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writers-in-moominvalley · 2 years

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🔍Meta Analysis🔍

By the request of @rye-in-a-coat, I will be conducting a casual analysis of Episode 50: The Imp from Tanoshii Muumin Ikka a.k.a Adventures in Moominvalley.

This will read as less of an analysis and more of a formatted hodgepodge of different thoughts and lenses, since the structure of the 90s episodes - aswell as things like the comics or books, to a lesser extent - tend to often stray in unclear directions or set up elements that don't play into the rest of the episode, or they take away/change characterization in a way that makes the message or character arc unclear if it were an adaptation of a comic or book.

The Lesson of the Episode

Some episodes are simple slice of life stories with no morals to take away from it, but this episode felt like an exception. After a day of reviewing the contents of the episode and having difficulty trying to make sense of it, I came to the conclusion that the lesson can be summarized as this:

“Don't trust bad people when they say they've changed, believe them when they show it through actions.”

I say this because we have 2 characters of the same nature portrayed in the episode; Stinky, who is a known troublemaker and caused the old Mr. Hemulen distress twice within the episode, and the one-off character, the Imp, who tricked our main children with false promises and betrayed them once he got what he wanted.

Most of the kids were untrusting of the Imp when he started lying to them until Sniff gave in, hoping he could get a prize out of it, and that caused Mrs. Fillyjonk's kids, Snorkmaiden and Little My to also hope for gifts, Moomin remained thoroughly unconvinced and only wished for the Imp's promises to be true, which was of course revealed to be a lie when he was set free from the dead tree.

In the beginning of the episode, after Stinky got caught by Snufkin and Moomin for kicking Mr. Hemulen's butt, Mr. Hemulen hops in to accuse Stinky of having an imp inside him, to which Stinky immediately took to going along with it and blaming his entire behavior on the supposed imp. Stinky asks how to get rid of it (rhetorically, of course) and Snufkin says that the imp is simply metaphorical and that he could get rid of it by choosing to be good. After this, Stinky continues to be a nuisance to Mr. Hemulen and the others.

Moomin, while sitting under a tree, says he doesn't think Stinky will change, Snufkin asks why and Moomin asks back about what he thinks. Snufkin doesn't believe Stinky will change either and that the only reason that he told Stinky about his capability of making decisions is that one ought to tell him anyway.

It's an interesting exploration of this kind of concept, and especially important for children and even adults to learn, but I think the execution of the lesson would've worked better if it had provided a direct contrast of someone becoming a better person through their actions, or at least used Stinky's character more since they set up that parallel.

Because of this, the episode felt poorly structured to me particularly for a kids' program seemingly trying to teach something with this, but the series in general tends to have a similar structure in each episode where it starts off with something and then it leads to an entirely different turn of events about 8 minutes into the episode that only loosely connects to the first half rather loosely. Oftentimes this isn't a huge issue but it became jarring in this case due to a lack of reappearance from Mr. Hemulen or any proactive gestures from Stinky, leaving the writing feeling lacking.

On the upside, I do think Stinky and the Imp themselves are really good examples of the kind of people the episode is warning against. Stinky's character didn't feel out of place given his behavior throughout the series (though he was specifically jerking on Mr. Hemulen twice in one episode which isn't usually the case but this could've been done for emphasis on how much of a bad, unchanging person he is) and the introduction of the Imp was very effective as this scary stranger with a booming voice and a facade that slowly cracks with his patience for the kids, and his verbal manipulation felt very well-executed, particular since not all of the kids were 100% convinced of his act.

The Imp (species?)

The episode very interestingly establishes that imps are a thing in Moominland and we both have plenty of information and nothing at all at the same time (like most lore stuff in this franchise).

We first get introduced to the concept of them by Mr. Hemulen when he says Stinky might have an imp inside him.

This establishes a key thing; imps are generally used as metaphor, or at least somewhat of an equivalent to a shoulder devil. They represent an evil/mean/rude side of a person, and with the way Mr. Hemulen worded it, this must be based on some belief that imps possess people to commit bad deeds. This is further enforced by Mr. Hemulen being an elderly character, and elderly people tend to retain outdated beliefs or superstitions, this can also be an extension of Mr. Hemulen's mild religiousness or implied childhood in a conservative household which can be seen through his sister's character in the series' continuation. (Call this reading too much into this but I'll consider it as part of the territory when it comes to analyzing something like this)

Imps were a part of folklore particularly in medieval Europe and have become closely associated with Christianity as a whole, particularly in association with the devil. They are described as not necessarily evil but certainly quite the troublemakers and pranksters.

With this, Stinky can certainly be described as "impish", or even be labeled as an imp if you want to be keen with figuring out what exactly he is, but then Snufkin interrupts this train of thought with saying this after Mr. Hemulen seemed convinced that Stinky had an imp inside him after he stole a flower he was vying for;

He says a *real* imp probably wouldn't like what Mr. Hemulen was saying and Stinky is just acting as himself.

This could imply 2 things:

1. Imps are misunderstood in Moominland and Snufkin sees them as far more harmless than Mr. Hemulen implies with his insult to Stinky.

2. Stinky's crime is so terribly petty that an imp would be insulted by the comparison.

Snufkin's tone might say the first, but what we see as the only real example of an imp later implies the second.

The Imp himself is very often claimed to be evil and highly characterized as evil, though the true extent of his malice is unknown. He was imprisoned in a tree for his crimes for 500 years (and almost certainly didn't have any planned time limit on his imprisonment) and manipulated children into freeing him with false promises of his redemption and gifts, only to backstab them when he was freed. The Imp says that there's no such thing as a good imp, let alone a truthful one.

This information coming from the Imp post-freedom may be trustworthy; he's showing his true colors now that he's free and there's no reason for him to lie any further, and he certainly has a big ego given that he was defeated by being tricked into proving his authenticity via going through the straw back into the dead tree.

The Imp appears to be very powerful (or claims to be), he seems to be a shapeshifter able to transform into pink clouds, he summons storm clouds overhead for his dramatic escape and he is able to stop the kids from running by using his wand to summon green smoke to freeze them into place, he also threatens to turn the kids into imps and then asks if Moomin would prefer to turn into a snake, a frog or an imp.

This seems to be a departure from the usual folklore of imps, much like the Hobgoblin. The writers seem to have made them more powerful and far, far larger in size, as well as departing from their original stereotype of being simple pranksters.

This is about as much as we can get about imps, aside from the fact that the imp we know has a legend based around him passed on through generations that Moominpappa knows about and made changes to.

Other Stuff

We finally get an actually good look at Mr. Hemulen's boots in this episode. For a long time I hoped that he was wearing brown leather thigh-highs in spite of his reference sheet in the art book but alas, they were just regular boots with black pants. Other reveal shots were just too dark and/or small to distinguish between them. A sad loss for homosexuals (/lighthearted, joke).

I find it cute that the Imp was imprisoned for 500 years, and this being a series from 1991 set in the vague past of the mid-to-late period of the same century, would mean he was imprisoned in the 15th century near the end of the medieval period.

Snufkin playing the clever hero tricking the creature of higher power into stopping itself was extremely entertaining to watch, I wish more people would use him that way more without him being too snarky about it.

Little My doubting that the Imp even knew what a skateboard was at the end was one of my favorite jokes of the episode, hands down, Little My is so fun to watch.

Mrs. Fillyjonk's kids! Love those fellas, I appreciate them trying to distinguish them more by giving them genders and mildly different personalities but they still couldn't quite get there, but I love how you could feel them being regular kids with a strict mom.

Something about Moomin being the responsible one and least trusting of the imp was… something (/positive), it's the sort of characterization I don't see often but it feels right for him in a scenario like this. I like that he isn't a complete baby child and can be firm and even a little rude at times. It's something I miss when it comes to fanon characterization, there always feels like an attempt to soften him by emphasizing his perceived kindness or politeness or sheepishness, but yeah he can be hostile sometimes and that doesn't have to be a negative trait, not always.

One of my favorite shots of the characters:

I feel like the Imp's design needed to be workshopped a little during production, just a little. The editing in the first half also could've used some different choices.

The perfect timing joke between Moominpappa and Moominmamma didn't really stick the landing, it felt like someone tried to adapt a Lars comic joke or at least copy the style of one in 6 panels and it just didn't work as well as they'd hoped. Maybe it was the loud double-blink.

Always going to appreciate them making Moominpappa a writer as a hobby, I think it gives him more opportunity for his character to shine.

Sniff hiding behind the girls is great, love it everytime.

My poor little old meow meow </3 (this man started a fire by himself, dragged a giant fish by the tail over it, cooked it, then ate the whole thing whole. He can also run at the same speed at the Road Runner from Looney Tunes.)

#moomins #moominvalley #moomin #moomin meta #meta analysis #the imp #tanoshii muumin ikka #moomintroll #snufkin #moomin stinky #sniff moomin #little my #Snorkmaiden #mr hemulen #mrs fillyjonks kids

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