Red Death

The **Red Death**, is a gigantic Stoker Class dragon species in the first *How to Train Your Dragon film.*

It does not actively hunt, but it has its food delivered to it by
 other dragons in the nest. It will eat any dragon that does not bring
sufficient food; when a Gronckle brought only a single fish, the Red Death from the movie devoured it moments later.

True to the reputation as the 'queen of the dragons', the only
grown specimen seen in the franchise demonstrated savage, menacing, and
controlling nature that even a deadly Night Fury was frightened of (not unclear whether the other individuals in the species share this personality). In addition, according to Valka, every nests have their queens or kings, indicating that there could be numerous Red Deaths in the world.

## Abilities

The Red Death, the second biggest species after the Bewilderbeast, is a colossal dragon;
 literally its entire body is a weapon itself. The dragon primarily uses
 its enlarged nostrils (that slightly resemble those of the Deadly Nadders)
 and hearing in order to hunt down its prey. Its entire body is heavily
armored with horns and a coral-like frill, enabling the titanic beast to
 perforate, pierce, and demolish enormous rock cliffs of the volcano and
 smaller mountains entirely. It also has a tail specifically designed to
 smash into objects.

Not only with brutal, destructive power, the queen of dragons has
 been shown to have an incredible speed and stamina in flight despite
its tremendous size, being able to keep up with Toothless
 for long amounts of time. This gigantic dragon is able take many
attacks from other dragons, Stoick's strength from throwing wooden-like
spear, getting hit in the eyes by Snotlout, Toothless' Plasma blasts
attacks and being able to take the damage from crashing into the sea
stacks.

The dragon also does not have a blind spot, due to having six
sensitive eyes, and heavily relies on scent and hearing. As shown its
sense of smell was very strong enough to find intruders in her home. The
 Red Death's flame jets are enormous and are powerful enough to take
down an entire Viking fleet of ships in just one breath. Like other
dragons, however the Red Death can't hunt efficiently if its wings are
damaged and it's just as susceptible to fire on its insides.
Similar to the Bewilderbeasts, the Red Death is also capable of enforcing smaller dragons to obey even against their wills. Its controlling measure is somewhat similar to the methods used by the Bewilderbeasts, Valka, and Drago Bludvist:
 sounds. Like bees, the queen howls sub-vocal homing signals that reach
miles away to call up minions. It's unknown how powerufl this ability is
 compared to a Bewilderbeast, and so far, the Red Death has only been
seen forcing other dragons to go to her nest. The Red Death at the end
of How to Train Your Dragon appeared unable to stop the rider's dragons
from attacking her. Unlike the Bewilderbeasts and kinder individuals,
this Red Death was also harnessing fear to enslave other dragons; single
 stares from six eyes are enough to diminish smaller dragons' self
possessions completely.

## Dragons of the Red Death

The dragons of the Red Death are a group of dragons that are enslaved
 and forced to serve a injurious parasitism Red Death. The ones seen in
the first film include the Deadly Nadder, the Monstrous Nightmare, the Gronckle, the Hideous Zippleback, and even the powerful Night Fury.
 All or most dragons in the movie appear to serve the Red Death. The Red
 Death has been compared to a queen bee or a brood parasite. It is the
leader and all others serve it apparently out of fear of being eaten,
although it is unknown for certain how it became the leader of the other
 dragons. (It is possible that it invaded their home and proclaimed
itself as such or perhaps some kind of mind control similar to that of
the Bewilderbeast).

## In *How to Train Your Dragon*

Hiccup and Astrid discovered this dragon when Toothless followed a group of dragons to the volcano where the Dragons' Nest
 was contained. There they witnessed a Red Death eat a dragon that did
not bring enough food, deducing later on that this dragon forces all the
 others to steal food from Berk.

Stoick the Vast
 got this information out of his son, and soon led a party to where
Hiccup had explained, using a restrained Toothless as their guide.

Hiccup helps his friends tame their own dragons to rescue Toothless from the Hairy Hooligans who captured the dragon in hopes of being lead to the Red Death. Hiccup allies his friends with these dragons: Astrid and her Deadly Nadder, Snotlout and his Monstrous Nightmare, Fishlegs and his Gronckle, and Ruffnut and Tuffnut and their Hideous Zippleback.
 Hiccup then shares a ride with Astrid, and they part for the Red
Death's lair where they'll find Toothless and the Hairy Hooligans.

The Hooligans had opened fire on the side of the volcano and broke a
hole in it, freeing the dragons inside and waking the Red Death. The
dragons had gone, flying away, in fear of the wrath of the Red Death.
The Hooligans, though, were not aware of this until it existed the
mountain, plowing through the wall. The Hooligans fired at the dragon
with their catapults, which only prompted it to smash them. Terrified,
they attempted to retreat to their ships, but it destroyed them all
before most of them could even reach them. Before it could kill them,
however, Hiccup and his allies arrived on their dragons and diverted its
 attention.

Hiccup and Stoick later help free Toothless from his bonds, and
together, Hiccup and Toothless bombarded the Red Death with their fire.
The duo lead the Red Death to the sky, into the clouds. The Red Death
had lost track of them in the clouds, as they were using them as cover.

Toothless shot the Red Death in a sneak attack, and then
disappeared into the clouds; he repeated this multiple times, until
making the Red Death being enraged, and set the surrounding area in fire
 in circular motions. Toothless' synthetic tail caught fire, and they
had to hurry their plan.

Hiccup drove Toothless downward, and the Red Death followed close
behind. Toothless flew as fast as he could manage, though the Red Death
always strayed closer. Just before the Red Death was about blast its
fire at them, Hiccup turned his dragon and Toothless shot a blast into
the Red Death's mouth, overheating it. Once it saw the ground at a low
altitude, it tried to slow down to a halt. But the ignition of the
flames and gases escaping from the dragon's mouth damaged its thin wings
 and holes started to appear and enlarge. The Red Death then lost
control and crashed onto the shoreline, exploding to its death on
impact.

With the Red Death now gone, the dragons are now free and no
longer have to raid the island of Berk of their food anymore, and the
Hooligans were taught to live with them in peace.

## Deaths caused

* A Gronckle
* A Hideous Zippleback
* Unknown number of Vikings burnt on 14 ships

## Trivia

* While clearly meant to serve a similar role as the Green Death

from the book, the antagonist, the Red Death has quite a few differences
 from the Green Death: it doesn't appear to be a sea-dragon and instead
seems to be more dinosaur-like, it lives in lava, and whereas the Green
Death is almost a victim of fate, the Red Death is largely responsible
for all the trouble caused in the movie.

* In The Art of How to Train Your Dragon

 book from the film, the original designs and sketches all depicted it
as a far more sea-dragon-inspired creature to the point of it being
eel-like and covered in coral. The final design, however, went with a
combination of in-book traits and kept the aforementioned coral-like
spikes.

* The concept image of the Red Death was more slender and oceanic, faithfully reflecting images of the Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus

 in the books; literally being concept arts of the movie edition of the
Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus. Some of earlier concepts had multiple
crab-leg-like smaller limbs, or feeler-like tentacles resembling those
of sea anemones on tip of chin, coral-like projections as armours on
entire body, and a number of luminous organs like those of jellyfish and
 deep sea organisms, making it unlike any sea-dragons previously seen in
 the books. Because of these aspects, the concept dragons' heads to
necks somewhat resemble of dragons in eastern lore.

* In the movie, it's shown to have a more dinosaur-like head and mouth with a rhinoceros-like horn in its nose and a frill.
* According to developer commentary, the final fight with the Red

 Death was modified in its last scenes. After Hiccup and Toothless send a
 bolt of fire into its stomach and it begins to explode, they fly down
its spine and away to safety. In this scene the dragon's size was
tripled to make the scene more dramatic.

* In the movie, Tuffnut makes an allusion to Beowulf by calling the Red Death 'Bride of Grendel'.
* The Red Death is one of the many dragons that was not known to Berk, with no references to it in the Dragon Manual and shown through the sheer surprise of Gobber and Stoick when it bursts through the rocks.
* The Red Death is currently the only antagonist to actually be killed in the film franchise.
* Despite being called the Red Death, the only red parts on its

body are the small spikes on its sides and the ridges of its wings.

* This is the only species that had been confirmed so far to have multiple pairs of eyes on a single head.
* The live action theater version of the Red Death (the head)

features Boulder Class-like traits, slightly resembling monstrous
version of the Gronckle.

* Guide to the Dragons Vol. 2 said that the length of the Red

Death is 999 feet (304 meters). This is most likely a mistake as the Bewilderbeast is currently the biggest dragon in the franchise.

* The Red Death is one out of the four currently known dragons who eat other dragons; the others being the Scauldron, the Changewing, and the Death Song.
* Despite only one being seen, Tirek receives one himself, which he names: "Red Blast."