“ | I was meant to live in the wood, away from the big city, away from all things techno-illogical. | ” |
Ned Ludd is a real estate developer turned hermit who appears in Big Hero 6: The Series, debuting in the season one episode "Muirahara Woods".
Background[]
Ned used to be a real estate developer who planned to tear down Muirahara Woods for his business. One night, while driving in the woods, his car was headed toward a cliff but was unable to use the brakes. At the same time, a meteorite falling nearby created a magnetic field which completely stopped the vehicle before falling. Ludd got out of the car and believed it was nature that saved him and that he was meant to live away from the city in the forest.
Rumors about him becoming crazy and disappearing seemed to spread, as Fred knew about it before meeting him.
He settled in the forest, built a treehouse and brought the meteorite with him, naming it Bessie; as well as getting to know the forest and its creatures but also becoming hateful towards technology, claiming it was humanity's worst invention and that it does not help people. He also started scaring people to keep them away from the woods, which created an urban legend of a creature called The Hibagon. The legend of the Hibagon said that the creature was 9 feet tall with a wild mane of chocolatey-brown hair.
Somehow, Ned later got ahold of newspapers and kept the articles that mentioned him and The Hibagon. It's unknown how much time he has lived in the woods, but it might be some years due to the way he changed physically.
Personality[]
Ned looked like a calm man until he became a hermit. After that, he turned slightly crazy and paranoid, gaining a hatred for all kinds of technology. He has kept out people from the forest so that they won't try to harm it but allows some peaceful people like Go Go and Hiro to be in it.
He does not like nature to be harmed, and despite many of the animals in the woods being dangerous, he has managed to adapt and befriend the animals such as the mice in his beard, a snake he holds when telling stories or a moose he rides; or sometimes scares them off rather than hurting them.
He knows that people think he is crazy, but Ned does not care as he believes he did the "only sane thing to do" by getting away from all tech. The only thing he dislikes about his lifestyle is that he does not get to show off much.
Appearance[]
Ned has brown eyes and hair and has tan skin. In his days as a developer, his hair was slicked back and wore a brown typical businessman attire.
After deciding to stay and live in Muirahara Woods, he kept the same clothes that with time deteriorated. He made wristbands and patched up parts of his clothes with plants. His hair got greyer (noticeably his eyebrows) except for a streak of hair, and it grew excessively, as well as a beard he did not have when he was a city person. Three mice live in his beard and he feeds them. He also got a hunched posture ever since.
As "The Hibagon", he is only seen as a silhouette and his eyes mysteriously glow yellow, although a picture that Baymax showed of the creature didn't have them.
In his mutated form, Ned Ludd more closely resembles the Hibagon the media depicted him has: a nine-foot-tall black-furred lanky creature with a wild mane of hair, black claws, gray skin and a thick set of eyebrows. He has sharp claws and pointed teeth with a glowing orange outline. His pupil-less eyes, nostrils, and mouth emit the same eery glow.
Powers and Abilities[]
Ned does not really possess superpowers, but from his time of being on the forest, he has gained certain abilities.
- Master Acrobat: Ned is able to climb and jump from trees with ease, knowing how to do flips too.
- Wildlife knowledge: Being the protector of Muirahara Woods and knowing everything in it has made him able to survive for a long time and make use of the forest's life to help him. He knows how to ride mooses, scare bears and even find Baymax by tasting and smelling dirt alone.
As a mutant, Ned had the following abilities:
- Superhuman strength: Ned's strength was augmented, as he tore through trees with quick swipes from his hands, and was able to catch Baymax's rocket fist (albeit with some difficulty) and toss it back at the robot.
- Superhuman agility: Ned gained enhanced agility, and thus benefitted his already-impressive climbing abilities. He was able to keep his balance in treetops, enabling him to move faster than before.
- Enhanced senses: Ned's senses were enhanced, including smell, which he used to locate prey by their distinct scent. This ability was negated if his prey covered themselves in mud, therefore hiding from the Hibagon's olfactory senses.
Equipment[]
- Stick: Ned carries around a regular, Y-shaped wood stick with him, and uses it in different ways such as self-defense or to grab things.
- Bessie: The meteor that fell and saved his life, it causes all electronics in its radius to work incorrectly. Ned kept it and made a spot for it in his treehouse, almost treating it like a person (though he acknowledges it is a meteorite), claiming that it talks to him and not allowing anyone to touch it. It later became a sentient being due to genetic alterations by Di Amara, though Ned was able to reclaim it.
History[]
Season 1[]
When Hiro, Baymax and Fred followed Go Go to the forest to find out where she went every time she wanted to be alone, the three got lost and Baymax began to malfunction because of the meteorite. Fred and Hiro lost him, and nearly got attacked by a bear until Ned found them and scared the bear off. Soon, Ned made them get on a moose to escape from the returning bear and took them to the treehouse he built, although he claimed it belonged to the woods but he just minded it. Once inside, he offered Hiro and Fred sap to drink and told them the story of how he ended up in Muirahara, showing them the meteorite. Hiro then convinced Ned to go find Baymax (referring to him only as "his friend"). Upon finding him, Ludd became disillusioned once he saw Baymax was a robot and trapped Hiro and Fred in a net, taking away Baymax and threatening to throw him off a cliff, saying it's what Bessie would want him to do.
Hiro and Fred were soon found by their teammates who went looking for them after Go Go had returned without them and saw it was getting dark. The team made a plan to trap Ned and get back Baymax, and so Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Go Go used the forest's resources to create temporary armors and harmless weapons, as well as a set of booby-traps. They also started a campfire to attract Ned and make him believe they were burning down the trees. Ned noticed and angrily followed the trail of smoke, finding Hiro and Fred, who tried to negotiate with him, although he refused and began chasing them. Soon, he got ambushed by the rest of the team and finally got thrown down one of their traps. Getting a small fracture in his arm while falling, Hiro told Ned that Baymax would help him if he'd allow them to leave. Hesitant, Ned had to agree and soon Baymax analyzed him and told him that he'd heal in a few weeks. Despite being proved that not all machines were bad, Ned still told Hiro that technology would be the downfall of everyone, and then told the team to get out of his wood, suddenly jumping on a tree and going away.
Season 2[]
In "Muira-Horror!", Ned encounters Di Amara (under the name of Liv Amara at the time) and her assistant, Chris, whom Ned tangled with until Chris overpowered and knocked him out through pressure points. Di then placed a modified trans-dermal patch on Ned and sends him into the direction of Alistair Krei's party to "take care" of him while they retrieved Bessie. A groggy Ned soon ran into Krei, who was accompanied by Hiro and Go Go and rambled about Di without clearly identifying her. Just then, the patch activates due to Di and Chris placing Bessie in a containment unit, mutating Ned into an authentic Hibagon.
He hunts down the trio throughout the forest until they manage to evade him in Krei's SUV, but the Hibagon hitches a ride on a nearby truck to pursue them. At San Fransokyo Bridge, the Hibagon catches up and attacks them. Nearby, Fred, Baymax, and Mini-Max spot the commotion and attend to the fight. Even with their aid, the Hibagon overpowers them before Mochi jumps on the Hibagon in a surprise attack, and manages to remove the patch. The Hibagon is restored to a dazed Ned, who is unable to remember his time as the monster, though he recognized Krei and Baymax, whom he retains his hostility towards but accepted a lollipop from the robot. After Hiro and Go Go return Ned to the woods, Ned realized that the car was unaffected by Bessie's energy and ran back into his home discovering, to his despair, that Bessie was stolen by Di and Chris.
Much later, Ned is alerted to Bessie's whereabouts in the city by Mini-Max and arrives to reclaim his prized possession. He finds Bessie, only to see that the meteorite has been transformed into a bear-like monster. He nonetheless successfully tames Bessie into rejoining his side so that the monster agrees to go with Ned, but not before Bessie fires electromagnetic blasts at the mutant monsters it accompanied, transforming them back into their original human forms.
Trivia[]
- Ned Ludd was based on two concepts:
- His "Hibagon" persona is inspired by the Japanese folklore of Hibagon, also known as the Japanese equivalent to Bigfoot.
- The English folklore of Ned Ludd, a man who supposedly destroyed two stocking frames in 1779 and is believed to have inspired the name for the Luddites, a radical group of English textile workers that claimed machines would replace their role in the industry. In modern times, "Luddite" is the term used for people who oppose to new technology—much like Ned Ludd does in the series.
- The design of his hibagon mutation seems to reference a yokai called the hihi. This can be seen in its additional feline traits, such as it's digitigrade feet, sharp claws, and maned appearance.
- Ned and Mel Meyer share a similar trait, in that they are not actually villainous people despite being the antagonists of an episode. Ned did not care about Baymax being destroyed because of his hate for technology and how detached he is from it, thus only treated him as a worthless "thing", yet didn't seem like he wanted to harm any of the human members of Big Hero 6.
Appearances[]
Big Hero 6: The Series - Season 1 | |||
1-2. "Baymax Returns": | Absent | 13. "Small Hiro One": | Absent |
3. "Issue 188": | Absent | 14. "Kentucky Kaiju": | Absent |
4. "Big Roommates 2": | Absent | 15. "Rivalry Weak": | Absent |
5. "Fred's Bro-Tillion": | Absent | 16. "Fan Friction": | Absent |
6. "Food Fight": | Absent | 17. "Mini-Max": | Absent |
7. "Muirahara Woods": | Appears | 18. "Big Hero 7": | Absent |
8. "Failure Mode": | Absent | 19. "Big Problem": | Absent |
9. "Aunt Cass Goes Out": | Absent | 20. "Steamer's Revenge": | Absent |
10. "The Impatient Patient": | Absent | 21. "The Bot-Fighter": | Absent |
11. "Mr. Sparkles Loses His Sparkle": | Absent | 22. "Obake Yashiki": | Absent |
12. "Killer App": | Absent | 23-25. "Countdown to Catastrophe": | Absent |
Big Hero 6: The Series - Season 2 | |||
1. "Internabout": | Absent | 14. "Mini-Maximum Trouble": | Absent |
2. "Seventh Wheel": | Absent | 15. "El Fuego": | Absent |
3. "Prey Date": | Absent | 16. "The Globby Within": | Absent |
4. "Something's Fishy": | Absent | 17. "Hardlight": | Absent |
5. "Nega-Globby": | Absent | 18. "The Present": | Absent |
6. "The Fate of the Roommates": | Absent | 19. "Hiro The Villain": | Pictured |
7. "Muira-Horror!": | Appears | 20. "Portal Enemy": | Absent |
8. "Something Fluffy": | Mentioned | 21. "Fred the Fugitive": | Absent |
9. "Supersonic Sue": | Absent | 22. "Major Blast": | Absent |
10. "Lie Detector": | Absent | 23. "Fear Not": | Absent |
11. "Write Turn Here": | Absent | 24-25. "Legacies": | Absent |
12-13. "City of Monsters": | Appears |
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Muirahara Woods |
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Muira-Horror! |
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City of Monsters |
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Hiro The Villain |
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Miscellaneous[]
Gallery |
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