| “ | Odin help us. | „ |
| ~ Stoick upon seeing the Red Death. |
| “ | It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers, and that's their queen. It controls them. | „ |
| ~ Astrid describing the Red Death's behaviour of his nest. |
The Red Death is the main antagonist of DreamWorks' 19th full-length animated feature film, How to Train Your Dragon, which is based on Cressida Cowell's children's fantasy novel series of the same name.
He is a gluttonous, misanthropic, and tyrannical dragon that lives within the Barbaric Archipelago, having been responsible for the deadly war between dragons and Berk when he enslaved them into getting food for him and destroying human villages, sparking humanity's resentment towards his kind. He is also Toothless' former master.
His vocal sound effects were provided by Frank Welker, who also voiced the Kandarian Demon in The Evil Dead, Thumper in A Bug's Life, Megatron in Transformers: The Game, a possessing Unicron in Transformers Prime Beast Hunters: Predacons Rising, the Windigo in the film of the same name, and Shockwave in Tranformers: Dark of the Moon.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He blackmailed and enslaved all the dragon species in the Barbaric Archipelago to his will, forcing all of them to gather food to offer for him while leaving little leftovers for his slaves, thus starving them to death.
- If any dragon didn't offer an appropriate amount of food for him or refuse to acknowledge him, he will eat them alive as sacrificial food. This was demonstrated when a Gronkle did not give him a large enough amount of food (one single, small fish), he devours the dragon alive, causing all the dragons to cower and flee in fear.
- Then, when he sees Toothless and senses humans in his nest, he attempts to kill them, but as the rest of the dragons flee, he takes one of the Zipplebacks to consume (he was aiming for Toothless, but instead got the Zippleback instead and consumed it).
- If any dragon didn't offer an appropriate amount of food for him or refuse to acknowledge him, he will eat them alive as sacrificial food. This was demonstrated when a Gronkle did not give him a large enough amount of food (one single, small fish), he devours the dragon alive, causing all the dragons to cower and flee in fear.
- He had his brethren raid villages for food and causing the deaths of hundreds of humans and thousands of dragons and starting the thousand year war between the two races.
- When most of Berk went on another expedition and found Dragon Island, the Red Death crashes through the mountains and burns down their ships to strand them, which still had people inside and likely killed a sizeable portion of them, as they laid lifeless in the water.
- Upon stranding them all upon the island, the Red Death attempts to slaughter or devour all of the citizens there, which would have wiped out most of Berk had Hiccup and Toothless not intervened. He almost killed Gobber and Stoick if it wasn't for the timely of the Dragon Riders.
- He almost blasted Barf and Belch with Ruffnut and Tuffnut with his fire breath.
- He almost stepped on Fishlegs and Meatlug if it wasn't for Snotlout injuring his eyes. When Snotlout stopped for a minute, he attempted to knock him off by moving his head, almost causing him to fall.
- He attempts to swallow Astrid and Stormfly whole by inhaling them, nearly succeeding, and he would've succeeded if Hiccup and Toothless hadn't saved them.
- He attempted to kill Toothless and Hiccup one last time by attempting to burn them alive and even eating them.
- He is responsible for the loss of Hiccup's left leg.
- The Red Death, like most dragons in the franchise, is shown to have some vague semblance of sapience and have agency. Other king and queen dragons such as Valka's Bewilderbeast (and most Bewilderbeasts) provide food for its subjects and also protects them or the Fireworm Queen are much more benevolent and less cruel than the Red Death.
- The Green Death is a close relative of the Red Death, yet is still less aggressive, ravenous and cruel than the Red Death, proving the Red Death understands the cruelty and evil of his actions and that they're not the results of wild instincts. Fittingly, he is the only dragon Toothless and Hiccup were forced to kill so dragons can live in peace.
- While very flat in character due to being a voiceless mega-predator and being the only one of his kind, the Red Death has enough personality to not be a generic doomsday villain, in which his main motive is gluttony, something a GDV can never have, has shown some vague form of sapience, with him burning down the ships being a strategic tactic and preferring to not get his own food.
- While his death of swallowing Toothless's plasma blast and exploding is very horrifying and violent, he 100% deserved it for all his crimes against the dragons and humans.
- While the franchise has other Pure Evils (namely Drago Bludvist, Grimmel the Grisly, Krogan, and Ryker Grimborn) most, if not, all of them were dragon hunters who believed all dragons were nothing but simple monsters that deserved to be either destroyed or oppressed, a stereotype the Red Death himself could've easily instilled in, or even straight-up created thanks to his above actions, especially since it's heavily implied that his species could live far longer than not just humans, but most other dragon species shown in the franchise.
- He also proves to be the worst of them due to having a far longer influence than them since he's cited as the dragon who started the war in the first place, and the fact he's the only one of the How to Train Your Dragon Pure Evils to resort to directly blackmailing and enslaving entire species of dragons, many of which with sentience comparable to his own, via fear instead of simply mind-controlling them to be beasts of burden.
Trivia[]
- The Red Death is the only Pure Evil from the How to Train Your Dragon film media to be a dragon, as both Drago and Grimmel are humans. He's also the only one with no speaking lines.
- The Red Death can be considered as the moral opposite of Toothless, as he's Pure Evil while Toothless is instead Pure Good.
- It is yet to be determined if his 2025 remake version could be considered as Pure Evil or not.
External Links[]
- Red Death on the Villains Wiki
- Red Death on the DreamWorks Wiki
- Red Death on the Universal Studios Wiki
- Red Death on the How to Train Your Dragon Wiki
[]
 Pure Evils
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