Hello all! Welcome to the first official installment of my weekly reviews of Hilda. This week we get things kicked off with the first episode – ‘Chapter 1: The Hidden People’.

‘Chapter 1: The Hidden People’, Season 1, Episode 1 (Release Date: September 21, 2018)

Synopsis – As the series opens, we see our protagonist, blue-haired girl Hilda (voiced by Game of Thrones and Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey), running through the woods and coming across a number of fantastical creatures, including some kind of water elemental and giant flying puffballs known as woffs. Stumbling across a troll that was temporarily turned to stone by sunlight, Hilda and her pet deerfox, Twig, decide to stop for a while so that Hilda can sketch it. With Twig’s help she ties a bell to the troll’s nose to alert them once it starts moving again. Unfortunately, Hilda and Twig stick around for too long and the troll wakes up as night begins to fall. The troll chases them to the home Hilda shares with her mother, Johanna, in the countryside. The troll stops just before catching up to them, and Hilda realizes that the bell is causing it pain. She removes the bell and the creature repays her by returning the sketchbook she had dropped during the chase.

That evening, Hilda and her mother receive a tiny letter from the mysterious ‘hidden people’, the sixth such one they have received. The letter demands that they move somewhere else or the hidden people will force them to do so. Frustrated, Hilda leaves her own letter on their stoop saying that they have no intention of complying. A few hours later, while Hilda and her mother sleep on the couch, a group of seemingly invisible beings sneak into the house and begin to ransack it. Hilda wakes up just in time to chase them out with a broom, but her mother, dismayed by the damage caused, muses that it might be best for them to move to the nearby city of Trolburg. Horrified at the idea, Hilda leaves another message on the stoop asking to know why she and her mother are being targeted.

Later that night, while Hilda is asleep in her room, a disembodied voice awakens her. It claims to be one of the hidden people and says that its people have made it so that they are invisible to anyone who hasn’t yet signed a specific contract. The strange being directs Hilda to sign the contract, after which the figure – a tiny elf named Alfur – becomes visible to her. Alfur, wanting to help Hilda find a solution to the situation she and her mother have found themselves in, takes her outside and shows her that her house is actually surrounded by a village of tiny elven homes. Alfur brings her to see the village mayor, who rants about how Hilda and her family have long been a menace to elf-kind by constantly walking through the village with their comparatively huge feet. Hilda tries to persuade him to call off the attacks but the mayor claims that the situation is in the Prime Minister’s hands, not his.

Alfur, Twig, and Hilda go to see the elf Prime Minister, who reveals that he only called for the attacks on Hilda’s house to help him get elected. Like the village mayor, the Prime Minister again passes the buck and says that it is up to the King to decide Hilda’s fate. Angry and upset, Hilda sits down on a hillside and begins to cry until soothed by Alfur, who tells her that he will help her get an audience with the King.

My Thoughts – Honestly, I’ve always felt that this episode is one of the stronger introductions to a show and its protagonist that I’ve seen in a while. Right away we get a strong sense of who Hilda is. Her love of adventure and the wilderness shine through, both through the lovely opening montage of her running through the countryside and encountering a number of strange creatures as well as through her strong determination to ensure that she and her mom don’t have to move to the city. Of course, on the flipside of that determination are some signs of impatience. She is clearly not above blackmailing the mayor to get through to the Prime Minister faster. Her compassion for all creatures is also on ready display, particularly in her interaction with the troll. Not only is she perceptive enough to realize that it is in pain from the sound of the bell, but she is willing to risk her life to help remove it despite the troll having just chased her all the way home.

Let me just take a moment to gush about the show’s aesthetics. The muted color palette, both during the day and night scenes, combined with the subtle electronic-tinged soundtrack result in a very cozy and relaxing feel despite the various action sequences. The environments are beautifully illustrated and really sell the sense of awe and curiosity that drives Hilda. One little detail I love is that if you look closely you can see that all the lines are rough and slightly squiggly around the edges as if they were hand drawn with pencil. It’s a small thing, but it lends the show an additional sense of authenticity. The character designs are wonderful too – not overly detailed, but not too cartoony either.

I absolutely love the way the elves are portrayed in this episode. In many cultures’ folklore, creatures like elves and fairies operate using very specific and arcane rules. Having the elves here be extremely bureaucratic and legalistic – to the point where you need to sign a contract to be able to physically interact with them – feels like a logical and fun extension of this idea. I’m also a fan of how they look pretty much like glorified stick figures. It hammers home the size difference between the elves and the humans, and also gives the elves a distinct appearance beyond just ‘small humans with pointy ears.’

This episode ends on a cliffhanger that will be resolved in the next episode. Although episodes will often end with a hint toward the plot of the next episode, an episode’s plot rarely connects to the following episode so directly, making this premiere a bit of an anomaly for the show.

Episode MVP – Hilda. This episode spends a lot of time with her, helping us to get to know who our protagonist is and what motivates her.

Folklore Connections – Elves, known as ‘älvor’, do play a role in Swedish mythology and Scandinavian mythology in general. In Swedish folklore, elves are usually all female and are often (but not always) depicted as tiny spirit-like creatures that reside in hilly areas and are connected in some way to mist. They are usually portrayed as skilled magic users who are masters of illusion. We can see the way some of these elements made their way into the show’s depiction of elves – they seem to reside among the hills surrounding Hilda’s home, they are very diminutive in stature, and it could be argued that making themselves invisible is an example of powerful illusion.

Trolls also form a very important part of Scandinavian mythology. Typically portrayed as very large, grotesque, and clumsy beings that live in secluded mountain caves, they nonetheless are often shown to be crafty tricksters with a strong connection to nature. This seems to be a pretty apt description for the troll we see in this episode (well, maybe minus the trickster part).

For further information about trolls and elves in Swedish folklore, see the Sweden tourism site’s page: https://visitsweden.com/what-to-do/culture-history-and-art/culture/mythological-creatures/

My Totally Arbitrary Episode Ranking – A very solid B.

Trivia/Stray Observations –

• “Of course, once the Sun goes down we’re doomed!”
• “Well, that was pretty traumatic. But such is the life of an adventurer.”
• “I can’t read with all these distractions.” I know the feeling, Wood Man.
• “We didn’t even know you existed until recently.” “Pure ignorance!” “You’re invisible!”
• “It’s out of my hands. And I don’t even have hands!”
• “Tell me where your Prime Minister is, or I’ll let your kitty live in my hair forever.”
• The Wood Man is a mood.
• I just can’t look at the Wood Man without thinking of Deku scrubs from Legend of Zelda. I tried to poke around and see if I could find some kind of folkloric connection between the two, but as far as I could tell there isn’t any. Maybe Luke Pearson is a Zelda fan?
• That ‘Dragon Panic’ game definitely looks like Legally Distinct^TM Settlers of Catan.
• Where did the elf mayor get that tiny cat?
• The rabbits those cavalry elves were riding were pretty adorable.
• A lot of the creatures that pop up in this episode – trolls, woffs, the raven, the Wood Man, and, of course, the elves – will continue to play a role throughout the series.
• In case you are wondering, this episode uses elements from two of the graphic novels – Hilda and the Troll and Hilda and the Midnight Giant.
• Hilda’s intro is one of my favorite TV intros:

That’s it for this week! We’ve got the ball rolling on Season 1, and next week we continue with ‘Chapter 2: The Midnight Giant’.

Please share any thoughts about the episode below. Make sure to spoiler tag any references to future events in the series in case anybody is stumbling across the show for the first time, and follow all of the Avocado’s rules and guidelines.

Thanks for reading!