Recently I watched How to Train Your Dragon 2. It’s an enjoyable film, even if they did fall into the trap that most sequels find – take everything good about the first film and make more of it. But HtTYD2 winds up as a very worthwhile sequel because it isn’t afraid to pull punches. (Enough of this, I’m sounding like a pretentious movie critic). Fair warning, there are spoilers below.
One theme of HtTYD2 is finding who you are. Sure, it’s a theme that’s been around for ages in animated films (Lion King anyone?) but HtTYD2 takes a different approach. Hiccup doesn’t know who he wants to be. He knows who he is but the curious nature of the present means that it’s always changing. Hiccup isn’t sure how to change with the times. But when everything comes crashing down, Hiccup has to discover who he will be because who he is wasn’t enough.
And here’s where HtTYD2 gets good. Hiccup looks to his parents’ example to discover who he is. He takes his father’s sacrificial love and stubbornness combining them with his mother’s optimism and dedication to become the leader that Berk needs and deserves. Not that Hiccup has any disillusions about his parents being perfect. His mother abandoned him and gave up hope, his father rarely has time to stop and listen. They’re human after all. Hiccup himself is flawed – he shirks difficult situations and lets his emotions get the best of him.
But in the end Hiccups discovers who he wants to be and his discovery comes through looking out at others and loving sacrificially. Which happens to tie in nicely with another set of thoughts that’s been going around in my head too.
Two of my college friends got married recently. I was blessed enough to be able to attend their wedding. It is a small wedding, well planned but having a simpler beauty rather than going for glamorous. The pastor who married my friends talked about sacrificial love, about putting the needs of the other before your own. In that sacrificial love within a marriage, something incredible happens. Two people become one. Yes, they’re still two unique, distinct individuals but it’s like they’ve become more themselves within their marriage. Knowing you are loved and accepted by a physical human being changes someone. You see it when you watch a daughter dance for her adoring father, when you watch a son caring for his elderly mother, when you see a couple holding hands as they walk together. Love frees us from trying to impress people and allows us to be ourselves, to be who we truly are.
Why does being who we truly are require love? Because love changes us. It refines us, draws us closer to being the image of God we were created to be.
So HtTYD2 really did get it right – who we are isn’t to be found inside of us. Who we are is out there, it’s with our parents, our loved ones, our spouses, our children. Most importantly though, who we are is with God, because no amount of human love, no matter how sacrificial, will ever compare to the love He gives to us each day.