Johanna

General
**Gallery**

* Animated series
* Graphic novels
* Younger

That doesn't make us bad people, it just makes us people.

***Johanna*** is a main character in the *Hilda* graphic novels, television series and Hilda Tie-In Series. She is Hilda's loving and protective mother and Anders' former wife.

## Appearance

Johanna is an adult woman with brown hair and black eyes. She often wears a maroon turtle neck sweater, brown pants and white shoes.

## Personality

Hilda's mother is caring and supportive, but at times she can worry too much about Hilda not having any "normal" friends her age. Since she lived in Trolberg for a good portion of her childhood, she has a soft spot for the city, and had much less trouble with moving there than Hilda did. However, in "Chapter 8: The Fairy Isle", she admits to Hilda that she does miss the wilderness.

In the graphic novels, she is even more worried about Hilda than in the animated series, and is known to get angry at her daughter quite easily, often ending discussions with the words "because I said so!". It is also shown in "Hilda and the Bird Parade" that she doesn't like the city that much, despite having moved there, and doesn't want Hilda to go out by herself. This in contrast to the animated series, where she encourages Hilda to embrace Trolberg.

In "Hilda and the Black Hound"/"Chapter 12: The Nisse", it is revealed that she distrusts Nisse, considering them to be thieves and liars. She seems to have gotten over this, however, by the end of the story (adapted into "Chapter 13: The Black Hound"), at least when it comes to Tontu. In Season 2 of the animated series, she has actually grown fond of him; allowing him to join them for dinner and other family affairs. In return Tontu uses Nowhere Space to help keep the house organized.

Johanna is not shown to be close to anybody else or have any friends. The only people she wants to hang out with are Hilda, Alfur and Tontu. Hilda even scolds her at one point for this in Chapter 13: The Stone Forest. Her reasoning is unclear, but she seems to avoid socalising with other adults; clearly shown when she was uncomfortable by David's mother, who had taken an interest in her work and shown an interest in getting to know her better.

## Relationships

### Hilda

Johanna and her daughter, Hilda, are very close. Johanna tends to be concerned with matters surrounding her daughter and the mythical creatures she befriends, but understands that it is something that Hilda excels at.

In the graphic novels, they have a more rocky relationship and are prone to arguing. This is most prominently seen in "Hilda and the Stone Forest". But in the end they love each other.

In the animated series, their relationship is better than in the graphic novels throughout season 1. Season 2 restores some of their characterization from the graphic novels, with the two now being more prone to arguments, though it changes the reason why; in the graphic novels it was because Johanna worried a lot about Hilda, while in the animated series it is because Hilda starts lying about her adventures to her mom. Like in the graphic novels, they eventually reconcile, and in Season 3 they are once again on good terms with each other.

### Anders

In the graphic novels and for most of the animated series, she never mentions Hilda's father in any way, leaving it unknown what her exact relationship with him was. When he finally shows up in season 3, Johanna seems to be on friendly terms with him, but at the same time has no high opinion of him due to his tendency to always run off into another adventure whenever he gets overwhelmed. When Tontu asks if Anders is going to live with them, Johanna immediately says no, and at the end of the season Anders moves into his own apartment. All in all everything indicates they are not in a relationship any longer, but just friends.

### Alfur

In the graphic novels, Johanna never meets Alfur.

In the animated series and tie-in books, she and Alfur get along very well. As he is the only other adult company she has in her life she trusts him in looking after Hilda wherever she goes and with what she does.

### Tontu

Likewise initially, Johanna despise all nisse such as Tontu but eventually develop a liking for him.

### Astrid

Johanna has a good relationship with her aunt, mainly because her aunt was her main caretaker after her parents disappeared. Still, she was not happy her aunt did not come to Trolberg with her, and the two have a falling out in season 3 after Johanna learns Astrid lied to her about there still being a Fairy Mound in Tofoten. They eventually make up.

## Biography

* Animated Series
* Graphic Novels
* Novelization

### Pre-series

Johanna is the daughter of Phinium and Lydia. Since her father is a Fairy, Johanna is half-fairy. Shortly after she was born, her parents and aunt Astrid moved to a house in Tofoten to raise Johanna.

When Johanna was just a baby, she fell gravely ill and the doctor claimed she would not survive. To save their daughter, Phinium and Lydia struck a deal with the Fairy Entity. The entity agreed to cure Johanna if her parents would give Johanna to it on her tenth birthday. Out of options, they agreed.

At some point during those ten years, Johanna was attacked by the Spider Frog, so Phinium and Lydia trapped the beast in a lake using magic charms.

When Johanna turned ten and it was time for Phinium and Lydia to uphold their end of the bargain, they negotiated a new bargain with the Fairy Entity; they would give themselves to the Entity instead and move to Fairy Isle forever, never to visit the human world again. Again, the Entity agreed. Thus, Phinium and Lydia were forced to leave their daughter behind in the care of her aunt Astrid and moved to Fairy Isle. Johanna saw how her parents were taken into the Fairy Mound by the entity. Astrid performed a memory spell on Johanna to block most of her memories of her parents, so she would not feel like her parents abandoned her, and to keep her from trying to go after them. This also erased Johanna's memories of the more fantastical elements of her youth, like her encounter with the Spider Frog. Thus, the only thing Johanna remembered from the night her parents disappeared was that somehing bad happened at the Fairy Mound, which caused her to become afraid of Fairies. Since Johanna could not stay in Tofoten after this, Astrid found a boarding school for her in Trolberg and send her there. Johanna never truly forgave Astrid for not coming with her to Trolberg.

During her youth, Johanna was also a member of the Sparrow Scouts, but it is unknown if she joined them after being send to Trolberg or if the Scouts also had a branch in Tofoten. Among other thing, she earned her level three car repair badge.

As an adult, she met Anders and had Hilda with him. She moved into the cabin of her grandfather to raise Hilda there. Anders however did not stick around and would only occassionally drop by to see his daughter. Johanna has therefore been a single parent to Hilda for most, if not all, of Hilda’s life. "Chapter 9: The Deerfox" reveals that a few years prior to the series, she and Hilda met Twig when the latter saved Hilda from an eagle.

### Season 1

At the start of the series, Johanna was working as a graphic designer and still lived in the wilderness with her daughter, but began to get second thoughts about staying there. She tried several times to convince Hilda to move to Trolberg, believing it would be better for her to grow up around other kids her age. Her desire to move became stronger when the Elves began their attempts to drive the humans away (who had unknowingly been living in the middle of an elf village all this time). Hilda managed to end the conflict, but soon afterward the house was destroyed by Jorgen the giant, forcing Johanna and Hilda to move to Trolberg anyway.

In "Chapter 8: The Tide Mice", Johanna temporarily had to take a new job at the hardware store due to not getting enough assignments as a graphic designer. Hilda used a Tide Mice spell to giver Johanna her old job as a graphic designer back, and she was hired for a large advertising campaign for the Trolberg Bellmakers Corporation. Sadly, Hilda eventually discovered the Tide Mice would steal the souls of their victims after 30 days and was forced to dispose of the mouse again.

In "Chapter 12: The Nisse", Johanna was looking forward to the upcoming badge ceremony of the Sparrow Scouts, as she believed that Hilda had earned a lot of badges. Hilda, however, hadn't earned any badges, and was too nervous to tell Johanna. Around the same time, the Black Hound was stalking Trolberg, so Johanna was naturally nervous to let Hilda go on Sparrow Scouts camp. Her fears were proven correct when the Hound was spotted in the Huldrawood during the first night, and Raven Leader send all the scouts home.

In "Chapter 13: The Black Hound", she discovered Hilda had earned no badges during the badge ceremony, but immediately afterward the Black Hound attacked Scout Hall. Tontu, a Nisse that Hilda has befriended, helped Hilda escape through Nowhere Space. Eventually, they ended up back in Hilda's house, where another Nisse recognized the hound as his lost pet Jellybean, and calmed him down. Johanna arrived home not much later, and with a lot of convincing from Hilda agreed to help the Nisse lure Jellybean out of the city in her car. Jellybean, however, are caught up with the car, jumped on the roof, and blocked Johanna's view, causing the car to go out of control. To prevent a crash, the two Nisse sent the car into the nowhere space of the outside world. This resulted in the car with Hilda, Johanna, and Tontu in it ending up outside the city walls, while Jellybean and his owner vanished.

After this adventure, Johanna allowed Tontu to come live in their home. She also apologized to Hilda for pushing her to earn badges, knowing full well how brave and selfless she is. To make it up to her, Johanna created her own unofficial badge for Hilda.

### Season 2

In Season 2, Hilda and Johanna slowly begin to grow apart due to Hilda's desire to go out on adventures, and she starts to keep secrets from Johanna. It begins in "Chapter 2: The Draugen", when Hilda accidentally lures a Draugen-ship to Trolberg, and it follows her to her home. Johanna is visibly annoyed when the ship passes through their house and leaves her covered in ectoplasm.

In "Chapter 6: The Old Bells of Trolberg", Hilda convinces Johanna to go to the official ceremony where Erik Ahlberg will activate the new mechanical bellringers, but this is just a ruse so Hilda and her friends can sabotage these bellringers. Hilda thus makes up an excuse, and doesn't return until after the ceremony is over. Finally, in "Chapter 7: The Beast of Cauldron Island", Hilda lies to Johanna about having to go to a Sparrow Scouts meeting, while Johanna planned for them to go on a picnic. In reality, Hilda and friends go to Cauldron Island to investigate why ships keep disappearing there. When Johanna finds out about the lie after calling Raven Leader, she grounds Hilda for the first time in her life.

In "Chapter 8: The Fifty Year Night", a time-traveling Hilda gets to see her mum just after she left the house, and overhears Johanna asking herself if she is doing the right thing. After seeing this, Hilda apologizes to Johanna and they reconcile.

In "Chapter 9: The Deerfox", Johanna has her first major role this season. When Twig runs away from home after feeling neglected by Hilda, and because he longs back for his own herd, Johanna takes Hilda to the wilderness to find him. They visit the ruins of their old house, and since Johanna has signed the proper paperwork in the meantime, she can now see the Elf village there for the first time. The episode reveals that Johanna, like Hilda, is capable of some impressive feats, like scaling rocks, due to her years in the wilderness. They eventually find Twig, and have to fight a Red wolf. For a moment, it seems that Twig will leave with his herd, which deeply saddens Hilda, but ultimately decides to stay with her.

In "Chapter 10: The Yule Lads", Hilda and Johanna celebrate their first Trolberg Winter Festival. Hilda plans to give Johanna a snow globe as a present. The two have another argument when Johanna scolds Hilda for leaving her tea bags on the counter, but the following morning Hilda catches her doing the same thing. Unfortunately, when Hilda tells the Yule Lads leader Kertasnikir about this, he interprets this as a sign that Johanna is naughty and has her captured to be sacrificed to Gryla. Hilda is able to prevent this by convincing the Yule Lads to give Gryla the Sparrow Scouts' vegetable broth as an alternative. At the end of the episode, thanks to David, Hilda is able to give Johanna the snow globe.

Johanna also plays a major role in "Chapter 13: The Stone Forest". In the episode, she and Hilda have an argument (Hilda wants to go back to Frida's house after dinner, while Johanna wants a night for just the two of them) that ends with Johanna sending Hilda to her room. Disgruntled, Hilda tries to blackmail Tontu into letting her into Nowhere Space and taking her to Frida that way, but Johanna catches her in the act. In the struggle that follows, Hilda and Johanna are warped to the Stone Forest. Here, they have to work together to escape the various trolls and other dangers, the most prominent one being a Two-Headed Troll, but get unexpected help from Trylla and her child Baba. With their help, and that of Alfur, Frida and David, they are able to escape and return to Trolberg, where Hilda decides that she has had enough adventures for now.

The troll, however, has seen how Johanna cared for Hilda, and uses a changeling spell to make her daughter and Hilda swap places. Hilda thus becomes a troll back in the stone forest, while Johanna finds the now human Baba in Hilda's bed.

### Movie

In "Hilda and the Mountain King", Johanna spends a good part of the story trying to find Hilda, who is now a troll. The first time she is ordered by a Safety Patrol officer to return home because night is falling, and the second time, while searching at night, she almost gets caught by trolls, who attack her. Her car gets almost destroyed and she get's a nasty scar on her arm which she has to bandage. The next day, David and Frida offer her their help to find Hilda as they want to help her. While she agrees at first, she has second thoughts about this in the car and decides to trick them and leave them behind at David's house, as she doesn't want the children to endanger themselves as she thinks it to dangerous for them to help her. She apologies to them and reassures them they are the best friends Hilda could wish for and leave them as she drives of. She eventually turns to Erik Ahlberg for help and asks him to come along, promising to show him the entrance to the Stone Forest if he agrees to escort her. When they find Trylla and Hilda, Ahlberg thinks the troll is a threat to Baba and threatens to use his torch gun. This forces Johanna to step in and disarm him. When both Hilda and the now human Baba are reunited with their real mothers, the spell is broken and they become their old selves again. After the adventure, in which Hilda and the Safety Patrol save the city from the Mountain King Trundle and introduce The Night of the Trolls, Johanna allows for Baba to come to their house every now and then, and for Hilda to visit Baba in the Wilderness.

### Season 3

Some time has passed since the movie as Hilda is now 13 years old. In "Chapter 1: The Train to Tofoten" it is summer and for the first time in Hilda's life Johanna takes her daughter to Tofoten to visit Astrid there. Hilda's friends are also invited for the trip. During their stay in Tofoten, Johanna has a great time catching up with Astrid, but admits to Astrid her resentment for the fact Astrid never came to Trolberg with her. Astrid also correctly deduces Johanna was afraid to bring Hilda to Tofoten becasue of her experience with Fairies, and assures her no incident has happened since Johanna left. The trip goes sideways when it turns out there still is an active Fairy Mound in Tofoten, and Hilda, Frida and David all end up trapped inside. Johanna and Astrid save them, but Johanna is furious her aunt hid this information from her and cuts the trip short, taking the kids back to Trolberg.

In "Chapter 5: The Job", Anders finally returns again for a visit. He visits Johanna and Hilda at their house and takes Hilda for lunch. When Anders fails to bring Hilda home on time, Johanna calls David and learns from him Anders and Hilda went to Fort Ahlberg for a job given to them by The Polecat. Johanna follows them there to get Hilda back and give Anders a piece of her mind. Then a troll attacks and Anders distracts him to save Hilda and Johanna, but mysteriously vanishes after the Troll corners him in the dungeon. Hilda and Johanna spend some time looking for Anders, but don't find him and Johanna concludes he ran of again.

In "Chapter 6: The Forgotten Lake", Johanna buys a new car as the old one was destroyed during the events of the movie, and goes camping with Hilda. During the trip they come across the lake where years ago Johanna was attacked by the Spider Frog. While Johanna does not actively remember those events, the memories are evidently not truly gone as Johanna discovers the lake is identical to a painting she made earlier. During their stay at the lake, Hilda accidentally frees the Spider Frog, and it captures her. Johanna is able to save Hilda and tries to escape with her, but they are ultimately unsuccesful in evading the monster for long. It ends up eating them both, only to vomit them out again as they are too human, and thus upset its stomach.

In the final two episodes, Hilda learns her father has somehow ended up in Fairy Country after his disappearance, and with her friends secretly goes back to Tofoten to save him. Johanna follows them to Tofoten, and despite Frida and David's efforts to stop her, she enters the Fairy Mound to look for Hilda. Anders is saved, but Hilda and Johanna both end up trapped in Fairy Country when the mound collapses. When Johanna arrives on the Fairy Isle, she reverts back to the ten-year-old girl she was on the night her parents disappeared, and forgets about Hilda. Instead she now thinks she is looking for her own parents. Hilda encounters the young Johanna, with neither girl realizing who the other is, and teams up with her. Astrid also follows Hilda and Johanna into Fairy Country. Eventually, they find Phinium and Lydia, who are now living in a replica of Hilda's old house. Upon seeing her parents, Johanna reverts back to her adult self, after which Phinium and Lydia reveal the true reason they left Johanna behind and Astrid restores all of Johanna's childhood memories.

Now that Johanna has returned to her parents, the bargain they made with the Fairy Entity is broken and Johanna and Hilda can never leave Fairy Country again. Johanna doesn't mind as she is with her family again. She tries to convince Hilda that staying here would be like going back to when they still lived in the wilderness, but Hilda is having none of it. When Twig comes to their aid with the Deer-Fox Herd, who can freely travel between Fairy Country and the Human World, Johanna is torn between leaving with her daughter or staying with her parents, but ultimately chooses the latter. The island tries to keep the two from leaving by creating several obstacles in their way. Johanna and Hilda almost fall in a deep chasm, but Johanna's fairypowers awaken and they fly across.

With help of the deerfoxes, Hilda and Johanna return home, but since the bargain was broken, Johanna's childhood sickness returns and she comes close to dying. She is saved when Astrid voluntarily takes her place in the bargain with the Fairy Entity. Astrid in turn is saved when Victoria Van Gale takes her place.

The season ends with Johanna and Hilda back in Trolberg, while Phinium and Lydia keep watching over them from Fairy Country.

In the Graphic Novels "Hildafolk" through "Hilda and the Mountain King", Johanna is a supporting character with a smaller role than the animated series.

Not much is revealed about her past in this continuity, other than that she was with the Sparrow Scouts in her youth, hence why she signs up Hilda for them after their move to Trolberg. It is unknown if she is a half-fairy in this continuity as that plotline was not in the graphic novels.

The events from "Chapter 4" to "Chapter 11" of Season 1, "Chapter 1" (minus the scene at the start of the episode) through "Chapter 12" of Season 2, and all of Season 3 never happen in the graphic novels.

Johanna does have a major role in the final two graphic novels. Her role in "Hilda and the Stone Forest" is for most part identical to that in the animated adaptation. Some mayor difference include the reason she grounds Hilda (she catches Hilda sneaking out with the Great Raven), and their rescue at the end of the story (where the Great Raven comes to their aid rather than David, Frida, Alfur, and a white Woff). Her role in "Hilda and the Mountain King" is likewise largely identical to the movie adaptation.

The Hilda Tie-In Series adapts Chapters 1 - 7 and 10 - 13 of Season 1, all episodes of Season 2 except for 11, 12, and the main story of 9, and all episodes of Season 3. In these books Johanna's role is largely identical to the animated series, except the adventures happen in a different order. She and Hilda also argue a little more than in the animated series. Some other differences include:

* The adventure with the Tide Mice does not happen in this version.
* The adventure where Twig runs away and Johanna accompanies Hilda to the Wilderness to find him likewise does not happen in the books.
* Like in the graphic novels and animated series, Hilda is grounded by Johanna, but here it happens because Johanna found out Hilda was responsible for sabotaging the mechanical bellringers instead of the adventure with the Kraken.
* The adventure with the viking clans happens while Hilda and her friends secretly go camping in the Great Forest instead of them going on Sparrow Scouts camp, and Johanna finding out about this is what leads to her and Hilda's argument prior to their adventure in the Stone Forest.
* The events from the movie are not adapted or referred to at all, so they likely never happened in this continuity.
* In Fairy Country; the plot of Johanna temporarily becoming a child again does not happen. Instead, she finds her way to her parents house all by herself after Hilda is already there.

## Powers and Abilities

**Artistry:** Johanna is a very talented artist and graphic designer.

**Flight:** Due to being half fairy, Johanna is able to fly. She first used her power when she and Hilda tried to cross a chasm in fairy country. It is unknown if she can use this ability on the mainland.

## Appearances

Graphic Novels
* Johanna appears in all of the Hilda graphic novels

Animated series

Tie-in books.
* Johanna appears in all of the tie-in books.

## Behind the Scenes

### Voice

Johanna is voiced by Daisy Haggard in the animated series.

In the audiobooks avaible on Audible of the Hilda tie-in books, she is voiced by Sanchia McCormack.

## Trivia

* The name Johanna was created specifically for the animated series. In the graphic novels Hilda's mom remains unnamed, and in the tie-in series she is only mentioned by name in the last book.
* In the animated series and novelization, she has signed the paperwork necessary to see elves. In the graphic novels, she did not.
* Prior to season 3, Luke Pearson stated that Hilda's dad was around somewhere and just not currently living with Hilda and Johanna.

 Other kids