Cut the Rope
Excerpt from not Super but Human
In considering the Call to Adventure, I find myself wondering… how do you train your dragon? I’m afraid I’m unable to tell you, so we must turn to Hiccup and his best friend, Toothless. However, they weren’t always friends. In How to Train Your Dragon, we’re thrown headfirst into the struggle between Vikings and dragons. Fear and hatred on both sides.
Or so it seemed.
Enter Hiccup, toothpick for a Viking, the least Viking that ever did Viking. He wants to be a dragon killing Viking though. When we meet him, he joins the fray against the dragons, inadvertently causing mayhem due to his shenanigans. He claims to shoot down a Night Fury, a legendary dragon with incredible capabilities. Not likely. Nobody believes him. He’s ridiculed, in fact.
Alas… he truly did.
He tracks the dragon, finding it caught in the mechanism of his own design. The dragon, vulnerable, helpless, lays there as Hiccup prepares his first dragon kill. This is what Vikings do. It’s his duty in their struggle against the dragons wreaking havoc on their land, stealing their livestock, threatening their survival. He hesitates, and sees the despair in the dragon’s eyes, seeing his reflection in them. Unable to slay the dragon, he cuts it free from the rope binding it. This moment of compassion was Hiccup’s Call to Adventure, and it was the start of an amazing epic.
Most of us are unlikely to find a dragon in a trap, but we may still find strength in moments we never thought we’d be placed into, thrust into a world greater than we’ve known. Forging a path toward a hopeful future. We simply need to cut the rope.