Jonathan Decker, a licensed therapist, recently watched How To Train Your Dragon 2 in order to ᴀssess whether Valka is a bad mother. How To Train Your Dragon 2 follows on from the 2010 DreamWorks movie, which saw Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) become friends with a Night Fury, changing the fictional village of Berk and its perception of the relationship between Vikings and dragons. The second How To Train Your Dragon movie is set five years later, and sees Hiccup finally reunite with his long-lost mother, Valka, who apparently left her son as a child due to Berk’s mistreatment of dragons.
In a Cinema Therapy video, Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright discussed Valka’s parenting in How To Train Your Dragon 2, stating that “I feel like a lot of people online are triggered by Valka.” The main problem that Decker identifies with Hiccup’s mother in How To Train Your Dragon 2 is that she ends up “putting cause before family.” When Valka discovered that dragons weren’t harmful, she tried to change the people’s minds, but nobody believed her. This led to her leaving Berk to be with dragons, a decision that Decker thoroughly disagrees with. Check out Decker’s full analysis below:
Our Take On Hiccup’s Mother In How To Train Your Dragon
Valka Is A Realistically Flawed Character Who Eventually Steps Up
While Decker describes Valka as a “good person,” saying that she “shines as an animal activist,” ultimately, he disagrees with her decision to leave Hiccup, frustratedly asking, “Do you know how many other ways a mother can help protect and raise a son aside from killing dragons?” However, Valka does have a redemption later on in the film, following Stoick’s death. Decker explains “they’re not great parents to start with, but they grow just as Hiccup grows,” and after Valka finally admits that she was wrong for abandoning her son that way, “Valka is a much better parent moving forward.”
Valka’s abandonment of Hiccup has always been a problematic area in the How To Train Your Dragon movies. While Decker states that the decision is valid, Valka settled with the dragons, used it as an excuse, and “justified not being with [her] family,” which was wrong. Furthermore, Valka only really accepts Hiccup in their reunion because of their shared views about dragons, not “because he’s [her] child or he’s a human being,” with Decker pointing out a pattern of unconditional love in both parents – Valka only accepts Hiccup for loving dragons, and Stoick couldn’t accept him for the same reason.
Our Take On Hiccup’s Mother In How To Train Your Dragon
Valka Is A Realistically Flawed Character Who Eventually Steps Up
Ultimately, as Decker states, “she’s not a bad character or a badly written character,” and is actually very realistic. Valka, projecting her own insecurities and justifying her actions in How To Train Your Dragon 2‘s story, is true-to-life, which is why it resonates so much with viewers. Yet, the cause is still “not a legitimate reason to leave your kid,” with Cinema Therapy concluding that Valka is a bad parent to Hiccup in the 2014 sequel, although she does overcome this by the end of the film, showing a real step forward in future How To Train Your Dragon movies.
Sources: Cinema Therapy/YouTube
