This show is just cool. It’s got good vibes, good design, a cool world that feels internally consistent, and good themes. In a world that refuses to understand the weird stuff that exists in it, Helda is curious and empathic to the weird stuff, and tries to understand their motives and desires. She regularly sees the good in things like trolls and other creatures, and makes connections others can’t. Her relationships with her friends and mom can be strained at times, but they find common ground and learn to be better friends and family.
My kiddo digs it, and I as well.
My child watched this one about a year ago and I agree as far as TV slop goes, it’s pretty good. Netflix has so much trash on it that we have a rule that he needs to get our approval before going on it and watching anything (I don’t even have it on his tablet), and this one was pretty easy to say yes to.
There are a lot of interesting and vaguely leftist themes within the show that I pick up on. Hilda and her Mom move to Trollberg after living in what, I assume, is the woods, among all the weird stuff that lives there. Trollberg is a walled off shire/town/village/city, and its founder was a legendary Trollslayer, and the namesake of her new school. That history seems pretty important to the Principal, and I assume, greater Trollberg as well. Hilda, however, has a different understanding of Trolls after interacting with them. Where characters from the town see the trolls as threats, she sees their motivations for what they are. In that specific episode, the motivations of a mother seeking her child. This dynamic of, people within the wall having a negative view of Trolls, and Hilda from outside the wall having a neutral and informed understanding, and showing how her point of view can find mutually beneficial resolution is a nice change of pace from typical kids shows.
The show regularly has this theme of taking black and white thinking and exploring it deeper to find the shades of gray, or the underlying motivations of the subjects. One of the regular antagonists in the second season is the bumbling, overconfident, descendant of the Trollslayer, who acts as the cities safety captain. He regularly disregards the natural order of the land, regularly antagonizes the Trolls to justify his goal of keeping the town “safe”, he shamelessly takes credit for the efforts of the main characters, and is generally not a good dude. He’s presented in a way, to me, that shows he really believes he’s doing the right thing and really believes that this world view that the Trolls are a threat, is accurate, despite doing no real investigation or study of the Trolls as creatures.
The News in Trollberg, which you get small clips of, is also regularly shown to hold a similar outlook as the Safety Captain. Growing concern and fear reporting about increasing Troll Bonfires on the mountain, anxiety inducing news reporting about the Black Dog, I’m sure there are other examples as well.
All of this means nothing to my kid haha. I appreciate it, though.