How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming is the second Christmas Episode of DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon franchise. When it becomes clear that the new generation of Vikings doesn't remember the bond between dragon and human, Hiccup sets a plan to celebrate dragons with a grand Snoggletog holiday pageant and gets a heartwarming surprise visit from Toothless for one more adventure.
Tropes used in this short include:
- All Part of the Show: The stage fire and Toothless appearing and replacing Hiccup did nothing to impede the pageant's intended purpose (to acclimate the children to dragons and honor Stoick). If anything, it helped.
- Answer Cut: As Hiccup asks if Toothless misses him, we see Toothless drawing a picture of Hiccup on the sand.
- Artistic License – History: In-Universe. Gobber's play takes heavy liberties with the story of how Hiccup tamed Toothless and brought peace between Berk and the dragons. Most notably, Hiccup himself isn’t the one to tame Toothless at all.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Tuffnut's portrayal of first film Hiccup is stilted and awkward... not that it doesn't describe Hiccup or anything...
- Belated Child Discipline: Toothless and the Light Fury give their kids a serious telling off for sneaking out unsupervised by sternly roaring at them.
- Black Comedy: One holiday the Hooligans have is "Black Plague Friday" where "nothing gets done, everybody's just shopping and coughing."
- Butt-Monkey: Hiccup is constantly hit by his daughter's dragon traps, gets reminded of what kind of a person he was like before the events of the films to the extent that his wife actually mistakes the person playing Hiccup as him, got Demoted to Extra in his very own play, has all his achievements credited to his father, and becomes trapped in the Toothless costume he himself invented. In the end, he gets some consolation when his play accomplishes what he wanted: to honor Stoick's memory and endear the next generation of Berkians to dragons.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': The Night Lights sneak off to visit New Berk. Toothless and the Light Fury figure out they snuck off within hours.
- Christmas Episode: This is the second Christmas special set in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, the first being Gift of the Night Fury.
- Comically Missing the Point: After hearing Fishlegs do a dead-on impression of Stoick, Gobber comes to the conclusion that he should play Stoick himself.
- Contrived Coincidence: The fact that the Night Lights sneak off to Berk (and unwittingly bringing their parents there) happens the same day the New Berkians make a pageant to convince the children that dragons are good is a complete coincidence.
- Covers Always Lie: Toothless, Hiccup, and their families don't meet in any intentional way. The dragons aren't even there for a visit; Toothless and the Light Fury come by to retrieve their wayward kids and leave almost as quickly.
- Demoted to Extra: In-Universe, Gobber's script for the pageant makes Stoick the one to tame Toothless, while Hiccup is demoted to being the Plucky Comic Relief.
- Dénouement Episode: Serves as one to the How to Train Your Dragon franchise as whole, as this is set after the Grand Finale shown in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, but shortly before the Distant Finale since it shows how the people of New Berk are coping without their dragons ten years after parting ways.
- Dramatic Drop: Zephyr drops the sharpened stick she's been carrying when she meets Toothless backstage after the pageant.
- Do I Really Sound Like That?: Hiccup has this reaction at Tuffnut's impression of him.
- Good Parents: Hiccup and Astrid are shown to be this to Zephyr and Nuffink. Likewise Toothless and the Light Fury are shown to be good parents to the Night Lights.
- Happily Married: Hiccup and Astrid are this after ten years of marriage in addition to having two children, and are shown to be still loving and supportive to one another.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Discrimination and prejudice can never fully disappear from society; even if one generation learns to look past it, the next generation afterwards can still develop it entirely of their own accord, especially when they're more inclined to believe the words of multiple generations of discrimination over their own parents. Without proof otherwise at an early age, Hiccup's children would've likely grown up into dragon-haters purely because of all the historical records depicting them as fearsome monsters.
- Related to the above aesop, it shows that even doing the right thing (or arguably, in Hiccup's case, what was simply the least bad option at the time) can still result in unavoidable negative consequences, both in the short term (the dragons leaving left many people to grieve for a while) and long term (future generations both end up hating dragons and never being able to see one).
- Hey, Let's Put on a Show: Seeing that his children are growing to fear dragons in spite of what their parents tell them, Hiccup decides to throw a Snoggletog pageant.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: Inverted. Gobber demphasizes Hiccup's role in ending their war with the dragons and emphasizes his less admirable traits, the Hiccup character in the pageant being portrayed as more cowardly and weak than he was.
- History Repeats: Discussed. Hiccup stages the play because signs point to their children's lack of exposure to dragons will cause them to fear them like their ancestors did.
- Inventional Wisdom: Hiccup felt the need to include the ability to breathe fire in his Toothless costume, which Gobber rightly questions as Hiccup flails around in the costume trying to get it under control.
- Kid Has a Point: In-spite of every adult's insistence to the contrary, Zephyr's fear of dragons is perfectly rational in a vacuum. They are giant, flying, sharp-toothed, fire-breathing animals that were technically responsible for her father's missing limb. Good thing she never asked who killed her grandfather...
- Like Father, Like Son: Zephyr is shown to be mechanically inclined like Hiccup. Nuffink is shown to have a rough and tumble personality not unlike Astrid.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: With the smoke caused by the fire and Hiccup unable to see inside his costume, no one catches on that "Toothless" is the real thing.
- The Nose Knows: After Toothless saves Hiccup while the latter is in a Toothless costume, Toothless recognizes his scent and licks the costume affectionately. After the pageant, Toothless meets Zephyr, and recognizing Hiccup's scent on her, realizes that she is Hiccup's daughter, giving her a friendly smile.
- Running Gag:
- Nuffink has the odd habit of banging his head against random things.Astrid: Kid can take a hit.
- Every time Hiccup says in voice over "and then it hit me", he gets hit by something.
- Nuffink has the odd habit of banging his head against random things.
- Slapstick: A lot of comical mishaps occur to different characters that walk into Zephyr's traps.
- Stock Footage: The special ends with a cropped and edited version of the ending of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
- Vanity Project: Hiccup has the idea of making a pageant that retells how the Hooligans made peace with the dragons, and asks Gobber to co-produce the show and write the script. Gobber winds up hijacking the show by making it all about him and his grief over Stoick, rewriting events so that it was Stoick who tamed Toothless, with Gobber even insisting that he himself play the lead-role.
- Voice Changeling: Fishlegs is able to mimic Stoick's voice perfectly, amazing everyone who hears it. Despite this, Gobber still passes him over for the part.