49 pages • 1 hour read
Cressida CowellHow to Train Your Dragon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Toothless Wakes Up”
Three weeks later, when Toothless comes out of hibernation, Hiccup begins his manual on how to train dragons. His introduction proposes that speaking Dragonese is more effective than traditional yelling. He describes Dragonese as “complex and sophisticated” (33), comparing it to human language. He then offers humorous examples of dragon speak with translations, e.g., “Please would you be so kind as to spit my friend out?” (33).
When Hiccup starts training Toothless with this new method, he shocks Fishlegs. Toothless presses his head against Hiccup’s as a gesture of understanding, but then he bites Hiccup, demanding fish. When Hiccup says they don’t have any, the dragon tries to eat the cat. To solve this, they put Toothless in Stoick’s room, which is infested with mice. When Stoick comes in and Toothless mistakes his beard for a chicken, the chief shows his control of dragons by yelling at Toothless, immediately causing him to stop. Stoick is upset that Hiccup’s dragon is small and toothless, but Fishlegs manages to convince the chief that he is a rare, practically extinct variety related to the Monstrous Nightmare.
That night, Hiccup worries that Newtsbreath, one of his father’s hunting dragons, might eat Toothless. Hiccup smuggles the little dragon into bed with him, finding that the animal keeps him warm.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Training Your Dragon the Hard Way”
Hiccup spends the next few weeks training Toothless without much success. He hopes that bonding with the dragon will encourage obedience. However, the dragon has no morals and confesses that dragons only obey humans because humans are bigger and feed them.
Hiccup continues to have difficulty, especially with toilet training. After reprimanding Toothless for pooing in the house, the dragon relieves himself over Hiccup. Snotlout and Dogsbreath, accompanied by their own dragons, Fireworm and Seaslug, witness this disobedience display and mock Toothless.
When Dogsbreath laughs hard enough that snot comes out of his nose, Fishlegs comments that his brains are coming out. This prompts a fight between the boys, and Fireworm lunges at Toothless. The bullies leave, but when they are just out of earshot, Toothless begins to shout threats at them. Hiccup sarcastically calls his dragon “brave.”
Chapter 9 Summary: “Fear, Revenge, Vanity, and Silly Jokes”
Hiccup and Fishlegs try to teach their dragons a basic command: to stand on their arms and fly when they lift them into the air. Neither Toothless nor Horrorcow, Fishlegs’s dragon, take to this lesson, but Toothless does react when Hiccup tells him the penalty for failure is exile.
Hiccup refers to his list of potential “Dragon Motivation,” including gratitude, fear, greed, vanity, and revenge (46). He interjects with information about “King Dragons,” or Monstrous Dragons. Although hard to train, these dragons are “magnificent hunters” with “scary fangs.” Hiccup’s attempts to motivate Toothless fail until he resorts to the last motivator, “jokes and riddling talk” (46). Humor inspires the dragon, who agrees to Hiccup’s bribe and flies to the sea to catch fish. Once near the sea, Toothless matures and is successful at fishing. He confidently soars When he returns with his prize, Fishlegs notices that Toothless has grown a tooth.
Hiccup thinks about the Thor’sday Thursday celebration, deciding to enter the test under the name "Hiccup the Useful” with his dragon “Toothfull.”
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Thematically, A Hero’s Coming-of-Age Journey is at the fore. These chapters show the reader Hiccup’s road of trials as well as the doubts, challenges, and temptations faced on the road to becoming a hero. Hiccup’s doubt reflects another feature common in the hero’s journey structure. Because Stoick can bring Toothless to a halt by shouting, and Toothless admits that only size and food influence dragon behavior, Hiccup has reasonable doubt that his alternative methods will work. Hiccup reveals another unique ability during these chapters that fits the “supernatural aid” requirement of the monomyth: his knowledge of the Dragon language, Dragonese. This power equips Hiccup alone to save the Vikings from threats later in the book, conferring a “chosen one” status on him. Since he attained this skill through his literary endeavors, reading and writing are equated with supernatural power. The motif of reading and writing supports the theme of Breaking Tradition: Ingenuity in Leadership.
Toothless himself may be considered “supernatural aid,” and these chapters begin to show him on his own hero’s journey. The Vikings consider Toothless and Hiccup together as one. When Toothless attempts to eat Stoick’s beard, Hiccup bears responsibility for his lack of control over the dragon. However, when Toothless finally agrees to hunt for fish and reaches the sea, his character begins to evolve: “Toothless seemed to grow up a bit” (49). Because of the established connection between the two characters, Hiccup’s character changes through this process as well. Although Toothless’s true breed is not revealed until later in the series, Toothless’s connection to the sea foreshadows that he is really a Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus, or Sea Dragon.
