The elves pride themselves on their thoroughness. Their culture, built around bureaucracy, strives to cite and document every idea, action, and motivation. They want truth, objectivity, where every note, every detail is meticulously sourced and verified. This desire for total accountability has made the Elven higher-ups begin to question Alfur’s reliability in “The Replacement,” written by Todd Casey and directed by Andy Coyle.
1.) La Dolce Vida
Since moving to the city with Hilda and her family, Alfur has made a name for himself as the Trolberg Correspondent. His reports, a Letter from Trolberg article, if you will, cover local movements, scenes, and stories of daily life from around town. Yet, because his primary source (by which I mean only source) is Hilda, these dispatches end up being far more exciting and thrilling than expected. I guess you could argue a twelve-year-old girl is not the best source for an article to begin with, but Hilda does tend to cover a lot of ground; Alfur’s probably seen more of Trolberg here than he would if left to his own devices.
Alfure leads this idealized journalistic life. He bristles with excitement at any detail he can include in his report, uses the prospect of it to admonish and scold other characters when they act in a manner he does not approve. He’s able to work on his own, documenting his experiences as he sees them, not worried about verification, trusting that someone out there follows along. His house is filled with rows and piles of notebooks, all of them cross-referenced, footnoted, and sourced. He loves his job. More than that, he loves the mechanics of his job.
So it comes as a total surprise, then, when Alvin arrives to take his place.
One night, Alfur contentedly goes to bed. When he wakes up, he finds himself evicted from his home. The stern, proper Alvin, with his dead eyes and mustache that looks like a pencil snapped in half, took the liberty of moving him out while he set up, prepared to take over as Trolberg Correspondent. (Actually, I have some questions. a.) this seems like it was sprung on Alfur, knowing the elves, doesn’t it seem more like they would inform that this was happening, then demand he sign off on it?, and b.) same, but with Alvin moving him out, and c.) since they’re basically Hilda’s tenants, why didn’t anyone inform the family this decision was coming? We know they filed the paperwork.)
Alvin tells Alfure his reports are among the most requested in the Elf Archive. He’s developed a loyal fanbase. To his credit, Alfur appears shocked and embarrassed by this revelation. As we all know, once a thing becomes immensely popular it also tends to become heavily scrutinized and overseen, with more and more people wanting to insert themselves in the proceedings. I’m reminded of a story Mark Mothersbaugh told, where pre-”Whip It,” the label left Devo to their own devices in the studio. Once the band had a hit, suddenly more label suits started to poke around.
Alfur’s popularity has also caused the powers-that-be in the Northern Elf Colonies to doubt Alfur’s reportage. They’ve turned increasingly more far-fetched and impossible, Alvin explains. With Alfur out there on his own, writing from a place a second pair of eyes could in no way corroborate, their skepticism at his outlandish adventures has grown. Some believe he’s making it up. “Popularity does not equal objectivity,” Alvin declares
And it’s difficult for Alfur to plead his case. “The Replacement” takes time to explain that Hilda can’t fill out a second-hand witness report because she’s so often the subject of Alfur’s articles. In fact, anyone he could plead his case to are the subjects of his pieces and therefore conflicts of interest. We like Alfur. We know Alfur. We know what he’s writing is true, so this idea of sourcing and double-checking goes down earlier for us. Though we immediately push back against the Northern Elf Colonies’ claims, Coyle and Casey lay out the elven authorities’ evidence.
Of course, they only present the evidence. “The Replacement’s” ambitions run along a much different path.
Continued below2.) Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream
Alfur reports from front and center, hastily documenting the trouble Hilda frequently finds herself in. He actively participates, whether it’s helping them achieve a task only a small creature can accomplish, rallying his sources like the Lost Clan, or convincing a dragon to terminate a contract. He doesn’t pretend to be an objective observer, he’s an active participant in all of it.
In the mid-to-late 20th century, a new literary movement had begun to make waves. It was dubbed New Journalism, sometimes gonzo journalism, sometimes the nonfiction novel or narrative nonfiction. The leaders included Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and, the best one of them all, Joan Didion. Though New Journalism isn’t necessarily new anymore, the approach these writers took helped pave the way for the modern essay.
It dismissed the idea that there’s such a thing as true objectivity. There is truth, yes. There are only the facts, no “alternative facts.” But how we take the truth and shape it, mold it into a story for people to read and for us to understand, basically eradicates the idea of full transparency. (This reminds me of a quote from the novelist, John Crowley: “Truthful speaking would be a simple way to tell the truth if the truth were simple and could be told.) These writers were participants in their reportage. They were as much a character and subject as the people and events they covered.
Didion, especially, warned against trusting our own stories. She believed that people felt the need to view their lives in a way that ultimately vindicated them. Though she presented herself as aloof and ambivalent, she remained deeply involved in her subject. She constantly tried to figure out how you coped with the falsity and untruth of an event. It was never moral relativism, you know, how people from different cultures or whatnot might approach an event, but this question of where the truth exists and how could we ever hope to report on it?
So, we have Alfur’s stories, which are immensely popular. I wonder what kind of writer he is, how he constructs sentences, sets the scene, organizes his information. He must have some skill at putting together these reports, considering how they’re in such high demand. Even the most exciting ideas and events can be rendered tedious under an unskilled author. The Elf Council pushes against the articles, fears they’re loaded with potential untruths and blatant subjective accounts of an event. Rather than try to question how they react to this for themselves, how their expectations and dispositions fuel their interpretations, they turn on Alfur, the one so willing to put himself into the story.
Even after “The Replacement” ends, the Elf Delegation has a difficult time quantifying their experience. One of them jots down notes but who knows if that’s enough.
One thing to take away from all this is that there’s never a bad time to read Joan Didion.
3.) The Fugitive
I know I’m in the middle of another thought, but I just want to take a minute to shout out the market chase sequence. Stephanie Simpson and Todd Casey constructurt this elaborate chase with Alfur, the Elf Delegation, Hilda and Twig, and the Lost Clan. Andy Coule and the rest of the animators deliver with verve and energy and clarity. They cut back and forth between points-of-view, allowing us to see things like the elves chucking berries at each other, getting caught in the cabbage, and running through random signs, mixed with the local people’s reactions to this invisible mayhem.
The gags fly fast, the animators cleverly using nearby elements for the elves’ bombardment. Animation allows for better clarity and control over time than live action. The market sequence is another example of how strong the creators have grown in its formalistic usage. Again, the first season was already well-animated; this one, though, has gone further, pushed itself to be better.
4.) The Kingdom and the Power
Since we’ve digressed this far, we might as well go a bit further. The Trolberg Safety Patrol has served as Hilda season two’s main antagonist, specifically the Trolberg Safety Patrol under the guidance of Erik Ahlberg. While the High Elf Council or Elven Parliament or whatever they are, aren’t necessarily evil, they do serve as obstacles in the story.
Continued belowWhat they share in common, however, is paperwork. At one point, the Elf Delegation is captured by Greta Gustav, Ahlberg’s far more competent and capable assistant. Because she cannot see the elves, she works under the impression they’re spirits, and the only way to reveal spirits, apparently, is to submerge them in water. Quick-thinking Alfur rapidly says he’s a representative of the Trolberg Safety Patrol Spirit Division and requests to have the elves remained into his custody. He hastily draws up some paperwork and once everything is signed and documented, they all go on their way.
For all their posturing and stretch, for the control that we see them try to exert on the city, the Trolberg Safety Patrol remains a bureaucracy. They want it documented, they want everything notarized and set. If the Elf Kingdom and the Trolberg Safety Patrol were to work together for any reason, the paperwork they set would be impossible to sort through, not to mention make a nice hindrance for anyone who stands in opposition to them.
Consider how at the end of “The Replacement,” despite everything they’ve seen, the Elf Delegation remains prepared to cart Alfur back to the Northern Elf Colonies, because that’s what the paperwork calls for. Sure, he could join the Lost Tribe, but that seems like a stretch for him. It’s only after Alvin submits his counter-paperwork that Alfur is allowed to continue.
To keep things in order means to maintain a status quo. To break out of that system purposefully established to retain control for dwindling organizations, takes considerable effort.
5.) Sentimental Journeys
To peek behind the curtain, I’ve always struggled to define what I want these articles to be. Are they recaps/summaries? In part, to talk about anything we have to talk about what happens in the story. But we’ve already watched the episode in question, so why would anyone want to just read about what they already experienced? Are they reviews? While I talk about what I think works and doesn’t work about a given episode, often these move beyond thoughts on construction and effectiveness and whether or not it’s worth your time. Again, we’ve already put the time in, you’ve decided it’s worth it. Are they, then, discussions, keynote speeches, conversations? I mean, we could engage in the comments, but that only offers a supplement to the main text. All this also has to exists within the Multiversity format, which encourages a confluence of ideas and subjects.
The closest I’ve ever been able to get is that these are micro-essays. These are a sort of document of the series, reportage from the experience of watching Hilda, a Letter from Trolberg article in and of themselves. Like, almost a physical form of Alfur’s dispatches.
This occurred to me when I was organizing my notes and figuring out my approach to “The Replacement,” which, by the way, is the penultimate episode of Hilda season two. I have no idea if Netflix plans to commission a third season, though I do know there’s a move in production. Luke Pearson has said he has no plans for further “Hilda” comics. Like Alfur’s reports, these articles serve as a capsule of reactions and observations of the series, a document of how they worked for me in 2020-2021. We can watch this series as many times as we’d like, but this will be my reaction to it at this time, fueled by whatever other obsessions and life-events influence my reading of it.
And that’s what those New Journalists wanted us to think about, too. Even as the movement evolved and really only Didion continued to write well, it served to remind that everything came from that place, that time. We frame the narrative for our purposes. I think it took seeing Alfur at work, about to lose that work, for me to consider how I view this project.
Next week makes for the season finale. See you all then.
