#the mountain king

[ddoodler]

The Skogsrå.

[nastyadreamstar]

I'm back guys! Finally, I have more free time...

[aurik-kal-durin]

My final Hilda episode ranking for all seasons, plus the movie.

S Tier: Most of these should be self-explanatory. The standouts I feel I must explain are The Nightmare Spirit, The Windmill, and The Yule Lads.

The Nightmare Spirit is one of my favorite episodes in the entire series because it introduces the Marra, and has some absolutely spellbinding folklore behind it, as well as some great character development for Hilda and David. I couldn't NOT put it in S tier.

The Windmill and The Yule Lads I feel are two of the more underrated episodes; the former is a superb David centric episode where he ends up being the unlikely hero, and the latter just has some really good folklore behind, and is a unique take on the Christmas special. It also has a very sweet moment between Hilda and David at the end, which makes it even better in my book.

A Tier: These episodes are not as good as S tier, but are still brimming with charm, and thus are a joy to watch. Whether they have some fascinating folklore behind them, some good character development, or some just some funny or otherwise iconic moments (like David standing up to the Marra, or telling off Frida) these episodes are just as infinitely rewatchable as S tier most of the time.

These episodes formed the backbone of the series and kept me watching from beginning to end. They form a key element that is missing from most other cartoons, and made the difference between keeping me entertained... and feeling like the series was being padded out with unnecessary filler, as has been the case with the majority of shows I've watched in the last 15 years.

B Tier: This is more of a matter of personal preference, but episodes in this tier I just found were a bit of a chore to get through.

The Black Hound, I felt, was a lackluster ending to an otherwise amazing first season.

The Draugen wasn't bad, but I always found it to be pretty "meh" compared to the episodes I have in higher tiers.

C Tier: The House in the Woods was just kind of a boring episode, and I have mixed feelings about The Mountain King. My biggest issue with the movie is with Trylla, the mother troll, her warped justification for kidnapping Hilda, and the fact that she almost got Johanna KILLED while hiding the truth from Hilda. Sorry, but I cannot overlook that.

D Tier: Episodes in this tier all had something that held them back, but weren't so bad that I had a hard time watching them from start to finish.

The Troll Circle was a bland and meandering opening to the second season, and it introduced us to Ahlberg, who was at his most annoying in that episode.

The Beast of Cauldron Island had a lot of things I didn't like, such as the continuation of Frida's awful character arc for Season 2, and David being reduced to a useless coward yet again.

Strange Frequencies made all of the characters unlikeable and OOC while focusing too much on the nisse, when it should've focused on Hilda's dad.

F Tier: These are the few episodes in all of Hilda that I consider to be genuinely bad to the point where they're unwatchable.

The Witch kickstarts Frida's awful character arc for Season 2, dumbs down Hilda to make Frida look smarter, strips the Librarian of her mystique from Season 1, and introduces some unlikable and annoying new characters in the form of the Committee of Three.

The Eternal Warriors uses all of it's runtime to make fun of David, reducing him to a useless coward, and giving us some really cringe-inducing scenes when he becomes fearless.

The Jorts Incident is the single worst episode of the entire series, wasting the potential of the tide mice on a forgettable side character and a lazy Ghostbusters homage... while also reducing David to a useless coward yet again!

The Giantslayer is a pointless time travel side quest that portrays the giants as victims even as they're carelessly stepping on people's houses and ruining their entire lives.

[protege-not-protagonist]

CM: The Protégé - Episode 3: The Mountain King

Chapter 8: The Mountain King - pt. 1

With Nathan Harris' death confirmed as suspicious, Grace and Spencer start work on the case. But there is another case in the Appalachian Mountains that requires the team's attention.

Chapter 9: The Mountain King - pt. 2

The Appalachian case proves to be a challenge. The victims remain unidentified. The geography is screwy. And there's a new behaviour the team hasn't seen before.

Chapter 10: The Mountain King - pt. 3

While the team works on the case in the Appalachian Mountains establishing theories and defining a profile, Spencer throws himself into working the victimology of this new Unsub killer and reluctantly attends a trivia night.

Chapter 11: The Mountain King - pt. 4

Grace finds some details that could help identify the victims. She is then put on research and with a long boring night ahead of her she calls her friend to check in on him. Meanwhile JJ observes some concerning behaviour from the youngest member of the team.

Chapter 12: the Mountain King - pt. 5

Coming soon.

<<<<<Prev. Episode: 2 - My Brother's Keeper

Next Episode: 4 - Mandated Leave >>>>>

[pikablob]

Which would you say is worse, The Mountain King or The Fifty Year Night?

I went into this fully expecting to say The Fifty-Year Night. It's kind-of the poster child for the parts of Hilda I don't like; it's a microcosm of all the things Season 2 did wrong, it's the episode that's probably inspired more of my fics than any other (and that's not a good thing), and the one time I made a tier list of episodes, it earned its own tier below the normal 'worst'. On the other hand, The Mountain King does have some major bits I like. But I don't just want to say that without some actual thought, so I've decided on a criteria.

Basically, the worse storyline is the one I'd have to change the most in order to fix.

I've talked extensively about The Fifty-Year Night before, and I've also talked about fixing it before. I went into this in my post about fixing Season 2, but I'll go over it here, too, for people who haven't or don't want to read that post (which is completely okay). Fundamentally, I have 3 problems with this episode:

Johanna is unfair to Hilda, and the narrative blames Hilda for it.

The content of this episode is darker and more distressing than a Hilda episode should be.

The complexities of the time travel aren't really explained, and ultimately some things don't make sense.

I won't labour point 1, because I think it's self-explanatory and I've been over it before. Point 2 is really about all the genuinely awful death scenes in this episode, which are just too far for Hilda as a show. And point 3 is something I've seen brought up a few times - it's never actually explained how time worms or changing the past actually work, which leads to weird questions like "is the old future deleted, or does everyone get duplicated and a time worm eats the wrong future people?" - Tildy still being around implies it's the latter, but then the original Johanna is still around and the time worm ignores her - or "why does the enchantment apply to every copy of the magazine, but destroying only one of them stops it?"

For the first point, my solution is simply to gut this episode of any mother-daughter conflict. I actually did this in my Season 2 fix, even when keeping the Stone Forest; the core of this episode is the genuinely beautiful might-have-been of Mr. Ostenfeld and Tildy, and that doesn't rely on anything surrounding Johanna. For the other issues, there is a fix already written hiding in a very unusual place:

Normally, I don't recommend the tie-in novels. They have a lot of issues, and this one is no exception. But weirdly, the version of Fifty-Year Night in this book does actually fix the issues I have with the time travel stuff.

There's no child death, and the Ostenfelds all sort of 'glitch out' in a tonally-good creepy way before they get eaten, so they're not screaming etc. So that's already dealt with. But this version also does away with having the original Tildy show up at the end, and instead gives his role to the original Mr. Ostenfeld, who survives and has a geniune arc instead of being unceremoniously dumped halfway through; this gives him a much more meaningful ending, but also confirms that nobody from the original timeline is still around in the future, which clears up the time-travel confusion. He's actually pretty much the only adult Hilda forms a genuine connection with in the tie-ins (besides a minor character in The Great Parade.)

So, to fix The Fifty Year Night, I'd take that. I'd combine the genuine heartfelt emotion of the show version (which the novel does miss), with the softer and more sensible mechanics of the tie-in novel, and then just bypass the Hilda & Johanna stuff entirely. Honestly, it's not a huge script change to make it into something that would work with the tone and feeling of S1.

The Mountain King, on the other hand, is actually a tougher nut to crack. It does have a lot of stuff I like, and on the surface, it doesn't seem like its problems are much worse:

Trylla is genuinely unlikeable and her 'redemption' doesn't work.

Erik gets off too lightly (TBF this one is less important).

Again, some scenes are just too distressing for this series.

Frida and David's storyline is functionally irrelevant.

The problem is that fixing these to my standards would require substantial changes to the story. Point 1 (and really point 3) are central to the story; the whole thing is about a kidnapping, a genuinely unforgiveable act that only gets compounded (twice) later on, and yet we have to sympathise with the kidnapper. Likewise, point 4 exists because David and Frida aren't main characters in the graphic novels, so they weren't in the original version of this storyline at all (barring a brief appearance by Frida in The Stone Forest that provides Johanna with the motivation to be awful).

There is, I think, a way to fix The Mountain King, and turn it into the finale that the first two seasons deserved. But that way involves ripping out the entire main thrust of the plot. Because what I would do to fix it is remove the changeling stuff entirely, and turn David and Frida's story into the central one.

The Hilda movie should have been about Hilda and her friends actually working to stop Erik and the Safety Patrol from going to war with the trolls. It should have been about them starting a movement amongst the students; about them reaching out to all of the creatures they've met and befriended so far, to prove that they're not bad and to protect their homes; about them standing up for something, from the start, and showing the people of Trolberg that they don't need to be afraid of what's outside the walls.

I'd keep the climax the same - I'd probably have Hilda still tricked into freeing Trundle (he promises her he'll lead the trolls to peace or something similar) - but I'd only keep the David & Frida stuff beyond that. I'd rework Trylla entirely, into Hilda venturing into the Stone Forest to find that troll mum who helped her before in order to learn the truth and stop Trundle. And I'm sure the result would be amazing, but it would be pretty much unrecogniseable compared to the movie we actually got.

And that's why, honestly, as much as The Mountain King has more stuff I like in it, I'd say it's worse. Because to fix The Fifty-Year Night, I only need to tweak some things; to fix Mountain King, I need a sledgehammer.

[naniguini]

[jagexisterar]

I have a lot of thoughts about Bramble the mountain king and one thing is that I really wished they had leaned into the more tragic reality of mylingar instead of the "oooh look at this evil female witch who kill babies just to get more powerfull"

It could have been very impactful and emotional so its a shame they turned it into something so cliché

[airasora]

So, a horror game with Nordic fables in it just came out. For those unaware, I'm Danish and therefore Nordic so... yes, I have to play this.

Join me on twitch.tv/skywiththunder or on YouTube at @AylaSky this Sunday 👀

[wheezytomato]

I'm live on Twitch, come hang out! https://www.twitch.tv/wheezytomato?sr=a

[gbhbl]

EP Review: The Mountain King - Apostasyn (Self Released)

If you, as a listener, know anything about The Mountain King, it is to expect something wholly unique and extremely challenging. A band that is quite impossible to categorise, crossing genres in ways that few would be brave enough to do.

The Mountain King, the blackened experimental post doom and drone band are back with a brand-new EP called ‘Apostasyn’. Featuring four monumental tracks and their instrumental counterparts. The EP will released on February 2nd, 2024. Says The Mountain King: Apostasyn is our slow descent from the drug that is religion. To leave the tradition of your social group is the hardest part of life…

[captainpissofff]

I'm sorry if I didn't get this out I might explode, but it just pisses me off so much that Bramble the mountain king created such....an OUTSTANDING OST, an absolute sweeper such Martin wave's Bramble, Blood & Moonlight and Nacken.

Then let you boss fight the mountain king over remixed version of In the hall of the Mountain king...that slowly turns into Nightcore style..

Bro I'm PIISSSEEDDD I'm fucking pissed Martin and Dan Wakefield did an AMAZING job don't get me wrong they unleashed the beast in Grieg's masterpiece but STILL I expected an OST.

BRO I DEADASS PAUSED!

was so invested in the game, dodging all that shit this king ass giving me, then I just ZONED OUT I fucking paused that I fucking died cause I was flabbergasted so bad of the soundtrack that was on x2

[seven-eyes]

king under the mountain (at least he was, for like two days)

[sprinklesharkie]

more textpost cos i love them

[guywithbeer]

Check out my quick review of the indie, horror, fairy tale like game, BRAMBLE THE MOUNTAIN KING.

#BrambleTheMountainKing #review #videogames #gaming #bramble #themountainking #DimfrostStudio #MergeGames #horror #cinematic #adventure #fairytale #indie