What do you think are Toothless' Weakness and Strengths? (2024)

Toothless is interesting in his strengths or weaknesses. In the world of DreamWorks, Toothless’ strengths are often spoken about: his speed, his plasma blasts, his intelligence. However, what we don’t see spoken aloud by the characters is that the Night Fury - just like any other dragons - has its shortcomings. This Night Fury in particular has some interesting weaknesses alongside his strengths.

Toothless’ Strengths

PHYSICAL POWER

Toothless is incredibly physically adept in many respects. We learn that the Night Fury is one of the fastest dragons out there, clearly the fastest dragon species available on Berk itself. Not only is he fast, but he’s incredibly dexterous, able to execute very complicated motions back-to-back flawlessly. This dragon corkscrews, dives, twists, turns, spirals, and twirls in the skies, and yet always flies flawlessly.

PLASMA BLASTS

The plasma blasts Toothless shoot are incredibly hot, incredibly powerful, and incredibly damaging. Toothless can take out an entire siege tower with these blasts, and he aims with the utmost of precision. Toothless almost never misses a shot, and he does some complicated shots. Furthermore, he has the precision of knowing how hardto hit; we see moments where Toothless intentionally only stuns his enemies rather than blasts them into oblivion. But when he chooses to kill… as we see with Stoick… there’s no compromising with this deadly force.

INTELLIGENCE

Many character comments suggest that Toothless is the smartest of the dragon species, at least of the ones on Berk. Toothless acts much more independently of thought than the other dragons; he doesn’t just execute Hiccup’s commands, but he also knows how to analyze, improvise, and work as an equally-contributing teammate to his rider. When Toothless knows how to do something better than Hiccup, that’s what he’ll do. Toothless’ intelligence spans a whole lot of areas, which I talk about in more depth here.

LOYALTY

Toothless has an enormous sense of loyalty and solidarity to Hiccup and the other Hooligans. Toothless will save any ally; he catches Tuffnut before the young man falls in the latest RTTE season; he saves Hiccup all the time; he cares about Stoick and Astrid and everyone else. This loyalty makes Toothless a powerful force of good, someone who will go out and heroically save others.

Toothless’ Weaknesses

THE PROSTHETIC TAIL

This is not Toothless’ fault, but it is something that weakens him significantly. Toothless gets into trouble SO MANY ODIN-TOOTING TIMES because of the fact he has a mechanical tail fin, not a biological one. He has to rely on Hiccup for many maneuvers in the sky, everything down to turning, and if Hiccup falls out of the saddle, Toothless has no choice but to plummet to the earth and hope he survives. Let’s admit Toothless’ prosthetic tail is a death trap for both him and Hiccup. Toothless cannot fly without Hiccup, meaning he can’t get into the sky… or continue flying in the sky… if Hiccup happens to be out of the saddle. This is an enormous, enormous, enormous weakness for him in day-to-day life and forces him into SEVERE danger.

Toothless, though, chooses to keep the weakness because it’s a way he can bond with Hiccup. We see that in Gift of the Night Fury where he intentionally breaks the tail that would allow him to fly freely. Hiccup never again tries to make a fully-functioning tail, realizing it’s taboo; the most he and Toothless can do is compromise with a gliding tail by HTTYD 2.

SMALL SIZE

Another physical disadvantage is that the Night Fury isn’t that big. In a dragon fight, Toothless has some severe disadvantages. He doesn’t have as much mass and muscle to keep him safe if he would want to battle a Monstrous Nightmare or a Stormcutter. Toothless could be overpowered in many straight dragon-to-dragon fight.

OVER-RELIANCE ON HICCUP

It’s not just that Toothless relies on Hiccup for flying, but he also relies too much on Hiccup for many other things. Toothless gets in trouble when he tries to stick to Hiccup too closely. His loyalty to Hiccup turns out to be a disadvantage justas much as an advantage. He loses his guard sooo many times when Hiccup is in trouble, such as seen in the end of“We Are Family Part 1.” Being chased off by Hiccup makes him more vulnerable for being mentally retaken by the Bewilderbeast and snatched up by Drago in HTTYD 2. But I could list off time after time after time something like this happens.

OVERCONFIDENT SWEEPS

Toothless’ attacks in the first movie often are at a distance where he is safe and out of danger. He flies over quickly, makes a shot, then shoots away as quickly as he can, hovering in the dark where no one can detect him. When Hiccup starts riding Toothless, though, he uses his attacks a bit more bluntly and confrontationally. When Toothless sweeps in close to ships to fire at them, he risks being shot at… and indeed every once in a while that leads to some pretty severe mistakes on the battle field.

SUSPICION

Toothless is very suspicious of new visitors (unless, of course, Hiccup tells him to calm down). He will growl at them, threaten them, and not trust them one bit. This does keep Toothless safe, but he’s a little extreme about his first meeting hostility. Hiccup is too welcoming, Toothless is often too suspicious, and the two bros better find a balance.

LIMITED SCOPE OF MOTIVATION

This sounds weird, but let me explain: Toothless is always willing to go into battle and fight… so long as Hiccup is around. Toothless basically has two motivations for getting involved in something: 1) if he is directly threatened, or 2) if it involves Hiccup and the other Hooligans. When that doesn’t happen, Toothless is seen to be a bit more ready to give up or not get involved. Why does Toothless fight the Bewilderbeast? For Hiccup. Not necessarily for himself. His motivations definitely work in the situation, but they’re not always that independent of thought.