Cinderella
Cinderella’s fairy godmother, being a creature of magic as well as Cinderella’s elder, probably could have done a lot better at improving the poor girl’s life. Sure, she took a young woman covered in ashes from rags to riches (quite literally) in just a few nights, but with the kind of power the woman exhibits, she could have done so much more! Why not contrive to make Cinderella empress of the realm? Why not offer her a whole host of suitors? Why not magic her up a unicorn or something? Come on, Fairy Godmother, we both know you could do better!
Okay okay, I guess if you nitpick enough, you can find fault with any tale, but so much of Charles Perrault’s version of the Cinderella story (used here for the comics as well as for the famous Disney film) just doesn’t quite make sense. Even setting aside the whole prince and princess thing that has been such a long running staple of fairy tales created before women had any real rights, it’s clear that this Godmother person just wasn’t living up to her potential. I mean, she just sat there for years while her godchild was verbally and physically abused by her family members! Okay, so she may not have thought she could do better than setting Cinderella up with some prince, I get that, but why not do it a lot earlier?! You’re a fairy, damn it!
And making the poor girl come home at midnight? That just adds insult to injury, madame! What party really gets going before midnight?
Everything starts to make a little bit more sense when you consider all the precursors to Perrault’s version of the tale. Cinderella has been told and retold in countless ways in countless nations from fairly distant past to the current day. In fact, one of the earliest known versions of the story was written down in China in 900 CE, and was probably shared orally for some time before that! Interestingly, the general motif of a woman losing a shoe only to have it lead to a happy marriage with royalty is much much older than that, probably originating in Ancient Greece or even earlier, though tales of that nature don’t really contain the other details usually seen in the Cinderella story.
In the version from China, the Cinderella character is helped not by a fairy godmother, but rather by the spirit of a dead fish that had been her friend in life. It is implied in the story that this fish was, in fact, her dead mother. While this particular element is different, the rest is pretty spot on and it is this story that ended up giving birth to many other versions in different nations across Europe and Asia. Not until Perrault did a fairy godmother get involved, which probably explains why things seem a little bit weird in his version.
Of course, if we simply avoid nitpicking too much and just take the story as it is, it’s a short but enjoyable read with some very charming concepts.
But I guess then we wouldn’t have any comics, now would we?
Discussion (23) ¬
I don’t know if her magic was vast or inexhaustible. She just has some illusions and tricks. She needed props to make that wagon, she just glammored it or something. Cinderella was crouching on a pumpkin being dragged by a plague of mice the entire ride there.
Excellent point!
Glamoring would take less magic to work, as there is only one main thing involved. (Cinderella) Though I would think the folks at the castle would be worried if a horde of mice showed up though! Hmm, maybe the fairy-godmother glamored the castle folk too… that would also explain why there was a deadline, once the magic wore off, everyone at the castle would see Cinderella still in her normal garb, though the slippers may have been “real”, as I recall the prince had the slipper after the deadline (the next day if I am correct)…
I really like this new publishing system of posting three comic strips on the same universe. Whether at the same time or on successive days.
Keep doing what you like, it gets through and we like it too !
Maybe it’s just me, but her dress in the last panel doesn’t look too remarkable. Even her hairstyle is the exact same.
This post made me do a spot of research on the “fur or glass” slipper debacle. Your comics always teach me something!
i find it quite funny… i was told that ‘fur slipper’ was a euphemism.
Woah woah woah, mister artist sir, are you gonna make poor Cinderella wear THAT?!?! :/
haha You got me! It’s the product of doing 3 comics in on week and pushing back working on them until way too late!
Oh gosh I’m just as bad as the Fairy Godmother!!!
Shhhh. The prudish dress works with the whole godmother imposing a midnight curfew on a party starting at 11:00. Just pretend that was what you were after. 😉
Prince: “You are beautiful and dressed as my social equal; now I have conceived a deep and abiding love for you.”
Later: Prince: “Your feet are small and aesthetically shaped; this sets you above women with large lumbering feet.”
Cinderella: “You hunted me down after I indicated by fleeing that I did not want to be with you after all. It must be true love.”
I think that maybe the Fairy godmother gives Cinderella the means to succeed and not the success itself so she can earn it rather than having it handed to her.
And by succeed, you mean marry a successful man. ^_~
But yes, that was probably part of the point of the original tale. It was written in a time when that WAS most of a woman’s definition of success. That, and how she took care of him/the kids after she got him.
I would love to read your interpretation of the entire fairy tale! This collection was great.
Reminds me of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by Jame Garner…
in that it has the same politically correct and modern views of the old tales.
Folks in the middle ages had some weird issues with feet.
Actually, there is a story of a lost shoe leading to marriage to nobility from Egypt. Rhodopis I believe she was named. There is also a medieval version of Cinderella where she is guided by a magical tree to find her dresses (the ball is three nights long in this version). The tree grows on the spot where her mother (or something that belonged to her mother) is buried.
Love the comic, BTW.
I nearly choked on my goldfish laughing at the dress made of live bees. Good stuff.
I must say, one really should stop eating goldfish, they tend to squirm and wiggle a bunch, and like all fish taste funny…
(Just joking, I know you mean those cracker things.
(They still taste funny though!)
FGM: You have to get home before midnight or else the spell becomes permanent.
Cinderella: >.>…okay, I’ll be sure to get back soon.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read the version from China that you mention K, but I could have sworn that it was a Vietnamese folk tale =O I believe the title of that version is “In the Land of Small Dragon”
“The general motif of a woman losing a shoe only to have it lead to a happy marriage with royalty is much much older than that, probably originating in Ancient Greece or even earlier”
Could you give me some examples, please? I’d be very interested to look into that subject 🙂
Cinderella never wanted to be empress or anything like that, poor people want just simple things to make their lives better (I know first hand). It’s you “bourgeois” people who, already having everything delivered to a silver plate, begin to scheme world domination. Also glass slippers can actually be made resilient enough not to break under normal usage.
And what is wrong with a woman loving a man and wishing to be with him? What you think that women, being such strong and dependable creatures, must not wish for love, happy ending and etc.?
Geez you are mean! 🙁