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(Hiccup reading)

Night Fury: Speed: Unknown. Size: Unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this Dragon. Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you.

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Hiccup

You know, I just happened to notice the book had nothing on Night Furies. Is there another book? Or a sequel? Maybe a little Night Fury pamphlet? WHOA!

In the original How To Train Your Dragon, when Hiccup looks up the existing information about the Night Fury dragons, everything is listed as being "unknown", yet everyone seems to be able to immediately identify that Toothless is a Night Fury.

This continues into the second movie, where Eret, Valka and Drago all immediately recognize the species. Valka states that Toothless may be the last surviving Night Fury.

The Night Fury species seems to be awfully recognizable for a species that is supposedly all but extinct, and that no information is known about it.

blank page about night furies

What happened to the rest of the Night Fury dragons? Is this addressed in any of the extra materials, or in any of the books?

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  • 5
    The manual isn't about identifying dragons, it's about describing their characteristics so that they can be defeated. Since no one has been able to see or kill a Night Fury (Toothless is identified as a Night Fury during his attack on the village at the start of the movie by the shriek he emits), there are no statistics to record. So instead, the manual author included ominous text to warn people to avoid Night Furies at all costs. This isn't the question you asked, so I leave this as a comment.
    – Ellesedil
    Oct 1, 2014 at 13:57
  • But that's my point - if no one has been able to see a Night Fury well enough to describe it at all in the book, then how is everyone able to recognize it so easily?
    – phantom42
    Oct 1, 2014 at 14:15
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    Because it has a distinct sound and method of attack, and it's very, very, very good at attacking.
    – Ellesedil
    Oct 1, 2014 at 14:16

6 Answers 6

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In HTTYD 3 the main villain, Grimmel confirms his goal was to eliminate all Night Furies from existence. He claims to have wiped out all of the Night Furies except Toothless. So we know that all the other Night Furies were hunted by Grimmel, and that Toothless escaped, presumably by his mother hiding him as a hatchling, or young dragon, before being killed herself.

This means that Toothless is the only Night Fury left because they were all hunted to extinction but somehow Toothless survived.

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  • Note that you can hide spoilers with >! at the start of the paragraph instead of saying "spoiler alert". I would do this for you but I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure exactly what it a spoiler. You should edit your answer to do this but make sure not to hide everything as the answer should still be largely readable with the spoilers hidden.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Mar 11, 2019 at 9:11
  • Hi Keeper_Fox14, please note the last part of what TheLethalCarrot wrote: but make sure not to hide everything as the answer should still be largely readable with the spoilers hidden.
    – Martha
    Mar 11, 2019 at 22:43
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The ultimate fate of Night Furies, as a species, may simply be beyond the capacity of non-winged being such as Vikings to be able to be determined. Even the knowledgeable Valka appeared to be guessing as to their fate.

  • Recognizing a Night Fury shouldn't be that difficult. It's flight profile, speed, aerial grace and signature plasma burst should make it almost unable to be mistake for any other dragon.

  • Since Night Furies are undoubtedly the most capable of all of the smaller dragons, it is in my mind, unlikely they would be extinct. Hard to find? Yes. Difficult to track? Yes. Highly intelligent and certainly smart enough to avoid Vikings? Most certainly.

  • Hiccup was only able to train Toothless BECAUSE it had been injured and unable to fly. The reason there was so little information about Night Furies is likely because they are smart enough to avoid humans.

  • Night Furies are an apex predator among dragon-kind and with their speed and flight prowess could possibly venture far beyond the Barbaric Archipelago where the Vikings live.

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    "Recognizing a Night Fury shouldn't be that difficult." I need to get a screencap, but I seem to recall the dragon manual not even having so much as a picture of the species. It seems odd that for someone so recognizable, they would have nothing about it in their manual.
    – phantom42
    Jun 23, 2014 at 13:54
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    @phantom42 - They fly only at night and are pitch black.
    – Valorum
    Nov 3, 2014 at 23:30
  • Why do you need a picture to identify something? I've worked with clients without ever meeting them in person and I can easily identify them if they call me just from their voice.
    – Ellesedil
    Nov 10, 2014 at 21:49
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    Agreed, you don't need a picture. The first scene in the movie, they recognise the Night Fury by the sound of the plasma blast. You also get the impression of something small, agile and incredibly fast. In the scene in the Arena when hiccup is attacked by the Monstrous Nightmare, Toothless arrives and blasts a hole in the arenas upper cage. The plasma blast is the only signature the people of Burk need to identify a Night Fury. In the second movie some characters (who have ventured far from Burk) can recognise a Night Fury, they've obviously encountered them, or spoken to someone who has.
    – Binary Worrier
    Nov 11, 2014 at 13:06
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In the trailer for HTTYD3, it's revealed that every single other Night Fury was hunted into (almost) extinction by the main villain of the film and his roving band of Night Fury Hunters.

This also provides an answer for the other parts of the question. Why do people know about Night Furies if they're so rare? Because there's a roving band of people hunting specifically for this species, and of course these people are going to spread around a lot of legends about them.

It also suggests that Toothless is the very last of his species, as according to the Night Fury Hunters, they have killed every single one of his species apart from one, which is Toothless.

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  • This answer will be greatly improved once the movie comes out.
    – Möoz
    Jun 8, 2018 at 3:05
  • Also, I wonder if that's why he's Toothless.
    – Möoz
    Jun 8, 2018 at 3:06
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The cloak worn by Drago Buldvist, the 'stranger from a strange land' appears to be made from a dragon skin which looked suspiciously like the hide of a Night Fury.

enter image description here

It's certainly possible that HTTYD:3 will be about finding more Night Furies and that Toothless (alpha by strength, courage and nobility) is some Royal Night Fury family's lost prince and that Drago's people are the ones who drove them to the brink of extinction and thus into hiding.

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    This doesn't seem to answer the question of "Is this addressed in any of the extra materials, or in any of the books?" This seems to merely be a guess that it may be covered in a sequel.
    – Meat Trademark
    Nov 10, 2014 at 21:01
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    @MeatTrademark - It may be a guess but I certainly wouldn't like to bet against him...
    – Valorum
    Dec 9, 2014 at 13:39
  • There are no additional night furies in HTTYD3. There's a "light fury" but she's not the same species as Toothless.
    – Valorum
    Jun 7, 2018 at 20:29
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The director of HTTYD3 has confirmed in an AMA on Reddit that Toothless, a night fury, is indeed the very last of his kind. He will meet a female light fury (a similar but non-identical species) in the upcoming sequel.

Unlike toothless, she is not the last of her kind.

The ultimate fate of the other night furies isn't described.

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Technically speaking there is no outside info that covers anything about identifying a night fury. However process of elimination leads us to believe that Toothless is the last night fury because even Valka doesn't know about them. The other's fate is unknown.

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  • Valka doesn't know about them? She can identify Toothless's age by looking at him and knows about his fins that neither Toothless or Hiccup knew about.
    – phantom42
    Dec 2, 2014 at 23:48

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