The Myers-Briggs® Personality Types of the How to Train Your Dragon Characters

So I watched the first How to Train Your Dragon movie five times in theaters. Five. Me and my four-year-old daughter loved it so much we kept finding reasons to end up back at the theater to root for Hiccup and Toothless again. There were tears, cheers, and absolute terror as we worried (even though we already knew how it would turn out) that Hiccup wouldn’t survive that giant cave dragon.

I didn’t know it then, but that movie became a kind of lodestone for our family. Like a cinematic emotional support blanket made of fire and sarcasm and unresolved father wounds. I’ve watched it with all my kids now—during good years and bad ones, during chaos, birthdays, existential crises, and quiet nights where I needed to believe in something soft and sharp-edged at the same time.

So when I tell you I will be there on June 13th, at the live-action movie premiere, dragging my kids into the theater like a Viking dragging a yak carcass, please understand: this isn’t just nostalgia. This is sacred. This is a family pilgrimage. I will have snacks. I will have tissues. I will be pretending I’m there for my kids and not because part of my nervous system is wired around Hiccup’s journey.

Anyway. Since I’ve clearly lost all semblance of objectivity already, why not go one step further and assign each How to Train Your Dragon character a Myers-Briggs® personality type? Because sometimes the only way to cope with the screaming void of mortality is to categorize fictional dragon tamers with pseudoscientific precision and hope the internet validates your choices.

Let’s begin.

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The Myers-Briggs® Personality Types of the How to Train Your Dragon Characters

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III – INTP

In my opinion, Hiccup is kind of the human equivalent of an apologetic sigh. The kid who walks into a room, knocks something over, tries to fix it, overthinks it, makes it worse, and then somehow invents flight. And, sorry INTPs, but this kind of reminds me of you.

Hiccup doesn’t fit. Not into his village, not into his dad’s moldy expectations, not into his own body half the time. He’s all elbows, questions, and poorly timed quips. But beneath the awkward sarcasm and chronic self-doubt is a brain doing mental somersaults—turning problems inside out, flipping assumptions, and designing world-changing innovations because sleep is optional and dragons are misunderstood.

He’s not trying to rebel. That would imply he had enough Fe (Extraverted Feeling) to care about people’s reactions in real-time. No, he’s just being, and that “being” happens to involve abstract theory, moral complexity, a touch of doom-scrolling energy, and a deeply inconvenient conscience.

Hiccup sees patterns where others see enemies. While everyone else is swinging axes and yelling “RAWR,” he’s three steps deep into a hypothesis about dragon communication and contemplating the ethics of colonialism at age 15.

And yet, despite being allergic to authority, social norms, and eye contact, he becomes a leader. Because INTPs don’t chase power. They stumble into it while trying to solve a problem no one else is curious enough to care about. And when you’re lucky, like Berk was, they stay—long enough to build a bridge between logic and empathy, fire and freedom, father and son.

Also, let’s be honest: no other type could’ve engineered a prosthetic tail fin for a night fury using leather straps and grief.

INTP. 1000%.

Astrid Hofferson – ESTJ

Astrid is ESTJ to the marrow. She is discipline incarnate, wrapped in Viking braids and weaponized side-eyes. As a fellow Thinking-Judger, I loved her. If there’s a right way to do something, Astrid has already done it, sharpened it, and entered it in a competition she plans to win without looking like she tried too hard.

Her love language is efficiency. Her idea of flirting is knocking you unconscious and then complimenting your battle form. If ESTJs had a patron saint, Astrid would be it—Saint of Structure, Slayer of Slackers, Patron of Eye Rolls Aimed at INTPs.

She believes in hard work, clear rules, and loyalty. While Hiccup’s busy wondering if peace is achievable through cross-species diplomacy, Astrid is wondering what his real plan is, because someone has to think about logistics, Hiccup.

And yet—beneath the stoicism and brutal competence is deeply caring heart. When she finally softens toward Hiccup, she shows it through action, loyalty, and making everything more efficient so he can do his thing. That’s the thing about healthy ESTJs: they don’t just bulldoze their way to victory. They learn to lead with competence and concern. And Astrid does this with the grace of someone who still doesn’t have time for your nonsense, but will carry your nonsense on her back through a blizzard if you’re part of her team.

Give her a plan, a purpose, and someone to protect, and she’ll level entire mountains for you. Preferably while pointing out that she told you exactly this would happen six months ago, but did anyone listen? No. No, they did not.

Stoick the Vast – ESTJ

Imagine being the chief of a dragon-hating village, your beard is 40% of your body weight, your son is a walking existential crisis, and your entire identity is built on tradition, honor, and the ability to shout things into submission. That’s Stoick. ESTJ.

Stoick wakes up in the morning, eats responsibility for breakfast, and then wrestles his own emotional repression before leading a war council. He’s the blueprint. The original. The dad who thinks “I love you” sounds suspiciously like weakness, but will build you a house out of his bare hands and call it bonding.

Stoick wants to be a good dad, he really does, but the emotional thing is just so…awkward. He wants order, strength, legacy. He believes in doing things the right way (read: the loud, established, dragon-stabbing way). So when his son—the physical embodiment of “actually, maybe we should talk to the dragons”—starts rewriting the rules of their world, Stoick short-circuits. He loves Hiccup, but he does not understand Hiccup, and that gap gnaws at him.

But here’s the thing about ESTJs: when they grow, they really grow. Once Stoick gets it, he doesn’t just grudgingly accept change—he charges into it headfirst, armor and all, like “okay fine, let’s domesticate death machines together, son.” That’s love, Stoick-style. Loud, stubborn, terrifyingly loyal love.

Stoick the Vast: Commander of chaos, emotionally constipated Viking dad, proud carrier of the ESTJ torch.

Valka – INFJ

If Stoick is the ESTJ who builds legacy with his hands, Valka is the INFJ who nurtures legacy with her soul—and then disappears into a blizzard for twenty years because she couldn’t handle the village’s ignorance without either crying or committing light arson. She’s passionate, visionary, slightly unhinged when pushed too far by the world’s stupidity.

She is idealism with a sword. A walking contradiction of tenderness and ferocity. She looks like she hasn’t slept in two decades (because she hasn’t—dragons are loud and her guilt is louder), and yet she still shows up ready to lead a revolution and emotionally support her semi-feral bat children.

Valka sees patterns in people, in destinies, in species-level arcs. That’s Ni (Introverted Intuition) doing its prophetic thing. She doesn’t just see that Hiccup is different—she knows what that difference means for the fate of dragons, humanity, and probably the alignment of the stars.

And then there’s her Fe (Extraverted Feeling): warm, resonant, but frayed around the edges. She wants to do right by everyone—her dragons, her son, her long-lost maybe-still-in-love-with-her-husband—but there’s also a deep undercurrent of guilt. INFJs carry guilt like a weighted cloak: regal but exhausting. They tend to think they need to be everything for everyone.

Valka is the kind of INFJ who will adopt a kingdom of dragons, break your heart with a monologue about hope, and then cry because she forgot how to be human while saving the world.

Ruffnut Thorston – ENTP

Ruffnut is what happens when entropy becomes sentient and then gets bored and decides to braid its hair and punch its twin brother for fun.

She’s an ENTP with the emotional range of a Shakespearean villain trapped in a Viking sitcom. You never know if she’s about to deliver an impassioned monologue, pickpocket you mid-sentence, or light something on fire just to see how fast it burns. Sometimes she does all three simultaneously while blaming Tuffnut for the results.

ENTPs are known for being clever, quick-witted, insatiably curious, and occasionally allergic to silence—and Ruffnut is Exhibit A. She weaponizes her own unpredictability the way some people use swords. Grimmel literally lets her go on purpose because her monologue about her love life is so deranged it breaks his will to live. That’s Ne (Extraverted Intuition) in its final form: unhinged, relentless, and somehow persuasive.

But there’s more under the surface than chaos. There’s Ti (Introverted Thinking), quietly calculating behind the nonsense. Ruffnut acts like she’s two steps behind when in reality she’s three steps ahead and just choosing violence as her preferred problem-solving strategy. She knows what a rhetorical question is. She knows how to act. She knows how to steal your keys while reciting iambic pentameter and distracting you with dragon farts.

And like many ENTPs, she lives in that weird liminal space between misunderstood genius and absolute feral disaster. She’s clever enough to con a guard out of his keys, reckless enough to forget what doors are for, and noble enough to risk her life for an injured dragon without blinking. She’s all heart, brain, chaos, and smoke.

In short: Ruffnut is the reason you triple-check your locks, hide the matches, and never—never—ask, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Tuffnut Thorston – ESTP

Tuffnut is a human Molotov cocktail of bravado, dirt, and misplaced confidence. If you dropped a GoPro into a blender with some testosterone, a Viking helmet, and a complete lack of impulse control, you’d get Tuffnut. He’s the reason insurance adjusters don’t work in Berk. He’s also an ESTP—pure, unfiltered Se (Extraverted Sensing) with just a whisper of a frontal lobe.

ESTPs are thrill-seekers. Risk-takers. Do-now-think-maybe-later types. And Tuffnut? He lives for it. He hears the word “danger” and responds with “How fast can I ride it down a hill while blindfolded and juggling eels?” He flirts with death like it owes him money and thinks “consequences” is just a myth invented by people who cry too easily.

But don’t mistake the stupidity for lack of awareness—it’s deliberate. Tuffnut plays the fool because fools get away with things. The man once infiltrated enemy lines as a character he made up on the spot and got praised for his improv. That’s Ti (Introverted Thinking) in its sneaky, “wait, how did he pull that off?” form.

He’s got tertiary Fe (Extraverted Feeling), which in Tuffnut’s case manifests as attention-seeking, crowd-pleasing, and an unholy love of performance. He wants to be seen. Even when he’s being tackled by his sister. Even when he’s being set on fire. Especially then, actually. Nothing gets his serotonin pumping like theatrical suffering in front of a captive audience.

And yet, underneath the grease, grime, and exaggerated idiocy is something feral but loyal. He’ll argue with Ruffnut until they’re both concussed, but the moment she’s truly in trouble, he’s there. Grumbling, complaining, probably bleeding—but there.

Tuffnut is every (wildly imbalanced) ESTP who survived childhood by dumb luck and raw charisma.

Fishlegs Ingerman – ISFJ

Fishlegs is what happens when a library develops separation anxiety and decides to become a person. An ISFJ through and through—soft, skittish, shockingly strong when cornered, and filled with more dragon trivia than an entire medieval Google search.

He’s the heart of the group. Not the flashy, poetic heart that makes grand declarations or saves the world through heroic speeches—but the steady, cardigan-wearing emotional support system who brings snacks, remembers everyone’s birthday, and can quote a dragon’s wingspan mid-panic attack.

Fishlegs is deeply observant (Si), emotionally attuned (Fe), and occasionally overwhelmed by life in general (also Si and Fe, honestly). He wants to help. He wants to know. He hoards facts like some people hoard trauma, and if he loves you—even just a little—he will die for you, albeit while nervously muttering dragon statistics and maybe fainting once or twice for dramatic effect.

His relationship with Meatlug is peak ISFJ energy. She’s not just a dragon—she’s his baby. He brushes her scales. He probably sings her lullabies. If she even gets sniffled at by another dragon, Fishlegs is one trauma away from creating a spreadsheet titled “Why That Dragon Is Dead to Me.”

He’s also more complex than he seems. Sure, he blushes when complimented, flinches at danger, and folds like origami under pressure—but then there’s Thor Bonecrusher, his split personality alter ego who shows up, roars into battle, and absolutely owns the battlefield. Which, if we’re being honest, is just the repressed ENTIRE EGO of the ISFJ leaking out like emotional lava when they’ve been underestimated one too many times.

Fishlegs’s arc is one of soft power. He doesn’t grow out of his sensitivity—he grows into it. He learns that care, caution, and knowledge aren’t weaknesses—they’re the scaffolding of strength. And when the moment calls for it, he’ll throw down with more guts than the loudest Viking, just quieter.

Snotlout Jorgenson – ESFP

Snotlout is all performance, bravado, swagger, and desperation bundled into one gloriously insecure ESFP package.

On the surface, he’s a walking ego in a fur vest—loud, impulsive, borderline allergic to humility. He’s got the emotional depth of a kiddie pool until you realize it’s actually a hot spring connected to a volcanic fault line of generational dysfunction and the eternal ache of “please just tell me I’m good enough.”

Snotlout is a pretty imbalanced, unhealthy, ESFP, but we love him all the same. Extraverted Sensing (Se) says, “Let’s live in the moment! Let’s dazzle! Let’s seduce life with a smirk and a reckless backflip off a flaming dragon!” But Fi (Introverted Feeling), lurking right behind it, whispers, “Also, I’m quietly dying inside because my father never looked at me with pride and I’m pretty sure I’ll never measure up to Hiccup but please God don’t let anyone know I care.”

He craves attention because it’s the only currency he thinks he has. If he can’t be worthy, he’ll settle for being loud. If he can’t be respected, he’ll chase laughs, flirts, anything that sparkles. And if Hiccup gets more love, more trust, more Astrid? Well, then Snotlout will just have to compensate harder, faster, louder—until eventually he exhausts himself and accidentally does something… kind of decent.

And that’s the other ESFP truth: underneath the chaos, there’s heart. Snotlout isn’t malicious (at least not in the movies, in the books, yes, he’s malicious). He wants to be seen, loved, chosen. He wants to be good—but fears he isn’t. So he overcompensates with fire-breathing displays of confidence and ends up accidentally saving dragons, earning praise, and being liked despite himself.

Gobber the Belch – ISTP

Gobber is the human equivalent of a rusted axe that somehow always hits its mark. Blunt, worn, covered in soot, and still completely reliable in a crisis. And if you squint hard enough past the peg leg, the metal hand, and the suspicious stew he just served you—what you’ve got is a seasoned, sarcastic ISTP with a lifetime’s worth of quiet loyalty and badly timed jokes.

He’s seen things. Fought things. Lost things—like limbs and friends and patience. And instead of becoming soft, or brittle, or bitter, he became… Gobber. The Viking who’ll tell you you’re doing it all wrong while helping you do it anyway. He’s the mentor who teaches through blunt-force trauma and oddly tender metaphors about dismemberment.

As an ISTP, Gobber leads with Introverted Thinking (Ti)—sharp, internal, quietly logical. The man can blacksmith with one hand and lecture you with the other. He doesn’t theorize much; he just knows how things work. Dragons. Blades. Hiccup. Stoick’s moods. He has the kind of wisdom that doesn’t need flowcharts or speeches—it shows up in gruff instructions and dry remarks while he’s elbow-deep in molten iron.

His Se (Extraverted Sensing) is pure action. You don’t survive this long without it. Gobber reacts faster than you’d expect, adapts in real-time, and takes a sort of grim joy in wrestling chaos with calloused hands. He may not love school or tact or delicate emotional nuance, but give him a crisis, and he’s your guy.

And then there’s his tertiary Ni (Introverted Intuition), humming like an old engine under the hood. He’s superstitious, believes in omens, and tends to sniff out where things are headed before anyone else does—even if he wraps that foresight in troll stories and dramatic sighs. ISTPs aren’t usually mystical, but Gobber’s been through enough to know that sometimes gut instinct is smarter than any strategy.

Also? He’s got Fe (Extraverted Feeling) in that inferior spot, which explains the tactlessness, the blundering honesty, and the moments of unexpected emotional depth that hurt more because they’re so rare and unpolished. Gobber loves people the way a blade loves its hilt—firmly, roughly, forever.

He’s the kind of Viking who won’t say “I love you,” but will teach you to swing an axe, give you nicknames, and threaten to haunt your dreams if you forget to oil your crossbow.

Gobber is what ISTPs look like when they’ve lived a full, ferocious life and come out the other side—battered, beloved, and still swinging.

Drago Bludvist – ENTJ

If hatred had biceps and unresolved childhood trauma had a battle axe, it would look like Drago Bludvist.

Drago is the ENTJ in full-blown villain arc mode—Te-Ni on a scorched-earth mission. Strategic. Commanding. Charismatic in that terrifying “cult leader who calls himself a liberator” way. Every move he makes is calculated, brutal, and horrifyingly effective. This is not a man who wings things. This is a man who weaponizes things. Dragons. People. Fear. His own trauma. All leveraged to build the world he thinks is necessary—one where no one ever feels powerless again… as long as they kneel.

He claims he’s freeing mankind from dragons, but let’s be honest: he doesn’t want peace. He wants order—under his iron fist, under his warped sense of justice, under a worldview where power is the only safe place to stand.

And underneath all that? There’s a boy who was brutalized. A boy who lost his family, his village, his arm, and decided that fear would never rule him again—because he would rule it first.

His Extraverted Thinking (Te) is unrelenting. He’s all about execution, control, and strategy. He walks into a room full of chieftains, gets laughed at, and immediately burns it to the ground like, “Okay then. Plan B.” If he can’t get respect, he’ll settle for domination. And probably a throne made of scorched bones.

He trains his dragons the way he leads his armies: through intimidation, coercion, and sheer force of will. There’s no playfulness, no mutual understanding—just conquest. The Bewilderbeast isn’t a partner; it’s a weapon. An extension of his fury. A reminder that even the mightiest creatures can be broken and controlled—just like him.

And yet, still, Hiccup offers him peace. Offers him connection. Offers him a different path. And Drago rejects it—not because he doesn’t want it, but because he can’t trust it. To accept peace would be to admit his vision was wrong. To accept vulnerability. And ENTJs with unprocessed trauma would rather die than admit they’ve been building the wrong empire this whole time.

Which, ironically, is exactly what happens.

Drago is what happens when leadership is severed from empathy. When vision calcifies into tyranny. When a wounded boy builds an empire out of fear and calls it safety.

What Are Your Thoughts?

How to Train Your Dragon isn’t just a story about kids and dragons and tragic father-son eye contact. It’s about identity. Belonging. The terrifying vulnerability of forging your own path when the world already decided what you’re supposed to be. And if that’s not the most painfully relatable thing for any MBTI® nerd out there, I don’t know what is.

And yeah, maybe we overanalyze these characters because we’re trying to understand ourselves through fictional dragon riders who feel safer than actual humans. Maybe we’re all just weirdly nostalgic for the moment when Toothless nudges Hiccup’s hand and everything changes—not because someone said the right thing, but because they saw each other.

So here’s to being seen.

Here’s to finding your dragon—even if it’s messy or damaged or doesn’t listen to you half the time.

But what do you think? Do you agree with the personality types I ascribed to the dragon-riders of Berk? Do you have a different opinion? Let me know in the comments!

Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type,  The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic, The ISFJ – Understanding the Protector, and The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube!

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