Grimmel the Grisly

## Villain Description

### Goals

Kill off every species of dragon in existence, starting with completing his Night Fury genocide by killing Toothless (failed).
Kill Hiccup and the Dragon Riders for interfering with his plans (failed).

### Hobbies

Killing dragons for sport.
Taunting Hiccup.
Feeding baby dragons to his Deathgrippers.

### Powers

Master intelligence
Brainwashing dragons through their own venom

### Skills

Precise shooting and hunting skills
Crossbow
Sneaking past guards and making traps
Pragmatic villainy

### Type of Villain

Opportunistic Dark Lord

**Grimmel the Grisly** is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Drago Bludvist) of the DreamWorks animated *How to Train Your Dragon* franchise, serving as the overarching antagonist of *Dragons: Dawn of New Riders* and the main antagonist of the final installment *How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World*. He is a big game hunter responsible for hunting down every Night Fury but Toothless, setting his eyes on him as his next target, as well as plotting to make all species of dragons go extinct (especially the Night Furies). He is Hiccup's archenemy during the events of the film.

He is voiced by F. Murray Abraham.

## Biography

### Background

#### Committing the Night Fury Genocide

When Grimmel was a boy, he found a Night Fury in a helpless situation similar to Hiccup. However, unlike Hiccup, he killed his Night Fury in its sleep. Because of this, he was hailed as a hero in his village, so his delusions grew to an extent that he believed that all dragons are pests that must be wiped out for good because of his belief that humanity is the superior species. In his old age, he became a big game hunter as he killed off dragons, including the Night Furies (except for Toothless, because he was sheltered by Hiccup), out of his own racism and sadistic pleasure. He also met Stoick, as well as Eret, and even brainwashed six Deathgrippers against their control, feeding them baby dragons.

#### Dealership with Eir Stormheart

Grimmel then made a dealership with the future warlord named Eir Stormheart, and the two created a deal with her giving him drugs for him to control more dragons, and him giving her tons of dragons for her to use for psychologically torturous experiments so that she could put armor on them to keep them under these horrific conditions so she could eventually use them as shock soldiers. However, he betrayed her, taking all of her ideas as well as her Chimeragon, and used these experiments himself to make his own shock soldiers. Unfortunately for him, the Chimeragon escaped from him, so he had his followers burn down the sanctuary that Hiccup built for the Chimeragon and other dragons.

### *How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World*

#### Hired by the Warlords

Grimmel is first seen on his flying contraption, which was carried by four of his Deathgrippers, with the other two flying alongside it, all the way to the Northern Alliance's base. There, the Warlords foolishly hire him to capture Toothless to bring him to them so they can use dragons to rule the world, and they also show him a bait (a female Light Fury, a subspecies of a Night Fury), even though he's a famous hunter who killed off all the Night Furies except him.

#### Going to Berk

After that, he slips past Berk's guards and makes a trap to capture both Toothless and the Light Fury so he can kill them. However, Hiccup exposes the trap to Toothless when the Light Fury wasn't around.

Grimmel later shows up at night, where he sneaks into Hiccup's house. Hiccup hears a noise and sees Grimmel with a hood on and drinking tea. While drinking his tea, though, Grimmel tranquilizes Toothless, and finishes his drink. He then taunts Hiccup's title as the new Chief of Berk, and reveals that he knew Stoick. After that, he reveals that he killed off all Night Furies except Toothless, telling Hiccup to give him up. However, Hiccup refuses, so Grimmel tries to manipulate Hiccup to believe that dragons and humans can't be equal because "it would be the undoing of civilization as we know it." It turns out that Grimmel actually tranquilized Fishlegs in a Toothless costume so he (Grimmel) could be captured, and the Dragon Riders burst in.

While Grimmel almost gets captured, he signals two of his Deathgrippers to burn down Hiccup's house, and threatens that if Hiccup doesn't give up Toothless, then he will destroy everything he (Hiccup) loves. After that, Hiccup runs out with his mom (Valka) and sees that Grimmel also burnt down an entire section of Berk.

#### Tracking the Dragon Riders

With that in mind, Hiccup has the Berkians leave Berk to find the Hidden World. It turns out that Grimmel has been planning to have Hiccup and the Berkians leave their island just so he can kill off their dragons easier.

When Hiccup and the Dragon Riders try to capture Grimmel again, they go right into his trap. There, Grimmel reveals to Hiccup that unlike him, he killed his Night Fury in its sleep when he came upon it. Hiccup calls him a hypocrite for killing dragons because he has dragons of his own, but Grimmel reveals that he drugged his Deathgrippers with their own venom, and they only serve him. He then signals for them to burn Hiccup and the rest of the Dragon Riders to their deaths, but the Dragon Riders are barely able to escape, with the exception of Ruffnut, who is captured by Grimmel. The next morning, she consistently annoys Grimmel. Through her, Grimmel finds out that the Berkians found a new island, and has her leave on a baby dragon, only so he can track her there.

#### Last Fight Against the Dragon Riders

Eventually, Grimmel captures Toothless and the Light Fury, and chains them up beneath his flying contraption. The other dragons come to the rescue, but Grimmel threatens Toothless that if the latter doesn't call them off, he (Grimmel) will shoot the Light Fury to her death. When Toothless calls off the dragons to protect the Light Fury, Grimmel takes them to the Warlords, where he reveals that he was never going to give them Toothless and he was going to kill him anyway. However, the Dragon Riders, in their flight suits, come to the rescue, and Hiccup knocks Grimmel aside. Then he tries to free Toothless, but Grimmel drugs the Light Fury and taunts Hiccup again about whether the Night Fury will save him or the Light Fury. He then takes off, but Hiccup is able to free Toothless.

Hiccup and Toothless then go after Grimmel, who has his Deathgrippers chase them down. However, Toothless is able to electrocute the Deathgrippers and knock them unconsciousness and falling in the sky, and Hiccup knocks Grimmel off the Light Fury's back, but not before Grimmel tranquilizes Toothless. Grimmel then tries to drag Hiccup down with him, taunting him again that if he frees the Light Fury, it'll kill the both of them. However, Hiccup frees the Light Fury anyway and asks her to save Toothless, and lets go. As both Grimmel and Hiccup plummet thousands of feet to sea level, the former rips apart Hiccup's armor. However, the Light Fury has saved Toothless and arrives to save Hiccup in time, so Hiccup takes off his prosthetic leg to Grimmel's surprise and gets rescued by the Light Fury, while Grimmel plummets to his death.

## Personality

Grimmel is an example of a notorious hunter. He is threatening, manipulative, and chaotic, but what really brings him down to the lowest levels of depravity is that he committed genocide on almost all the Night Furies (with Toothless being the last one left), fed baby dragons to his dragons (the Deathgrippers), and psychologically tortured dozens of dragons with extremely painful experiments for them to be used as shock soldiers. He will betray anyone to live up to his standards, as he betrayed the Warlords days after making a deal with them that they would pay him if he gives them Toothless, as well as Eir Stormheart after he gave her dragons to control as shock soldiers. He is also a racist, as he believes that humans are superior to dragons, and wants to wipe out the latter species; the racism started when he killed a Night Fury as a boy and was hailed as a hero by his village for it.

Grimmel is also very strategic, as he will use very sneaky methods to achieve his goals. For instance, he laid a trap in the woods so that Toothless and the Light Fury would come across it to be trapped so he can kill them, and also trapped Hiccup and the Dragon Riders so they could be burned alive by his Deathgrippers. He also uses his threats to get what he wants, as he threatened Hiccup so he could leave the Isle of Berk and make all of his dragons vulnerable, and threatened Toothless that he'll kill the Light Fury if he doesn't call off the dragons. It's likely that he would bring his threats into action if the ones he threatened refuse to listen to him, as he burned down Hiccup's house and acres of Berk (and also came back with the Warlords and the Northern Alliance the next morning), and was pointing his dart at the Light Fury when the dragons coming for help flew too close.

## Trivia

* Because Grimmel hunted down the Night Furies (with Toothless being the last one) and is arguably worse than Drago, he is the of the entire *How to Train Your Dragon* franchise.
* he, Red Death and Drago Bludvist are the only three *HTTYD* villains that are as while Drago killed off Hiccup's father (Stoick); Grimmel killed off almost all of Toothless's species (the Night Furies), leaving him as the sole survivor.
* Even though Grimmel wasn't shown killing off the Night Furies, there's still evidence that he did so. One such example is the island of Vanaheim in *Dragons: Race to the Edge*, where dragons must go to the tomb for each of their species at the time they die. There is no tomb for Night Furies, likely because Grimmel wiped them out.
* It's been proven that Grimmel died during his fall, as even though he landed in the ocean, he fell from thousands of feet. Falling into water from that height is like falling on concrete, so Grimmel's bones were shattered upon impact, meaning that Grimmel either died upon impact or eventually drowned to his death.

## Gallery

Grimmel with one of his Deathgrippers.Grimmel staring at Toothless.