Toothless and Alergic

My husband and I took our five-year-old, Will, to see How to Train a Dragon this afternoon. It was a cute story; animated of coarse. The setting was a remote island in the past that housed Vikings whose main job was to slay dragons.

The hero was a weak, thin, unappreciated boy that wasn't anything like everyone else on the island. He ends up befriending an injured dragon and eventually leading the entire village to a better understanding of dragons, thereby stopping a century long feud.

It was a good animated movie and we'll buy it first chance we get. But what I was left thinking about on the way home was the change that seems to be occuring in children's movies.

There have always been weak people that become strong, evil that turn good, ugly that become beautiful. But lately I've noticed that animated movies are trying to address more important, and seldom portrayed, aspects of human nature.

Toothless, the star dragon in the movie, was injured by a trap and lost a wing. He could no longer fly. The boy made several wings for him and together they were able to fly in the sky. Clearly showing that Toothless was no less without his wing; no less fast, scary, or helpful. The hero treated him no differently. They were just friends.

To take it one step further, towards the end of the movie there is a huge battle in which the hero loses his foot. He wakes up missing (oddly enough) the same foot as his dragon is missing a wing. Now him and Toothless, and their mechanical pieces, can fly threw the sky together.

Oh, and the allergy reference? The hero's love interest in the animated movie Cloudy with a Side of Meatballs has a deathly peanut allergy and suffers an episode during the movie.

My best friend's son is highly allergic to peanuts and her online allergy-support group were ecstatic about the movie. For the first EVER a character in a child's movie was portrayed with serious allergies. What a great way to let children whose entire life is ruled by their allergies know they are not alone as well as show children without alergies the consequences for others.

I'm sure all the support groups for children with amputees are buzzing about Toothless.

And I feel like the world I live in is just a tiny bit better tonight.