ANDREA LYNN - TSQ-IV

 Her favourite Snow Queen character is the Robber Maiden (like so many others'!) but she says the Fourth Story subplot CAN STAND ON ITS OWN - Way to go, Andrea Lynn (she, like Theophannya, does fairytale retellings on social media?) She illustrates other parts of the novella, including the Fifth Story (with a badass Robber Maiden to boot) but no Fourth Story illustrations here...

There's this distant princess who is so clever and smart! She would only marry a man who could respect that she wanted a man who would speak when spoken to, and not just stand there and be grand and stupid, but interesting. 

So one day a (young) man shows up; of course, not to impress her, but just cuz he's heard how clever she is, and he wants to listen to her and hear her cleverness.

So she's like "This is my guy! This is what I want in a man!" and she marries him. I think that story is so great just on its own.

So ... takes Gerda there, thinking maybe Kai was this man that the princess married and she's like "if that's true and he's happy, then, great! I just want to find out!" 

Cuz apparently they're like teenagers now, they're no longer children! 

So they get there, they find out it's not Kai, but the princess is super generous and she's like "I respect what you're doing here, take my golden carriage; good luck on your journey!" 

So next she encounters this group of robbers that's led by a female robber and her daughter; the little robber girl is one of my favorite characters in this story. 

They want to kill her but she's like "no, I want to keep her as my playmate!"

...

(No mention of the prince and princess going abroad on their honeymoon!)

The moral I get from it is that being a woman and being true to who you are, and gentleness and kindness and nurturing, those are all strong powerful things; and Gerda and all of these women are also strong in the traditional way too, because they're not like slaying dragons or whatever; but they're not giving up, they are journeying on, they are facing trial after trial, and the men in this story are ones who when they are redeemed respect that admire that see the beauty and awesomeness of that every woman in this story is interesting and cool. ... 

Am I saying this is a feminist story? Not necessarily; very unlikely that Hans Christian Andersen intended it to be that way, but it is an epic story all about women and so many of the aspects of what we consider to be femininity are shown to be good and something we should aspire to if I was a little little girl reading this I would see myself all over it and I would see lots of role models that I could relate to and aspire to be like I would see lots of different ways that being a woman is important interesting and good and just reading a story where everyone except for Kay and the troll (and the prince)... where it's so filled with women would just make me feel seen and I freaking love that a story about sisters and sisters love and women badassery