Monday, December 20, 2010

Adventure Gnomes!

Every so often a new animated television show arrives that destroys and reinvents what a cartoon can be. We saw it previously with Batman the Animated Series, Ren and Stimpy, The Simpsons, and South Park, among others. Adventure Time is another of those shows.


The show is a brilliant mash-up of the fantasy genre and silly '80s cartoon buffoonery. The episodes are 15 minutes, the animation is bright and simple, and the humor is cleverly juvenile. It follows the daily lives of Finn the Human, a 12 year old boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with morphing super powers who somehow live together in a treehouse in the middle of the crazy fantasy world of Ooh.

Ooh is a world populated by a huge number of strange, mythic, ridiculous creatures including people created from sugar, philosophical wolves, frat boy Vikings, giants, wizards, space creatures, rainbow horses that speak Korean, a little elephant that bakes pies, and the most important things.... gnomes.

These gnomes are traditionally chthonic, living underground in a kingdom called the Beneathaverse. Ruled by a gnome king, these gnomes trick the heroes and kidnap Finn to power a machine that will flip the universe over, allowing Beneathaverse to be on top for once. The plot is foiled, obviously. But not after a kick-ass dance party in the clouds.


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Gnomes: A Lesson in Chthonics


Its been a while since i have posted here. I kind of ran out of material. So, I figure, its about time to go back to the basics. Myth.


Apparently, the idea of the gnome has its origins in ancient mythos, most notably Greek, Gael, and Germanic folklore. I learned a new word today too, from the Greek chthonios, chthonic means under the earth. So... in a sentence, you would use it like this: "My dad just died and now he is chthonic". 

The British used the term Chthonic Gnome to differentiate between other gnome-like creatures such as brownies, elves, leprechauns, kobolds, goblins, gremlins, sprites, klabautermen, and garden gnomes. Basically, the original gnome was much more like the dwarves from Lord of the Rings.


Some other uses of the term gnome in literature are as follows:


Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1873 wrote about gnomes in Twice Told Tales where he differentiates the ugly, strong, earthy, manly gnomes from the pretty and fragile limpwristed fairies.

William Cullen Bryant wrote about gnomes in his book Little People of the Snow in 1877, and made it clear that gnomes are not elves (no kidding, Orlando Bloom would make an awful gnome). However, JRR Tolkien wrote of gnomes as the first people, the Noldor, a second clan of elves, who were clever craftsmen and shared their knowledge with man. So, maybe Bloom would make a good gnome.


In 1895, gnomes turned up as main characters in Franz Hartmann's Unter den Gnomen im Untersberg. They are portrayed exactly as one would describe a dwarf today. And by dwarf, I dont mean Little People, Big World on TLC. 


In the 19th century, gnomes pop up in fantasy books, most notably in L. Baum's Wizard of OZ, Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and lastly Rowling's Harry Potter

I believe I had a rant about Rowling's portrayal previously

Also to be noted... the rise of the fantasy gaming culture has led to the use of gnomes in games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. Funny enough, there is a blog for that: Gnome Stew.