One of those useless thoughts I’ll sometimes have when taking in something aimed at a younger demographic is asking whether I’d have enjoyed it when I was a kid, rather than the wan and decrepit skeleton beast I am currently. My youthful tastes were so contextual and arbitrary that I can never hope to have a definitive answer, but as someone who got really into reading about mythology and folklore in grade school (with, as I have mentioned in the past, their own ambitions of creating the ultimate bestiary of mythological creatures—I still have all my notes in a manila folder), and who then loved to see those stories and creatures I was reading about referenced in the wider culture (so I got to think “I know that one!”), Hilda endeared itself to me very quickly. Created by illustrator Luke Pearson (who has also worked in animation as a storyboarder on Adventure Time), Hilda began as a series of graphic novels, starting with 2010’s Hildafolk (sometimes titled Hilda and the Troll), carrying an adventurous and whimsical spirit that brings to mind both the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Tove Jansson (the latter can especially be seen in the clean, wide-eyed characters Pearson draws), reinterpreting and modernizing (mostly) Scandinavian legends in clever and often beautiful ways. In 2018, Netflix released an animated series adaptation, capturing Pearson’s art with its very smooth and colourful animation (and its ethereal soundtrack, with a theme song provided by Grimes), and expanding on the world presented in the comics, mixing direct adaptations of the books with original stories that fit the tone. I wrote briefly about watching the first Netflix season back in 2019, but after going through the second season that premiered last month, I have an even greater appreciation for the whole series, especially in the way it thoughtfully introduces all the fun stuff about folklore (the silliness, the scariness, the endless possibilities they present) to a new generation of kids.
Here’s a 2014 interview with Luke Pearson. Why not read it?
One of the first things that struck me when watching the first season of the show is how it integrates the fantastic world with the human one—the series focuses on the titular heroine (voiced with pitch-perfect energy by Bella Ramsey), a fearless girl with an endless sense of curiosity, exploring a weird and wondrous environment where supernatural beings are commonplace, but never lose their awe-inspiring presence. In most of the stories I grew up with, there was a clear demarcation between the fantasy world and the “real” one, and only a select few (usually children) were allowed to cross the threshold. That’s not the case in Hilda—the existence of trolls, giants, and similar legendary beings is well known by everyone, even if they aren’t commonly seen; they are simply part of the landscape. This one decision is very freeing for storytelling purposes, allowing for a number of ideas that really explore the interactions between humanity and the magical elements just outside their doors. Both the comics and the Netflix series begin with Hilda and her mother living in a cabin in the countryside (alongside Twig, their pet deerfox, who is maybe one of the cutest things ever drawn by anyone) regularly dealing with the ubiquitous and dangerous trolls (big, blocky beings who turn to stone during the daytime) and other odd things that live nearby, such as the slightly self-absorbed Wood Man who wanders into other people’s homes without asking. The events of those early stories force them to move to the town of Trolberg, much to Hilda’s (initial) dismay as a rather introverted outdoors-y type, but she discovers that the town and its surrounding area is as full of interesting things to discover as her old home, and she is often tagged along by her friends Frida and David. Hilda is an engaging character, both brave and principled, but she can also be hardheaded and bratty, so she still feels like an actual kid. Her adventurous and more grounded personality traits play readily into the adjustment and personal growth she goes through in both seasons of the show, with many stories revolving around her complicated relationships with her mom and her friends.
Through the various monster-of-the-week style stories, we get to see all the different ways the supernatural elements of the world fit not only into the natural ecosystem, but also the culture of Trolberg itself. For example, the town is walled off in attempt to ward off, surprise surprise, the trolls that live in the surrounding valley (which is not to say that we don’t get at least one story where we see the chaos that ensues when a troll is accidentally brought into town); in the story “The Bird Parade”, we see an annual festival scheduled to coincide with the coming of a giant Thunderbird, which has been a part of the town for centuries. “The Black Hound” (a single comic whose story elements are spread across multiple episodes of the animated series) introduces the Nisse, house spirits taking the form of little hairy people, who are present and helpful in every home whether the occupants realize it or not (the Nisse who resides in Hilda and her mother’s apartment becomes a recurring character in the second season), which pulls pretty directly from European legends. It’s all very seamless and often shows the thought that was put into it, making the world seem that much more lively—it’s not just our world with some fantasy stuff off to the side, but a big organic whole where the elements complement each other in sometimes unexpected ways.
That sense of an integrated world plays heavily into many of the stories, as well. Right from the beginning, the difficulties in maintaining a harmonious existence between humans and the fantasy creatures with their unique and sometimes arcane behaviours and societies are a major theme: the first few stories have Hilda and her mother learning that their cabin is surrounded by tiny elf settlements that they had been absentmindedly stepping on (the bureaucratically-minded elves, who are invisible to humans until they sign the necessarily paperwork, become a recurring element, with the elf Alfur joining the main cast.) Hilda, not wanting to move from their country home, tries to find a peaceful resolution—only for two mountain-sized giants to absentmindedly step on her home. After that initial foray, there are many stories about people learning to respect other living things—in “The Bird Parade”, much of the conflict is initiated when a group of ne’er-do-well kids toss rocks at a (talking) raven, with Hilda shocked at their thoughtless cruelty; animated episodes like “The Sparrow Scouts” and “The Storm” deal even more directly with natural harmony, or people trying to exploit the supernatural for their own benefit. This second season of the Netflix series (which has more original material, as it only adapts one of Pearson’s books as an extra-length season finale) has more of these stories, with multiple episodes dealing with the cause-and-effect of human activity (even an episode featuring magical time travel, which is both very emotional and also features a very frightening paradox-erasing worm, deals with that theme in a way) as well as an ongoing subplot where Hilda clashes with the egomaniacal Eric Ahlberg, descendant of the town’s founder, whose quest for personal glory lead to actions that needlessly exacerbates the tensions between the town and creatures like the trolls. The very conscious effort to portray this fantasy/urban mash-up as something with a delicate balance feels like something very inspired by the films of Miyazaki.
The heavier or more dramatic narratives in the series are balanced by the joyful interpretations of folklore, both in the visuals and in characterization. The series boasts many truly original creature designs, and even more common things like ghosts have their own unique, stylized flair (one of my favourites is the rat king, portrayed as an amorphous blob of rodents.) There’s a cute and streamlined sensibility in many of Pearson’s comic designs (he also contributes most of the designs for the animated series), and especially in his original creations, such as the flying teddy bear-faced creatures that fill the skies—but in examples like the trolls, they can still be quite menacing, avoiding completely softening some of the wilder aspects of their origins (when they do soften them, though, it’s usually done in an interestingly subversive way, such as with the barghest featured in “The Black Hound”, or the lindworm that appears in the Neflix show, or even in how the trolls and their society are developed in later stories.) I especially noticed that the second season of the animated series upped the scariness, such as with the aforementioned giant worm, or a Nisse-imitating homunculus that appears in one episode—they even have an entire episode be based on surprisingly kid-friendly extreme violence (including decapitating one of the show’s main characters—they got better, though.) Even more delightful to me is where they pull ideas from, as we get episodes based on some truly deep cuts from Scandinavian legends, such as the draugr and the Yule Lads. These are the kinds of things that appeal to my inner myth buff.
It’s very easy for me to identify with Hilda’s love of exploring all the nooks and crannies of that world because, hey, I was into all that stuff when I was that age, too (although maybe with less of the outdoors-y bent, as personality-wise I was always more of a David)—and I think it’s something that many of the kids in the audience identify with. One of the warmest feelings I get from it is just in knowing that something of this quality is out there giving kids the opportunity to discover the same things I did: just how cool these stories and their kooky collective of creatures are. More than that, though, it does it in a way that has its own sensibility, both in the visuals and in bringing all these regionally connected (if otherwise disparate) folktales together and turning it into a coherent whole, and using that to tell stories about the way we interact with our environment, and with other people.
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