Can Hiccup Supply Enough Fish to Maintain a Dragon’s Diet?

• Main Author: Doua, Amal
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Leicester 2017
• Subjects: Film; Biology; Nutrition; Dragon; Toothless; How to Train Your Dragon; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/jist/article/view/733

Toothless is a Night Fury dragon who appears in the How to Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) franchise, and is said to be the rarest, fastest, and most intelligent of the dragon species. In the 2010 film, Toothless is struck down during a dragon raid and loses his left tail-fin, leaving him trapped in a sunken area. This paper investigates the feasibility of Hiccup, a teenage boy, being able to supply enough fish to maintain the dragon’s diet by catching and bringing fish to him. It was found that in the twelve days that Toothless was trapped, he would have required 13 Icelandic cod and 56 Atlantic salmon every day, which totalled 716 kg. Hiccup would have had to carry 828 fish weighing at total of 8592 kg over the twelve days, which is unrealistic since he struggles to lift a shield in combat.