| “ | They say there are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true. The other is to refuse to believe what is. Maces and Talons. I began playing with my grandfather when I was just a boy. I always insisted on being the honorable Viking chief. I could never understand how he bested me time and time again. For years I assumed his skill transcended mine. I believed what wasn't true, but you see, in Maces and Talons, as in life, the line between good and evil is often unclear. Black and White can become grey so easily. What one soul considers evil, another might consider righteous. The honorable chief who fails to see this is found to be the fool. | „ |
| ~ Viggo's introductory speech. |
| “ | When Johann and Krogan left me for dead, a Monstrous Nightmare saved me. I spent my whole life hunting dragons, killing them. And I've come to respect them as equals. You taught me that, Hiccup. That's the final irony, I suppose. | „ |
| ~ Viggo's redemption. |
Viggo Grimborn is one of the secondary antagonists of Dragons: Race to the Edge, a part of the acclaimed How to Train Your Dragon franchise. He serves as an unseen antagonist of Season 1, the main antagonist of Season 2 through 4, the secondary antagonist of Season 5 and an anti-hero in Season 6.
He is one of Hiccup's greatest archenemies, the foe that outsmarted him countless times, and yet remains as one of the few opponents of Hiccup that respects his intelligence and doesn't belittle him for his physicality, which Hiccup respects back. He is also the de-jure leader of the Dragon Hunters, being the public leader tasked with keeping the identity of the real leader, Johann, hidden. Despite this, Viggo comes up with most of the plans and strategies himself, having nearly won most of the time and occasionally winning outright.
He was voiced by Alfred Molina, who also voiced Mister Freeze from Harley Quinn and portrayed Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- It is hard not to love his hobby of playing Maces & Talons and his wicked culture, while being given a soothing performance by Alfred Molina.
- While very heinous and was even a potential PE candidate before Season 5, he still hasn't committed any crimes solely for his enjoyment and his real motivation really being money, while not justifiable, is far from petty either. Harming people itself isn't even his main intention for his actions half the time, just sacrifices he has to make for the sake of profit or ensuring no opposition and threats and rarely engages in sadistic and needless cruelty, even as he crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
- Like his brother Ryker, Viggo has a cool sword which he wears on his back. The holster looks like a dragon head with a jewel that acts like an eye.
- Unlike the rest of the villains in the franchise, Viggo, even when losing, always keeps his composure. The only time he comes to close to losing his cool was when a smug Ryker provokes him by taunting him of his defeat, before immediately realizes he must hold himself together.
- He is one of the few villains the franchise to actually respect Hiccup's abilities and not belittle him for his poor physicality, while singlehandedly outsmarting him most of the time.
- He deduces that Heather was a traitor, to which he uses her to lure Hiccup to a trap and the rest of the Dragon Riders to lure the Flightmare, having known the Flightmare is an alternative to unlock the Dragon Eye instead of trying to get the tooth of a Snow Wraith, while also having successfully reclaimed the Dragon Eye.
- He allows Hiccup to make the cure for Astrid and save her life despite his willingness to profit from the cure of the Scourge of Odin, willing to exchange it with getting out of the island without them trying to stop him.
- He manage to quickly think Johann was smuggling something more than dragons on his ship, he also manage to almost see through Snotlout's disguise and when Snotlout used Berk's gold he quickly denounce he was a Dragon Rider, and finally he manage to to trick Hiccup to go after the chest that contains Berk's gold, knowing he has to come after it as a distraction for his escape, before Hiccup sees that the chest itself was already emptied by Viggo.
- Tricks Hiccup into nearly being ambushed by Viggo's men by abandoning many of his ships in one location, which failed only thanks to Dagur's sacrifice.
- He was prepared during his fake truce with Hiccup, having himself surrounded by Blue Oleanders, which are harmful to dragons, to prevent Hiccup from having Toothless to attack him.
- He makes a truce with Hiccup to allow him to save the Dragons in his turf and allow the Dragon Hunters to continue their business in their turf, drawing the border of their turfs near Caldera Cay to lure Hiccup as a distraction for the Defenders of the Wing, by making him think it is an island Viggo wants him to keep away from, to steal the Eruptadon from under everyone's noses to eat through the dormant volcano at the Edge to destroy it, crippling Hiccup's operations.
- He manages to keep Hiccup cornered from getting to the Eruptadon, having ships preventing him from gong straight into the island, to go around it, and has some of his own men using the ballista Astrid built to keep them away also.
- Fools the Dragon Riders by using the gold to build ancient Viking ruins in plain sight.
- He lures the Dragon Riders to their doom by encasing his ships made of Dragon-proof metal with wood to fool them. His tactic only failed due to Dagur's special move, something that is illogical for Viggo to predict.
- Viggo shows how observant he is when he notices Tuffnut's Gronckle Iron mace, Macey, and quickly deduces that Project Shellfire was infiltrated.
- When capturing Ruffnutt, Viggo maintains a polite attitude, asking her if she wants refreshments and is willing to pay her for the information she gives.
- Manages to finish Project Shellfire despite the Dragon Rider's interference.
- When Ryker manages to betray Viggo and usurp him, Viggo manages to get back at him by allying with the Dragon Riders to help them stop him, using the information he got from the Dragon Eye to summon a Submaripper, the Shellfire's enemy, managing to kill Ryker. Even if Ryker was his brother and it wasn't for altruistic reasons, Viggo in this situation is still root able considering how likable he is compared to his more brutish, much viler and less intelligent brother, and because of him, the entire Barbaric Archipelago was saved from destruction.
- He restrains Astrid, one of the strongest, or the strongest, of all the Dragon Riders, after having deduced her relationship with Hiccup even before the battle with Ryker, in order to take her hostage to have Hiccup give the Dragon Eye to him.
- Manages to survive his fall into the volcano. It is thanks to such traumatic experience that Viggo started mellowing down.
- Using his fall to the volcano to fake his own death.
- While himself is a bad boss, he shows disgust at how even more horrible of a boss Krogan is, even going as far to save one of his men from falling into the volcano at the Edge due to Krogan's treatment of his men being pointlessly cruel and sadistic, as Viggo doesn't engage in pointless cruelty when sacrificing his minions.
- Has a strategy that lead to the successful takeover of the Edge, and also manages to reclaim the Dragon Eye.
- Manages to predict Krogan's attempt to literally stab him in the back from a mile away.
- He also saw a flaw in Krogan’s plans and allow him to proceed only to humiliate his rival.
- He is the one who denounce that the Dragon Eye will only show the King of Dragons if the proper lenses are found. He also suggested Johann, his actual leader the whole time, on a simpler path by trying to steal Hiccup's lenses, knowing that Johann was tricking Hiccup that he was an ally to them at the time. It only failed thanks to one of the Dragon Hunter's who ambushed him botching up the strategy by asking for the lenses.
- After Johann and Krogan left him for dead and a Monstrous Nightmare saves him, Viggo gains a newfound appreciation for dragons and refuses to harm them anymore, leading to his eventual redemption. Even when many of his most honorable moments beforehand were mere pragmatism, with this, it is clear even if many of them were for pragmatic reasons, Viggo was not devoid of honor.
- Lures Hiccup with a forged mail from Stoick to help him and seasoned a fish he fed Toothless with red oleander, which lied to being something that could kill him, when instead, it is harmless to Toothless.
- He built his improved version of the Inferno, Hiccup's flaming sword, which Hiccup will use as an inspiration to create his second one after his first one broke.
- Proves himself to be a great swordsman by overpowering Hiccup in a sword duel.
- Successfully tames a Skrill by using a metal dagger, using him in his scheme to get revenge against Johann and Krogan, all very effortlessly. In addition the feat was much easier than when Hiccup or Dagur trained the Frozen Skrill.
- After Johann and Krogan betrayed him, Viggo realizes Johann only viewed him as a pawn, Viggo still attempts to get back on them, helping Hiccup to reclaim the Dragon Eye, and when Johann suspects his betrayal, Viggo uses his fire sword to unleash Hideous Zippleback gas, freeing Hiccup & Toothless as well as the Skrill.
- Despite not taking action, he is shown to be a skilled fighter and proved several times to be superior to Johann and Krogan. He easily defeated Heather whereas Krogan had struggle to defeat her and while pined to a wall by Johann and had a knife to his throat, Viggo manage to push Johann back, proving he has superior fight skills than either him or Krogan.
- When mortally wounded, Viggo makes peace with Hiccup at last, telling him that red oleanders were harmless after being grateful to dragons after one saved him, planning to sacrifice himself to let Hiccup, Toothless and the Skrill escape, the latter only stays after having grown an appreciation for him and fought alongside Viggo during his final stand, giving him a dying moment of awesome as a result.
- Overall, despite being one of the most heinous villains in the franchise, none of his heinous acts overshadow his magnificence, with a big reason due to being pitted against the much more loathsome and cold-blooded Johann, as well as Krogan and his brother Ryker, who are much viler than Viggo due being more pointlessly cruel in their actions and even being Pure Evil, so Viggo comes off as a lighter shade of black in comparison.
What Makes Him A Baddie?[]
- Has a genocidal campaign against dragons, planning to exterminate as many as he can to profit off their remains.
- He presumably has one of his men killed when he stole from the inventory, or tortured.
- Enslaves multiple Quakkens to build his stronghold made of marble block, an element that is purely dragon proof to anything except the Catastrophic Quakkens.
- Attempts to start an epidemic of the deadly Scourge of Odin disease to profit of his cure, to create the demand for it, and used some of his own men to start it.
- Dooms Caldera Cay to be destroyed from the lavas of its active volcano. He also starves the Eruptadon for his plan to destroy Dragon's Edge.
- He has a Submaripper deprive the already financially crippled Berk of its trade routes by having it kill multiple traders to divert the others.
- Attempts to have Ruffnutt drowned when she refused to give him information.
- Enslaves the Shellfire with the implication to threaten multiple islands to be his allies with extermination if they refuse to ally to him.
- Orders Jarg to be executed when he ends up failing the Ice Tail Pike operation by throwing him in a Whispering Death hole.
Trivia[]
- He, along with Alvin the Treacherous are so far the only HTTYD characters to be a MB.
External Links[]
- Viggo Grimborn at the Villains wiki
- Viggo Grimborn at the Heroes wiki
- Viggo Grimborn at the Inconsistently Heinous wiki
- Viggo Grimborn at the Inconsistently Admirable wiki
[]
 Magnificent Baddies
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Animated Features Animated Television | ||