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Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.
Every once in a while I participate in this one when I either
1) Like the theme, and/or 2) Have the time! |
This week's topic:
Top Ten FAIRY TALE Characters I'd Like To Check In With!
In true Fairy Tale Fortnight fashion, Misty and I are twisting up this week's topic and making it conform to our event!
Because, let's face it...What happens after Happily Ever After?
I'll try to do this list in a fun fashion...so it's a little different and out there!
In no particular order...
1) CINDERELLA
We all know that Cinderella met her prince and danced with him at the ball and fell in love and became a princess and lived Happily Ever After. But is she HAPPY?? You have one blind date and then you marry the dude...without really knowing anything about him. So I want to check in and make sure she's happy, because that girl DESERVES the ultimate Happily Ever After considering everything her Stepmother put her through over the years!
2) RUMPELSTILTSKIN
Like Cinderella, I want to know if the miller's daughter is happy. Her father selfishly lies to the king and says that his daughter can turn straw into gold. The miller's daughter then must make various horrible deals with Rumpelstiltskin as the king's demands get larger. And THEN he decides to marry her. I don't know about you, but a demanding, greedy king doesn't sound like great husband material. So I want to know that she's happy in her Ever After, too, since her father put her in such a tough spot!
3) BLUEBEARD
Okay, this is one of the most disturbing fairy tales. Bluebeard not only murders his wives, he displays them grotesquely in a secret room as trophies. It's gory and sick and twisted. His final wife escapes his clutches with her life, but at what cost? Sure, she has an amazing dowry, can provide for her family, and can re-marry, but she can never unsee those horrors. Girl needs some psychological treatment. How is she now? Is she completely nuts, or has she managed to cope and see the bright things in life?
4) ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Let's continue on the crazy train for a minute here. I know ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll isn't strictly a fairy tale, but so much of the world thinks it is that I'm including it here. There have been so many retellings of Alice's story over the years, some of which have her going crazy and finding herself locked up in mental asylums. Is she crazy? Was it a dream? Is Wonderland real or an elaborate fantasy? How has Alice really coped in life after returning from her extraordinary adventures and being forced to live the mundane life of an ordinary human being?
5) THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES
This is one story where you really want to know what happens, but it ends way too soon! What happens to the tailors who create the Emperor's "invisible" clothing? What happens to his advisors and servants and court, all of whom didn't tell him that he was naked? How did he get over the embarrassment of his entire kingdom seeing him in the nude and getting everyone to take him seriously again in the future? I WANT TO KNOW ALL OF THE THINGS, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN!!!
6) SLEEPING BEAUTY
Princess Aurora/Rose/what-have-you is another fairy tale that has the potential to create a Happily Ever After with a not-so-happy princess. At least Disney tried, and Aurora met the prince before her curse took effect. But most tales have her sleeping for one hundred years before The One comes along. How can he be The One and her True Love if they've never met? How does the curse KNOW THIS? Is our Sleeping Beauty happy with the prince who woke her up?And what about Giambattista Basile's retelling? Our Sleeping Beauty Talia is raped and impregnated with twins. Some tales have her waking up as she gives birth, while others have one of the babies sucking the splinter out of her finger. Whether she marries the man upon his return or sets out alone as a single mother in a world where that doesn't really happen, how happy can she be?
7) RAPUNZEL
Rapunzel is another character who, in some versions of the tale, is raped by a prince passing through and impregnated. (In other versions, they know each other well and truly do fall in love.) Either way, her captor finds out, the prince is blinded, and Rapunzel is again, a single mother in a cruel world. I also have to wonder how well she'd adapt to the "real world" after being a captive for so long. I once read a book by Emma Donoghue called ROOM that featured a little boy who had never left the room he'd been trapped in since the day he was born. When he and his mother are finally freed, there is so much they can't do. He's never climbed stairs and doesn't know how. Both of them have skin so pale that they need sunblock just to go outside on a cloudy, overcast day because their skin is too sensitive. I mean, come on, Rapunzel didn't even know she was pregnant or what pregnancy was when asking why her dress was getting tighter. How can she survive and thrive all alone in our world? Rapunzel deserves to be free and happy, and I want to know how she fared over time!
8) KING THRUSHBEARD
This is one of my least favorite fairy tales ever. I had a really interesting conversation with KILL ME SOFTLY/TEAR YOU APART Author Sarah Cross recently, so the tale is still fresh on my mind. (And Sarah will talk about this a little bit in her upcoming Fairy Tale Fortnight interview!). Neither of us likes the way the princess is forced into groveling and marrying someone who tricks her and forces her to change her ways and viewpoints in order to get what HE wants. Why doesn't her opinion matter? Why is she forced into a marriage where she has to face her humiliation every day of her life? I'm hoping that she somehow manages to overcome everything she's subjected her to and be happy, or to run away and find her own happiness elsewhere! Whatever happened to her??
9) THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES
This is one of my favorite fairy tales, but....WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PRINCESSES!? One of them is given in marriage to the soldier who breaks the curse, of course. First off--and by now, you know what I'm going to ask--is she happy? In some versions, the soldier marries the princess he's fallen in love with over the past three days, but in other versions, the soldier marries the eldest and eventually becomes king. Is he happy rising so far in station without the necessary etiquette or background to run a country? And what about all twelve girls? Do they still find themselves dancing at odd moments? What happens when a mandatory ball is thrown for the kingdom? Where do they end up in life? (I'm actually really glad that Jessica Day George wrote two books featuring further adventures with the girls!)
10) LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
I'm reading CRIMSON BOUND by Rosamund Hodge right now AND I recently re-watched the movie version of Into the Woods AGAIN, so this tale is fresh in my mind! What kind of psychological damage happened to Little Red and her Granny after being devoured by the Wolf--and then cut out? First, Ew, Gross! WOLF GUTS. That will never come out of the carpets...or that pretty red cloak! Second...if Little Red is always munching on the sweets she's bringing to Granny...maybe she'll lay off the treats for a while until her appetite comes back. Seeing what your stomach looks like will do that to a girl, you know! At the very least, she's certainly learned her lesson! I like her vastly different retellings are of this tale. In some, such as SISTERS RED by Jackson Pearce and Hodge's CRIMSON BOUND, Red learns young and goes on to be strong and fight the evil in the forest, protecting the innocent! I like that we can frequently catch up with her, and am really enjoying Hodge's version of her life right now!
What fairy tale characters would you like to catch up with, be it for silly reasons or serious ones?
^.~
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