u/luciferoussky72

I made the CD’s by using blank CD-R’s I had and finding the Hilda soundtrack online, then burning the songs and doing some art on them in sharpie.

If you’re wondering where season 2 and the movie are, I already burnt those CDs but I still need to do the art for them. I’ll post the art for them tomorrow!

You heard me right; I need a weird hill to die on and all of the fairy mounds are too far from my house. (please tell me at least one person got that joke)

That aside, I genuinely think the episode is badly written.

First of all, let's make it clear that I'm looking at only the writing, so I'm ignoring things like spectacle and humor that save the episode from being a straight-up bad episode.

Alright, so let's go over the plot and point out the various issues with the plot.

Firstly, Hilda travels back in time, but this time to a parallel universe. The reason for this is a pretty basic fetch quest of "oh no, my charm is broken, guess I have to make a new one," which I think is the first problem. The premise just isn't super interesting. Anyway, her travelling back in time to a parallel universe means that nothing she does has any real consequence, which the episode even makes a joke about. This makes it hard to feel like anything Hilda does in the episode actually matters. What's the point of what happens if it's happening in a separate universe?

Let's jump to the actual content now. In my opinion, the plot with Halvor/The Giantslayer and the giants is very clunky. The show portrays the idea of the giants being the victims when in fact they literally waltz around the place without even looking where they're going. I know Hilda's whole thing this episode is that the giants can't help it, but it still kind of falls flat to portray ancient and intelligent creatures as victims when they literally don't seem to care at all.

I also have to talk about Halvor. He's a pretty uninteresting character overall; he is literally a cookie-cutter "the giants took everything from me, so I vowed to destroy them" character. He's not nearly as well-written as the one-off character who comes the next episode; Louise. Louise has actual personality beyond just a goal; Halvor has literally none of that. He is literally just a person who exists to move the plot forwards.

While I dislike the aforementioned parts of the episode, I think the episode's greatest "crime" is something else entirely. The biggest issue with the episode:

It rehashes themes we learned in literal season one, episode two.

Let's break down that episode, The Midnight Giant. It's about Hilda trying to get peace between two groups at an impasse, struggling for it, and then eventually learning that even doing everything right sometimes isn't enough.

The Giantslayer has literally the exact same themes. Now, normally I would pardon this kind of thing, as I don't mind The Laughing Merman and The Train to Tofoten sharing the theme of embracing adventure and weirdness, but I think it becomes a serious problem when a show's getting down to the wire and drops a theme that we both already know and isn't related to the rest of the season's overall message at all.

For all of these reasons, I would say The Giantslayer is the closest the show gets to filler. The only lasting consequence of the episode is that Hilda gets a new charm... after breaking her old one in the same episode.

In fact, I dislike the episode enough that I'm considering cutting it out of my rewatches moving forwards, but I still at least tolerate it for now.

I'd like to hear what other people think and what other thoughts you guys might have on the episode. (I swear the comment section on this one will be a flippin' warzone lol)

I am back with another theory!

To get this out of the way; I know it’s technically not supposed to be called by a name, (and I would prefer to respect that) but everybody in the community just calls it the Spider-Frog, so something something “when in Rome; do as the Romans do.” Suffice it to say I’ll be using “Spider-Frog” for clarity.

That said, I think the Spider-Frog has some intriguing lore attached. As with any of my theories, let’s start with what the show shows us.

One, The Fairy Entity is extremely aggressive about keeping people and fairies bound to the Fairy Isle. As the ice-cream guy in Tofoten says, “When one goes to Fairy Country, they’re never seen again.” The Fairy Entity was even willing to fill the Borderlands with eyes (the canon name for the eye creatures in the Borderlands, actually) to keep anyone from escaping, showing it’s willing to create monstrosities to do its bidding. Additionally, both the eyes and the Spider-Frog can be warded off by charms.

Two, Johanna and her family are fairies who have left fairy country, so it would make sense that The Fairy Entity would be angry at them for leaving. In fact, it’s a reasonable theory that The Fairy Entity made Johanna sick in the first place to get revenge on Phinium for leaving and force Johanna’s parents into a bargain.

Three, the Spider-Frog is a “monstrosity.” Unlike most creatures in the Hilda world, the Spider-Frog follows no sensible biology and is a strange amalgam of well, a spider and a frog! It also eats specifically fairies, as it spat out Hilda and Johanna for being “too human”. Additionally, it is very old, as it says “I'm from a time when creatures didn't have to be so clearly one thing or another” and describes the song Johanna plays on the panpipes as an “ancient song.”

Putting these together, it’s not much of a jump to say that The Fairy Entity created the Spider-Frog a long time ago to hunt down fairies that run away to the human world. It would make sense considering what we know, and The Fairy Entity could even have commanded it to hunt down Johanna and her family if it has some sort of contact with it via magic, although that’s impossible to prove.

I’m interested to hear what you guys think about this theory and what other theories about the Spider-Frog that you might have!

So my last post was rather negative (even if the tie-in books by Stephen Davies deserve criticism), so let’s talk about something more fun and positive instead!

I love the Hilda and Twig books! As a huge fan of both the animated series and original graphic novels, the Hilda and Twig books are filled with fun little references and throwbacks to content from both universes.

The most interesting thing about the books is honestly getting to see Twig’s thoughts. While he’s very strongly characterised in the animated series especially, being able to see exactly what he’s thinking and even saying in the Hilda and Twig books is both adorable and very interesting.

Now, as for the references, and warning, here are spoilers from the original graphic novels:
-The “Ice Man” is a throwback to a creature shown in the Giants of Old page of Hilda and the Midnight Giant
-Burku’s existence is a throwback to Hilda and the Troll, where it’s shown that forest giants live near Hilda’s house. Yes, I’m aware that Burku and her family eventually move away, but it’s still a fun reference
Only a spoiler if you somehow haven’t finished the animated series:
-Two animals saying “we think it’s a fairy mound” when stuck in the burial mound is a great way to make the whole fairies arc from season 3 feel less limited to only that season’s scope
-Hilda playing the flute in Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain is a nice detail and sets up Hilda feeling overconfident with panpipes in season 3 but proceeding to play them horribly because the woodwind skills don’t transfer over lol

Anyway, that wraps up my two cents on the books. I highly recommend buying and reading them, as they honestly have a lot of the same charm as the original comics by Luke Pearson.

Now, I just have to flex the fact that I found all nine of the tie-in books at a normal price. If you’re in the US; try Barnes and Noble; it’s where I found them.

Anyway, flexing aside, let’s address the elephant in the room:

**I’d say that, incontrovertibly, the season one tie-ins are not good.**

Why? First of all, when you boil it down, they’re basically just a worse retelling of season one. They also leave a lot out, like the whole plot from The Ghost? Gone. The Storm? Gone. The Tide Mice? Gone.

While they do add some context to some events or add certain things to the story, it’s mostly meaningless token things like Alfur getting around his vow to not \*say\* where the elf king is by pointing out where he lives on a map.

Plus, the first three get most characters’ personalities completely wrong. Hilda is overly sensitive in a bad way (I normally like Hilda being sensitive, but the first three tie-in books just make the moments of her crying way too common to matter), Johanna is an emotionally abusive parent, Frida and David lose all depth, etc.

I also have the mention the artstyle of the first three; it’s weird. It doesn’t have half the charm that the show or graphic novels have and makes it feel like you’re reading about a weird parallel universe where everyone is a facsimile of their normal selves but lacks the soul of a true character (which really is what you are reading, so good job to the illustrator lol!)

Anyway, the season 2 books have an immediate jump in quality. It still suffers from a similar problem of just being a worse retelling of the show, but fixes most of the problems the first three had. The artstyle is far closer to the show, characters feel like themselves, added moments are actually interesting rather than token.

Plus, the season 2 books make up for things the season 1 books left out by at least mentioning them. The events of The Storm and The Tide Mice are mentioned and recapped so that later events like The Windmill and The Witch make sense.

That said… they left out The Deerfox! Hilda still tells the past story, but it takes about two pages and is far less heartfelt than it ever was in the show.

Finally; the season 3 books. These are pretty good. I think what gave the writer an advantage is that season 3 is shorter, so adapting it to a few books doesn’t require cutting as much. Granted, some events still get expedited, sped up, or removed, but it keeps at least the basic plot of all episodes of season 3.

The season 3 books also feel like they make themselves actually worth your time by giving different or expanded tellings of certain events. For example, we get more content out of Louise, who was an underused character in the show.

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts. My advice; if you really love Hilda, don’t read the tie ins; stick to the animated series and graphic novels instead. Both are better universes than the tie ins.

So the post I made the other day did pretty well, so let’s share another thought I have about the show!

Something that seems to confuse a lot of people is that Hilda sees Johanna as a kid. Especially considering Astrid later says “We see everything through the haze of what the island thinks we want to see,” so why would Hilda see her mum as a kid?

Well, the reason (at least the reason I came up with), when you think about it, makes perfect sense.

To start; what changes Hilda’s family dynamics the most this season? I’d say it’s her dad’s arrival and disappearance. Hilda gets a taste of a more adventurous parent with her dad letting her drive and bringing her on a mysterious errand, and she seems to really like this. Sadly, it’s cut short by her dad disappearing.

Take a look at Hilda next episode in The Forgotten Lake; she’s desperate to find her dad and gets so consumed with it that she takes it out on her mum; calling her overprotective.

Later that episode, we see the more adventurous side of Johanna, and it’s pretty clear that Hilda likes this side of her mum. She appreciates that her mum rode on a woff back in Tofoten and appreciates going camping with her, even saying she’ll never forget the camping trip.

Fast-forward to The Fairy Isle. Hilda encounters her mum as a kid, but doesn’t know it at first. The kid is adventurous and risk-taking; exactly the kind of kid that Hilda enjoys hanging out with.

What’s been shown incontrovertibly throughout season 3? That Hilda often wishes her mum was more adventurous and risk-taking! It makes perfect sense then that she would see the younger, more adventurous version of her mum.

This idea actually underlines a pretty resonant theme that season 3 has; that Hilda wishes she had a father figure in her life and that in episodes like The Forgotten Lake, her mum steps in and takes on that role. It’s actually rather heartbreaking to think about how Hilda may do her best to hide it, but she genuinely wishes she had a father figure of some sort in her life. She even asks Trylla if she has a “troll-dad” during the movie and seems to enjoy the company of the bellkeeper, both hinting at her deep want for a father figure.

Anyway, this post has gotten long enough, but I want to end it by asking what you guys would think of an “Overanalyzing Hilda” series over on Youtube. It’d be based on Overanalyzing Avatar and be in-depth analyses of each Hilda episode, going in sequential order. Tell me in the comments what you think.

I see plenty of people who really dislike this episode, and I’ll be honest; I see where they’re coming from. The nisse being childish and one literally saying “I didn’t steal it, I simply borrowed it with the intent of keeping it on my person for all eternity!” is not a very interesting nor well-executed plot point.

That said, boiling down the episode to “childish nisse” ignores parts of the episode that in my eyes actually make it a pretty good episode of the show.

\#1; The moral isn’t really about sharing; it’s about friendships through tough times. This episode marks a low point in Hilda, Frida, and David’s friendship as Hilda hyperfixates on finding her dad to the expense of everything else in her life. This is punctuated by Hilda ruining Frida’s town hall meeting and then David and Frida leaving Hilda because they know she’s not in a good mental state.

The scene where Van Gale’s song plays in the background punctuates this, with David struggling to sleep and Frida shown mourning the simpler times when they were younger. It’s actually a rather nuanced theme to cover how friendships can get messy as you and your friends get older.

And then at the end of the episode, Hilda makes it up to Frida by sharing the idea of a lending library, and Hilda, Frida, and David make amends, with Hilda and Frida going as far as to apologise to each-other. What I like most is that it’s an earned apology, not one that comes out of nowhere.

I also must mention that it was a rather good writing choice to have the episode before The Fairy Isle, where Frida and David are helping Hilda on an incredibly dangerous excursion into Fairy Country, be about them struggling through a low in their friendship and surmounting it.

\#2; It’s is one of the episodes where Hilda is emotionally vulnerable, and that’s great.

We get to see “vulnerable Hilda” in some of my favorite parts of the show; The Hidden People when she cries over being forced to leave the wilderness; The Ghost when she is shocked to hear Frida say “I’m sorry you ever moved here!”; The Deerfox when she breaks down over Twig leaving; The Stone Forest when Twig is stuck on the goat; The Mountain King when she is upset about being stuck as a troll; The Job when her dad runs away; The Forgotten Lake when she’s looking for her dad and when the creature without a name (I refuse to call it the “Spider Frog”) has her in its clutches; and finally in the Fairy Isle as she panics over her mum entering the mound, mourns being stuck in Fairy Country, and as her mum nearly dies.

The great part about seeing vulnerable Hilda is that we get to see that Hilda isn’t a fearless adventurer who kicks ass and takes names in that order; she’s someone with feelings who is deeply upset by losing people and places she loves.

Strange Frequencies is one of the episodes that shows a lot of vulnerable Hilda; in fact it might be the episode that shows vulnerable Hilda the most explicitly, with her going stark-raving mad over decoding the radio signals and eventually flopping onto her bed in defeat after David and Frida walk out on her. It’s genuinely great to see the more vulnerable side of Hilda in this episode.

\#3; It may be less heavy than most of the rest of season 3, but that’s not really a problem. Season 3 does generally have more serious episodes than previous seasons; and episodes like The Forgotten Lake and The Fairy Isle are probably the most serious in the show.

In fact, Strange Frequencies falls right in between those two episodes, so I think one of the reasons it gets a lot of hate is because it’s a tonal shift from the two episodes around it.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with its core topic of nisse being less serious than the episodes before and after it. Not only do we have the very serious topic of Hilda losing her mind over finding her dad to balance that out; this kind of storytelling is actually rather common in animation.

Take Avatar The Last Airbender; (no spoilers upcoming) it has two very serious episodes, The Puppetmaster and The Day of Black Sun, “insulated” by a less-serious episode, Nightmares and Daydreams. The idea is that you don’t want to keep the show’s tone too firmly serious, so insulating with a lower stakes episode is a good idea.

That leads to my closing point; is Hilda a show all about terrifying creatures and getting stuck in a stagnant life? No! It’s a cozy show about wacky creatures and characters you love. I think Strange Frequencies gets a lot of undue hate when in reality, it’s not half bad.

(Note: I reposted because I messed up the cropping on the images lol)

I see plenty of people who really dislike this episode, and I’ll be honest; I see where they’re coming from. The nisse being childish and one literally saying “I didn’t steal it, I simply borrowed it with the intent of keeping it on my person for all eternity!” is not a very interesting nor well-executed plot point.

That said, boiling down the episode to “childish nisse” ignores parts of the episode that in my eyes actually make it a pretty good episode of the show.

#1; The moral isn’t really about sharing; it’s about friendships through tough times. This episode marks a low point in Hilda, Frida, and David’s friendship as Hilda hyperfixates on finding her dad to the expense of everything else in her life. This is punctuated by Hilda ruining Frida’s town hall meeting and then David and Frida leaving Hilda because they know she’s not in a good mental state.

The scene where Van Gale’s song plays in the background punctuates this, with David struggling to sleep and Frida shown mourning the simpler times when they were younger. It’s actually a rather nuanced theme to cover how friendships can get messy as you and your friends get older.

And then at the end of the episode, Hilda makes it up to Frida by sharing the idea of a lending library, and Hilda, Frida, and David make amends, with Hilda and Frida going as far as to apologise to each-other. What I like most is that it’s an earned apology, not one that comes out of nowhere.

I also must mention that it was a rather good writing choice to have the episode before The Fairy Isle, where Frida and David are helping Hilda on an incredibly dangerous excursion into Fairy Country, be about them struggling through a low in their friendship and surmounting it.

#2; It’s is one of the episodes where Hilda is emotionally vulnerable, and that’s great.

We get to see “vulnerable Hilda” in some of my favorite parts of the show; The Hidden People when she cries over being forced to leave the wilderness; The Ghost when she is shocked to hear Frida say “I’m sorry you ever moved here!”; The Deerfox when she breaks down over Twig leaving; The Stone Forest when Twig is stuck on the goat; The Mountain King when she is upset about being stuck as a troll; The Job when her dad runs away; The Forgotten Lake when she’s looking for her dad and when the creature without a name (I refuse to call it the “Spider Frog”) has her in its clutches; and finally in the Fairy Isle as she panics over her mum entering the mound, mourns being stuck in Fairy Country, and as her mum nearly dies.

The great part about seeing vulnerable Hilda is that we get to see that Hilda isn’t a fearless adventurer who kicks ass and takes names in that order; she’s someone with feelings who is deeply upset by losing people and places she loves.

Strange Frequencies is one of the episodes that shows a lot of vulnerable Hilda; in fact it might be the episode that shows vulnerable Hilda the most explicitly, with her going stark-raving mad over decoding the radio signals and eventually flopping onto her bed in defeat after David and Frida walk out on her. It’s genuinely great to see the more vulnerable side of Hilda in this episode.

#3; It may be less heavy than most of the rest of season 3, but that’s not really a problem. Season 3 does generally have more serious episodes than previous seasons; and episodes like The Forgotten Lake and The Fairy Isle are probably the most serious in the show.

In fact, Strange Frequencies falls right in between those two episodes, so I think one of the reasons it gets a lot of hate is because it’s a tonal shift from the two episodes around it.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with its core topic of nisse being less serious than the episodes before and after it. Not only do we have the very serious topic of Hilda losing her mind over finding her dad to balance that out; this kind of storytelling is actually rather common in animation.

Take Avatar The Last Airbender; (no spoilers upcoming) it has two very serious episodes, The Puppetmaster and The Day of Black Sun, “insulated” by a less-serious episode, Nightmares and Daydreams. The idea is that you don’t want to keep the show’s tone too firmly serious, so insulating with a lower stakes episode is a good idea.

That leads to my closing point; is Hilda a show all about terrifying creatures and getting stuck in a stagnant life? No! It’s a cozy show about wacky creatures and characters you love. I think Strange Frequencies gets a lot of undue hate when in reality, it’s not half bad.

1. Twig from memory and shadow practice
2. Twig sleeping
3. Twig in a scarf
4. David practice drawing

Still trying to get better at matching the show’s style. Progress is steady.

The next chapter of my fanfiction series is out! It's about Hilda learning fairy magic from Auntie Astrid. Go read it at https://luciferoussky72.neocities.org/ !

As the Great Raven flies over in this shot from the ending sequence, we see a flower on Hilda's old house bloom. That implies to me that either he actually is the raven-messenger of the god people in Trolberg worshipped, or that thunderbirds have an the ability to give good harvests when they fly over.

Curious to hear what you guys think about this!

Giant art complete! Link:
https://wplace.live/?lat=64.09213716316467&lng=19.741025390624976&zoom=14.5