"Okay, there are two things you have to understand before I tell this story. The first? Is that, up until five years ago, Vikings and dragons had been at war for ages. They'd steal food, burn our houses down, kill us, and we'd kill them right back in even greater numbers. The other is that my father was pretty much the epitome of everything a Viking should be. Strong, confident, able to toss around carts filled to the brim with weapons with his bare hands. And I was scrawny, clumsy, and kind of the village screw-up. Not that that's really changed much since then, except I don't screw up as much."

And so began the tale of how Hiccup, in order to gain respect, shot down one of the most terrifying dragons in existence, befriend him instead of kill him, and everything that followed How they and Astrid eventually found out the reason the dragons were raiding them was because another dragon would eat them if they didn't bring back enough food. His initial, disastrous attempt at bringing peace, teaching the other kids how to ride dragons, and then he started getting into the fight with the Red Death.

"...so, we go into freefall, flip around, and Toothless started blasting at its wings and then set off the gas in its mouth with another plasma blast. The Red Death lost control, crashed into the ground, and exploded. Somewhere in the middle of it crashing, I got knocked unconscious by its tail, and part of my leg got taken off."

Which more or less explained why he wasn't so fussed about the leg. It'd been lost doing something stupidly heroic.

"After that, the raids stopped, and because the others and I proved it could be done, the rest of the village started befriending the dragons too."