Which Do You Prefer?

As you have read previously, there are a lot of differences between the gruesome tales and the delightful renditions.  I have had a hard time trying to figure out which version I like better. 

The gruesome ones seem more realistic to our violent ways of life than the Disney-type stories.  Princes do not randomly appear and marry a stranger within the course of one day.  More realistically, they would date around, lose interest, find someone new, and then eventually settle down.  If only life could be like a happily ever after fairytale. 

To decide between these two different versions, I would have to go with my mood for that day.  If I am feeling like a hopeless romantic, then I would definitely choose the delightful, unrealistic fairytales that gives everyone the hope of finding a prince.  If I am feeling angered or frustrated, I would choose the gruesome tales so that I could see the evil characters suffer and get what they deserved.

Overall, if I had to choose one, I would go with the delightful renditions.  I like seeing a happily ever after ending and like pretending that they do happen a lot, even though the chances are very slim.  For me, there is nothing like watching a good ol’ Disney Princess movie.

So, if you had to choose one version to read, which would you prefer?



Ever After

Ever After is a version of the fairytale Cinderella.  In this story, Danielle (Cinderella) is happy living with her father on the farm.  One day, he brings home a stepmother and two stepsisters.  The father dies of a heart attack and the stepmother takes control of the farm.  The stepmother, jealous of how much love Danielle got from her father, treats her Danielle like dirt.

One day, the prince comes across Danielle and, thinking that she is of high status, falls in love with her.  She pretends to be a countess for some time with the prince.  Throughout their times, she provides her “slave” opinions to him without giving away her secret.  These opinions make him fall even harder for her.

So far, this movie seems very similar to the original fairytale.  However, there are some controversial themes within this story.  After Danielle punches the rudest stepsister for stealing her mother’s dress, her stepmother whips her.  The next scene shows the other stepsister cleaning up Danielle’s wounds and speaking kindly to her.  At least in this story one sister has compassion!

After the stepmother finds out that Danielle was secretly seeing the prince, she has her sold to a creepy man.  This man always wanted Danielle to keep him company and be his sex slave.  She is able to get away from this man (by threatening to kill him with a knife) and reunite with her prince.  The stepmother and the evil stepsister are punished by forever doing the kingdom’s laundry.  The nice stepsister was able to live peacefully in the castle with Danielle and the prince.

Thankfully, this was not as gruesome as the Grimm Brothers’ version.  However, I do prefer the ending of the Grimm Brothers’ story because the evil characters do not get off easy.  They deserve a much harsher punishment than doing laundry! 

The 10th Kingdom

The 10^th Kingdom was a television series that was eventually combined into a 4 hour-long movie.  The plot takes place two centuries after Snow White and Cinderella had their fairytale adventure.  Snow White’s grandson, Prince Wendel, is about to be crowned King of the Fourth Kingdom.  The evil queen, the successor of Snow White’s evil stepmother, wants to take control of the Fourth Kingdom.  She escapes prison and turns the prince into a golden retriever.  Wendel escapes through a magic mirror that sends him to New York City (the 10^th Kingdom).  Virginia, a typical New York City girl, is dragged into this world with her father, Tony.  They are forced to help Wendel become human again so they can return home.

During the movie, there are evil creatures trying to prevent this heroic act from happening.  Wolf (the one from the three little pigs), who is actually a human, is manipulated in prison and sent to hunt Virginia by the orders of the evil queen.  He ties Virginia’s grandmother up and almost eats her; but decides not to when he realizes that he fell in love with Virginia.  In another scene, he is blamed for killing and devouring Sally Peep (Bo Peep’s relative).  It is found out that he did no such thing and that she was actually killed by her father for not winning the Shepherdess Competition.  Wolf turns into a good guy and helps Virginia and Tony try to save the prince and find their way home.

Also among the evil creatures are the trolls.  There are three teenage trolls and one father.  The father troll has magic shoes that allow him to be invisible.  However, when he wears them too long, he becomes dependent on the shoes, which makes him aggressive towards everyone around him and makes him extremely weak when he takes them off.  The father troll, who is under the loyalty of the evil queen, has to answer to her every call.  When she contacts him, she makes him suffer by creating agonizing pain in his head until he finds a mirror to answer her call.  When he gets fed up and denies her, she finds him and decapitates him.  She tells his three children that Virginia is responsible, so they get an even bigger vendetta towards Virginia.

Even after the princesses have been dead for about two centuries, violence is still occurring in their Kingdoms.  This just goes to show you that there are no true happily ever afters.

Beauty and the Beast (part two

A long time ago, there was a Roman writer named Apuleius.  He created a story similar to that of Beauty and the Beast.  His story was called “Cupid and Psyche”. Beauty and the Beast has been said to originate from this myth.

Psyche was a beautiful girl who had trouble finding a man.  Her stunning features mesmerized all men, but none wished to marry her.  Venus, being jealous of Psyche’s beauty, instructed Cupid to shoot her with an arrow and make her fall in love with a serpent.  Cupid is mesmerized by Psyche’s beauty just like all the other men. He decides to shoot himself with the arrow.  Psyche was told that she would fall in love with a serpent, but it was actually Cupid.

Every night, Cupid would enter her bedroom to make love to her, but she was forbidden to look at him.  Psyche’s sisters tell her to look at her husband because they are jealous of her wealth and knew that it is against the rules.  Psyche turns on a lamp and looks at her beautiful husband and realizes he is truly not a serpent. Cupid deserts his wife because there cannot be love without trust.

Psyche goes searching everywhere for her beloved husband.  Venus tries to trick her many times and almost kills her.  Venus succeeds in making Psyche curious about a magical box. When Psyche opens the box, she immediately falls asleep. Cupid, looking for Psyche, finds her and requests that Zeus makes her immortal. Psyche is awoken, is turned immortal, and marries Cupid.

I like how this story teaches you about love through trust. But, why is all the trust on the woman’s shoulders? The man saw beauty, desired it, and obtained it. He did not have to prove his trust like Psyche did.  I rather read a story like the new “Beauty and the Beast” than this version.  It is more romantic and equal between the man and woman.

Beauty and the Beast

This is my favorite Disney fairytale movie.  It is about a girl named Belle who doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere.  Eventually, she ends up trading her life to save her father who was captured by a hideous beast.  She is forced to live in a creepy castle with an angry beast.  The Beast falls in love with her and she also falls in love with him.  Belle ends up saving the Beast’s life and ending the curse on the whole castle.  They live happily ever after, of course.

Another version, by Villeneuve, has a lot more heartbreak, murder, and sexual parts to it.  The Beast, a prince, lost his father and never saw his mother since she was defending their kingdom in a war.  The Beast was left under the care of a fairy that turned out to be evil.  When the Beast became an adult, the fairy tried to seduce him.  He refused and was turned into a beast. 

Belle was the daughter of a King and a good fairy.  The evil fairy attempted to murder Belle in order to marry her father, the King.  To protect Belle, she was put in the place of a merchant’s dead daughter.  This way, no one would be able to question her existence and past.

In the end, Belle falls in love with the Beast.  Even though the story line is a bit crazy and wrong in many ways, the ending is as romantic as the Disney version.

Snow White

Disney’s version of Snow White is so romantic.  A prince hears Snow White singing and he falls madly in love with her right away.  When the queen gets jealous of Snow White, she orders her to be killed. Snow White is able to get away and takes refuge with seven dwarfs.  The queen finds out where she is hiding.  She disguises herself as an old lady and presents Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White eats it and falls into a deep sleep.  The queen is chased by the dwarfs and falls backwards off of a cliff.  The prince eventually finds Snow White in a clear casket.  He wakes her up with a kiss and they live happily ever after.

The Grimm’s version is not so much romantic as it is creepy.  First of all, the queen attempts to kill Snow White in a lot more ways.   She uses lace, a poisoned comb, and a poisoned apple.  The poisoned apple made Snow White stop breathing and the dwarfs thought she was dead.  The prince shows up in the story for the first time when he comes across the dead body in a glass casket.  He insists on taking the girl home with him.  He feels as though he cannot live without her.  As his men carry the casket, they stumble over a tree stump and the apple is lodged out of Snow White’s throat.  She awakens and marries the prince.  The queen is punished in the end by being forced to dance in heated iron shoes.

I do not understand why the prince wanted a dead girl’s body.  Even if she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen, it is extremely disturbing!

Cinderella

Cinderella loses her beloved father and becomes a slave to her evil stepmother.  She is forced to do all the chores for her stepmother and two stepsisters.  Eventually, she is visited by her fairy godmother and is able to attend the Prince’s Ball.  There, she dances with the prince and falls in love.  At midnight, she is forced to run away, leaving only a shoe behind.  The prince, who is madly in love, sends his messenger to go door to door in order to find Cinderella.  The glass slipper fits her foot and they are married at once.  Of course, they live happily ever after.

In the Grimm’s version of this fairytale, Cinderella still has a happy ending, but the stepsisters pay for the harsh things they have done to Cinderella.  During the time that the prince’s messenger was trying to find the mystery woman, the stepsisters devised a plan.  The first one cut off her heel in order to fit into the shoe.  Following shortly after, the second one cut off her toe.  A bird saw the blood coming from the glass slippers and revealed the truth about the stepsisters.  Cinderella is discovered to be the true mystery woman and she happily marries the prince.  The stepsisters, who did attend the wedding, had their eyes pecked out by birds.  They were forever punished by blindness.

The stepsisters had it coming to them!