Comments | giving_ground: On Swedish Children's Classics, or, They Do Things Differently Here

giving_ground

On Swedish Children's Classics, or, They Do Things Differently Here

Feb 27, 2010 14:32

We watched Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart) yesterday. It's from an Astrid Lindgren book of the same name. It's a children's classic and, so Val says, one of those things everyone knows about.

What is it about? Well, basically, children dying in horrible ways. ( The long version... )

oh my god, astrid lindgren, films

Comments 15

elyndys February 27 2010, 13:35:51 UTC

You might have thought they were fairly safe because they were already dead. You would have been wrong!

...You're not even safe in the afterlife! D: What happens in the after-afterlife? Do you keep going, dying in horrible ways and getting to more and more amazing places? XD

giving_ground February 27 2010, 13:43:18 UTC

If there is some kind of moral to this story I don't want to think too hard about it, seriously. :|

7veilsphaedra February 27 2010, 13:47:00 UTC

Yeah, that sounds like the western Hermetic/Freemason tradition alright, the one which led to theosophy and anthroposophy and a host of other interesting sects, in which case the dragons and their fires are symbols for other things, and the process of dying means expansion of awareness or something like that.

giving_ground February 27 2010, 14:31:20 UTC

If it sounds anything like that it can only be because I described it badly or something, I think. *blinks* It's, um, not like that, really.

7veilsphaedra February 27 2010, 14:42:09 UTC

Okay. I will have to take your word for it since I haven't seen the show. But that whole business of dying so that the person can go to a better place/reality/experience of reality does sound like Hermeticism.

(The comment has been removed)

giving_ground February 27 2010, 20:04:27 UTC

I liked the 'granddad'! He was pretty awesome.

(The comment has been removed)

giving_ground February 28 2010, 07:46:21 UTC

We've also been listening to him doing Nalle Puh. With all the songs. *laughs*

celen February 27 2010, 18:35:48 UTC

Oh, I read that book when I was something like 10 years old - as you said, it's a true classic and an amazing book, too. I really recommend reading it if the movie left you feeling a bit "...wot" about it. But as you said, one cannot exactly call it a cheerful book.

giving_ground February 27 2010, 20:06:15 UTC

Well. My reaction is actually mostly kind of oh wow, so THIS is what they feed to children here. MAYBE THIS EXPLAINS A LOT. Between that and the massive melancholy that is the later Moomin books and... *laughs* (AND I just read a Swedish picture book about an old guy who lost his hat and it made me sadface. Damn it Sweden. XD )

(The comment has been removed)

giving_ground February 28 2010, 17:49:29 UTC

I do suspect that this is the sort of thing kids may be a lot better with than adults, actually, because it might feel more safely fictional? While adults think things like "I feel so sorry for the mother, wow". And so on. I think a lot of kids would really like it for the wild adventures - probably as a kid I would've - while as an adult I found it a really really tragic and kinda fucked up story. *laughs* Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it, but hmmmm.