > [quote]3. This actually poses a fascinating question that I'll have to > think about for awhile. Can something in a fictional universe be > unintentionally canon? Especially if the basis for it is a throwaway line > in a spin-off written by people who have nothing to do with the main > component of the franchise? Even if the event in question involves a > character that those spin-off writers didn't even know the details of when > they wrote said throwaway line?[/quote] > > If you want a more academic look at this idea, look up the paper > "Death of the Author". I haven't read it myself, largely because > the idea seems self-evident from reading Fred Clark's critiques of the Left > Behind series (among other criticisms, Mr Clark often points out how > loathsome the supposed heroes of the books really are). > > In regards to the factor of multiple creative forces, that can create > issues when there are actual contradictions. For better or for worse, > however, there is no contradiction here. Outside of this one line in the > series, I am not aware of any official material that states when Stoick and > Valka got married. If such material does exist, then we have a more > complicated situation. As things stand, however, we simply have an > unfortunate piece of canon. It's not like this is even inherently the most > morally questionable thing done by a 'good' character in this franchise > that receives no negative repercussions whatsoever. Note, for instance, > that there's no evidence to suggest that Stoick had sex with Valka before > she was what we would consider to be an adult (indeed, given that they only > had one child, and that was when Valka was about thirty by this logic, they > probably weren't very sexually active at all). > > [quote]Pretty sure... Even in Viking-land... The leaders would not marry > off a girl who has not 'developed' yet (unless she was an early bloomer). I > mean it is possible. But... She would only be around 10-13 years older than > Hiccup then.[/quote] > > It is biologically possible for some girls to have a child when in their > tweens, so there's no contradiction here. Therefore, since the series > stands as canon to the movies except in the case of a contradiction, it's > still canon that Valka got married as a child, in spite of how unpleasant > that situation seems to us. There's just one slight problem... > > [quote]Interestingly enough, I just went there now to see if that info was > still there and every one of the good characters except Valka still has a > specific age mentioned in their profile. That looks suspiciously like > Dreamworks may have become aware of this little controversy at one point or > another and tried to cover themselves.[/quote] > > Oh, come on, Dreamworks, don't do that. Just let us have something > interesting about Stoick and Valka's relationship. It's not like it's ever > going to come up, since Stoick's dead and all. I just want to have > something to chuckle about if I ever have to watch a Valka scene again > (unlikely, but it could happen). > > Please tell me someone has a screencap of when the site listed Valka's age. > Alternatively, is it listed in the artbook? Because if so, I will buy a > copy of the artbook, just to have some hard evidence of this little fact. > Well, unless Dreamworks actually retcon it, though given that they could > easily have just changed Valka's age on the website to be equal to > Stoick's, there must be some reason they haven't done it.
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Pakba 19 Jan 2015, 15:33

Maybe someone posted a screenshot in the disqus comments a few months back?

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