Lasting genetic similarities make the two bears biological sister species.
It’s a subspecies of the Night Furies that has evolved to surrounded by the ocean as they live in the hidden world. The concept artists for the movie didn’t, as quoted by Hiccup “take [their] night fury card and paint it white”. (Which I thought was so funny they put that joke in cos the development team knew people were gonna complain about her) Here’s a rundown of some facts about the design for the species Light Fury
Firstly, they didnt design her to be smooth and rounded just for shits and giggles. Like a dolphin or a beluga, her fins and skin are smoothen out for swimming and ocean dwelling. You don’t go up to a dolphin and call their whole species feminine for having smooth skin.
Even their skin color is made for living in the sea. It’s not iridescent for the sake of ooh a sparkly pretty character, many fishes have their own relfective scales to blend into the ocean water to find food and avoid predators.
Their disappearing abilities is super amazing to show the abilities of creatures adaption to the problems that humans create. They are sky dragons evolved to become sea dragons. In the sea they can use their reflective skin to hide, but unlike a night fury which can hide in the night, they can use their disappearing ability to hide from hunters which is why they haven’t been hunted to near extinction yet unlike the Night Furies. It is sort of like how a grizzly bear and a polar bear have two similar yet different genetic properties adapted to their own changing environment.
We’ve seen many types of dragons both male and female like Stormfly and Meatlug, who do not look sleek or feminine like, but their appearance, like the light fury, are adapted to their own environment. Stormfly’s favorite food is chicken, and Meatlug is rocks, so there’s clearly no reason why both of them would have any traits that come with sea dwelling. And even though in the movie you can see other dragons inspired by sea creatures like manta rays and eels, but remember the Light Fury is a SUBSPECIES, they’re not a completely new species. Imagine it like a Leopard and a Cloud Leopard, looks similar, but different, because they have evolved from the same family but for different environments.
Most importantly, it’s not just the females that look sleek and beautiful. Look at the gif above. Even the males look the same as the females, only a lot bigger. Dreamworks didn’t put those two Light Furies together in that shot for no reason! Feminine looking they are, but isn’t that cool? Why is no one talking about feminine male dragons! So sleek and shiny and beautiful but they’ll kick your ass in a flash! I think it’s awesome to see that there can be feminine male dragons in the HTTYD world?
If the development team wanted to be lazy they wouldn’t have made a whole new species of dragons for this movie. It would be been so much easier to stick eyelashes on a bunch of Night Furies, hide them in the hidden world, and go “omg Toothless isn’t the last Night Fury after all!” But no they took the extra step to show that Toothless is truly the last of his kind and these Light Furies are not the same as he is.
Even for the folks who are going “they just randomly pulled out a light fury from nowhere!” LET ME ENLIGHTEN YOU WITH THE HTTYD BOOKS! (im very passionate about the books)
Trying to be spoiler free but in the 12th and final book there’s a female sea dragon called Luna, who was 2nd in command to the dragon army, whose leader was one of the dragon inspirations for the Night Fury. She was the same species as the leader, except for the fact that she, quoted by the books “glowed in the night like the moon”. Luna worked with book!Hiccup to try to find peace for both dragons and humans. So even the concept of the Light Fury wasn’t out of thin air!
Here’s a picture of a grizzly bear and polar bear’s offspring, which is known to be found in the wild due to shrinking habitats, notice their patches of brown and white? They got that from both animals.
Now look at the Nightlights, you can also see a patchy black and white trait since they are a cross breed of two different dragons.
So yeah, the Light Fury isn’t just a rip off white Toothless. There is a reason to her appearance, you just need to know where to find it!
