Trollhunters – Worth the Watch

Recently, I was looking for something lighthearted and fun to watch. I stumbled across Netflix’s new show Trollhunters. It turned out to be both those things with the bonus of being a lot of fun!

​The show takes place in a world where trolls live underground, and humans are unaware of their existence. One day a special troll (the Trollhunter) with a unique set of given abilities, is killed and a human boy stumbles across the stone rubble that remains of the trolls body. 

 The former trolls magic amulet chooses the boy to be the next Trollhunter. A title a human has never held. The show then follows the boy learning about troll society, and all the creatures and magic he was unaware of before, while simultaneously trying to live a normal high-school experience, and stopping the evil trolls from rising from their imprisonment.

The show is awesome for a few reasons. The first is the cast of characters. The two mentors assigned to help Jim (the boy with the new mantle) are hilarious. Blinky voiced by Kelsey Grammer is especially funny and at times very profound. Aaarrgghh voiced by Fred Tatasciore is great in his own way too. He is given a dark past that contrasts well with the great chemistry between Jim’s best friend Toby Domzalsk. Toby plays a great sidekick, there for comedy relief and to help push the main character when he needs it.

The second thing that makes this show good is the fact that it is not episodic, each episode builds upon the last and continues the story. I greatly appreciate this, you actually feel rewarded as a viewer for paying attention because in later episodes things will come to light that started a few episodes back, and there are some great ah-huh moments.

​The one big flaw that Greg actually brought to my attention when we were talking about this show a couple weeks ago is with the main character. Once he pointed it out though I definitely had to agree with him.

The story is about a high-school aged boy, not popular, that takes care of his mother because his father/her husband walked out on them when Jim was still young. Jim stumbles upon this crazy new world, and is thrown right into the center of it, expecting to be a savoir and do battle with giant stone trolls and magical creatures he has never heard of. Whats the flaw in this? He can. The main character of the story has no flaws. His is good at everything, almost right out of the gate. Some how his cooking skills directly translate to fighting with a sword. This makes him the least interesting character in the show, and so you end up continuing to watch the show for the cool things he does, and for the other characters, but not really caring so much about Jim. My counter to Greg’s argument at the time was that the amulet wouldn’t have chosen him if he wasn’t good at everything, however, this is a weak argument for there are many flaws a person can have that they later have to overcome, giving the viewer a sense of character growth and relate-ability that don’t have to deal with fighting ability.

​That being said, the other characters, the world building, and the plot more then make of for this flaw, and it is a highly entertaining show that I would recommend watching.