I'm not sure how tongue in cheek this was, but I assume it's serious. Either way, it's a fun and smart read.
The article spots well the dark side of the moomins, but in my opinion goes too deep into it. My disagreements boil down to this: "One of the oddest aspects of the Moomin phenomenon is how these complex tales of apocalypse, breakdown and disfunction have been consistently misread as cutesy celebrations of domestic life." Yes, all these things exist, but the point to me has always been that they are cutesy despite that! The stories paint a very typical family dynamic (at least of the time, at least in a Finnish swedish speaking family like Tove's), throws it into weirdest situations, and they all survive together thanks to, and despite, their dysfunctions. And Moominmamma is the most wholesome character ever, period.
I've been listening to Moomin audiobooks and reading some of the books to my wife in recent years, and I started to spot some of the more adult/darker subtext in it (I'm still processing the one where the Moominpappa makes the entire family move to a lighthouse, and Moominmamma is desperately trying to cope with growing depression). Still, I have an answer for the author's conundrum, that's accurate for a significant fraction of the readerbase:
> "One of the oddest aspects of the Moomin phenomenon is how these complex tales of apocalypse, breakdown and disfunction have been consistently misread as cutesy celebrations of domestic life."
It's actually really simple. Here in Poland, myself and my entire generation grew up watching the children cartoon adaptation of the Moomins. It was cute, it was happy, it had nice art and music, it was suitable for small children but engaging even to older ones, and it was aired when all kids would be watching[0]. This was our generation's intro to the Moomins, and it colored how we read the books.
I imagine the case is similar all across Europe. A whole generation primed to read these stories as positive and light-hearted, because of a TV adaptation.
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[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieczorynka - public TV (TVP1), every day at 19:00, just before the evening news slot. In times I grew up, watching this was pretty much a national tradition for any family with children.
Light hearted? Suitable for small children? Are you kidding me.
I'm in my mid-30's and still remember nightmares those stupid series gave me when I was in kindergarten. It was X-Files-tier scary ("The X Files" being other show aired by polish TV around same time), masquarading behind cute animations. How can anyone in their right mind call the episode where the Moomintroll swaps bodies with Stinky lighthearted and positive? What about the collection of monsters like Groke or Hattifnats? On some occasion I remember my parents would call me to get out from my room to watch the "wieczorynka" and I would pretend I can't hear and come out only as I hear the outro song starting, just to avoid whatever insane plot the Moomins would bring on me that time. I hate Moomins so much and wish could erase it from existence. Calling it "cute and happy" is like saying candybar with razorblade inside is delicious; technically true but not exactly an accurate description.
I've not seen other Moomin TV-series than the one made in Japan, so I can't comment on the others. The Japanese-made TV-series was probably watched by almost all children of a certain age group in Finland. Of course not all children liked the series or some episodes etc. but I'd say the vast majority did.
And yes, empirically, there were several "scary" things which freaked out the smaller children but were just amusing for an older child. The scary parts usually had a logical explanation or a backstory which made sense (or reflection with an adult made it make sense).
For example (I hope I remember all the details right):
The angry Ant Lion preying in a sandpit: eventually the Moomins manage to shrink it to peanut-size with the Wizard's hat, and it's not so scary anymore. It's still an Ant Lion, but very small, and the voice is high-pitched. Why isn't it scary anymore?
The Groke is scary as it stares while making gnarling sounds and all other characters are afraid of it, but The Groke doesn't want to harm anyone. In some episode a character explains that The Groke is actually very lonely. So it follows people as it wants to hang around them, but expresses itself in a scary way and since The Groke unvillingly freezes things where it goes, others avoid it.
The Wizard was dressed in dark clothes, looked scary and rode on a flying panther. But while The Wizard had a stern face and voice, he did not want harm to anyone and helped Moomins too.
Stinky may have a scary appearance, but also he is is not evil as such, just smells bad and does mischief like steals stuff. Which is why the characters are not so fond of him.
The Hattifatteners are like mushrooms, they grow from seeds, and move about, trying to reach the horizon in groups. They are drawn to thunder and electricity and they can zap someone with electricity if one touches the charged-up Hattifatteners. I always interpreted them like a force of nature, they're not looking to harm anyone, and are no more evil than wind that falls a tree is evil.
What you describe is the very reason I let my children watch moomins. Not everything needs to be bland and boring like today’s children’s shows. World is not like that.
Over here im Finland me and every other 90’s kids watched these shows, and mostly turned our fine. There’s so much nostalgia around it all.
i wonder what you'd think about Brothers Grimm's tales :) And in general children folk tales in many countries do contain strong violence, cruelty, torture, etc. if you'd focus on those details.
I read them when I was older, no strong opinion either way. I'm glad all screen adaptions I saw as child weren't literal. I vaguely remember my parents reading me a few of them and I think they adjusted level of terror to what I could stomach at the time.
Some of the Grimms tales are incredibly gruesome, but it may be a misunderstanding to consider them childrens folk tales. Grimm collected stories told among adults.
In the 19th century it became a trend to publish fairy tales aimed towards children. But these were often sanitized versions of the stories told by adults.
A lot of those stories try to teach children that going alone into the woods is a very bad idea. You have to read them in the historic context; don’t think they’re particularly suitable for modern children.
well, we may adapt them to what happens to the Red Hood when she crosses the road incorrectly and at the wrong place - not much different than meeting a hungry wolf. We may even add a video or two to spike the imagination and burn the lesson into the memory.
Many episodes had darker undertones as well, especially those with the Groke[1] or hattifatteners. Tvtropes has a list[2].
> The Groke was so horrifying in fact, that in Poland it caused a nation-wide fear in almost all children, some of which were even left traumatised for years, leading to some parents forbidding their children from watching Moomins, and some using the Groke as a Bogeyman to scare their children into good behavior. Any 90s or 2000s Polish kid will know how it felt.
This is extremely exaggerated. The Groke is more of a meme here than some sort of night terror. Sure it had an impact and was memorable but there was no wave of traumatized kids spawned by it.
Maybe you watched a different cartoon, were not in that age group - or forgot?
There are many more accounts of that:
> The Groke has been widely considered one of the creepiest characters in fiction by many people and even by a study. In late 90's and early 2000's, when the 90's anime series - which is considered by many to have the scariest portrayal of the Groke in it - premiered in Poland, the Groke - known in Poland as Buka - caused a panic amongst Polish children. The Groke had different sounds - deep, eerie cold howls and moans preformed by voice actor Andrzej Bogusz. This, mixed with the darker colouring of the episodes (a trait shared with Finnish episodes and some other airings) and the fact that the Moomins were mostly played at night, in the Wieczorynka programming block caused the Groke to be widely considered one of the scariest childhood characters in Poland, both by 90's and early 2000's kids.
> Many children were horrified by her, were scared to go to sleep because of her, having dreams of her chasing them or turning into the Groke (some examples of such dreams could be found on the myslalemże.pl portal before it got shut down around early 2010's). The defunct portal Grono.net even had an Anti-Groke forum called ANTY-BUKA, where people would share their childhood stories about the Groke.
> [google translate] How is it possible that a dark, buzzing figure can scare small children? Hey, I can't. As a child I was very afraid of it. Now I don't know why. When I talk to my peers (15 years old) they say they were afraid too. Why?
The filmweb discussion comment pointedly notes the author is not afraid of it now, and doesn't get why it was scary then. Several other comments also point out she looked lonely and less scary than the hattifnattar. Hardly the all-traumatizing experience.
I love the books, I have read them all to my kids, and I agree that I think the article takes its thesis too far.
The books are strange tales. They have dark undertones. And sometimes the adults take actions that only someone with life experience would really understand (e.g. Moominpappa wanting to suddenly upend everything in the families life and move to an isolated island). But, my kids mostly pick up on the adventure and the friendships.
I feel that the Moomins are like most media that is enjoyable by both children and parents in this way (e.g. Bluey, Pixar films, etc.).
Another way to view it is a series that accompanies a child to young adult years. (It took me a few years to get through the series inbetween other books. I assume many bedtime reads for the first few, and independent reading for later ones). What starts as fantastical and whimsical, indeed becomes more somber and concerning interpersonal dynamics, especially those within Moomin family and those around them. "Moominpapa at Sea" is probably most relatable to adult readers. The underlying message of family unity, finding ways to cope with certain events, parenting styles, need to break routines (picnics), unrequited crushes.
Moominland Midwinter is interesting character study too, with sporty "artistic" coded Hemulen proving too much for most of the cast to handle, the forgetful grandpa. Perhaps the message was it is okay to not be friends with everyone as it is a bother.
Compare it to "Finn Family Moomintroll" which is just a constantly stacking ridiculous lighthearted escapade with a few more mature jokes mixed in.
I started reading the novel stories when the kids were 3yo and 6yo. Both love them. My 3yo for the drawings mostly.
There are a number of excellent picture book adaptations of stories that have been published too. But, we read those afterwards and obviously they aren’t as enjoyable to me.
Because this is HN: My tradition is to use my Inkpalm 5 and read them with the lights out at bedtime- we pass the reader around to look at pictures.
Not the previous poster, but based on my own experience as a kid and also my kids I'd say age 5 is perfectly good age to introduce the books.
As an adult you pick up on some the more serious themes but as a kid you just enjoy the story and the bit of danger and overcoming and the overall wholesomeness.
While all the books have both humour and darkness, the early books are more whimsical and playful while the later books are more about loneliness, alienation, and loss.
Mine started 5/6, but the more recent books are made for kids. The
earlier newspaper cartoons are not. Same with TV, the later
Japanese/Dutch produced TV series is lovely. The earlier TV series
(there are several) are dark as the cupboard under the stairs and the
Groke goes postal killing everything in one.
Spot on. I think the author did not think through their argument:
""One of the oddest aspects of the Moomin phenomenon is how these complex tales of apocalypse, breakdown and disfunction have been consistently misread as cutesy celebrations of domestic life.""
But that's exactly what makes domestic life worth celebrating - at best it sustains you through disaster and hardship. What better way to celebrate it than to show it's strength?
Is it really a celebration of family life when Moominpappa uproots the whole family because of his midlife crisis and sends Moominmamma into depression?
I would say yes. In my standards that still accounts for interesting-life-choices-but-safe-and-sane. But I grew up in an alcoholic family so realize my standards are likely slightly low-bar for what accounts for 'admirable'.
They come through it wiser and more in touch with themselves.
A family is a place where you should be able to also be something else than the ideal version of yourself that you’d like to show the rest of the world, something less perfect and more work-in-progress. Moomins lean heavily on showing how that actually makes their family stronger.
> They come through it wiser and more in touch with themselves.
Are you sure? Or is this just projecting the ideals we think childrens books are supposed to have? How is Moominmamma changed after the ordeal on the lonely island? - we don’t know, because the next book is about missing her and about how her absence affects the characters left behind.
The darker threads in the Moomin books are not hidden. It is all in plain view.
Like the squirrel which is too absent minded to seek shelter when the hard frost hits. Guess what - it freezes to death. They give it a nice burial though.
I lived in Finland for a couple years. Finns, like the Moomins, are whimsical yet profound, like midsummer’s fleeting joy before the long winter. They mirror Finland’s love of nature and quiet isolation, with their cozy valley echoing the Finns forest cabins by a lake. The happy vibe hides struggles—tough winters, heavy drinking—but the Moomins’ warmth reflects the Finns’ wholesome character.
Finns (or at least, the successors to tribes that assimilated into the modern-day Finnish nation) were exposed to Christianity later than most of Europe. Pre-Christian religions generally held a higher regard for relationships with nature, that might explain what you're getting at.
I think it is crucial that children get exposure to the sad reality, not in order to normalize it but because the idea of hiding it is what stops progress in the first place and confuses children more than the plain truth. Children need truth and not shielding from it. Highly recommended book around this fundamental mistake in education by a French child psychologist: A corps et a cris. Être psychanalyste avec les tout-petits (Caroline Eliacheff).
I loved Moomins as a kid, and was so surprised when I talked with my wife about it, she thought they were so scary and "off" feeling.
I'm watching them now with our son, and I guess I was just born with a strong appreciation for melancholia.
I changed my mind, when I was a kid I thought they were good, now I think they are great!
In many ways, what makes moomin dark is that it shows us what we already know, the world _just_is_ and in the big picture, does not care about you, you might die, someone you care about might go away, and everyone is, fundamentally, alone, and what makes a person who they are, is partly how they deal with, if at all, being alone in this world of loners.
Moomin is very real and very direct in its dealings with the pain of the meaninglessness of life.
Snufkin, as a child, I took him for a cynic and disliked him, but he taught me something about the world, I think he is a stoic and a nihilist, and I very much like him now, he simply _IS_ in the world, and he accepts, and so appreciates that which also simply is, and which he cannot control.
Yeah, Moomin is dark, but life is dark, life is pleasure and pain, and we will all die, everyone we ever loved will suffer and die, but they will also experience pleasure and life, one could chose only suffering and death, one cannot chose only pleasure and life, and must come to terms with the fact that the underpinnings of pleasure and life is indeed suffering and pain. That's it, the world just is, and we're just in it.
I feel like a lot of the cartoons and tv shows of my childhood was like this, life.. it kinda has bad parts.. and back then, they showed them to kids, and what do I know.. maybe it prepared us to take it on ?
Question to Swedes: what were you child impressions of "Pettson och Findus"? I read it to children as an adult, and impressions are that it tells of the funny & sad sides of taking care of children, and I sympathize to Pettson, of course. I wonder how you saw it as children.
On topic: interesting read. I'd never think these stories had so much dark side to them.
I got all 9 stories in 3 books at the age of 11 and read most of them, and was very happy with the stories, never noticing any of the dread the article speaks about.
Especially the Midwinter story was fascinating - we lived not that North, but in cold winter mid-continent, and the story was like looking out watching for the first signs of the spring, that eventually always comes, but you shouldn't celebrate any of those too early -- when day temperature comes above 0 in March, you know it's going to be freezing in the evening. (Later I was stunned with foreigners in our city complain of this March weather, call it "winter" and be depressed!)
A few years ago someone on social networks posted her impressions from reading them out loud to children -- that indeed it's depressive.
So I guess, the conclusion is that people make opposite meanings and moods of the same events.
I liked Pettson because he's awesome and invents things. I think he's like a physical version of the guy who writes a bunch scripts that together are able to do all his work.
Findus is more of experimenter. He comes up with an idea about something, and ends up following that idea so that it gets tested. He isn't a systematic, scientific experimenter though, since he's a cat.
I also liked all the little animals. To contrast that with the Moomin stories, I only saw it on TV, but it was immediately obvious that they were very austere and very Finnish, even though of course, the author is a Finland-Swede. It's good stuff, but can be, not scary, but something adjacent, to watch as a child. It might be worth it since it allows you to understand these characters in this very austere, isolated environment.
I did like me some Petsson och Findus. Besides agreeing with sibling commenter, the melancholic story with the fox and the fireworks was impactful. The dark moments and their resolution were in general the most meaningful. Fully agree with the notion that it's misguided to deprave ("spare") children from struggles and difficult questions of life. Nothing graphical or depraved but you get the point.
As for the Moomins, I don't know what you all are on about in the comments. I'm with OP on this one. Lasting child Moomin impressions:
- Original comic: Dark, heavy, existential, anxious, depressed, sarcastic, "this is probably not for kids". Still loved them and still find them underrated and wish more people read them.
- Mainstream TV cartoon: Fun fantastical times. And Groke (aka Mårran) was indeed nightmare material
- Newspaper comic: Couldn't keep track
- TV live action: Now this was the true nightmare material. I think it was supposed to be lighthearted but my brother at 37 still talks of how it traumatized him.
Not a swede (yet) but grew up with the books (and merch): I never identified Findus as a child as he was, obviously, a cat. It was fun comic around 3-9 but I cannot say the lesson ever really made sense to me since it was just too abstract. Just funny, like the other Nordquist books. I also liked the associated PC games, which where interesting as they where quite challenging at a certain age with lots of engineering puzzles. But at that point it is really not much about Findus anymore, just the general mood that comes from the comics. Oh, and my brother loved the pancake-cake, whose receipt we somehow got from the book.
Same here. I'm not sure what the "not translated into English until 2005" in TFA is meant to mean; sure, maybe that specific book wasn't translated until that date, but much of Europe watched the Polish fuzzy-felt TV adaption in 1978 or 1985.
It's a good read, thanks for sharing. Really sad that people would pester the author about the creation. It needs to be realized that the author is just another complex human being, even though they created their fantastic thing. As I experience it takes a lot to think about other people as so complex. We much rather like them as just simple characters.
Another thing is that for long-running franchises, it's really interesting to watch the progression of character design. Both visually and characteristically. The first Moomins look really weird, but fun, compared to the later iterations. Because, of course, the context also changed a lot around them - in real life, not in-universe.
Janson created more than just the Moomin stories. Check out her murals: https://tovejansson.com/gallery/murals/. I don't see much darkness there... (there is even a small Mumintroll in "Party in the City", in front of the woman smoking a cigarette, a self-portrait of Janson)
There is a fascinating throughline between the themes of Moomin universe and Adventure Time I've been waiting to see someone much more familiar than me with both sources spool out into a 3 hour long YouTube video I can set on in the background.
They are children’s tales - which are designed to hide lessons and warnings on the dark side of life in a wrapper that does not traumatise - like an inoculation against what comes.
Everything the Grimms brothers collected and Disney sanitised still hides warnings.
I have read all my children “The Tiger who came to Tea” as well as taken them to theatre performances- and the author ran from Germany hours before the Gestapo came knocking and it affected much of her life and writing (“Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” is the autobiography I think)
So yeah. It’s got layers onion boy, layers.
Still have fond memories of my kid hugging a six foot moomin in Covent Garden.
That’s a really interesting take on the Moomins. I agree that the misinterpretations of their tales are fascinating – it highlights how stories can be shaped by our own perspectives. I especially appreciate how you highlight the resilience of the family dynamic, even with its dysfunction. It’s a thoughtful and somewhat melancholic, yet captivating, perspective, and I can see how that resonates with you.
I had no idea it was such a large enterprise. I'm in Australia, and read one of the books as a kid. But other than that, I don't think I ever encountered any form of them, or even really heard anyone mention them, until the recent movie adaptation.
My favorite piece of Moomin lore is that the very first proto-Moomin sketch was a caricature of Immanuel Kant Tove made to tease her sister, who was a big fan of that guy.
"On a summer day, she was discussing literary philosophy with her brother Per Olov Jansson next to the outhouse at their summer cottage in the archipelago. Tove quoted Immanuel Kant, who Per Olov immediately downplayed. To get back at her brother, Tove drew the ugliest creature she could imagine on the outhouse wall. That drawing, out of chance, is the first glimpse of a Moomin-like figure, although Tove called it a Snork."
The introduction of The Groke absolutely terrified me when I was younger. I put it up there with the Xenomorph in terms of a mysterious, capable, superior foe.
I never read any of the books, didn't actually know they were originally a book. I grew up with the TV show though. Hated it. I've never watched TV or film for the feels. Tv and film for me is escapism, I don't want to be depressed or have to think. I'm assuming this is why I never liked the moomins.
The Moomin stories were born, Jansson wrote to her friend Eva, “when I was feeling sad and scared of bombs and wanted to get away from gloomy thoughts… I would creep into an unbelievable world where everything was natural and friendly – and possible.”
Ha and I thought it was just me. Have been rewatching some episodes some years ago and found it a bit creepy at times, although of course a bit sugar coated and abstract. Actually a great way to make it work for all ages.
It’s fascinating how the Moomins’ appeal seems to stem from a comforting, albeit slightly skewed, portrayal of family dynamics – a familiar, albeit idealized, model. While I appreciate the insightful analysis of the misinterpretations, I’m more drawn to the sheer whimsicalness and resilience of the stories themselves, rather than a bleak, pessimistic view of domestic life. It's a brilliant observation to connect the Moomins’ narrative to broader themes of longing and escape, a quality I find deeply compelling.
Multiple comments here referring to tv-shows. Just be aware that Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated books and comics but did not produce tv shows. What you have seen was not created by Tove Jansson.
The comics and the books are different in genre, even if they use the same characters and storylines. The comics are darkly satirial of modern life while the illustrated books feels more poetic and timeless.
Fun fact: Jansson illustrated The Hobbit and drew Gollum as a giant. Tolkien realized he never described the size of Gollum and made adjustments to later editions.
> Fun fact: Jansson illustrated The Hobbit and drew Gollum as a giant. Tolkien realized he never described the size of Gollum and made adjustments to later editions.
For those curious like me, here are some low-res images:
I don't think there's any reason to gatekeep this so strongly. The original anime and it's sequel, maybe, but both Tove and Lars Jansson were heavily involved with other series.
> It is, in contrast to the 1990s series, widely believed to be the most faithful TV adaptation of Tove Jansson's stories, and much closer to her vision. Tove herself had a great deal of involvement during the series' production and was very happy with it (as revealed in an interview with Anne Wood in Simon Sheridan's 2007 book The A to Z of Classic Children's Television). The scripts for each episode were translated from Polish into Swedish and sent to Tove and Lars Jansson, who, if they felt that anything needed to be changed, corrected the script, expanding or rewriting it; afterwards, the scripts were sent back and only then did production of the particular episode begin.
Don't have time to read through the whole article. But just wanted to point out that there are also Moomin cartoons which have really politically uncorrect stories: like Moomins travelling to spain, trying to buy opium but eating some weird drugs instead and then staring for sea for a week and missing their fligth back.
Tove was surely gravely insulted when somebody called her Swede. Especially after Winter War. Finland and Sweden had defense pact but Sweden choose to be neutral and promote peace. And so it deliberately hindered war effort preventing arms transport from Norway ports. Only aid was volunteers, which were mostly Finns living in Sweden.
The article spots well the dark side of the moomins, but in my opinion goes too deep into it. My disagreements boil down to this: "One of the oddest aspects of the Moomin phenomenon is how these complex tales of apocalypse, breakdown and disfunction have been consistently misread as cutesy celebrations of domestic life." Yes, all these things exist, but the point to me has always been that they are cutesy despite that! The stories paint a very typical family dynamic (at least of the time, at least in a Finnish swedish speaking family like Tove's), throws it into weirdest situations, and they all survive together thanks to, and despite, their dysfunctions. And Moominmamma is the most wholesome character ever, period.
> "One of the oddest aspects of the Moomin phenomenon is how these complex tales of apocalypse, breakdown and disfunction have been consistently misread as cutesy celebrations of domestic life."
It's actually really simple. Here in Poland, myself and my entire generation grew up watching the children cartoon adaptation of the Moomins. It was cute, it was happy, it had nice art and music, it was suitable for small children but engaging even to older ones, and it was aired when all kids would be watching[0]. This was our generation's intro to the Moomins, and it colored how we read the books.
I imagine the case is similar all across Europe. A whole generation primed to read these stories as positive and light-hearted, because of a TV adaptation.
--
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieczorynka - public TV (TVP1), every day at 19:00, just before the evening news slot. In times I grew up, watching this was pretty much a national tradition for any family with children.
I'm in my mid-30's and still remember nightmares those stupid series gave me when I was in kindergarten. It was X-Files-tier scary ("The X Files" being other show aired by polish TV around same time), masquarading behind cute animations. How can anyone in their right mind call the episode where the Moomintroll swaps bodies with Stinky lighthearted and positive? What about the collection of monsters like Groke or Hattifnats? On some occasion I remember my parents would call me to get out from my room to watch the "wieczorynka" and I would pretend I can't hear and come out only as I hear the outro song starting, just to avoid whatever insane plot the Moomins would bring on me that time. I hate Moomins so much and wish could erase it from existence. Calling it "cute and happy" is like saying candybar with razorblade inside is delicious; technically true but not exactly an accurate description.
And yes, empirically, there were several "scary" things which freaked out the smaller children but were just amusing for an older child. The scary parts usually had a logical explanation or a backstory which made sense (or reflection with an adult made it make sense).
For example (I hope I remember all the details right):
The angry Ant Lion preying in a sandpit: eventually the Moomins manage to shrink it to peanut-size with the Wizard's hat, and it's not so scary anymore. It's still an Ant Lion, but very small, and the voice is high-pitched. Why isn't it scary anymore?
The Groke is scary as it stares while making gnarling sounds and all other characters are afraid of it, but The Groke doesn't want to harm anyone. In some episode a character explains that The Groke is actually very lonely. So it follows people as it wants to hang around them, but expresses itself in a scary way and since The Groke unvillingly freezes things where it goes, others avoid it.
The Wizard was dressed in dark clothes, looked scary and rode on a flying panther. But while The Wizard had a stern face and voice, he did not want harm to anyone and helped Moomins too.
Stinky may have a scary appearance, but also he is is not evil as such, just smells bad and does mischief like steals stuff. Which is why the characters are not so fond of him.
The Hattifatteners are like mushrooms, they grow from seeds, and move about, trying to reach the horizon in groups. They are drawn to thunder and electricity and they can zap someone with electricity if one touches the charged-up Hattifatteners. I always interpreted them like a force of nature, they're not looking to harm anyone, and are no more evil than wind that falls a tree is evil.
Anyway, the fact that you did that and still remembering it after all those years proves how extra ordinary this work was.
I respectfully disagree with the line of reasoning where "traumatizing" is equalled with "extraordinary".
I just wanted to point out that the lengths you are willing to go through just to write 'I hate moomins' proves that it is extraordinary.
And remember that not everything is for everybody. If you do not like it, fine!
Just think about how traumatizing it was without depicting a violence or sex, achieving that with cute animation... Yes it is an extraordinary feat.
Over here im Finland me and every other 90’s kids watched these shows, and mostly turned our fine. There’s so much nostalgia around it all.
In the 19th century it became a trend to publish fairy tales aimed towards children. But these were often sanitized versions of the stories told by adults.
Other than than the Moomins are pretty great. I got the branded coffee cups now (even with the Groke!)
Many episodes had darker undertones as well, especially those with the Groke[1] or hattifatteners. Tvtropes has a list[2].
> The Groke was so horrifying in fact, that in Poland it caused a nation-wide fear in almost all children, some of which were even left traumatised for years, leading to some parents forbidding their children from watching Moomins, and some using the Groke as a Bogeyman to scare their children into good behavior. Any 90s or 2000s Polish kid will know how it felt.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Groke
[2]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/TheMoom...
There are many more accounts of that:
> The Groke has been widely considered one of the creepiest characters in fiction by many people and even by a study. In late 90's and early 2000's, when the 90's anime series - which is considered by many to have the scariest portrayal of the Groke in it - premiered in Poland, the Groke - known in Poland as Buka - caused a panic amongst Polish children. The Groke had different sounds - deep, eerie cold howls and moans preformed by voice actor Andrzej Bogusz. This, mixed with the darker colouring of the episodes (a trait shared with Finnish episodes and some other airings) and the fact that the Moomins were mostly played at night, in the Wieczorynka programming block caused the Groke to be widely considered one of the scariest childhood characters in Poland, both by 90's and early 2000's kids.
> Many children were horrified by her, were scared to go to sleep because of her, having dreams of her chasing them or turning into the Groke (some examples of such dreams could be found on the myslalemże.pl portal before it got shut down around early 2010's). The defunct portal Grono.net even had an Anti-Groke forum called ANTY-BUKA, where people would share their childhood stories about the Groke.
https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/The_Groke
And even first person:
> [google translate] How is it possible that a dark, buzzing figure can scare small children? Hey, I can't. As a child I was very afraid of it. Now I don't know why. When I talk to my peers (15 years old) they say they were afraid too. Why?
https://www.filmweb.pl/serial/Muminki-1990-119826/discussion...
Well I certainly had nightmares about that...
The books are strange tales. They have dark undertones. And sometimes the adults take actions that only someone with life experience would really understand (e.g. Moominpappa wanting to suddenly upend everything in the families life and move to an isolated island). But, my kids mostly pick up on the adventure and the friendships.
I feel that the Moomins are like most media that is enjoyable by both children and parents in this way (e.g. Bluey, Pixar films, etc.).
Moominland Midwinter is interesting character study too, with sporty "artistic" coded Hemulen proving too much for most of the cast to handle, the forgetful grandpa. Perhaps the message was it is okay to not be friends with everyone as it is a bother.
Compare it to "Finn Family Moomintroll" which is just a constantly stacking ridiculous lighthearted escapade with a few more mature jokes mixed in.
There are a number of excellent picture book adaptations of stories that have been published too. But, we read those afterwards and obviously they aren’t as enjoyable to me.
Because this is HN: My tradition is to use my Inkpalm 5 and read them with the lights out at bedtime- we pass the reader around to look at pictures.
As an adult you pick up on some the more serious themes but as a kid you just enjoy the story and the bit of danger and overcoming and the overall wholesomeness.
[0] https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/moomin-tv-animations/
But that's exactly what makes domestic life worth celebrating - at best it sustains you through disaster and hardship. What better way to celebrate it than to show it's strength?
A family is a place where you should be able to also be something else than the ideal version of yourself that you’d like to show the rest of the world, something less perfect and more work-in-progress. Moomins lean heavily on showing how that actually makes their family stronger.
Are you sure? Or is this just projecting the ideals we think childrens books are supposed to have? How is Moominmamma changed after the ordeal on the lonely island? - we don’t know, because the next book is about missing her and about how her absence affects the characters left behind.
The darker threads in the Moomin books are not hidden. It is all in plain view.
Like the squirrel which is too absent minded to seek shelter when the hard frost hits. Guess what - it freezes to death. They give it a nice burial though.
To be fair, Jansson never claimed she wrote for kids in the first place.
I'm watching them now with our son, and I guess I was just born with a strong appreciation for melancholia.
I changed my mind, when I was a kid I thought they were good, now I think they are great!
In many ways, what makes moomin dark is that it shows us what we already know, the world _just_is_ and in the big picture, does not care about you, you might die, someone you care about might go away, and everyone is, fundamentally, alone, and what makes a person who they are, is partly how they deal with, if at all, being alone in this world of loners.
Moomin is very real and very direct in its dealings with the pain of the meaninglessness of life.
Snufkin, as a child, I took him for a cynic and disliked him, but he taught me something about the world, I think he is a stoic and a nihilist, and I very much like him now, he simply _IS_ in the world, and he accepts, and so appreciates that which also simply is, and which he cannot control.
Yeah, Moomin is dark, but life is dark, life is pleasure and pain, and we will all die, everyone we ever loved will suffer and die, but they will also experience pleasure and life, one could chose only suffering and death, one cannot chose only pleasure and life, and must come to terms with the fact that the underpinnings of pleasure and life is indeed suffering and pain. That's it, the world just is, and we're just in it.
I feel like a lot of the cartoons and tv shows of my childhood was like this, life.. it kinda has bad parts.. and back then, they showed them to kids, and what do I know.. maybe it prepared us to take it on ?
On topic: interesting read. I'd never think these stories had so much dark side to them.
I got all 9 stories in 3 books at the age of 11 and read most of them, and was very happy with the stories, never noticing any of the dread the article speaks about.
Especially the Midwinter story was fascinating - we lived not that North, but in cold winter mid-continent, and the story was like looking out watching for the first signs of the spring, that eventually always comes, but you shouldn't celebrate any of those too early -- when day temperature comes above 0 in March, you know it's going to be freezing in the evening. (Later I was stunned with foreigners in our city complain of this March weather, call it "winter" and be depressed!)
A few years ago someone on social networks posted her impressions from reading them out loud to children -- that indeed it's depressive.
So I guess, the conclusion is that people make opposite meanings and moods of the same events.
Findus is more of experimenter. He comes up with an idea about something, and ends up following that idea so that it gets tested. He isn't a systematic, scientific experimenter though, since he's a cat.
I also liked all the little animals. To contrast that with the Moomin stories, I only saw it on TV, but it was immediately obvious that they were very austere and very Finnish, even though of course, the author is a Finland-Swede. It's good stuff, but can be, not scary, but something adjacent, to watch as a child. It might be worth it since it allows you to understand these characters in this very austere, isolated environment.
As for the Moomins, I don't know what you all are on about in the comments. I'm with OP on this one. Lasting child Moomin impressions:
- Original comic: Dark, heavy, existential, anxious, depressed, sarcastic, "this is probably not for kids". Still loved them and still find them underrated and wish more people read them.
- Mainstream TV cartoon: Fun fantastical times. And Groke (aka Mårran) was indeed nightmare material
- Newspaper comic: Couldn't keep track
- TV live action: Now this was the true nightmare material. I think it was supposed to be lighthearted but my brother at 37 still talks of how it traumatized him.
Another thing is that for long-running franchises, it's really interesting to watch the progression of character design. Both visually and characteristically. The first Moomins look really weird, but fun, compared to the later iterations. Because, of course, the context also changed a lot around them - in real life, not in-universe.
Everything the Grimms brothers collected and Disney sanitised still hides warnings.
I have read all my children “The Tiger who came to Tea” as well as taken them to theatre performances- and the author ran from Germany hours before the Gestapo came knocking and it affected much of her life and writing (“Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” is the autobiography I think)
So yeah. It’s got layers onion boy, layers.
Still have fond memories of my kid hugging a six foot moomin in Covent Garden.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiger_Who_Came_to_Tea
Mozzarella is moomin meat.
"On a summer day, she was discussing literary philosophy with her brother Per Olov Jansson next to the outhouse at their summer cottage in the archipelago. Tove quoted Immanuel Kant, who Per Olov immediately downplayed. To get back at her brother, Tove drew the ugliest creature she could imagine on the outhouse wall. That drawing, out of chance, is the first glimpse of a Moomin-like figure, although Tove called it a Snork."
https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/who-will-comfort-toffle-backs...
> But when he tries to write about how lonely he has been, About his house and Hemulen, the smooth white shell he’s seen,
> The Groke, the night he sailed the sea, he finds no words will come. He is too shy to write his tale. Poor Toffle is struck dumb.
> So Who Will Comfort Toffle now? Will someone lend a hand And help him write to Miffle so that she can understand?
(FTA)
The Moomin stories were born, Jansson wrote to her friend Eva, “when I was feeling sad and scared of bombs and wanted to get away from gloomy thoughts… I would creep into an unbelievable world where everything was natural and friendly – and possible.”
1959: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Muminfamilie
1969: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin_(1969_TV_series)
1972: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Moomin
1977: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moomins_(TV_series)
1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin_(1990_TV_series)
2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moominvalley_(TV_series)
It used to be even more but someone from Japan found a few.
And the creator refuses to talk about some of the lost episodes.
The comics and the books are different in genre, even if they use the same characters and storylines. The comics are darkly satirial of modern life while the illustrated books feels more poetic and timeless.
Fun fact: Jansson illustrated The Hobbit and drew Gollum as a giant. Tolkien realized he never described the size of Gollum and made adjustments to later editions.
For those curious like me, here are some low-res images:
https://zepe.de/tjillu/hobbit/index.html
And here an article about the illustrations (haven't read) with a a few images in higher resolution (including Gollum):
https://tovejansson.com/hobbit-tolkien/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moomins_(TV_series) :
> It is, in contrast to the 1990s series, widely believed to be the most faithful TV adaptation of Tove Jansson's stories, and much closer to her vision. Tove herself had a great deal of involvement during the series' production and was very happy with it (as revealed in an interview with Anne Wood in Simon Sheridan's 2007 book The A to Z of Classic Children's Television). The scripts for each episode were translated from Polish into Swedish and sent to Tove and Lars Jansson, who, if they felt that anything needed to be changed, corrected the script, expanding or rewriting it; afterwards, the scripts were sent back and only then did production of the particular episode begin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin_(1990_TV_series) :
> Tove and Lars Jansson were also involved with the screenplay by doing certain changes in scripts.
But the article describes some specific themes in Tove Janssons books which are just not present in the animations.
Relevant pages:
https://www.oocities.org/ghb17/muumi/18.jpg
https://www.oocities.org/ghb17/muumi/19.jpg
https://www.oocities.org/ghb17/muumi/20.jpg
https://www.oocities.org/ghb17/muumi/21.jpg
"Waiter, four marijuanas" - they end up scoring LBJ pills instead as marijuana was so last season.
Note that the comic is by Lars Jansson, Tove's brother.
https://tovejansson.com/sv/story/illustrator-barnboksforfatt...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumin