How to Train Your Dragon, and Collapse
May. 3rd, 2010 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedSummary: I read Collapse by Jared Diamond, and then I watched How to Train Your Dragon from Dreamworks Animation SKG. Hilarity ensued.
The premise of HTTYD is that Vikings have been living on a small, isolated, difficult island for 300 years and have never before now learned how to adapt themselves to the native fauna - namely, dragons. Having just read an account of Viking society in Greenland I can totally believe this. ^^;
For instance, did you know that the Greenland Norse didn't eat fish? This despite the fact that many died of starvation each winter, and fish is modern Greenland's number one export. The main reason given by Diamond for this stupendous oversight on the part of the Vikings was the difficulty of changing the way things were done in a conservative, hierarchal society which was made more conservative and hierarchal by the tough conditions on Greenland - experimentation could be deadly, and going against the chief and being cast out alone into Greenland's arctic winter was guaranteed to be deadly. And, indeed, it is the chief's son in HTTYD who is the first to attempt, and succeed, in establishing another way.
However I am reluctant to extend this connection much further, since the opposing force on Greenland was the Inuit to the North, and the way for Vikings to have had a productive, cooperative existence with them would definitely not have been to have tamed them and made them into pets. XD;;
I think the setting is supposed to invoke Iceland more than Greenland, anyway, with the volcanoes and dense forrests. Another thing I learned from reading Collapse is that Iceland's forrested slopes concealed a hidden ecological weakness, in that once the trees were removed the topsoil - light, volcanic ash - was simply blown away, leading to the moonscape-like slopes you see today.
In other words, a small, isolated island would not have supplied enough trees for the Vikings to have rebuilt their village out of wood every time parts of it were burned down in dragon attacks, approximately every other day, nor would the slopes have supplied enough grass for the numbers of sheep they would have to have kept in order to have survived through the winter, with half of them being carried off.
I have also learned from Jared Diamond's other book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, that it's not very likely that humans would have run into a wild species as easily tamed as the dragons are here. In HTTYD, dragons have the personalities of housecats**, but we've spent thousands of years breeding cats to make them that tame.
Patently ridiculous science-based criticisms aside, I liked the movie. :) It's an obvious geek empowerment fantasy, with the main character even having the nasal geek voice. But the many different designs for dragons and the focus on (cartoon) Viking psychology, Its Strengths and Weaknesses, make the movie fun. The script is smart and has just the right amount of foreshadowing/repeated jokes, and the lesson that the best way to solve problems is not to hit them over the head with a hammer, but to actually observe what is there, take notes, and then act according to what you have observed, is a good one for kids, I think.
**Or at least the main dragon, with the most personality, has the personality of housecat. He also has no snout, which makes him irresistably cute to humans, of course, because the flat face makes him look more like us. ^^v
The premise of HTTYD is that Vikings have been living on a small, isolated, difficult island for 300 years and have never before now learned how to adapt themselves to the native fauna - namely, dragons. Having just read an account of Viking society in Greenland I can totally believe this. ^^;
For instance, did you know that the Greenland Norse didn't eat fish? This despite the fact that many died of starvation each winter, and fish is modern Greenland's number one export. The main reason given by Diamond for this stupendous oversight on the part of the Vikings was the difficulty of changing the way things were done in a conservative, hierarchal society which was made more conservative and hierarchal by the tough conditions on Greenland - experimentation could be deadly, and going against the chief and being cast out alone into Greenland's arctic winter was guaranteed to be deadly. And, indeed, it is the chief's son in HTTYD who is the first to attempt, and succeed, in establishing another way.
However I am reluctant to extend this connection much further, since the opposing force on Greenland was the Inuit to the North, and the way for Vikings to have had a productive, cooperative existence with them would definitely not have been to have tamed them and made them into pets. XD;;
I think the setting is supposed to invoke Iceland more than Greenland, anyway, with the volcanoes and dense forrests. Another thing I learned from reading Collapse is that Iceland's forrested slopes concealed a hidden ecological weakness, in that once the trees were removed the topsoil - light, volcanic ash - was simply blown away, leading to the moonscape-like slopes you see today.
In other words, a small, isolated island would not have supplied enough trees for the Vikings to have rebuilt their village out of wood every time parts of it were burned down in dragon attacks, approximately every other day, nor would the slopes have supplied enough grass for the numbers of sheep they would have to have kept in order to have survived through the winter, with half of them being carried off.
I have also learned from Jared Diamond's other book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, that it's not very likely that humans would have run into a wild species as easily tamed as the dragons are here. In HTTYD, dragons have the personalities of housecats**, but we've spent thousands of years breeding cats to make them that tame.
Patently ridiculous science-based criticisms aside, I liked the movie. :) It's an obvious geek empowerment fantasy, with the main character even having the nasal geek voice. But the many different designs for dragons and the focus on (cartoon) Viking psychology, Its Strengths and Weaknesses, make the movie fun. The script is smart and has just the right amount of foreshadowing/repeated jokes, and the lesson that the best way to solve problems is not to hit them over the head with a hammer, but to actually observe what is there, take notes, and then act according to what you have observed, is a good one for kids, I think.
**Or at least the main dragon, with the most personality, has the personality of housecat. He also has no snout, which makes him irresistably cute to humans, of course, because the flat face makes him look more like us. ^^v
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-04 03:21 am (UTC)Yeah, the designs were cool and colorful. Though the girl, Astrid, should totally have gotten the big dragon-looking dragon to ride on at the end. The loutish boy should have gotten the silly Chameleon-looking one. Maybe he refused, XD.
Sharkskin rug!!! That is definitely awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-04 03:56 am (UTC)Although I do wish there'd been a little more time between sharpening-her-axe-threateningly!Astrid and kiss-on-the-cheek-thanks-for-everything!Astrid. Just... a little rushed... :D;;;