Revisit

 Last night at 10pm I went to the cinema alone to see How to Train Your Dragon. It was my first time to see a movie in 8 years. The last time I saw a movie at a cinema was when I was pregnant with Little O. I was already tired last night but I really couldn’t find any other better time to see it so I just went anyway. The movie wasn’t as good as the animation trilogy, but I still cried my eyes out.

I cried a lot because of the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless. Nobody on Berk truly understood dragons; only Hiccup saw the world through a different lens. He was different; he would not kill a dragon. He saw something in their eyes and even though he and Toothless didn’t have words, they could understand and connect so well. This explains everything in any relationship, between a parent and a child, between two lovers, two loyal friends, two countries, two cultures, etc. Having understanding is such a difficult thing to have in this world. I’ve been living my whole life not having been understood but I can understand others easily. I understand my children but they don’t understand me. I understand Angel but he doesn’t understand me. I understand my parents, my brothers but they don’t understand me. I understand my students but they don’t understand me. It’s always been like this my whole life. Is it because other people are always easier to understand than me?

Toothless wanted Hiccup to unarm himself between he would take the fish from Hiccup. Vulnerability. To begin to understand and trust someone, one must be vulnerable first. You can’t have armors around your heart. This is why no country in this world truly trusts the United States because the US has never been slightly less armored for once; they’re also bargaining for every term using their hegemonic power militarily, politically, and economically. Even their NATO alliances don’t really trust the US. Now, what about the relationship between two people? You have to be exposed, fragile, to make that connection happen. It is dangerous because you don’t know if Toothless would kill Hiccup, but once you’ve built that deep understanding and trust, you’d become so powerful, more than you’ve ever known.

For example, Toothless was injured and couldn’t fly on his own anymore. He had to trust Hiccup to help him and to overcome his limitation. If Toothless could never trust Hiccup, then Toothless would be living with his limitation for the rest of his life. Hiccup wouldn’t be able to explore a whole new world without Toothless. He would continue to live in the same protected structure provided by his dad, the Viking tribe, believing in the same thing as everything else did.

Why could Hiccup do it but no one else could on Berk? He is different, maybe neurodivergent. He is a very sensitive child, and he could not be numbed to toughen up like other Vikings. He refused to be that way or he simply couldn’t. Not feeling compassion for others could be like amputating a part of him.This is the part that always resonates with me the most in the Dragon trilogy. No matter how hard life gets, I just can’t fully stop feeling and become dead on the inside. However, most people in the world are able to do that. Why is that though? I often wonder if they have a heart. They would think they do, but they just can’t feel as much as I do. 

Then growth. With their intuitive understanding and trust of each other, they keep choosing each other again and again. They’ve got each other’s back. Hiccup almost lost his life to save Toothless and vice versa. If you’ve seen the animation trilogy, in the last movie of the trilogy, Toothless found his new powers that no one ever knew; even Toothless himself didn’t know that. It was inspired by love, true, unshakable love for each other and eventually that kind of love can transform one into something much more powerful. I have never experienced love like this with a man except for with my kids. A mother’s love is one-way though—I’d die to protect them but they would not do the same for me. Nobody has ever done something like that for me—choose me, love me, and be with me when I’m standing in the storms. I don’t need him to save me, but I need him to stand by me and not leave me alone in the storm.

Will I ever be able to find this kind of love?