Reading Notes: Anderson's Fairy Tales, Part A

Some of these stories I'm very familiar with; some, I haven't heard or thought about since I was younger; some, I hadn't read at all. They were all charming in different ways, so I'm interested in examining all of them, including the less popular ones. This post will focus on pitching rewrite ideas for each story and playing with genre. I'm a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, and I miss writing it, so most of these ideas will have elements of those genres.

The Princess and the Pea
I'm surprised at how short this story is. It could use more exposition and detail. The most major part of the story to be preserved would be how the princess inadvertently proves her identity as a result of her delicate senses. So, maybe with a rewrite in an urban fantasy setting, the princess (or prince) could be of questionable species. Maybe she must be invited into the castle, and seems to evade all its interior mirrors and other reflective surfaces. So, the king or lord of the castle suspects her, and puts garlic into her room while she's asleep. In the morning, she complains of allergies/poisoning. By the end, the castle's lord/king finds that she's a vampire, and stakes her.

The Emperor's New Suit
 This story is one of my childhood favorites, but I'm at a loss for how to tweak it for the fantasy genre. Maybe the suit itself is real, like a magic item, and gets into the hands of someone besides the emperor? The trickster characters who create the suit would be central to the story.

The Brave Tin Soldier
 Since this story has so much adventure, it begs to be extended. One thing I don't like about it is how the characters are toys, so they're totally vulnerable and dependent on fate to move them around since they can't move themselves. In a sci-fi rewrite, the tin soldier could be changed to a robot. Maybe a toy or cleaning robot--something mundane. He could fall in love with a mannequin, maybe who is damaged or missing a part where the robot is, too.

The Wicked Prince
This story I have never read before, or heard of at all, but I love it! The idea of fighting an angel in an airship is epic. In a rewrite, the prince (or princess) would be the same as the original, personality-wise: ambitious and selfish. He wants to destroy God because he thinks he's powerful enough. Also, he has a flair for the dramatic, and a flying ship that can shoot hundreds of guns at once. In a fantasy setting, as mentioned, this ship would be an airship (or spaceship, if sci-fi). I'd want to keep the angel as the final antagonist--but maybe it would be a really Old Testament angel, with a number of wings and faces and eyes where they shouldn't be.

The Little Match-Seller
This is the only story I don't think I could genre-bend effectively. It seems like changing any of the story elements would just undermine the message. It works because of its simplicity. Sad potatoes.

Source: Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Stories
Image: Max Pixel: Mannequin

Week 13 Story Planning: Diomedes

I didn't expect to read Diomedes' name among those Dante placed in the Inferno, especially for fraud. I'd like to write a story about how he got there, why he's still there, and what he's planning to do about it.

Diomedes is one of the most badass Greek heroes around. Notable especially in this context is the fact that he fought gods, especially Ares and Aphrodite, and was a favorite of Athena. He had impenetrable armor crafted by Hephaestus, and a shield and helmet enchanted by Athena, the latter of which he could then use to blast flames at anyone unfortunate enough to fight him.

"He fights with fury and fills men's souls with panic.  I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of an immortal though he be, as we do this man:  his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none can vie with him in prowess."

So ultimately, I don't believe Diomedes would be sitting around in the eighth circle of the Inferno without choosing to be there, and I would like to explore that. 

Part 1

• Diomedes arrives in Circle 8: Fraud, finds Odysseus, and recounts his journey from Elysium and into the Inferno up to that point. 
• D was hanging out in Elysium with his old friends and ex-enemies, fellow heroes and famous good guys from other Greek legends. After a few thousand years, he's bored with the perfect nature of Elysium and itching to go exploring and waging war again. Coincidentally, a messenger shows up at that time with a message: Satan has a claim on your soul, and you're due to be punished for your crimes in the Inferno. D agrees to go along because he sees it as a change for excitement and adventure, and possibly getting back to Earth. He's also curious about those crimes. 
• Recount continued: D arrives on Charon's boat. Minos judges him and sends him to the eighth circle, but doesn't say what the circle's theme or punishment is. On the way, D notably walks through Circle 2: Lust. There, he sees Aphrodite being punished and made an example of for the other sinners there. He also sees Cerberus in the third circle, and Ares in the seventh.
• Back in the present, D wonders why he's been put in the circle of Fraud. He's not too affected by the punishment there, since he's used to being around shooting flames and fireballs. Odysseus explains their shared crimes as "Counselors of Fraud": the theft of the Palladium, persuading Achilles to sail for Troy and therefore causing Deidamia to die of grief, and the stratagem of the Trojan Horse. 
• D figures he's spent enough time here, and decides he'd like to head back up to Earth to see how his former kingdom is doing. Odysseus warns him of the Inferno's enforcers and how, even if he did escape, he'd be relentlessly pursued. Diomedes decides the only way to stop this is to atone for his three crimes. 

Part 2

• Diomedes' first crime, the theft of the Palladium, has already been atoned for since he returned in life. 
• The second crime he atones for by clawing his way back up to Circle 2: Lust. On the way, he grabs Cerberus and sets him loose in the Circle 2 to make his job easier. He finds Deidamia and rescues her. He also helps Aphrodite out, who returns the favor by telling him Athena, D's favorite goddess, is in Circle 6: Heresy. 
• The third crime, the Trojan Horse, is trickiest. D decides the Trojan Horse represented strategical warfare a la Athena. So of course, he has to go fight Athena. 
• He either does that and wins, and escapes in the aftermath, or decides to take Athena to the ninth circle so they can both deal with Satan together.

Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy
Badass of the Week: Diomedes
Wikipedia: Diomedes
Wikimedia Commons: Diomedes

Reading Notes: Dante's Inferno, Part B

It would be difficult to write something that could encapsulate everything the Inferno offers its readers. And there are already a ton of adaptations, but aside from translations, these are complete works in themselves. 

It would be hard to write one self-contained story, unless it were something like the story of Paolo and Franchesca. Still, it wouldn't be complete with out the complete context of Dante's whole Inferno. What to write that could fit under 1k words?

I like the idea of writing a multi-chapter short story about someone who is traveling through a place like the Inferno, but an adaption of it. Since the Inferno is an allegory, I think it would be cool to write a story to re-purpose the allegory. So, maybe it's not religious in nature, but still illustrates the consequences of various sins by way of punishing them as either a natural consequence or committing those sins (like how Dante's diviners can only see behind them as a result of trying to discern the future), or via some kind of punishing device (like the three humans in the devils' three jaws). The setting could be somewhere on earth, like a city where crimes against human rights run rampant--like, a city of rain to contrast the fires of hell, or a city of cold fire.

I think this should be less religious and more based on human rights so it can be more general. Back in Dante's day, 99% of his readership would have subscribed to the same religion as him, but today there's much more discussion of human rights and happiness and laws in a secular sense. Not all of Dante's circles would fit in this context, but some would. Here are a few:

Limbo, the first circle, "contains the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, although not sinful, did not accept Christ... After those who refused choice come those without opportunity of choice." Maybe one way to translate this would be those people who witnessed crimes against humanity but didn't take action against them?

Heresy, the sixth circle, condemns its sinners to "eternity in flaming tombs." This would be the most difficult to adapt, since heresy is religious by definition. But there's also this: "any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs, customs, etc." So, maybe, going against the norm in a harmful way? Or in a way that provokes additional consequences? You have things like not paying taxes, which isn't always considered morally terrible, but definitely has its consequences. But what about something taboo that doesn't fit into any of these other categories? It would be like pouring the milk before the cereal--but actually, you know, serious.

The other circles--lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, violence, fraud, and treachery--are self-explanatory.

I don't think I'd be able to write this in under 1k words, so this post will be part of my future writing wishlist. Ideally, it would be in a journal or epistolary format.




Sources:
Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy
Wikipedia: The Inferno
History Lists: The 9 Circles of Hell
Dictionary.com: Heresy

Image: Pixabay: Journal

Reading Notes: Dante's Inferno, Part A

In high school, I wrote a ten-page paper over one of the Inferno's various allegories. To be honest, I can barely remember the specifics of what I wrote about, besides that it centered around Virgil.

I do remember, however, that when I wrote that paper, the video game adaptation of the Inferno had just come out. I had done a bit of my own research over the game, only to conclude that it was quite a bit different from the text. This seems to happen a lot, especially to the Inferno. It seems to be a popular text for game developers to reference, too, interestingly. The video game "Dante's Inferno" is the most on-the-nose, even though the story is different. The game's plot features Dante, who is a sinner searching for repentance, journeying into Hell to rescue his love Beatrice, as she has been captured by the Devil. In reality, Beatrice doesn't appear in the Inferno at all, and is only mentioned. In real life (as far as I can remember from high school, anyway) Beatrice and Dante were decidedly not lovers. Instead, Dante was a little obsessed with Beatrice, and wrote about her constantly. Their relationship sounds a little more like a stalker-thriller than a love story.

Regardless of all that, the game stays faithful in the game's environment, which is definitely where the game potential always lied. Dante's descriptions have spawned dozens of paintings and sculptures, so it follows that the next adaptation would be highly visual, too. And in a video game, players can explore the nine themed layers of hell. As far as I can tell, the level design is fairly close to the text's descriptions. For example, the final few hours of game play take place in an icy ninth circle of hell alongside the Devil.

I could go on, because I legitimately think video games are one of the coolest mediums to adapt the Inferno to varying degrees. They're all about exploration, world building, and visuals. There's a much longer list of games that have referenced the Inferno without outright adapting it; to name a few--Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Castlevania, Fallout, Resident Evil, all of which are popular/successful franchises.

Basically, I'm all about video games as storytelling mediums, and it's so cool how a work as old as the Inferno can be adapted to such a new form of media.

Sources:
Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy

Wikipedia: The Divine Comedy in Popular Culture
TvTropes: Word of Dante

Image: Wikimedia Commons: Levels of Hell

Reading Notes: Britomart, Part B

One of the most interesting things about Arthurian lit for me is the multitude of magic items. I considered writing a post like this for the King Arthur unit, but decided on other things. This post will focus on three major magic items in Britomart's story: the magic mirror, Britomart's spear, and the golden girdle.

The mirror spurs Britomart into beginning her quest. The mirror itself was enchanted by Merlin, and by description sounds more like a large crystal ball. It's round and hollow, like "a great globe of glass." The mirror has the power to show any person looking into it anything the looker wants to see; the power "of showing perfectly whatever thing the world contained, between heaven and earth, provided it had to do with the person who looked into it. Whatever a foe had done, or a friend had feigned, was revealed in this mirror, and it was impossible to keep anything secret from it." Knowing this, Britomart looks into the mirror and deliberately wishes to see the person who she would marry some day. The mirror, of course, shows her Sir Artegall, and, immediately falling in love, she sets out to find him.

The spear is Britomart's weapon of choice. Sir Guyon encounters it within the first few paragraphs of the reading. When he rides towards Britomart to joust her off her horse, he's thrown to the ground instead because of the spear. The narration assures us that, despite his shame, "it was no fault of his own... the spear that brought him to the ground was enchanted, and no one could resist it."

The golden girdle is the prize given for the tournament in the second part of the reading--sort of, because it's supposed to be given to the most beautiful lady. I'm not sure how this works. If I understand correctly, the girdle chooses the most beautiful lady, while the knights compete for the hand of the lady who is chosen, and who is thus the most beautiful. It's not just a prize, it's a magic item which gives "the gift of constant and loyal love to all who wore it, but whosoever was false and fickle could never keep it on, for it would loosen itself, or else tear asunder." Personally, I like the idea that the girdle is like Thor's hammer or Excalibur--it's sentient, and chooses its master.

Source: Mary Macleod: Stories from the Faerie Queene
Image: Public Domain Pictures: Crystal Ball 

Reading Notes: Britomart, Part A

After finishing the first reading from this set, I'm very interested in knowing more about the The Faerie Queen. This post will mostly consist of background I found while reading about the work as a while, and then thoughts on the reading specifically.

The poem follows several knights who represent different virtues. In this way, the work is allegorical, as poet Edmund Spenser intended. He states the work is "enwrapped in allegorical devices" and aims to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." Britomart is the protagonist of Book 3, and represents chastity. She also meets Book 1 protagonist, the Redcross Knight, who represents holiness, Book 2 protagonist Guyon, representing temperance, Artegal, representing justice, and Arthur, representing "magnificence, the perfection of all virtues."

Walter Crane's Britomart from Wikimedia Commons

It may be cliche, but my favorite thing about this work is the inclusion of a female knight as a main character. This is ridiculously rare as far as I can tell in Arthurian literature, given the number of knights overall. It's not just the fact that she's female--it's the idea that her presence complicates the idea of chivalry on which knighthood is built in these works, not to mention the ideal relationship between knights and ladies. The text is aware of this, saying: "Through all ages it has been the custom that the prize of Beauty has been joined with the praise of arms and Chivalry. And there are special reasons for this, for each relies much on the other: that Knight who can best defend a fair Lady from harm is surely the most fitting to serve her, and that Lady who is fairest and who will never swerve from her faith is the most fitting to deserve his service."

Also of note is the fact that Britomart's name (as Britomartis) is recycled from a Minoan and Greek goddess of mountains and hunting. In Greek, she was a mountain nymph associated with Artemis. In Crete, she was known as a mother of mountains associated with gorgons, "double-axes of power," and snakes. She must have been a fearsome and dangerous figure, but this aspect of her character was also softened by her status as a "good virgin" goddess. This carries through into The Faerie Queene in that she is a figure of chastity and virtue, but also one of honor and power. Her name carries extra meaning as well, in that "Brit" denotes "Briton" and "Martis" could mean "of Mars," the Roman god of war.

Sources:
Mary Macleod: Stories from the Faerie Queene
Wikipedia: The Faerie Queene
Wikipedia: Britomartis

Portfolio Guide

Each story in this portfolio is a reversal of a well-known myth or legend. Instead of being retold, these stories end differently. Enjoy!

Persephone Captures Hades
Instead of Hades' heart, Eros pierces Persephone's heart with his love arrow. What follows is Persephone's desire to capture Hades and hold him captive on earth.

Kushinada Tames the Serpent
Instead of letting Susanoo kill the serpent who ate her seven sisters, Kushinada decides to do it herself.

Uko and the Sun
Instead of being won in a marriage competition, Uko befriends a young boy who turns out to be the sun incarnate.

Nimue Seizes Excalibur
Instead of granting Arthur the legendary sword Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake demands Merlin as a sacrifice instead.