Anyone wonder why Hiccup wasn’t more emotionally scarred from years of being rejected by his community? In the first movie we see how different Hiccup is mentally and physically which led to him being picked on and ostracized such as in most of the dragon training scenes. However, such a quick change of character of pretty much everyone at Berk after his close encounter with death would surely make him apprehensive of others. We kind of see this apprehension when he doesn’t want to lead the village in movie 2 and his reasoning of not knowing who he is sort of plays into his insecurities.
Read my fic Symphony of Shadows by @jaguarreads95 on Wattpad to see a more accurate version of Hiccup after being shunned his whole life.
okay so my theory about How To Train Your Dragon is that Astrid loved Hiccup WAYYYYY before the events of Romantic Flight but due to how the vikings lived in near constant combat with the dragons and young children/teens being forced to learn how to defend themselves and their families from an early age, she closed herself off to those feelings because by all accounts Hiccup was doomed to die. she resented how useless he was in combat, and she resented how much she cared. she was mean and dismissive to him out of fear that she would inevitably have to mourn him soon, and the colder she was the easier it would be.
then, miraculously, Hiccup begins to show some kind of competency in dealing with the dragons. but he's still not defending himself. he's finding strange ways of controlling them, but he's still as physically weak as he was before and Astrid can't see how whatever he's doing will help him outside of the training ring. great, you found out that Deadly Nadders like chin scratches. what about the Monstrous Nightmare burning down your house?
all this just makes Astrid angrier. how is Hiccup succeeding without violence? how will he survive without violence? violence is what she was born into. what does he know that she can't comprehend?
it's only later, when she sees that this scrawny beanpole of a boy has found a companion in a Night Fury, the embodiment of Death, that the miracle of him starts to make sense. he knows so much more than what any of their people can comprehend. and he wants so badly to show her. and for the first time ever, Astrid has hope.
i believe that this explains Astrid's comfortability and affection for Hiccup that she shows during and after the events of Romantic Flight, why she wraps her arms around him and kisses his cheek after everything. considering her personality, i don't think Romantic Flight shows her falling in love with Hiccup for the first time. i think she has loved him for a long time, and was too trapped in self-protection to allow herself to feel it (similar to Katniss regarding Peeta). but now she has hope that maybe he won't be ripped away from her. now she sees how much more there is to him, sees that he embodies Mercy stronger than Death.
I love Astrid making the 'I always knew red was your color' joke in Dawn of the Dragon Racers (in which Hiccup was wearing a green shirt) and Hiccup changing to a red one by the next time we see him