Andrea Lynn - THE SNOW QUEEN IV

The best thing that Andrea Lynn says here is that the Fourth Story can stand on its own as a standalone story (instead of a subplot)...

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 man shows up, of course not to impress her, but just because 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.

... there, thinking maybe Kaye was this man that the princess married; ... So they get there, they find out that the prince is not Kaye, 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 ...

(Nothing said about the prince and princess being in foreign countries on honeymoon)

THUNDERCATS 2011 - THE LIZARDS' HEEL-FACE TURN

 This happens in Episode 14, "New Alliances," where the Lizard Mooks who "fight for treasure" desert the evil army en masse to return with their families because Even Mooks Have Loved Ones (compare the Fire Nation soldier in "The Southern Raiders"). This prompts Mumm-Ra, the Big Bad, to recruit generals who "fight for blood" (instead of treasure), ie ruthless psycho killers Kaynar (who was being shipped into solitary confinement) and Addicus (who was being executed), both of whom committed war crimes that were even too vile for Mumm-Ra's taste.

This contrast between Mooks with loved ones and psychos without loved ones, between fighting for treasure and fighting for blood, impressed me quite as a teen, in Thundercats 2011 and similar war/fantasy stories of that decade (like A:tLA) and, along with my obsession with the Vasas, led to my 30 Years' War phase and to the Ringstetten Saga...

TV TROPES:

Why is the Lizard Army now so easy to defeat?Also, it's pretty easy to get a huge army together by promising them the loot of their enemies. Once said enemies are defeated and the loot is taken? Not so easy when the Lizards explicitly state that they have families and children to return back to!

In "New Alliances" it appears that much of the Lizard army are conscripts. They may have been oppressed under the cats but under Mumm-Ra they're outright slaves. No wonder they take Lion-O's offer of mutual co-existence, it's the best deal they've ever had. 

THE POISONED CUP - THE MIDNIGHT ARCHIVES

 The Midnight Archives delivers again! In a foreign country, a trophy wife uses her woman's weapons and a drink laced with death to get rid of her captor after he earned her trust... catnip for me, something right up my alley (remember the Baratheon Saga?)

This is "The Poisoned Cup," Chapter 5 of their Aladdin retelling!

CHAPTER 5 - THE POISONED CUP

At the foot of his own stolen palace in a foreign land where the man who wants him dead is sleeping inside holding the only thing that can win.

 [...] And now she has been torn out of the world entirely, carried across the earth in one night, and installed in the same stolen palace in a foreign country as the captive and intended prize of a sorcerer she has never met: a daughter, a near bride, a wife, a trophy carried off in the dark. 

She has never in the whole arc of the tale been allowed to decide a single thing. She is about to decide everything. 

The sorcerer having won behaves like a man who has won. He does not chain her. He courts her. He has crossed the world for this. the palace, the wealth, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. And he means to enjoy all of it, her included. 

So he comes to her and flatters her and at last tells her the truth of her situation with the calm of a man explaining the weather. Aladdin is finished. The boy will never reach her. Her old life is over, and she would be wise to make her peace with the new one, with him. 

He is so certain of his victory that he tells the prisoner she is a prisoner and assumes she will simply settle. It does not occur to him that the quiet grieving woman across the table has stopped grieving and started counting because she has. She reads him the way her husband never bothered to read her. And into the middle of this, through the same lesser magic that hauled him out of the cave, Aladdin appears, slipping into the palace he himself wished into being. Through passages he remembers, because he is the one who dreamed them. 

When she sees him, she does not fall into his arms. The tale gives her something better than that. She is relieved, yes, but clear-eyed and hard because she has had a long time to think about the man whose buried secrets put her here, and there is not much room left for his explanations. But they share an enemy now, and very little time, and the plan that forms is hers to carry out, because it can only be hers. Aladdin has no power here. His ring cannot touch the sorcerer, and a direct attack would simply get him killed where he stands. 

She is... The only person in the palace the sorcerer trusts. The only one who can come close to him with his guard fully down is the woman he is certain he has already won. So, she will become her and understand what that costs her because the tale rushes past it. And it should not. 

She has to take the same face that has been used against her all her life. The gracious, composed, agreeable woman, the prize that smiles and accepts and weaponize it. She has to sit across from the man who murdered her way of life, who carried her off in the night like furniture, who has told her to her face that she now belongs to him. And she has to make him believe she is glad of it.

 She has to be warm to him. She has to laugh at the right moments. She has to let him think his patience has been rewarded. That he has finally fully won. And she has to do all of it with steady hands and a steady voice. While the knowledge of what is in the cup sits in her like a held breath.

 There is no magic in this part. No genie does it for her. It is the hardest thing anyone in the story does, and it is done by the person everyone in the story has spent their time underestimating. 

She dresses as if for a celebration. She sends word that she has come to terms with her fortune and with him and would be glad of his company. And the most learned man in the tale, the one who has outwitted everyone who crossed the world twice and was beaten only once by an accident, walks straight into it because the one thing all his learning never taught him is that a prize might have a will of its own. 

He comes to her delighted, certain he is being rewarded for his patience. She is warm. She is gracious. She plays a woman reconciled to her master so perfectly that he never once sees the edge underneath it. And when she lifts a cup to him, a private toast, a sealing of the new arrangement, he drinks deeply the way a satisfied man drinks. In the cup is a powder Aladdin carried across the world for exactly this moment. There is no struggle, no last curse, no dramatic unmasking. The greatest sorcerer in the tale is killed by a cup of wine handed to him by the woman he was sure he had conquered, and believed. Aladdin comes in once it is finished and takes the lamp from the dead man's body and holds it differently now. 

[...] He knows what she is. The one who actually saved them with a steady hand and a poisoned cup while his magic stood useless in his pocket. They

CHARLES ROBINSON - The Loveliest of the Queen's Maids-of-Honour

 While looking at vintage fairytales on Instagram I was surprised to find a contemporaneous (with Oscar Wilde) portrait of my second favourite Wildean character - The Loveliest of the Queen's Maids-of-Honour!  AKA "a beautiful girl..." (My favourite Wildean character is Her Lover, that romantic and passionate young man who says, stargazing with her on the balcony to the sound of dancing: "How wonderful the stars are, and how wonderful is the Power of Love!" -- hands down my favourite Wildean quote and Wildean scene; there's something so satisfying in how these two young characters subvert gender roles!).

Charles Robinson, the illustrator, imagines The Loveliest of the Queen's Maids-of-Honour in a medieval setting, wearing a hennin on her head (while most adaptations, like those of Andersen, prefer Victorian setting contemporary with the author). Her raven hair and ivory skin may echo Snow White, even more so in medieval attire, but her cold sneer reveals the character's callousness and materialism.

SÖDER OM SAHARA - MIGUEL BOSÉ

 SÖDER OM SAHARA

Av Miguel Bosé

översatt av Sandra Dermark

02/06/MMXXVI

*******************

Söder om Sahara, hjärtesorg

är det där du gissar är astronomins borg?

Vi kan vara mer än vad vi glömt

i himlen, på jorden, mer än vad vi drömt

Det kan vara en cirkel gjord av sten,

tarotkort som vänds eller rullande ben,

det kan vara en leylinje på land,

det förflutna och framtiden uti din hand...

Det kan sluta cirkeln...

*********

REFRÄNG:

Dubbel stjärna lyser klart,

vit dvärg och jätte blå... åh, Sirius...

Men det så oförklar't

är kvar... mysterious...

*******************

Söder om Sahara, Timbuktu,

det som folk har glömt och det som chockar nu

Det kan va' det sällsammaste av allt,

en skatt utav kunskap i ökennatt kall...

Söder om Sahara

*********

Nutidens logik försöker ge

en form till den malström som rymden kan se,

nervceller, atomer, form ni minns,

som överallt uti vi själva alltid finns,

i sanden i Sahara

************

REFRÄNG

Dubbel stjärna lyser klart,

vit dvärg och jätte blå... åh, Sirius...

Men det så oförklar't

är kvar... mysterious...

*********

Dogonerna i savannen alltid vet

en vy från besöket från annan planet,

besökare från Sirius, helig sol

sen urminnestider kontakten så cool

Dogonernas mysterier

*******

Hur kan vi förklara...

Hur kan vi börja att förklara

allting som finns?

********

Vi kan vara en leylinje på land,

förändring som ej syns i timglasets sand

Vi kan vara mer än vad vi glömt

i himlen, på jorden, mer än vad vi drömt

Vi kan bli för evigt

Victorian poem My Mother - for Mother's Day

 From The Fairy Gazette

Poem by Anne and Janet Taylor, "My Mother" -

Who fed me from her gentle breast,

And hushed me in her arms to rest,

And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?

My Mother.

When sleep forsook my open eye,

Who was it sung sweet lullaby,

And rocked me that I should not cry?

My Mother.

Who sat and watched my infant head,

When sleeping in my cradle bed,

And tears of sweet affection shed?

My Mother.

When pain and sickness made me cry,
Who gazed upon my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
My Mother.

Who dressed my doll in clothes so gay,
And taught me pretty how to play,
And minded all I had to say?
My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell,

And would some pretty story tell,

Or kiss the place to make it well?

My Mother. 

And can I ever cease to be

Affectionate and kind to thee,

Who was so very kind to me?

My Mother.

When thou art feeble, old, and gray,
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I will soothe thy pains away,
My Mother.

And when I see thee hang thy head,

‘T will be my turn to watch thy bed.

And tears of sweet affection shed,

My Mother.

Mortals of all ages celebrate their mothers on one special day each year. Tender words are penned, thoughtful presents are given, and favourite meals are prepared with love.

Mon coeur - Petite Maman / Pequeña Mamá

Imagina que pudieras conocer a tu madre del pasado, cuando tenía tu edad...

Fabricar cosas juntas, compartir ilusiones y temores, hornear juntas una tarta de cumpleaños... navegar por el lago en la misma Zodiac...

Eso les pasa a Nelly y a su "Pequeña mamá" Marion en esta película tan tierna y tan otoñal... nada de violencia, sólo que van a operar a la pequeña Marion, pero su hija del futuro disipa toda incertidumbre...

Os dejo con la banda sonora y con los conmovedores pósters... y con un par de resúmenes

Des voix d'enfants

Chanteront

De nouveaux rêves

Le rêve d'être enfant avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfin loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfant avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfin avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfant avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfin loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfant loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfin avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfant avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfin loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfant loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfin avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfant avec toi

Le rêve d'être enfin loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfant loin de toi

Le rêve d'être enfin avec toi

Si mon cœur est dans ton cœur, ton cœur

Ton cœur est dans mon cœur

Si ton cœur est dans mon cœur, mon cœur

Mon cœur est dans ton cœur

ROBERT BURNS - TO A LOUSE (ON A LADY'S BONNET)

 Imagine this: you're calmly sitting in your pew at church until you realise the girl in front of you is wearing a puffy hat full of frills and lace (inspired by the hot-air balloon/Montgolfier craze), and OMG, WAS THAT A BUG ON HER HAT?

Robert Burns felt really inspired and this is the result - it's far funnier than the Haggis and Mouse poems I have previously analysed:

Robert Burns

To a Louse

On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet, at Church
1786

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?

(where are you going, you crawling miracle?)
Your impudence protects you sairly;

(sairly: greatly)
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;

(lice like you strut very rarely on frilly, lacy hats --because the wealthy care much more about their hygiene)
Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,

(blasted --"bloody"-- wonder)
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,

(hated by saint and sinner alike)
How daur ye set your fit upon her-

(fit: feet)
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar’s haffet squattle;

(haffet: temple --the part of the head--; squattle, squat, occupy)
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,

(cattle: here, beasts)
In shoals and nations;

(shoals: schools, like those of fish - in the heads of the poor, there are whole schools and nations of lice)
Whaur horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle

(where neither horn hairbrushes nor bug poison --bane-- dare unsettle your colonies; ie in the scalps of the poor)
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,

(haud: halt. Halt/stop you there!)
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight;

(fatterels: the frills of the hat/bonnet)
Na, faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
Till ye’ve got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow’rin height

(the very topmost, towering height)
O’ Miss’ bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,

(bauld: boldly)
As plump an’ grey as ony groset:

(groset: gooseberry; he's exaggerating the size of the louse)
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,

(rozet: resin. Mercurial roset: resin laced with mercury - to poison the louse)
Or fell, red smeddum,

(smeddum: makeup - Burns intends to poison our bug with it)
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
Wad dress your droddum.

(droddum: breeches, trousers. I'd give you so much poison that you'd soil your breeches!)

I wad na been surpris’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;

(on an old lady's flannel cap)
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,

(on a small ragged boy, a street-rat)
On’s wyliecoat;

(on his underwear)
But Miss’ fine Lunardi! fye!

(Lunardi: puffy hat, inspired by a hot-air balloon. He's referring to Jenny's frilly hat, with the louse on it. Fye: EWWW!!)
How daur ye do’t?

(how dare you do it?)

O Jenny, dinna toss your head,

(Jenny is the girl in the Lunardi hat, the poem's addressee)
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!

(set your beauties in public, show off your looks)
Ye little ken what cursed speed

(ye little ken: you barely know)
The beastie’s makin:
Thae winks an’ finger-ends, I dread,

(there's people looking at you and stretching out their fingertips to catch the louse)
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

(may Heaven/the gods give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us)
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

(mony: many)
An’ foolish notion:

(that gift would spare us many blunders and many foolish notions)
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!

(putting on airs would leave us in a worse state. Jenny thinks that the others are admiring her hat and hairstyle; but really all eyes are on that louse)

LES CONTES DE NUTTHELO - MANDSDRAGT

Il la fait habiller en homme (perte d'identité de genre), ... DÉSHUMANISATION - Sandra: je dirais DÉFÉMINISATION

Elle souffre le martyre à chaque balade à cheval, ...

French Instagrammer and fairytale geek Nutthelo on the mandsdragt scene. She sees the prince's decision to put the Little Foundling in a suit as a way to make her lose her gender identity (she was far more feminine until then) and calls it dehumanisation. I would say it is rather defeminisation, loss of a feminine identity... Nuthelo agrees with Jacob Bøggild that the Prince is doing it to protect his own straight male sexuality from temptation...

 and I add that the character is a teen who is discovering her gender and sexuality. Maybe she is, like Brienne of Tarth and others, a cisgender teen tomboy? Both Brienne and the Little Foundling are in unrequited love with handsome young men (though the Prince loves the Convent Girl and Renly loves Loras, a boy). 

Also, even if the Victorian/Biedermeier era was far more patriarchal, the Little Foundling is, just like she explores her body and identity, exploring the land kingdom with all the freedom that her suit/mandsdragt allows her, through outdoor activities like horseback riding and mountaineering (even though those activities were masculine-coded back then). She is, like Queen Christina, Julie d'Aubigny, Eugénie Danglars... a New Woman before New Women existed, a Proto-New Woman.

But the Little Mermaid was an introverted girly-girl as a child, and the most spirited (dynamic, we world say tomboyish) back then, her spiritual predecessor, was one of her older siblings, the Third Sister (yaaaay! New Andersen character introduced!) who was the one who ventured deepest into the human realm until the Little Mermaid changed species, and also the first to come into contact with humans.

Illustrations by blog_mellow: in his version the Third Sister looks like Ariel, while the Little Mermaid/Foundling is platinum blonde. The setting is Biedermeier (as usual); when we reach the mandsdragt scene, I will analyse her outfit once more...

The Third Sister, as a teen, swam up a river that empties itself into the ocean (it was summer, she had to cool her face by plunging it time and again); she came across hilly riverbanks with palaces, manors, forests, and vineyards (I headcanon this as the Loire Valley because 1) the Loire empties itself into the Atlantic; 2) the summer there is burning hot; 3) the landscape is the same, Renaissance châteaux and manors, forest, and vineyards), on the top of the riverbank hills).

In a little creek, the Third Sister came across some human children splashing around, and she played with them (neither party was afraid, both of them were curious), until the bark of their pet puppy drove her away at breakneck speed, back into the ocean. That, and the fresh water didn't agree with her marine system.

Andersen says that the Third Sister never forgot about her adventures, especially about the human kids who could swim so well without having tails (and who were as little afraid of her as she was afraid of them). It was a loud noise that drove her away, something unheard of underwater. I headcanon the Third Sister as being the Little Mermaid's favourite sibling and the one she most admired, the one whose adventures she listened the most to, the one who inspired her to collect thingamabobs from shipwrecks and, years later, to explore both her identity and the land kingdom through horseback riding and mountaineering in a bespoke man's suit (ignoring that her one true love did so in order to defeminise her and protect himself from temptation)...

"No male shall ever put on female's clothing; neither shall ever a female put on male's clothing, for both of these are Abominations unto the LORD." Deuteronomy 22:5.

This taboo is still held today by many patriarchal, conservative religions, especially evangelical cults like Jehovah's Witnesses or Remnant Bride. In some of these cults, women are not allowed to wear trousers in Church; in others, they're not allowed to wear trousers AT ALL (but in none of those cults can women SPEAK during the service because Saint Paul said so: Corinthians 14:34)...

And gays, lesbians, queers... have it even WORSE than straight women. Remnant Bride even claims that ladies' jeans were invented by SATAN... One of their worst rants against gender deviance is this essay on HYENAS, foul-smelling scavengers yet matriarchal and pseudo-hermaphroditic, that dynamic women like Mary Wollstonecraft and Schiller's sans-culottes were always compared to...

The hyena essay (take this with a grain of salt - evangelical propaganda!):

https://www.remnantbride.com/hyena/spotted.htm

The Schiller fragment - Marianna Wertz translation:

Then wives into hyenas growing

Do make with horror jester’s art,

Still quiv’ring, panther’s teeth employing,

They rip apart the enemy’s heart.

Sir Terry Pratchett famously satirises at once war, the patriarchy, and homophobia in his most glorious Discworld novel, Monstrous Regiment, set in a Ruritanian land where nearly all the men have been either killed or imprisoned in a decades-long war, leading many brave women to join the army en travesti, even though they risk eternal damnation due to a sacred text full of arbitrary laws (including Deuteronomy 22:5, of course).

The premise of Monstrous Regiment reminds me of Chamsous-Sabah, ruling her land as a coloured child of eight or nine because she was the last one left standing, just because of her age and gender:

"All the men in my family have either been poisoned or killed in battle, either against enemies or against each other. It's sad, but existence has got to come to an end..."

Donegild - the Temptress with a Twist

 Chaucer Analysis

Donegild - the Temptress with a Twist -

or - was the messenger innocent at heart?

The messenger in The Man of Law's Tale gets drunk in the court of the queen mother, and thereby falls victim to her plan to switch messages regarding the fate of the heroine of the story. She uses drunkenness in a way that is usually interpreted as an evil exploitation to do harm to the story's protagonist; however, we can see it as an attempt to save her country and son and religion from Custance's foreign influence. The unusual role of Donegild as a temptress using the messenger's fondness for alcohol to get him drunk and into her power plays with the traditional idea of evil women as temptresses, because she is not so much tempting the messenger as letting him lead himself into sin. Chaucer complicates the morality of The Man of Law's Tale by making the queen mother's actions understandable. By doing this, he challenges the reader to consider that even those who seem to do evil can have good reasons for it.

 In the case of The Man of Law 's Tale, the temptation of a man to sin by a woman, especially since the messenger is far from a heroic figure, is a reversal of a typical plot for a saint's life. This clouds the moral nature of the tale by presenting a woman preying on a man for the purpose of protecting her family, country, and, most ironically, religion, as the narrator stresses that her country (Northumbria) is not Christian before Custance converts Allan to her faith. 

Donegild's role, by extension, may not be the role of the typical villainess. 

Donegild does not play the role of the traditional villainess when she admits the messenger into her court. Instead, she practices the medieval virtue of hospitality (which already existed before, as seen in Ancient Greek literature). Even though the messenger is in a hurry to deliver the good news, it is no crime to invite him to rest for a night and continue on his way in the morning. The messenger, too, does no wrong in accepting her hospitality. As the one of lower rank, it is fitting for him to accede to the queen's generous request that he stay the night. The temptation, therefore, is less distinctly evil than it is in a normal saint's life. It is by the messenger 's own moral failing that he drinks the wine to excess. 

The narrator chides the messenger for being drunk: "O messager, fulfild of drunkennesse, / Strong is thy breath, thy limbs falter ay, / and thou betrayest alle secretness" (II. 771-773). Because a messenger's job is to get his letters secretly and safely from one place to the next, his drunken inability to keep a secret constitutes his complete failure as a good messenger. There is moral weakness in the character, who falls to the drink without much encouragement, although it may be safely assumed that Donegild is providing the wine in "the kynges moodres court " (11. 786). By allowing himself to get so drunk that he can no longer fulfill his duties twice, the messenger fails his king. In medieval society, failure to serve his lord was one of the greatest crimes a vassal could commit. The queen mother Donegild, however, receives the far harsher rebuke. The narrator is at a loss for words to capture the evil she has wrought: "O Donegild, I ne have noon Engliissh digne / Unto thy malice and thy tirannye!" (II. 778-780). He curses her emotionally, using religious language: "Fy, feendlych spirit, for I dar wel telle, / Thogh thou heere walke, thy spirit is in helle!" (II. 783-784). By taking advantage of the man's drunkenness to suit her own evil ends, Donegild plays the role of the Evil One, who tempts mortals to their doom. The Man of Law distinctly associates her with Satan and the Serpent in Eden (Scheps 289). By this association as well as the role she plays, she seems to be the prime evil in the story. By taking advantage of the messenger's dull-witted drunkenness, she is committing the greatest evil. The narrator, however, is umeliable in this regard. He fails to take into account the saving virtues of Donegild. He describes her as a "spirit" (II. 783), which stresses the way the two cultures conflict and see one another as strange.

 The ambiguity of the story is demonstrated by the departure Donegild's actions take from the traditional role of the villainess. The queen mother takes on the role of temptation, but it is significant that she does not play an entirely active role in the corruption of the messenger. Had she chosen, as women in romances typically do, to seduce the messenger, she would have had a more direct hand in his sin. Also, she does not drug the ale and wine she gives him, which she could easily do. It would certainly not have been unusual for her to do so. Had she done either, her role as the temptress would have been more definite, and the sin would have clearly been on her head.

The Man of Law's Tale presents a complicated moral picture in which morality is purposefully ambiguous. Although the queen mother commits a sin that is cursed by the narrator, the reader is also encouraged to consider that the messenger's weakness was also to blame. Therefore, the way in which she exploits drunkenness in the tale for what she perceives as morally justifiable complicates the morality of the tale's progression.

.............

I am tempted to compare Iago's treatment of Cassio with Donegild's of the messenger... Like Donegild, Iago does not drug Cassio's drinks, although he could easily do. Like Donegild, Iago considers what he does to be morally right, ie stripping an educated but inexperienced officer of a promotion he does not deserve. And thus Iago is letting Cassio lead himself into failure and tragedy.

to It is no crime to invite Cassio to a few drinks before his guard shift, considering he will surely be both thirsty and tired... and, like the messenger, Cassio does what he does of his own free will; it is fitting for him that he accept Iago's request, and it is of his own moral failing that he gets intoxicated, but this also leads to his complete failure as an officer and to utter tragedy for the married couple that he serves (Othello and Desdemona vs. Allan and Custance). By allowing himself to get so drunk that he can no longer fulfill his duties, Cassio fails Othello, like the messenger fails Allan. And, even though the Man of Law has a happy ending and the Shakespearean drama a tragic ending, by the end of both, Cassio and his counterpart the messenger are both forgiven and redeemed once the truth comes to light.

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

THEOPHANNYA - TSQ-IV (AND CINDERELLA)

 This retelling/summary said something of the Fourth Story I had overlooked - it's a gender-flipped Cinderella (but it's also a very close retelling of Shakespeare's Portia subplot, minus the trial at the end!)

... toute l'histoire de cette mystérieuse princesse. 

Il était une fois une princesse qui passait ses journées à se poser une question. "Mais pourquoi je me marie pas en fait ?" 

Le problème avec cette princesse, c'est qu'elle avait des critères bien précis et ne voulait pas d'un mari prétentieux, ennuyeux et solennel. 

Est-ce que c'est vraiment un problème ou est-ce que c'est juste le minimum ? 

Alors pour trouver sa moitié au plus vite, elle annonça que tous ceux qui souhaiteraient l'épouser seront autorisés à se rendre au château pour la rencontrer et celui qu'elle trouvera le plus intéressant deviendra son époux. 

Un peu Cendrillon va...

Et à la suite de cette annonce, des centaines de jeunes hommes se présentèrent au château pour tenter leur chance, mais la princesse les renvoya tous un par un... 

jusqu'au jour où un jeune homme arriva à pied au château et se présenta tout souriant devant elle. Il se démarqua rapidement des autres, car il était le seul à pas se soucier des codes et des apparences. 

La princesse tomba alors sous son charme et accepta d'épouser son prince.

"Pitié, fais-moi entrer au château." "Comment tu veux que je te fasse rentrer dans le château ?"

... qu'il existe un escalier caché qui mène directement à la chambre des époux. Oh bah comme de par hasard tiens... 

Sur le chemin jusqu'à la chambre, Gerda n'arrive pas à contenir sa joie ... en arrivant, elle réalise que le nouveau prince n'est pas son petit Kaï. 

Alors, elle se met à pleurer toutes les larmes de son corps devant le couple royal qui ne comprend rien à ce qui se passe et qui vient de se faire réveiller en plein milieu de la nuit par une mioche qui renifle super fort. 

Bon, heureusement, ils sont super sympas et proposent même à Gerda de rester avec eux au palais pour toujours. Proposition qu'elle décline évidemment ... 

Elle se remet donc en route sur la calèche que ses nouveaux amis lui ont offert. Et bé, petite calèche gratos tout ça. Vous remarquerez que toutes les personnes qui ont croisé la route de Guerda ont été super sympa et accueillante avec elle. C'est limite un peu de trop beau non ? Genre on se demande quand est-ce que ça va partir en vrille. 

Chapitre 7: La petite brigande (elle me fait peur) 

Après des heures de marche, Gerda arrive dans une forêt pas très rassurante et la pauvre n'a même pas le temps de descendre de la calèche qu'une bande de brigands surgit, tue son cocher et la kidnappe en plein milieu de la nuit. Ah bah voilà, je vous avais dit que c'était trop beau. Bon, j'en rigole mais c'est une dinguerie ce qui vient de se passer, hein? 

Gerda et les Brigands arrivent ensuite dans un château à moitié en ruine... 

...

(Chapitre final)

... Sur la route, il croise même la petite brigande, qui a rangé son couteau cette fois, et qui leur donne des petites nouvelles de toutes les personnes qui ont aidé Garda à retrouver Kaï parce que oui, elle aurait pas pu le faire toute seule. (NO MENTION OF THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS ON THEIR HONEYMOON SPECIFICALLY)

THEOPHANNYA - MANDSDRAGT / TLM OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

 I was surprised by the fact that Theophannya mentions the activities the Little Foundling and her Prince engage in (horseback riding and mountaineering) but says NOTHING about her SUIT (mandsdragt). To me, that suit is as interesting as the outdoor activities (that were masculine-coded in the Biedermeier / earky Victorian era). At least she acknowledges that these activities are COOL. And the illustration Theophannya chooses for this scene is MORE THAN COOL with that seventeenth-century setting and the Little Foundling combining a feminine hairstyle with a doublet and breeches and lace collar like her love interest's reminds me of Julie d'Aubigny and Queen Christina! And her prince looks quite dashing in a feathered hat and doublet and breeches and lace collar, long locks but he's still a teen and too young for facial hair... Together they look like Christina and her cousin Charles!

Le temps passe et ils passent littéralement toute leur journée ensemble à monter à cheval, escalader et cetera. Mais vous imaginez bien que toutes ces activités, aussi cool qu'elles soit, font extrêmement souffrir ses nouveaux potons.

TV Tropes - the Mad Matchmaker (yours truly)

 The Mad Matchmaker: This fan (in a fandom) is marked by an obsession with romantic relationships in a work that was never intended to be a romance. They're the kind of person who, instead of criticizing the tacked-on romantic subplot, criticize the alien invasion for getting in the way of the sideplot, and when called on it they refuse to take "It's not a soap opera" for an answer. They will pitch a fit - possibly even flounce from fandom - if their One True Pairing is jossed (this was a major pain in the keister with Jaime and Brienne in canon - I simply left GOT --but not entirely-- when Jaime was killed and Brienne survived and was made Lady Commander; my OTP could not even be Together in Death! Luckily all fics I write are AUs!!!). They may be a fanatical fan of one character or one pairing, or they may just have an uncontrollable desire to Pair the Spares - or just the entire goddamn cast with little logical reason. They take crack pairings seriously and will never shut up about it. Either way, there is no situation where romance is too frivolous, inappropriate, or downright creepy for them. Long story short: A fan of romance to the exclusion of all else in non-romantic works.

This is me when it comes to any romantic subplot: Jaimienne, Enjoltaire, the Prince and Princess in the Snow Queen, the Hendon Hall subplot (Miles and Hugh Hendon and Edith)... any romantic subplot is for me put front and centre. And then there's crack/crossover shipping like Elsabela or Courferre (or any other crack pairings of the non-Enjoltaire Amis)...

When it comes to queer pairings (Yukakira, Enjoltaire, Renloras, KunZoisite, Kurofai, Yukitouya, etc) I am a combination of Mad Matchmaker and Yaoi Fangirl. 

A female otaku who enjoys anime and manga featuring handsome men engaged in homoerotic relationships. The main difference between a Yaoi Fangirl and Guy-On-Guy Is Hot is that the former are interested in homoromantic/homoerotic fiction and/or fanfiction and/or Shipping, whereas the latter enjoy watching live gay men make out. You can pretty much assume that all yaoi fangirls think Guy-On-Guy Is Hot, but not all women who think Guy-On-Guy Is Hot are yaoi fangirls.

The Japanese term used for a yaoi fangirl is fujoshi, which is a reclaimed term based on a homophonic pun. (There are two characters that are pronounced "fu", with one meaning "respectable woman" and the other meaning "fermented or spoiled"; the usage of fujoshi here translates loosely to "rotten girl", i.e. a woman unfit or "spoiled" for marriage as a result of consuming fictional gay content.) The word is often misused to mean "female otaku," causing female otaku who are not fujoshi (and know the meaning of the word) to correct people everywhere. The male equivalent is called a fudanshi (loosely, "rotten man"), but oddly enough, a lot of fudanshis are straight or bi. 

Some Yaoi fans are likely to think that Het Is Ew and many of them tend to be guilty of Die for Our Ship and Ron the Death Eater as a result. They may also indulge in Ukefication. In series where Yaoi Fangirls are seen, at least one joke will be made that involves the Yaoi fangirl's dirty imagination and at least one of the male characters in-universe. This often goes hand in hand with said yaoi fangirl having a (usually rare for females) Nosebleed. 

Claire Bloom, Leaving a Doll’s House

 CLAIRE BLOOM

What I remember most from those early days is the sound of Mother’s voice as she read to me from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen.” These emotionally-wrenching tales, to which I raptly listened and to which I was powerfully drawn, instilled in me a longing to be overwhelmed by romantic passion and led me in my teens and early twenties to attempt to emulate these self-sacrificing heroines, at least on the stage. 

The sound of Mother’s voice and the radiance of those long summer afternoons are fused in my childhood memory, creating a pleasurable sensation of warmth and comfort and safety. 

From: Claire Bloom, Leaving a Doll’s House