'How to Train Your Dragon 3' release date, plot & spoilers: 3 reasons why fans need to bring their Kleenex

• comments
• 
• 

While the highly anticipated third installment of the animated film How to Train Your Dragon doesn't arrive until 2018, many speculations have gone around based on fan theories and statements from director Dean DeBlois on why the third film may be the most emotional of the series. Given the possibilities set by author Cressida Cowell's fantastical books, it's not difficult to imagine how the third film will pan out. Here are some theories on why it may be an emotional end to the journey of Toothless and Hiccup.

1. Hiccup and Toothless no longer together forever? DeBlois told Collider in February, "[Dragon 3 is] the culmination of Hiccup’s coming of age. Both he and Toothless are now chiefs of their respective tribes, and it’s a dueling story where you have both characters trying to do what’s right for their kind, and an eventual outcome where Hiccup is able to stand on his own."

DeBlois may be implying that the two best friends may part ways, but for reasons no one knows yet. Would the villain Drago have a hand in this parting of ways? According to DeBlois, "You have to wait until the third film to actually see where Drago’s character goes. He’s a lot more complex than he’s presented in this second installment."

This may mean that Drago may come back and cause trouble between Hiccup and Toothless, much like he did in the second installment, in which his terror caused Hiccup's father's death.

2. The end of the dragon era. While the first two films saw humans and dragons learning to interact and live peacefully, the third film might see an era in which there will no longer be any dragons. Movie Pilot reports that the original books being with no dragons in sight, and the third film may show an older Hiccup reminiscing his happy moments with Toothless and the dragon pack.

"We’re gonna take the story to where the books begin, which is Hiccup as an adult reflecting back on a time where there were dragons, suggesting that the dragons will in some way go away," he explained. "Why and could they come back and the mystery of what all that is will be saved for the actual story."

3. The beginnings of Night Fury. Not much light has been shed on Toothless' origins in the first two installments of How to Train Your Dragon. Hiccup's mother, however, may have implied that she knows quite a few things about the secretive species. Another theory is that Drago may have been the one who hunted down the species, causing them to become extinct.

Meanwhile, fans can keep themselves busy with the newly previewed How to Train Your Dragon: The Serpent’s Heir comic book, a collaboration between director Dean DeBlois and Richard Hamilton, writer of Dragons: Race to the Edge. Entertainment Weekly reports that the announcement was made by DreamWorks Animation and Dark Horse Comics during the New York Comic Con.

According to Hamilton, "The graphic novels are self-contained. There are many thematic elements that we’re carrying through across the graphic novels that connect to the second movie."

How to Train Your Dragon 3 is set to be released on June 29, 2018.