- “Speed: Unknown. Size: Unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you.”
- ―Dragon Manual.
The Night Fury is a medium-sized Strike Class dragon that first appeared in the DreamWorks How to Train Your Dragon franchise.
Background[]
Characteristics[]
The Night Fury is the rarest and most intelligent of the known species of dragon. It is small to medium-sized with a sleek, dark body that is almost black. It sometimes appears bluish and has faint lighter patterns similar to that of a manta ray. The Night Fury resembles an axolotl in general appearance and has two pairs of wings with a shape similar to a bat, two mobile, ear-like plates on the back of its head to show its mood, a second pair of plates in between each ear-like plate, and two just behind the jaw and beneath each ear-like plate, a pair of large, yellowish-green, cat-like eyes and sharp retractable teeth. Unlike most dragon species, the Night Fury has a short neck and lacks any kind of horns.
In flight, the Night Fury's wingspan is unrivaled, bearing approximately 48 feet, making it resemble some sort of jet plane. This allows it to fly faster, longer and further than any of the other dragon species. It uses the wing-like flaps on its tail to steer and maneuver, similar to an airplane rudder. However, a Night Fury will be incapable of flying if one of these flaps is missing or destroyed. Not only is this species fast in the air, but it is also very fast on the ground, running very fast on land and can even leap from tree to tree.
Night Furies are generally quite aggressive to any form of threat they find, similar to how the other dragons treat the Vikings of Berk. According to the Dragon Manual, the Night Fury is considered to be so aggressive that it is likened to the "unholy offspring of lightning and death itself". Toothless proves himself to be quite an advanced fighter when he manages to defeat a Monstrous Nightmare, one of the Vikings most feared enemies, and also quickly outmaneuvers and defeats many Vikings including Stoick the Vast, who is presumably the best dragon slayer in Berk.
However, like their fellow dragons, Night Furies are seen to have a different personality when they are not threatened. They are curious creatures that attempt to understand new things they observe and are intelligent enough to attempt to recreate the actions that they see. Night Furies are fairly capable of communicating, seemingly understanding human speech: the best evidence of this is when he makes a noise in agreement with Hiccup regarding the fact the the Red Death can fly or when Hiccup orders Toothless not to kill Astrid and Stoick. Toothless also does not have a very hard time getting his emotions noticed: for example, Toothless growled when Hiccup stepped on his drawing, or snarled in disgust when Hiccup mentioned he put an eel in Toothless' dish. In Dreamworks Dragons: Riders Of Berk episode We Are Family Part I, Toothless demonstrates the ability to use echolocation. When Night Furies are at locations where their visual sight is limited, making it dangerous to fly, they can use a special roar. This roar, visualized as a purple colored soundwave from the dragon's perspective, bounces off all objects and obstacles nearby and allows the dragon to avoid them, even in mid-flight. Unlike with bats, this roar, or at least part of it, is still low enough to be within human hearing range; humans are able to hear the sound when it returns to the dragon.
Behavior[]
A Night Fury's main type of attack style is dive-bombing at enemies at great speed while being completely camouflaged within the dark sky. The Night Fury is able to become completely invisible at night because of its dark coloured scales. In addition of dive-bombing, the Night Fury will also spit out oxygen/acetylene-fueled flames that will explode upon impact and will instantly incinerate anything. Night Furies are picky eaters and will only eat fish. When hunting, a Night Fury uses its sharp retractable teeth as fishing hooks in order to snatch and grip prey from the water. Night Furies are also capable of completely swallowing prey whole and their stomach liquids, which are similar to battery acid, are strong enough to dissolve fish bones. When tamed, Night Furies are known to regurgitate half of their catch for their owners. As seen with Toothless, Night Furies have a penetrating, wolf-like or cat-like stare. The Night Fury is a very dangerous and elusive dragon and should be avoided at all costs, unless of course, one is able and willing to train it.
Fighting Style[]
Night Furies are said to be amazing fighters. They use their incredible explosive fire to damage any unlucky foe. It is shown that a Night Fury can switch between different fire styles; In the TV series Hiccup tells Toothless to use "plasma blasts". Plasma blasts are purple fire-bolts that explode on target almost instantly. These are a Night Fury's primary defense and are very lethal. Second is the fire a Night Fury uses to warm up the place where it will sleep, as seen on the movie and the TV show. This fire isn't particularly strong, but it can light up fireplaces and stoves. Night Furies are very agile and swift in flight, using this to confuse their enemies. Toothless, a Night Fury, is able to fight off Hookfang, a larger Monstrous Nightmare to protect Hiccup, and he is shown to be strong enough to wrestle against a much larger Whispering Death.
Weaknesses[]
Night Furies have very few weaknesses, making them hard to combat. They appear to have standard dragon weakness as a dragon root arrow could render them weak and vulnerable for some time, while other dragons can recover faster, as seen in "Enemy of My Enemy". They are also susceptible to dragon root, a fear of eels, can be poisoned by blue oleander flowers, and are affected by grimora parasites. The Night Furies' large wings make them vulnerable to powerful sheering winds if they were to attempt a prolonged hover in such conditions, as displayed in "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man", but this could be said for most dragons with an average wingspan.
The Night Furies' dual tail fins on their tails allow them to remain stabilized in flight. If one is damaged, missing, or cut/sliced off, they will be unable to fly.
It is revealed in the third film that Night Furies cannot survive in cold environments (like tundras, snowy mountains, or arctic islands) and fly long distances without resting/sleeping, which can make them easy to track or hunt down. However Toothless has shown to be able to survive in cold for a long time and fly for a long time without being tired.
Trivia[]
- Toothless is the last of his kind due to Grimmel the Grisly hunting them down to near extinction. However it is possible that few Night Furies might have escaped and return to the Hidden World.
- Female Night Furies were never seen in the film or TV series.
- It was originally planned to be part of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World but was cut from the film and replaced by the Light Fury.
