Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Hound’s Hill’ begins as a murder mystery that unravels two decades later. However, over the course of five episodes, the events unravel in a way that the whole story turns out to be much more than that. It is also about complicated family ties and rampant corruption, all of which coalesce in a way that makes it a dark and brutal story. A layer of supernatural is added to it via the presence of ghosts and mysterious figures, some of whom aren’t completely explained to the audience. One of them is the black old woman who appears at the beginning of each episode. At first, she serves as the narrator of the story, but by the final episode, she is revealed to be much more important than previously imagined. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Woman in Black Acts as a Motif of Death and Tragedy in Hound’s Hill
‘Hound’s Hill’ is narrated to the audience by an old woman in black who, at first, seems entirely removed from Daria’s murder and the events that follow it. She never quite plays into the story actively and remains a passive, omniscient narrator for the first four episodes. It is in the fifth episode, when we see the whole thing play out from Sebastian’s perspective that more is revealed about her, which makes her an even more mysterious figure. It seems that she lives in the solitary parts of the woods and doesn’t really go out in society, which is why no one ever mentions her or even comes across her. In fact, the only person who seems to have crossed paths with her is Sebastian, and we know how things turned out for him.
Sebastian met the woman on the night of Daria’s murder when he was on acid but was sober enough to know that his sister was in danger. In his mind, he was a knight, accompanied by a vixen, looking for his sister to protect her from the dangerous ghouls that lurk in the dark. He sees the old woman as a shapeshifter, who warns Sebastian against the ghouls and then turns into an owl when he decides to go after the villains anyway. The woman also tells the young man that if he continues on this path, things won’t turn out well for him, and as expected, the next morning, he is arrested for his sister’s murder, spends the rest of his life in an asylum and then dies by suicide.
As if the black dress and her ominous presence weren’t enough, her turning into an owl adds another layer to her presence in the story. In Poland, the color black and the bird owl are connected to death. The latter, in particular, is seen as a harbinger of death, with its cries compared to the devil’s laugh. The woman’s appearance in the forest is a mark that someone is going to die that night, and lo and behold, Daria is murdered. Years later, when Mikolaj comes back to Zybork, the woman is the one to narrate his tale, and each episode sees someone dying in horrible ways. Considering all this, we can say that the writer saw the old woman and her owl form as a strong metaphor for death and darkness lurking around in Zybork.
The fact that the book’s author, Jakub Zulczyk, intentionally chose to have a supernatural ring to the story shows that the woman’s presence in the show is not without purpose. The writer was inspired by David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ to incorporate preternatural elements into the story to elevate the psychological struggles of the character. This is why Mikolaj is haunted by Daria’s ghost, who starts haunting him as soon as he enters Zybork. This crossing into the town’s boundary also suggests that the trauma and darkness of the town stay within it and must be dealt with inside its boundaries. This is why perhaps no one is able to leave Zybork until the truth is out and justice has been served. In some way, the darkness of the town, which manifests in the form of the old woman, had been holding everyone back, waiting for the scales of death to be balanced twenty years later.
Read More: Hound’s Hill Ending, Explained: Does Mikolaj Die?
