The Viking village of Berk, located on a remote island, is attacked frequently by dragons, which take livestock and damage property. Hiccup, the awkward fifteen-year-old son of the village chieftain, Stoick the Vast, is deemed too scrawny and weak to fight the dragons, so he instead creates mechanical devices under his apprenticeship with Gobber, the village blacksmith, though Hiccup's inventions often backfire. Hiccup was bullied by his four best friends and classmates, the cheerful Fishlegs Ingerman, the brainy Snotlout Jorgenson, and the Thorston twins, the fun-loving Tuffnut and the annoying Ruffnut. During one attack, Hiccup uses a bolas launcher to shoot down a Night Fury, a dangerous and rare dragon of which little is known, but no one believes him, so he searches for the fallen dragon on his own. He finds the dragon in the forest, tangled in his net, but cannot bring himself to kill it, and instead sets it free. Stoick assembles a fleet to find the dragons' nest, and enters Hiccup in a dragon-fighting class taught by Gobber, to train while he is away. Hiccup returns to the forest and finds the Night Fury still there, unable to fly because Hiccup's bolas tore off half of its tail fin. Hiccup befriends the dragon, giving it the name 'Toothless'. Feeling guilty for crippling Toothless, Hiccup designs a harness rig and a prosthetic fin that allow the dragon to fly with Hiccup controlling the prosthetic...