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| NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of the Red Death from the 2025 movie. The mainstream version can be found here: Red Death (How to Train Your Dragon). |
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The Red Death is the main antagonist of DreamWorks' 2025 live-action feature film How to Train Your Dragon, a remake of their 19th animated feature film of the same name, which was based on Cressida Cowell's 2003 children's fantasy novel of the same name.
Like her animated male counterpart, she is a gigantic kaiju-sized dragon who served as the tyrannical queen and empress of Dragon Island while being responsible for the deadly war between dragonkind and the vikings of Berk when she enslaved hundreds of dragons into getting food for her and destroying villages in the process, leading to the vikings developing a hatred towards her kind.
However, her reign of terror would eventually come to an end when Toothless, a Night Fury and one of the Red Death's former servants, meets, befriends and bonds with fellow viking Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III before showing Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast, the way to the Red Death's lair in an attempt to stop his former master from killing both the dragons and vikings and end the war permanently.
She is also based off her original incarnation of the same name.
Biography[]
Background[]
Not much is known about the Red Death's past beyond the fact that she took over Dragon Island three hundred years ago and enslaved thousands of dragons, whom she turns into her slaves to the point she became feared by them because of her ruthless nature. She then went into the center of the island's volcano, which she turns into her lair, to hibernate, where every year, she had her smaller dragon subordinates attack the villages of Berk, steal livestock and have them brought back to her lair for her to eat, eventually starting a war between dragonkind and the vikings of Berk. If her subordinates oppose her or haven't got enough food for her to eat, the Red Death will devour them alive as punishment.
How to Train Your Dragon[]
The Red Death first appears when Toothless brought Hiccup and Astrid to Dragon Island, feasting off what her servants feed her. After a Gronckle drops a tiny piece of fish to the Red Death, she emerges and swallows the dragon whole in a single bite. However, the Red Death spots Hiccup and Astrid when she sees that Toothless has contributed nothing and has humans on his back, but they manage to escape, but not before she eats a Hideous Zippleback.
When Stoick and his Vikings later arrive at Dragon Island and start attacking the nest, the Red Death emerges from her lair, attacks the Vikings and destroys their ships in the process. Fortunately, Hiccup and his friends arrive and while Hiccup's friends distract the Red Death, Hiccup and Stoick save Toothless from drowning as he was caged on one of the sinking ships. Hiccup and Toothless then lure the Red Death into the dark clouds and conceal Toothless' form. Toothless fires several plasma blasts at the giant dragon monster's wings, making holes in them.
Enraged, the Red Death shoots fire in all directions around herself and manages to set Toothless' prosthetic tailfin on fire. Using as much time as they had left and deciding the Red Death is far too dangerous to live, Hiccup and Toothless led the Red Death out of the clouds and allowed her to chase them until she attempted to deliver a fatal blow at them. However, Toothless fired a plasma blast right down the Red Death's throat, lighting her insides ablaze. Hiccup and Toothless spot their chance to get safely out of the way just in time, while the dragon's wings get ripped apart, causing her to hit the volcano at full speed and resulting in a gigantic explosion, killing the Red Death for good, ending the war and her reign of terror for good as well as freeing all the dragons in the process.
Appearance[]
The Red Death's appearance is mostly similar to that of her animated male incarnation, being a gigantic, bulky, muscular, kaiju-sized dragon with six eyes close to the front of her snout, enormous wings that are strong enough to give her a full-powered flight, a massive nasal horn that is large enough to be mistaken for a rocky pillar, a clubbed tail similar to an Ankylosaurus and a head frill. Her scales are blackish gray with a slight tinge of blue and a light orange on her belly and has scattered rows of dark-red, dull spikes all around her back. Her frill is dark red while her jaws contain jagged rows of thin, pointed, and long razor-sharp needle-like teeth. She also has a short neck that keeps her head close to the base of her torso and has relatively short legs that make her belly and head close to the ground when she stands.
Personality[]
Much like her animated male counterpart, the Red Death, unlike the other dragons despite being one herself, is shown to be an evil, monstrous, heartless, black-hearted, tyrannical, gluttonous, cannibalistic, bloodthirsty, sadistic and homicidal creature who only cares about being fed with food while never caring for anyone other than herself. Referred to as a queen of her hive by Hiccup and Astrid, she is seen enslaving a multitude of dragons, whom she sees as nothing but slaves that she uses to do the dirty work of bringing her food that she intends to eat. She is shown to be ruthless and unforgiving when it comes to food, attacking and devouring dragons when even one fails to bring a sufficient amount. When disturbed or her nest is invaded, she will attack and pursue her enemies ruthlessly, even chasing particularly persistent attackers down. Despite her bloodthirsty and cruel nature, she is also shown towards be a coward, as while plummeting towards the volcano, she was seen being visibly horrified as she was unable to slow her descent.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Firepower: The Red Death's methane-based flame jets are enormous and are powerful enough to take down an entire fleet of Viking ships in just one breath. The blazing torrents are able to create huge amounts of black smoke, which also makes them resemble volcanic pyroclastic flows.
- Immense durability: The Red Death's entire body is heavily armored with dense scales, horns and a coral-like frill, enabling him to perforate, pierce, and demolish enormous rock cliffs of the volcano and smaller mountains entirely. Her thick hide and sheer size allow her to overcome plenty of catapults, several of Toothless' plasma blasts, and various physical blows from the rest of the riders nearly unscathed.
- Immeasurable strength: The Red Death has demonstrated immense strength due to his gargantuan size, capable of effortlessly lifting up Viking ships in her mouth and crushing them with one powerful bite, and even smashing through the volcano and numerous sea stacks of Dragon Island, showing no strain. She utilizes her many advantages to combat the few brave souls that dare stand up to him, using his clubbed tail, immense size and weight to ram and shove while using her powerful jaws and limbs to shred through foes. She also utilizes her keen senses and flight to locate and track opponents and obliterate whatever remains with her powerful, explosive fire breath.
- Immense mobility: Because she is too gigantic, the Red Death is slower compared to other dragons. However, she is able to swing her tail or swing her head to smash other dragons or objects. Even so, she showed no lack of spe during flight, as he was fast enough to catch up with Toothless in the air. However, it's quite possible that Toothless only slowed down to make the Red Death stay close, or that his tail fin mechanism wasn't allowing the Night Fury to fly at maximum speed at the time.
- Powerful senses: The Red Death primarily uses her extraordinary senses and hearing in order to track and hunt down his prey. She also does not have a blind spot, due to having six sensitive eyes, and heavily relies on scent and hearing. her sense of smell was even strong enough to swiftly detect intruders in her volcanic abode.
- Mind control: The Red Death is capable of enforcing smaller dragons to obey, even against their wills. Her controlling measure is somewhat similar to the methods used by the Bewilderbeasts. Like bees, the queen howls a sub-vocal homing signals that reach miles away to call up minions. It is unknown how powerful this ability is compared to a Bewilderbeast, and so far, the Red Death has only been seen forcing other dragons to go to her nest. The Red Death is shown appearing unable to stop the Riders' dragons from attacking her, nor called upon other dragons for help. Unlike the Bewilderbeasts and kinder individuals, the Red Death can also harness fear to enslave other dragons; single stares from her six eyes is strong enough to diminish smaller dragons' self-possession completely. Commanding thousands of minions, the Red Death has acute intelligence and keen insight, to notice small events or intruders into her nest. The system to enslave and dominate smaller dragons in the areas in the first stages is unknown. The dragon, while in magma, seemed to command the minions to drop gathered foods into an exact spot; her mouth, otherwise the food would be cremated before passing through the fangs of the queen. It is also unclear whether she has traits of the Tidal Class to be able to manage respiration under thick liquids.
Trivia[]
- Despite her name, the Red Death is mostly black and part of her is red.
- This version of the Red Death is the first DreamWorks villain to appear in a live-action remake of the original film. She is also the first ever live-action villain in a DreamWorks movie.
- Her animated counterpart was confirmed by Chris Sanders to be male. In the live-action remake, the Red Death is referred to as a female several times by Hiccup and Astrid. This is possibly because in the animated franchise, the Red Death species as a whole is nicknamed the "Queen of Dragons".
- Like her animated male counterpart, the Red Death acts as a dark counterpart to Toothless. They are both dragons who have experienced fighting against humans during war. However, Toothless has his own moral center as he truly cares for other dragons like him, whereas the Red Death only cared about herself. Furthermore, Toothless was able to willingly bury the hatchet with the human race after bonding with Hiccup, while the Red Death fully refuses to do the same thing. The Red Death served as an example of what Toothless would've become if he never saw the entire humankind beyond their threatening aspect. The Red Death also represents what Toothless would've become if he hadn't met Hiccup and became friends with him.
