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In 2010, DreamWorks Animation released the film How to Train Your Dragon to great critical and commercial success. The tale of young Hiccup, the gawyky son of the village chief, Stoick the Vast, was an engaging and beautifully rendered story of misunderstanding and redemption.
Taking place in the Viking days of yore on the mythical island of Berk, Hiccup dreams of becoming a dragon slayer, a position of high respect in a land where the beasts are a constant danger. Hiccup succeeds in netting his first dragon only to find that he couldn't bring himself to kill his catch. He takes pity and cuts the dragon free. Hiccup ends up befriending Toothless the dragon and in the process learns that dragons aren't so bad after all. Or wouldn't be if they weren't forced to do the bidding of an evil, gigantic dragon overlord named Red Death. If not for this Kim Jong-il of the dragon world forcing his will on his dragon underlings, everybody would all get along just fine. That's enough of a plot give-away. Watch the movie, it's well worth your time.
Helping our protagonist Hiccup is Gobber the Belch who is tasked with teaching him the ways of dragon slaying Viking style.
Gobber is known as the great-great-great-grandson of Bork the Bold, author of the first Dragon Manual.
In the course of Berk's long wars with the dragons, Gobber lost his left hand and right leg in battle with the creatures. He has managed to replace his missing limbs with a variety of metal prostheses of his own design and creation. His arm can be interchanged with other items such as a hammer or axe if needed (similar to Alvin the Treacherous in the books).
Since he is no longer able to take an active part in the war, Gobber is left responsible for the village's smithy and armory, keeping the other Vikings well suited with weapons.
The character, voiced by the great Craig Ferguson, is a bit like Hagrid to Harry Potter. He's portrayed as gruff yet sympathetic. A clip:
See? Rough around the edges, a couple of limbs light, yet loveable. Being in the dragon slaying business is serious stuff and not for a Viking who Rush Limbaugh would label a sissy today. Which is why a big reveal in the sequel is newsworthy tonight. In How to Train Your Dragon 2 opening mid-June, our dear Gobber outs himself.
Speaking to Marc Malkin of E! News, openly gay Director Dean DeBlois revealed that an ad libbed line from Craig Ferguson inspired DeBlois to bring Gobber out of the darkness of his Nordic closet.
"When we were recording Craig Ferguson, I had written the line, 'This is why I never got married," and he, as he often does, added it as an ad lib and he said, 'Yup, Gobber is coming out of the closet,'" DeBlois told me earlier today at the Cannes Film Festival while promoting the film at the Carlton Hotel. "I think that's a really fun [and] daring move to put in. I love the idea that Gobber is Berk's resident gay."
Gobber is the Michael Sam of animation, dispelling myths and breaking even our drawn ceilings. We are living in a Renaissance and I'm glad to be alive to see this movie.
TOP COMMENTS
May 17, 2014
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From Ninepatch:
Hunter stood in for Markos with Saturday nutpick-a-palooza Giant movie lizard edition. MadScientest delivers the absolutely best reason for the missing 30 million during yesterday's Operation American Spring. Finish drinking or eating whatever you've go in your mouth before clicking the link! You've been warned.
Via Lying eyes:
This comment from skillet was well worth rescuing. Found in SemDem's diary Just Sad: Tea Partier Goes Nuts No One Showed Up (Video)
From me, Steveningen:
There was a lot of derision today over the failure of Operation American Spring and rightly so. But chicago minx asked a great question in the same diary referenced above. Out of the dozens of people who showed up for this failure, did anyone have an epiphany seeing the seat of our government? Nicely considered, chicago minx.
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TOP PHOTOS
May 16, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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