Hey, what’s black, white and Red all over? It’s ABC’s latest
attempt to hold on to audience interest in their fairytale franchise—and it’s not
too shabby, if I may say so. Certainly a step up from how our beloved Red
Riding Hood was utilized in Shadow of the
Queen.
Unlike previous addends to the OUAT lore via printed media,
Toliver’s novel takes us back to an earlier period in Red’s life, filling in
bits of backstory and fleshing out her relationships with Granny, childhood hunk-friend
Peter, and other members of her village. It also has a YA flavor, but not to an
irritating degree. It follows several tropes of coming-of-age stories without
becoming too cliché. You have romantic and sexual awakening, school bullies,
weird dreams the hero doesn’t understand but have something to do with finding
her true self—yeah, that does sound more overdone when you break it down, but
Toliver’s easy, fluid yet intelligent writing style articulates the
understandable trials of entering adulthood and makes them feeling organic and
visceral to her (well, ABC’s) characters.
At the risk of nitpicking, I’ll get the smaller “what?”
moments out of the way. Toliver’s take on Red’s village, one of many in the
Enchanted Forest, is supposedly a canon rendition of the showrunners’ vision
(assuming Horowitz and Kitsis still have
a concrete vision). So, making that dangerous assumption, I conclude
that somehow Christianity exists in the Enchanted Forest. Yep. There are
vicars, and Christmas, and crosses, and there’s one reference to “God,” just
one, with a good old capital G. Sound strange? To be fair, some famous
fairytale writers like Hans Christian Anderson incorporated Christian themes into
their stories. The problem with Once’s mythos, however, is that there has been
no confirmation of Christian ideology anywhere else in its fairytale realm. Two
characters, Baelfire and Maurice, have used the term “gods” when uttering a
mild expletive (“Oh my gods!”), which suggests that at least some residents of the E.F. follow a
polytheistic belief system. So, where does Christianity fit into this world? Do
they actually believe in Jesus? Or did Toliver feel it was just easier to
portray fear-mongering and slut-shaming in a culture steeped in Christian
values? Hmm.
That’s not the most jarring world-building choice. Things go
from “odd but reasonable” to “wait are we watching the same show?” when Red
makes a very peculiar reference. In one scene, she and Peter are discussing the
fact that, since Red was about thirteen, animals have started avoiding her.
When Peter playfully pokes fun at this, Red makes a quip about being as good
with animals as Snow White and Cinderella.
Um, Toliver? Those cute references would make sense in a
world where everyone knows who Snow White and Cinderella are because they’re
fictional characters. The problem is that, in Red’s world, they are real people. The Snow-White nod could be excused by saying that, as a royal, the fair-skinned princess
may in fact be well known for her zoological gifts—that includes being able to
understand birds, which she totally can
according to the show. This does not
explain Cinderella because I’m pretty sure that Cinderella hasn’t become the Cinderella yet!
A quick explanation: Snow White meets Red while she’s on the
run from the Evil Queen. It’s not clear if Snow has met Prince Charming yet—my guess
is she hasn’t because she isn’t an adept hunter and bandit yet; she’s so
desperate for food she tries to steal eggs from Red’s chicken coop. Regardless whether
she has met her True Love, clearly her befriending Red predates her and
Charming kicking Regina off the throne. Further down the ambiguous timeline,
Cinderella celebrates her wedding to her own princely love with a ball, one which
Snow and Charming attend, clearly happy and nicely dressed. Their relaxed
demeanor and dirt-free wardrobe suggest that Regina is no longer a threat to
Snow and Charming’s well-being, Snow has returned to being a sovereign, and
they’re confident enough in their security to go to a wedding ball. Now, we don’t
know how much time passes between Ella’s visit to the first ball, courtesy of a
wand-wielding Rumplestiltskin, and her wedding ball, but I doubt it was long
enough ago that Red, prior to meeting Snow White, had ever heard of Cinderella
before the ash-sweeping social climber won the heart and hand of her prince.
All right, so, a little in-world inconsistency can hurt one’s
enjoyment of the book. It didn’t kill mine. Even the last and biggest issue
doesn’t make me want to burn it to ashes for Cinderella to sweep under the rug.
Does it damper some of my positive feelings? A bit. What I’m talking about is
the book’s ending. Don’t worry: spoilers will be vague, but it’s only fair to
warn you of what’s in store. Most of the novel isn’t all that plot-driven,
which in itself isn’t a problem. Its purpose is for fans to learn more about
Red’s personality and her life in the hamlet she called home before the curse
plopped her into Storybrooke, Maine. On the whole, it succeeds very nicely. I’ll
throw in one other small complaint in that, outside of Peter and Granny, we don’t
get to see any other characters from the show. Toliver does sneak in some The Fox and
the Hound allusions that I honestly didn’t catch until near the end—nice!
I did hope to see a glimpse of Rumplestiltskin, since I presumed he was the
wizard who gave Granny the red cloak for her granddaughter. But no, the wizard
who did is an original creation, an eccentric hermit named Knubbin with a crow
named Heathcliff (a rather out-of-place Bronte reference). Okay, well, I guess
we do need to know that the E.F. has more magic-users than just Rumple and
female sorceresses that keep popping up every season. Plus, Knubbin serves to
demonstrate that magic, good or bad, comes with a price, a rule that isn’t
invented by the Dark One purely for the sake of screwing with people.
I was fine with watching Red deal with the girls at school
who torment her, with her changing feelings for her best friend, with the
complicated dynamic she and Granny share, and with the hidden demons she
wrestles with in her dark Wolfstime dreams. Yet, somewhere in the middle of the
book, a sort-of plot does emerge, in which Red wants to stop the pain Granny
experiences in her arm every Wolfstime. Knubbin tells Red that she must journey
to the mythical Lake Nostos in order to complete the magical salve, which in
itself seems impossible since the lake is from an old fairytale. (Okay, hold
up: fairytales within fairytales? What is this, Fairy-Taleception?) Despite the
daunting nature of this quest, Red is ready to pursue it, and Peter volunteers
to go with her. I started to worry, since this plot point came in with only a
couple chapters left—and, lo and behold, the quest never happens. The book just
. . . stops. Granted, a lot of other themes and story elements get tied up, but
what was shaping up to be an actual plotline is suddenly forgotten. It’s also
worth noting that had Red found Lake Nostos and succeeded, we wouldn’t get to
see Granny dealing with that same painful scar in the show. Why make it a part
of the story at all, then?
The book’s finale might leave you dangling with unanswered
questions and unfulfilled possibilities—much like the show it’s based on—but the
conclusion indirectly confirms that what really mattered in the story wasn’t some
magical salve or any magic MacGuffin, but the heroine’s journey toward better
understanding herself, her relationships, and what she’s capable of, even if
there is more she has yet to learn. I do think Toliver should have added an
epilogue that maybe would lead up to her meeting Snow, or explained whether or
not she does leave the village to undertake her quest. Either way, the ending
needed a little more closure. I still recommend the novel for its obvious love
for its protagonist, a character who has until recently been forgotten by the writers
and other characters. Many thanks to Toliver for her contribution. For all my
current annoyances with the show’s writing and direction, I hold out hope that
its supplemental material will continue to improve with each new story.
Rating: 3.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment