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Comment
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Saoirse Breena
Unregistered User
(10/28/03 5:27 am)
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The 10th Kingdom
ok, this was probably discussed here at one point or another, seeing as the movie has a couple of years on it, but I'm just going to try to bring it up again, since I just watched it last night.
This was basically my first taste of "wow...it doesn't have to end there, it can go further!" For the longest time afterwords, I would make plot outlines of stories that followed this movie, and other Fairy Tales it left out.
What did you guys think of the "Happy Ever After...but not for long" approach to Fairy Tales?
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(10/28/03 2:39 pm)
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Re: The 10th Kingdom
"happy-ever-after" and "but, not..." is an oxymoron
It would occur then that this would be a "reality" in life.
There would be those that think this or that will bring
them happyness ("y" intended), and then find out that
"it" does not. Further strugle to additional gain, and then, again, the reality that one is still not living happily.
A typical human charastic of desire. Desire for more than
one has, or for that "something" that seems missing, when
in reality, one already has what it takes to live at peace...
There must be some tales thus, already???? Anyone?
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Saoirse Breena
Unregistered User
(10/28/03 9:52 pm)
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good point...
Yeah, it is related to desire for something greater. The thing that intrigued me the most about this concept was that the tale they told ended "Happy ever after."
They did mention at the end that there was more stuff that happened that made Victoria and Wolf return to the 9 Kingdoms, but that wasn't part of the tale they were telling. She basically says that this part of her tale ends Happy Ever After, but not her entire story.
I love how they put it, and how the real world and the Fairy Tale world mesh, their ways collide. One scene has dialog that goes something like this....
WOODSMAN: You can have the magic Axe, but you first must guess my name before I finish chopping this wood. When I am through, your friend here will lose his head if you have not guessed my name.
TONY: What is it with you people? What kind of twisted upbringing did you have? Why can't you just say; 'Oh, that'll be 100 gold coins.' No! It's gotta be, 'Not unless you lay a magic egg, or count the hairs on the giant's a**!'
You had to start thinking like the world of Fairy Tales to survive, just like a different culture. Not everything was as it seemed, it didn't revolve around the same things as our world....Fairy-Tale land relies more on tasks and accomplishments rather than what you have already. That's what I got from it.
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(10/29/03 10:00 am)
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Re: good point...
"WOODSMAN:
You can have the magic Axe, but you first must guess my name before
I finish chopping this wood. When I am through, your friend here
will lose his head if you have not guessed my name.
TONY: What is it with you people? What kind of twisted upbringing
did you have? Why can't you just say; 'Oh, that'll be 100 gold coins.'
No! It's gotta be, 'Not unless you lay a magic egg, or count the
hairs on the giant's a**!"
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Saoirse Breena
Unregistered User
(10/30/03 3:45 pm)
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oh, and another question...
Yeah, I thought that was really funny meself.
Another thing in the basic framework was the structure of the Kingdoms. The character, Wolf (half wolf, half man, grandson of Red Riding-Hood), makes this statement early on in the story....
"The people you speak of ruled this land 200 years ago, when the 9 Kingdoms were in their prime. Five women make them great: Snow White, Cinderella, the Lady Rapunzel, Queen Riding-Hood, and the Ice Queen. All are dead now, except for Cinderella."
Who is the Ice Queen?
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briggsw
Unregistered User
(10/31/03 10:03 am)
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Happily ever after ... not for long
I like it if it means "the adventure is not over." I don't like it if it means "happily ever after is a myth and shouldn't be believed." Of course it's a myth! We're in faerie!
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(10/31/03 10:25 am)
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Re: Happily ever after ... not for long
brigssw makes me recall these lines about the Fayes...
A Fairies heart, unfairly flamed,
When `simple’ minds are teased and shamed
By Fairy-Dust, and spells that must
Be cast within 3 Fairy-Rings,
Will forge revenge with righteous fire
In bellowed coals of hate and ire,
By welding peace to satisfaction…
To heal the wounds of laughter’s stings.
Now... if'n I kin jist find "the rest of the story"...
Rym Rytr
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Saoirse Breena
Unregistered User
(10/31/03 11:05 am)
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exactly
It doesn't mean that "Happy Ever After" is a myth. It simply means the adventure isn't over. I've always been a sucker for sequels, though most of the time, the only reason for a sequel is a money maker in today's society.
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Ron McCutchan
Unregistered User
(11/3/03 6:43 pm)
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Sondheim and cosmology
Oh, I have to go for the easy mark on this and mention INTO THE WOODS. I've heard so much discussion about the "after-the-ever-after" structure of the show--some people leave after the first act and think the second act is awful, but I find the "afterwards" part to be the most compelling, partly because it's the road less traveled (Sondheim and Lapine's twists on the familiar stories are fun, but merely embroider on already patterned ground) and partly because it's closer to the "real world" ("People make mistakes . . . witches can be right/giants can be good").
I remember discussing medieval cosmology versus Copernican model--the assumption that the center of things (i.e. the sun/God) was perfect/fixed/unmoving and that less perfect things moved toward a state of perfection and stillness. "Happily ever after" is the balancing of the universe--wrongs made right, the perfect mate attained, the good rewarded and the wicked punished--and so, in a sense, the achievement of a kind of stasis. But with Copernicus, Galileo, and then Newton, et al, suddenly, movement (or the forces that create movement) becomes the focus and the organizing principle of the cosmos. So too with our view of traditional tales, that the journey becomes more important than the happy ending? (I realize there's a lag of a century or three in this analogy!).
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Ron McCutchan
Unregistered User
(11/3/03 6:49 pm)
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One more mention
Just happened to light upon Margaret Peterson Haddix's JUST ELLA over the weekend--didn't get a chance to read--just skimmed--but her plot focuses on Cinderella dealing with the fact that she's not happy with the results of her "happily ever after."
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