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I will be talking about Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia

So Netflix reminded me of a show I watched a while back and I started watching it again recently. It’s called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, and when I first watched it, I’m gonna be honest, I was obsessed with it. When season 1 was released at first I wasn’t really excited but when I gave it a chance it had me from the get-go.

When I finished season 1, I couldn’t wait for the next season and when the second season was announced, I counted down the days to the release date. I was that excited about a cartoon, but after I finished the show and looked at the name of the creator, Guillermo del Toro. The name had felt familiar to me like it was related to a movie, so I looked him up on the internet and found out that Guillermo del Toro was one of the writers behind the 2004 movie, Hellboy. When my dad showed me Hellboy for the first time I was in awe of the story, so when I found out Guillermo del Toro created the show I was beyond ecstatic.

Let’s start with the basic question, what is this show about? Well, dear viewer, the show follows Jim Lake Jr., the first Human Trollhunter, and his journey to protect the good Trolls of Heartstone Trollmarket and put an end to Gunmar, leader of the Gumm-Gumms. Now I understand for the people who have never seen the show that sentence doesn’t really answer the question, so let’s unpack it.

Let’s first talk about the world this story is set in, Trollhunters is set in Arcadia Oaks, California for the most part as this is where our human protagonist Jim Lake Jr. lives with his best friend and sidekick, Toby Domzalski. They also go to high school at Arcadia Oaks High together.

But there is another setting in the show that is unknown to mankind until Jim is chosen to be the next Trollhunter called Heartstone Trollmarket. Heartstone Trollmarket is the home of good Trolls such as Blinkous Galadrigal, otherwise known as Blinky in the show, and AAARRRGGHH!!!, which is one of the characters’ actual names. But this place is hidden from mankind by using magic, where a magical tool is needed to open the door to Heartstone Trollmarket.

There is another location important to the story of Trollhunters called, The Darklands. The Darklands is presented to be another world that is magically separated by a bridge, Killahead Bridge, and this is where the main villain of the show and his army is trapped. The main villain is Gunmar and his Gumm-Gumm army, now before you laugh yourselves silly, according to the lore of the show, Trolls have their own language called Trollish or sometimes Troll-speak, and Gumm-Gumm is Trollish for “bringer of horrible, slow, painful and thoroughly-calculated death”.

Now that we’ve covered the key locations, let’s go over the key characters. First let’s talk about the main character Jim Lake Jr., Jim lives in Arcadia Oaks with his mom Barbra. Barbra has been raising Jim on her own since he was 5 and at the start of Trollhunters Jim is about 15 years old, and he helps to take of his mother as well. One day Jim and his friend Toby are almost tardy for school and take a shortcut through an empty canal, but Jim gets to the canal first and once he makes it to the bottom he waits for Toby. After Jim calls out for Toby to hurry he hears a voice calling “James Lake”. Toby joins Jim at the bottom of the canal while Jim follows the voice to the pile of rubble. The voice calls again startling both Jim and Toby, and Jim removes a rock and finds the Amulet of Daylight, he then picks it up but the boys realize they are late for school so they leave in a hurry. This was the start of Jim’s journey of becoming the Trollhunter.

Later that night Jim is greeted by Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! and they attempt to offer their help to guide Jim but Jim freaks out and faints. Honestly so would I, but after some convincing and a pretty good speech Jim accepts Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!’s help. The two Trolls then show Jim and Toby who the Trollhunter would be protecting, the Trolls of Heartstone Trollmarket. At first, Trollmarket didn’t accept Jim as the Trollhunter because he was a human and not a Troll. Especially Draal, the son of the previous Trollhunter, and Vendel, the leader of Heartstone Trollmarket. But with time the Trolls accept Jim as the Trollhunter and Toby as Jim’s friend, and Jim juggles having a double life of being the Trollhunter and being a high school student. For most of the show, Jim tries to balance his life and meet the expectations of being the Trollhunter, while also keeping to his own beliefs and morals.

Toby is Jim’s childhood best friend and Toby has been very supportive of Jim through their adventures. In the beginning, when Jim was freaking out about the mantle of Trollhunter and the responsibilities he would have, Toby reminded Jim that he had asked for life to be more exciting. When Jim accepted his role as Trollhunter Toby tried doing whatever he could to stay with Jim to help him in his Trollhunter duties. During one adventure when Jim was shrunk down to the size of a gnome, which in Trollhunters a gnome is possibly no bigger than 1 or 2 feet, Toby helped Jim complete his Spanish presentation that he had to do at school. Toby would also help shoulder some of Jim’s responsibilities as the Trollhunter in situations where Toby could handle the task and in emergencies. Toby also becomes close with AAARRRGGHH!!! after Toby and Jim visit Trollmarket so much. Toby is written to be a very comedic character and I like it, it fits his personality well. Toby is one of the poor unfortunate souls, for he is cursed… with braces. I have had braces, so when Toby was shown at his dentist/orthodontist I felt his pain. Although for comedy one of his trips took 8 hours, I never had to have that much work done and I’m gonna need you guys to trust me, my teeth were all kinds of crooked.

Claire was introduced as Jim’s potential love interest, in the first episode Jim looks at her like he is in love. The history teacher character Mr. Strickler even comments to Jim, “Talking to will be much more effective than staring at.” We find out within the next couple of scenes that Claire is part of the school play. After the awkward interaction with Jim in Gym class, Claire invites Jim to the play auditions. The next time we see Claire is the next episode when Jim attends the play tryouts. Jim used the tryouts as an excuse when Mr. Strickler saw Jim in his Trollhunter armor in the boy’s locker room. Claire and Jim end up getting the leading roles of Romeo and Juliet, and the next time that we see Claire is at rehearsals for the play.

One night when Claire is in danger, Jim protects her, reveals his secret of being the Trollhunter, and comes clean with Claire about everything. Claire finds out from Jim that her baby brother was switched with a changeling, which is a troll that has a human familiar and can change from being a troll to appearing as their familiar at what their age would be. The next day Claire covers for Jim while he is fighting Bular, a Gumm-Gumm, and Jim makes it to the play right on time to perform with Claire. At the end of the performance during the curtain call, Jim tells Claire that he will do everything in his power to save her baby brother. Claire corrects Jim by saying ‘they’ will do everything they can to save her brother, and from then on Claire integrates herself into Jim’s life.

Blinkous Galadrigal is one of the first trolls shown besides Bular and the Trollhunter prior to Jim. Blinkous often uses a nickname instead of his full first name, he is referred to as “Blinky” by almost everyone around except Vendel, leader of Heartstone Trollmarket. Blinky as a troll is larger than an average human male and has blue stone-like skin. When trying to convince Jim to accept his new role as the new Trollhunter Blinky gives Jim a very inspirational speech. I love it and when I occasionally remember it, I like to use it as an affirmation to motivate myself.

Destiny is a gift. Some go their entire lives, living existences of quiet desperation, never learning the truth that what feels as though a burden pushing down upon our shoulders is actually a sense of purpose lifting us to greater heights. Never forget that fear is but the precursor of valor, that to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero. Don't think. Become.

-Blinkous Galadrigal

And right before Blinky gives this inspirational speech, Toby taps Blinky with a metal ladle, and when the ladle hits Blinky there was a ‘clink’ sound. It also seemed that while Toby was hitting Blinky he was more annoyed than he was hurt. Blinky becomes a teacher to Jim to help him be the Trollhunter at the beginning of the show. But just like with Claire, Jim’s relationship with Blinky grows and changes to where near the end of the show Blinky and Jim have a kind of father-and-son relationship. Blinky also has a good relationship with AAARRRGGHH!!! as they seem to be friends. At one point Blinky was turned into a human and Blinky got to experience being out during the daytime. Blinky also got to have the experience of being human and Jim had to be the teacher. Also, nobody judge me too hard, but when I first watched this show I didn’t really pay attention to Blinky’s voice. Then my dad introduced me to Frasier, and when I watched the show the second time around, I realized the actor for Frasier voiced Blinky, which is Kelsey Grammer.

The final character for this post is AAARRRGGHH!!! who is a troll who is even bigger than Blinky. AAARRRGGHH!!! is an interesting character because at the start of the show, AAARRGGHH!!! is shown to be a troll of very few and a limited vocabulary. AAARRRGGHH!!! is a giant troll with grey stone skin and later in the show it was revealed that he was a Gumm-Gumm general, and before the battle of Killahead, which is a very important event for the trolls, AAARRRGGHH!!! defected and became a good troll. Early in the show AAARRRGGHH!!! was revealed to be a pacifist and Blinky specifically stated, “AAARRRGGHH!!! renounced his violent ways long ago.” AAARRRGGHH!!! helps Blinky to train Jim as the Trollhunter and AAARRRGGHH!!! becomes close with Toby where they become each other’s ‘Wingman’. AAARRRGGHH!!! is a specific kind of troll called a Krubera which are very sensitive to light due to their lifestyle.

AAARRRGGHH!!! was forced to adapt to the light since he was taken from his home at a young age and was drafted into Gunmar’s army. AAARRRGGHH!!! also at the beginning of the show was shown to have certain triggers that he was afraid of and when he came to his senses he tried to calm himself down. Toby tried to play a shooter game like Call of Duty with AAARRRGGHH!!! and AAARRRGGHH!!! freaked out. He would hold his head and repeat “Pacifist”, I honestly felt so bad and wanted to know why AAARRRGGHH!!! was so traumatized. But Toby didn’t press for details and decided to play a non-fighting game with AAARRRGGHH!!!. After about halfway through the show AAARRRGGHH!!! breaks his pacifist oath and now has a vow to protect Toby and his friends with violence if he absolutely has to.

This show has very interesting characters and while watching the show I loved seeing how they would interact with each other. The story is also very interesting and I will say that the ending was very good. I can’t say I wanted the ending but it did give me a sense of fulfillment. I typically have a standard for show endings, because when the show ends the ending should be impactful. So when I get to the ending of a show and that is a confirmed ending not that show was cancelled without notice, I expect to cry at the end. I want to feel sad that yes this is the end but not tears of despair, I want to cry because the show made me feel that I’m saying good bye to a dear friend that I don’t know if I will see again. I want to be able to look back at previous episodes and cry tears of joy because of the adventures they had that I as part of the audience got to witness.

I also like this show for the reason that it is part of a trilogy and all three shows influence each other in some way. There are even episodes that two shows share, where the main characters of both shows interact with each other, but in Trollhunters it’s from Jim, Toby, and Claire’s perspective, and in the other show it’s from the other main character’s perspective. Stay tuned for the next post.