- “They say there are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true. The other is to refuse to believe what is. Maces and Talons. I began playing with my grandfather when I was just a boy. I always insisted on being the honorable Viking chief. I could never understand how he bested me time and time again. For years I assumed his skill transcended mine. I believed what wasn't true, but you see, in Maces and Talons, as in life, the line between good and evil is often unclear. Black and White can become grey so easily. What one soul considers evil, another might consider righteous. The honorable chief who fails to see this is found to be the fool.”
- ―Viggo's villainous nature
- “I've spent my whole life hunting dragons, killing them, and I've come to respect them as equals”
- ―Viggo to Hiccup after his redemption.
Viggo Grimborn is the central antagonist turned anti-hero of Dragons: Race to the Edge.
He is the younger brother of Ryker Grimborn and the genius chieftain of the Dragon Hunters, a group of individuals who do anything to harm dragons and sell them on the black market. After Alvin and Dagur, Viggo has been described as one of the most dangerous foes the Riders have ever faced. He was one of Hiccup's former arch-enemies.
The character was voiced by Alfred Molina, who also portrayed Doctor Octopus in the Spider-Man films and Maxim Horvath from the 2010 film The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Background[]
Personality[]
Viggo Grimborn is a mysterious figure, often hiding in the shadows and letting his followers do his dirty work. He knew everything there was to know about dragons, clashing with Hiccup and his friends over the Dragon Eye. Viggo is willing to make sacrifices to get what he wants. He let his own men die from the Scourge of Odin just so he could capture the Buffalord.
Usually, he remained calm and collected whenever a situation goes awry. Unlike his brother, Ryker, who uses brute strength, Viggo prefers to use his head. In season 6, when he briefly dueled with Hiccup, who was infuriated, Viggo remained calm firing their entire duel, He was intelligent, cunning, and incredibly devious. He is one of the villains to outsmart Hiccup and the only one to see him as a worthy adversary. He mostly uses wit to outsmart his enemies, being able to trick Hiccup in every way.
Despite their mutual respect for each other, unlike Hiccup, Viggo has no sense of honor, risking innocent lives. He willingly let a Submaripper to live in the middle of the sea and the trade route to Berk for the traders to go sour when it attacked the traders' ship. it deprived the people of Berk for their trade and endangering the lives of Hiccup's people. He meant it as a warning to Hiccup if he continued to free dragons and an attempted to hurt him. Stoick identified this act to Hiccup as an act of cowardice, as a coward for endangering the lives of innocent men, women and children. To Viggo, everyone is expendable, even his own men and believed anyone could be replaced. However, he did not appear to show it in season 5, when he went back and saved one of the men.
However, until the last days of his life, Viggo came to see dragons as equals. He showed that he never wanted to harm Toothless, especially only lying about the red olliander being poisonous to gain Hiccup's help. He came to respect them and said that Hiccup taught him that dragons and Humans would be equals. He along with his Skrill fought the Dragon Hunters to give Hiccup and Toothless time to escape.
DreamWorks Dragons: The Series[]
Season 4 (Race to the Edge, Season 2)[]
Viggo is first mentioned by Heather, who warns Ryker that they need Astrid and the Riders alive for his questioning. At this point, Heather had not yet met him.
Viggo is mentioned a second time in the series. When Astrid and Heather join up together, Astrid suggests they tell Hiccup what they are up to. However, Heather disagreed and pointed out that hiccup would pull her out because he cares too much. Heather points out she is getting close to meeting Viggo. After revealing Heather's true allegiance, Astrid later mentions Viggo to the Dragon Riders, revealing he is the leader of the Dragon Hunters, not Ryker with the twins making fun of his name. Heather has yet to meet him and Astrid mentioned how Viggo stays in the shadow. ("Snow Way Out")
He is mentioned in "Edge of Disaster, Part 1," when Heather mentions Vigo wants the dragon trainers alive. However, she only says this to protect Ruffnut from Ryker, who tried to kill the teenager earlier.
Viggo finally appeared in the two-part season finale, "Maces and Talons." In part one, Vigo deduced that Heather was the spy in the Dragon Hunters due to her owning a dragon. He plans to lure Hiccup and the dragon riders out. Viggo manipulated Heather by telling her that their brothers, Ryker and Dagur were the spies and specifically asked for her and Windshear to accompany him to "thwart" their villainous traitors. On their way to the rendezvous point, Viggo reveals this to Heather and has been expecting something like this to happen. He had her and Windshear imprisoned, but they managed to get away until the Dragon Hunters hit Heather's dragons with a Dragon Root Arrow. Hiccup attempted to confront Viggo for the first time, but found he had gone and took Windshear, Heather and the Flightmare prisoner and waited for Hiccup to show up. ("Maces and Talons, part 1")
He plays the real-life game of Maces and Talons with Dagur. Viggo leaves behind his Maces and Talons board out for Hiccup and Astrid to find, where they saw the traitor piece of the game broken in half and that Hiccup is also part of the game as well. They realize that the traitor was Heather and that Viggo was going to kill her, as the traitor always dies. Expecting Hiccup to show up, Viggo disguises himself as Astrid while he has the Flightmare hidden from the distance and Heather taken to be executed. As predicted Hiccup appears while also evading all of the Typhoomerangs as the other dragon riders shadow. Viggo and Hiccup meet for the first time, where Viggo already begins toying with Hiccup by letting him "get a head start." However, Viggo stops Hiccup, has the Flightmare paralyze him and Toothless as he steals the Dragon Eye from him. Viggo has the Flightmare open the Dragon Eye, ready to sail and kill all dragons, even Hiccup's Night Fury. ("Maces and Talons, part 2")
Season 5 (Race to the Edge, Season 3)[]
He first appears in the season 3 episode, "Buffalord Soldier," where he knows that Astrid has gotten sick with the Scourge of Odin and left a ship for the dragon riding teenagers to find. He ambushed the Dragon Riders when they tried getting the Buffalord's green saliva in order to cure Astrid of the disease. After Viggo threatened to have the dragon killed in order to get to Hiccup, the boy strikes a deal: Viggo can have the dragon in exchange for Hiccup getting the saliva for Astrid. Despite Astrid's protests, Viggo allows Hiccup to retrieve the saliva in exchange for taking the Dragon. After Astrid is healed, the dragon hunters bring the dragon onto their ship. However, it is too late when Viggo realizes that the dragon reacts violently when it is taken off the island and realizes that Hiccup had finally outsmarted him. ("The Buffalord Soldier")
Sometime after this, Viggo had some of his men transport marble in order to build a fortress that would be impervious to dragon fire in an attempt to outsmart the Dragon Riders. However, Hiccup and his friends manage to destroy the stone fortress before its work is completed. The Grimborn brothers approach, both knowing Hiccup had something to do with their camp being destroyed. Viggo angrily tells Ryker that the nonsense must end. ("Between a Rock and a Hard Place")
Season 6 (Race to the Edge, Season 4)[]
Season 7 (Race to the Edge, Season 5)[]
Season 8 (Race to the Edge, Season 6)[]
Abilities and Powers[]
Though being a regular human with no special powers or abilities, Viggo does have a wide enough set of skills.
- Intelligence: Viggo is an extremely clever individual and noted by Hiccup as a master of deception, who battles with his intellect. He is an expert at playing Maces & Talons, even managing to outwit Hiccup - though he admitted that Hiccup had exceeded his expectations and was a brilliant opponent. As an item belonging to his tribe, Viggo has intimate knowledge of the Dragon Eye and - by extension - dragons themselves, on par with Hiccup's.
- Dragon Hunting: Though he rarely puts himself in danger, Viggo is considered an elite Dragon Hunter, rivaled - and possibly surpassed - only by his older brother, Ryker.
- Leadership: Despite being the younger brother, Viggo is the undisputed leader of the Dragon Hunters because of his cunning intellect and effective strategies. He always plans his moves before he makes them, often seeing his battles as a game of Maces and Talons.
- Strength and Fighting Skills: Viggo is well trained in the use of unarmed combat as he was able to fend of Heather - a warrior on par with Astrid - effortlessly and with his bare hands. He carries a large sword on his back, which bears a slight resemblance to Hiccup's sword, Inferno. He shown his strength to be able to hold Heather easily but he was stated by his older brother, he not as strong as Ryker.
- Dragon Information Controlled: He used the dragon eye to get a lot of information on dragons to control such as he was able to control the Shellfire by wrapping the dragons by ropes with a large boat, using large heavy hammers to control the vibrations of two Catastrophic Quaken's, and summoning a Submaripper by using the vibration of a dagger by dropping to the sea where it was located.
Weapons[]
- Sword: Even when Viggo prefers to use his mind to outwit and fight his enemies, he still carries a short but rather solid and heavy sword on him. The hilt shape is rather simple, but is bejeweled with a row of - presumably - rubies. Viggo is frequently seen with his sword carried on his back. At the end of "Sins of the Past", when inserting Heather's lens in the Dragon Eye with Krogan, Viggo is shown to have regained his sword, wearing it once again on his back. How he regained it is currently unknown, but it is possible that Johann (who is revealed at the same time to be evil and working with Viggo, Krogan and the Dragon Hunters) could have at some point managed to either buy or steal it back.
- Daggers: He also has daggers that he uses to fight his enemies and to call/lure or tame dragons, as he had dropped one of them into the ocean to call the Submaripper and to lure a wild Skrill to him with a metal dagger, which is an old Berserker trick that they had used to lure Skrills into their traps.
- Fire Sword: While having been inspired by Hiccup's Inferno, Viggo made himself a sword that can ignite itself. He briefly used it against Hiccup, with the fight ending when Viggo released gas from the sword and ignited it, making a small explosion. Viggo then put his sword down as a sign that he doesn't want to hurt Hiccup. Later, when Johann figured that Viggo is not on his side anymore, the latter released gas and ignited it, creating a big explosion to mask his escape. He then found his Skrill and freed him by cutting its chains with his sword. Viggo is seen with his sword in his hand while talking to Hiccup. As his final act, Viggo ignites the sword and attacks a group of Dragon Hunters.
Appearances[]
Dragons: Race to the Edge[]
Season 2[]
- "Night of the Hunters, Part 2" (First mentioned)
- "Snow Way Out" (mentioned only)
- "Edge of Disaster, Part 1" (mentioned only)
- "Mace and Talons, Part 1" (First appearance)
- "Maces and Talons, Part 2"
Season 3[]
- "Enemy of My Enemy" (mentioned only)
- "Crash Course" (mentioned only)
- "Follow the Leader" (mentioned only)
- "Buffalord Soldier"
- "A Grim Retreat" (mentioned only)
- "To Heather or Not to Heather" (mentioned only)
- "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"
- Family on the Edge (mentioned only)
- "Last Auction Heroes"
- "Defenders of the Wing, Part 1"
Season 4[]
- "Defenders of the Wing, Part 2"
- "Midnight Scrum" (mentioned only)
- "Saving Shattermaster" (mentioned only)
- "Dire Straits"
- "The Longest Day" (mentioned only)
- "Twintuition"
- "Shell Shocked, Part 1"
- "Shell Shocked, Part 2"
Season 5[]
- "Living on the Edge" (mentioned only)
- "Sandbusted" (mentioned only)
- "Return of Thor Bonecrusher"
- "The Wings of War" Part 1 and 2"
- "Sins of the Past"
Season 6[]
- "In Plain Sight"
- "Loyal Order of Ingerman" (mentioned only)
- "Mi Amore Wing" (mentioned only)
- "Triple Cross"
- "Darkest Night"
Video Games[]
- Dragons: Titan Uprising (mentioned only)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The roles of Hiccup and Viggo are the second time that Jay Baruchel and Alfred Molina worked on a project together, preceding The Sorcerer's Apprentice as Dave Stutler and Maxim Horvath respectively. In both cases, their characters are enemies, and at one point, Molina's character hold the girlfriend Jay's character to achieve a certain object.
- Viggo shares several similarities with Grimmel the Grisly, as they both use their wits to try and defeat Hiccup. They are also some of the most deadly and dangerous enemies he has ever faced.
- Both characters rely on their wits to swindle and outmaneuver their enemies.
- Both of their professions are hunting and killing dragons.
- While Viggo hunted and killed dragons for profit and power, Grimmel hunted and killed dragons for pleasure, out of hatred and to become recognized as a hero by the Vikings.
- Viggo was betrayed by his allies first, while Grimmel betrayed his allies before they could do anything.
