When How To Train Your Dragon hit theaters in June, I thought that I was in for a good family movie. What I did not expect was that the film would speak directly to our world’s deep brokenness amidst seemingly endless cycles of violence. I did not expect it to lead me back to René Girard’s moving work on mimetic theory and atonement. He argued that human desire was mimetic—that is, we desire what others have, and this creates rivalry and violence between human beings. Dragon and Viking alike terrorize each other’s communities, selecting innocent victims for destruction and uniting their respective groups through acts of terrifying violence.