Hilda, the Great Raven, and Other-than-Human Persons
One of the defining features of various religions or societies is the way humans understand their position in relation to the other aspects of the world around them. It is not just the way humans understand their positioning to others, such as in social hierarchies or families. But it also determines our understanding of how humans interact with the rest of the life around us, including plants, animals and mythological creatures.
Hilda is a British-Canadian television show created by the same person who worked on Adventure Time. It is a beautiful cartoon with cutesy characters, which bridges the boundaries often drawn up between two genres of audience: children and adults. The show itself is an urban fantasy, following a young girl named Hilda who is used to living in the forest and having adventures, who then has to move to the big city.
Hilda has a lot of interactions between the main human characters and the other-than-humans that surround them. Their interconnections with trolls are made obvious through the high walls of the city of Trollberg, and the lingering fear of them. More familiarly, the relationship Hilda has with her deer-fox pet Twig is very reminiscent of the types of relationships between humans and the pets we find more relatable, such as dogs and cats. But there are others who inhabit the world, like the Great Raven.
The Great Raven is a thunderbird, a shape-shifting bird who has been worshiped by the citizens of Trollberg when he perched on a statue of their god and was mistaken as a messenger Raven. While the Great Raven explains this as a form of misunderstanding, what we really see is a reciprocal relationship between the humans of Trollberg and the other-than-human of the Great Raven. While the Great Raven’s relationship with the town started as incidental, he found a relationship with the city built on mutual love and respect. The Raven saw a people who were excited at his presence, and who needed something to give them home, and in return the Raven received thanks, support and celebration.
In many religions around the world, this is the type of relationship that exists between the god or gods and their adherents. It is not a relationship where the onus is purely on the believer, like how in Christianity it is up to the individual to believe in God or the importance of Jesus. Rather, in religions like many bhakti Hinduisms, the relationship is seen as mutual - the god needs the believer as much as the believer needs the god.
The Great Raven being, in actual fact, a Thunderbird is not relevant. The importance is not in what the Great Raven is, but rather in the relationship fostered between the Raven and the residents of Trollberg. Those who live in Trollberg see the Great Raven as an integral part of their society, one that has an important place within it, not outside it.
A lot of the interactions with other-than-human beings in Hilda follow this line. These entities are given their own personalities, interests, histories, stories and objectives. They are seen as having the same amount of agency in their own lives and in their own environment as Hilda has in hers. Hilda also acknowledges this fact, allowing solutions to issues to be solved with understanding and empathy rather than fighting. The reason why this type of solution works is because the thoughts and cares of those who are not human are considered as important as those who are.
In many ways, Hilda is a great example of how the relationship between humans and other-than-humans works in many different societies and belief structures around the world. It shows us how we can think and care about others who are vastly different than ourselves, even those who are not even human.
Hilda is a great show to demonstrate these types of thoughts, and to illustrate them to give the best understanding for these views that are often so vastly different than the typical post-Enlightenment Western audience. But this great consideration of the love between humans and those who are other-than-human doesn’t always hold up throughout the show.
As an example, lets return to the episode of the Great Raven. This episode is early in the first season, and in it, Hilda has yet to find a place for herself in her new city of Trollberg. Her mother throughout the episode is insisting that Hilda find other young human children to play with. She finds it troubling that her daughter only really has made friends with non-humans.
Hilda’s response is not that the friendship between herself and her other-than-human friends is just as important as those with other humans, but that the humans she initially met were simply not the right ones. In fact, as the show progresses, Hilda does form connections with other human children, and these relationships become the most important ones, sometimes even overshadowing her relationships with her other-than-human friends.
At its heart, Hilda is still a British-Canadian show, written by Luke Pearson who did not grow up in a culture enriched in the worldview that promotes equal partnerships with other-than-human beings. In many ways, Hilda reveals a very post-Enlightenment Western understanding of what it means to be in relationship with non-humans- one in which friendship may be drawn, but never over the relationship drawn between humans. Humanity is always considered still above others.
This is not always how everyone around the world views the relationship between humans and other-than-humans. For many, other-than-humans are considered just as much as persons as humans are. Personhood is a consideration that is given to others regardless of species. For many, we know our pets are persons, even if we do not humanize them. This is why some films, most notably Disney films, depict animals which are supposed to be imbued with personhood acting as dogs, such as the horse from Tangled or the Reindeer in Frozen. This approach is a simplified way of understanding personhood and getting audiences to feel the same type of attachment to non-human characters by giving them personhood.
But for many around the world, non-human persons are more than just our various companion animals. They are also the other forces of nature around us at any given moment: the birds who perch on nearby trees, the stones in fields who may move during the night, and even the dragons in nearby lagoons. Hilda shows these creatures in ways that do not necessarily lean on the Disney-dog-trope. The trolls act like trolls. Even the clouds have actions and movement to them that are inherently cloud-like. We care about the creatures in Hilda - not because they remind us of what we already ascribe personhood to, but because they open us up to the plethora of personhoods we inherently see, but society does not necessarily openly embrace.
But Hilda does, occasionally, fall on the Disney-dog-trope. Hilda’s pet deer-fox, Twig, is often given dog-like characteristics. How necessary this may be is a bit of a question. The fox part of Twig could be easily related to dog-like movements, but the deer aspect of his person rarely shows, only getting a glimmer of it in the second season episode that is focused on Twig.
The Great Raven does not need to represent itself as a dog because he is the Great Raven. His role in the society of Trollberg is pronounced. His presence is felt throughout the town, which is demonstrated by the fear and concern at his initial absence from the celebration in his honour. The relationship between human and non-human is explored through the reciprocal community. The Great Raven is as much a part of the community as the human citizens of the town.
For a show created in a context which typically does not privilege the importance of other-than-human-persons, Hilda is actually a great introduction to the world of humanity not taking itself as the top of a hierarchical line. It encourages us to not treat the creatures around us as less than just because they are not human, but rather protect them because together, we are all persons.