The dark side of the Moomins

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.

> It was cute, it was happy

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...

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.