More Facts, More Fairytales

Last post, I tried to show how my thoughts on fairytales meant something, perhaps to avoid the fairytale pitfall of being pointless. I tried to connect the fairytale summaries to my conviction that babble isn’t art. I’m not sure how well it worked out, but I decided that this blog is my galaxy. It doesn’t need a point. So here are summaries of more fairytales (I’ve been looking for one to possibly adapt) and why they amuse, infuriate, or bore me. No point needed. Unless you’re a pencil, you don’t need a point. All pencils reading this blog report to the pencil unemployment office, since you obviously need something to do. It’s downright unnatural for pencils to waste their time reading blogs. Pencils, rise up and leave marks on paper. Remember you come from a proud race of hardworking sticks. I’m kidding of course. In reality, ANYONE reading this blog needs a point. I command it. I, myself, however, do not need a point. Not today.


I read a fairytale called Godfather Death. In it, a man has just one more baby in a long line of babies, and he can’t feed it. Poor guy. It happens, I suppose, but I still don't recommend what he did next. He’s so desperate he goes to the street to ask someone to be the child’s godfather. First God comes and offers to take good care of the baby. The man says, “Who are you?” God replies, “I am God.” The man says, “Oh, then I don’t want you to be godfather to my child.” I couldn’t help but giggle at this whole scene. Who would be stupid enough not to let God be godfather to their baby? Well, I guess this guy isn’t that bright to begin with, asking people on the street to be godfather and then believing it when someone tells them they’re God and then not letting God take care of their kid. The man says “no” because, he says, God gives to the rich but not to the poor. God leaves. The Devil comes. He offers to take care of the child. The man says no because the Devil deceives people. At least, he was smart enough to send the devil away. Then Death comes and offers to take care of the child. The man says “yes” because Death treats everyone the same, killing them all...Good grief, man. Do you realize what you’re doing? You’re trying to save the baby from starvation and, ultimately, death, and now you just give him to Death? Well, Death turns out to be an alright godfather for a while. He teaches the boy to be a physician, giving him a root that will cure anything. He instructs the boy, however, not to save anyone whom Death has decided to take. In the end, the physician does just that, twice. Death gets angry and kills the Physician. The end. I guess the moral of that is to cure anyone who’s sick except the ones death wants to kill...Really doesn't make much sense.


I did, however, find a fairytale with a moral by Hans Christian Anderson, who also wrote The Little Mermaid, which also has a moral. I’ve been reading the pointless fairytales collected by the Grimm brothers. I’m pretty sure they lived before Anderson, so maybe Anderson put clearer messages in his tales because that was more standard in his time?


The Anderson tale The Snow Queen was in development at Disney as a hand drawn animation fairytale. The project, sadly, has been put on hold. It might never be made. The story, however, goes like this. A boy named Kay gets magical glass shards stuck in his eye and heart. Because of this, his heart freezes and he sees everything in a distorted way. He gets kidnapped by the Snow Queen. He obviously has bad luck. His best friend, Gerda (Defender of Best Friends with Bad Luck, as I'm calling her now), goes after him. A raven tells her about a prince who might be Kay, so she sneaks into the palace. Finding it’s not Kay, she cries. The prince and princess give her a carriage to continue her search. She cries. She gets kidnapped by robbers and befriends a girl robber who gives her a reindeer. This reindeer says he can take Gerda to the home of the Snow Queen, who took Kay, as Gerda learned from the doves. The girl gives Gerda some warm clothes and tells her she looks just like her ugly mother. Gerda cries for joy (probably at the kindness she was receiving not at the fact she resembled a robber’s ugly mother). Actually, this part of the story is pretty funny.

The robber maiden lifted up little Gerda, and took the precaution to bind her fast on the Reindeer's back; she even gave her a small cushion to sit on. "Here are your worsted leggins, for it will be cold; but the muff I shall keep for myself, for it is so very pretty. But I do not wish you to be cold. Here is a pair of lined gloves of my mother's; they just reach up to your elbow. On with them! Now you look about the hands just like my ugly old mother!"

And Gerda wept for joy.

"I can't bear to see you fretting," said the little robber maiden. "This is just the time when you ought to look pleased . . . “

The majority of the story is dead serious, making its humor all the more unexpected and amusing. I see why Disney would want to adapt this fairytale. It comes with built-in modern elements, modern humor, modern epiphany moments, modern (ish) lessons, and modern character types (Gerda’s like an anime girl who always cries, Kay’s feels and acts superior, the robber girl expresses love in twisted, evil ways – as the story itself obviously knows – ways like scaring her reindeer with knives). It also has a non-medieval setup: the GIRL rescues the BOY. (I wish this was the case with more stories today.) The story also has loads of creative elements and settings, like beds in the shape of lilies hanging from the ceiling. Also, Gerda has some serious superpowers. She can talk to animals (although, everyone in this story can). Her breath turns into angels who destroy the Snow Queen’s living-snowflake minions. Her tears are so hot they melt Kay’s heart and destroy the glass shard there, WITHOUT burning Kay. And, apparently, she can get people to do anything she wants. That is an excessive amount of powers, actually, but they’re all really cool. You may have guessed how she saves Kay. His heart melts, then he cries the glass shard out of his eye, and they live happily ever after. The moral was something about being children at heart to enter the kingdom of Heaven, which is a good moral, but I admittedly didn’t understand it or how it got to that point. Can anyone enlighten me?

Facts and Fairytales

Usually, when I read fairytales, I expect them to have a point, and usually, they don’t. Why do I even expect them to anymore? Maybe I just grew up with the few tales that do have morals, Goldilocks (don’t break and enter and steal), Beauty and the Beast, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Still, when a fairytale character is dishonest or thieving or rude to a stranger, I expect something bad to happen because evil always falls upon misbehaving fairytale characters, or so I think. I react, “Why is he so stupid? Doesn’t he know he’s in a fairytale where evil falls upon misbehaving characters?” Shockingly, however, in some stories, nothing actually does happen to them, which baffles me, although it shouldn’t, since, as I said, fairytales are generally pointless.

For example, in a fairytale called The Clever Cook, a servant roasts two fowls, one for her master and the other for his guest. The guest is late, so the master goes out to get him. The cook eats the pheasants, the master returns, and this is where it gets funny. In fact, this is probably the only funny, albeit pointless, fairytale I’ve ever read, and I didn’t know fairytales could be funny, let alone in such a modern sense. I could totally see what happened next in a modern comedy. The master comes in one door and tells the cook to get the food. She goes to the other door, where the guest is waiting for some reason, and she tells him her master is going to cut off his ears. The guest then runs. The cook tells her master the guest ran away with the food. The master thinks it was rude of the man not to have left at least one pheasant for him, so he chases after the man, saying, “Just one! Just one!” The guest of course thinks he’s talking about his ears. Determined to keep both his ears, he gets away. The end.

Seriously, the end.

Pointless, right?

In another story, The Three Black Princesses, a fisherman’s son lives in a village besieged by an enemy who demands 600 dollars before they’ll leave. One day, the enemy kidnaps the fisherman’s son, giving his father 600 dollars. First of all, why are they giving away 600 dollars when they’re asking for 600 dollars? Secondly, his father accepts! But as they leave the village, they boy escapes and finds a secret castle. There, three princesses request his help freeing them. He agrees but soon asks to visit his father for a week. When he gets home, he finds his father has been made the burgomaster (whatever that is) of the village for providing it the 600 dollars it needed. However, the young man calls his father Fisherman instead of Mr. Burgomaster (who would want to be called that anyway?), and they try to hang him for it. His father finally recognizes him, though, and apologizes (for almost hanging him, not for selling him), and they have a joyous reunion. Geez, kid, aren’t you even a bit mad your father sold you out to be King of the Village? The boy tells his parents about the princesses. His mother says, “Don’t help them, son. Instead, randomly pour boiling water on their faces.” And he replies, “Okay, Mom.” He returns to the castle and pours boiling water on their faces while they sleep, waking them up. Understandably, they are miffed, and they call their brothers to tear him apart, but he jumps out a window, breaking his leg, and the castle disappears. The end.

Other examples exist too, famous fairytales we've heard a thousand times, like Hansel and Gretel. The nice old grandma who took care of them tried to eat them, and they kept going back to the dad who kept ditching them; what's the point of that? And, um, and...Well, I can't think of any other examples right now.

I realize that fairytales are supposed to have deep, symbolic meaning. Fairytales are just one of many infuriating types of incoherent babble said to have meaning. I once read a quote that I now don’t remember, but it articulated something along the lines of, “If you can’t understand it, how is it great art?” This is true. If fairytales can’t be understood by the majority of people who read them, what’s the point? What makes them art? Generally, art needs to say something to be art, but if no one understands what it says, who’s to say it says anything at all? Maybe some lazy person is simply attempting to get recognized by the powerful people who say that incomprehensible babble is the highest form of expression. What’s the point of fairytales no one can understand? Are they coded language for secret organizations? I’m forced to conclude that fairytales are either “great art” (a.k.a. campfire kindling) or that fairytales are the secret language of the Illuminati and my ticket into their inner circle.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are simplified by the author for time’s sake and do not represent any actual intent to infiltrate the Illuminati or her views on foreign sounding babble in the soundtracks of 3 Idiots and Coraline. Some fairytales have aspects that could inspire current writers and companies, such as the Disney company. Fairytales have some entertainment value and other uses. In fact, the author enjoys many fairytale adaptions.)