And They Lived Heteronormatively Ever After
I've been reading fairytales all morning; now I'm a sour fairytale anti-'shipper. Freud - as usual - Would Have A Field Day.
I think I've just seen too many of those 'Pygmalion'-type plots in the visual media; where the helpful matchmaker character ends up Getting The Guy/Girl in the course of Fixing Them Up for their bland Love Interest C. Because just once I want to see one of these fairy godmother types - Propp's 'donor' characters - get some action.
It doesn't help at all that the supernatural helpers in these sorts of stories ('The King of England and His Three Sons', 'Ferdinand the Faithful', etc.) are often the exact same handsome-princes-cursed-into-animal-shapes that show up as romantic leads in stories like 'The Brown Bear of Norway' or 'The Ungrateful Dwarf', and end up being cured by sex, or love, or marriage, or a kiss. (There's a weird link to this set of tropes in 'Prince Ring', in which the hound-shaped 'donor' is given back his human form by sleeping in the same room as the hero and his new bride on their honeymoon. Which, erm.)
The only even slightly satisfying variation I've found so far on the basic supernatural-helper-aided-quest narrative is in 'Brian and the Fox', a Gypsy take on the Grimms' 'The Golden Bird'. My dim-but-dashing young namesake sets out on his quest to obtain the love of a local henwife's daughter; he falls in love with the Sun-Goddess he rescues along the way; he and his Fox helper complete the quest; upon their homecoming, the newly human-shaped Fox marries the newly single henwife's daughter, tying up two romantic loose ends. (Admittedly, with his implicit aim all along being to get his sister the Sun-Goddess away from their controlling father, Brian's Fox is much more a Machiavelli than a Yenta. It's still nice to see a 'donor' get a happy ending, too - most of the time they just disappear.)
There must be a couple of realio trulio 'Cyrano'-type fairytales out there too, though, surely? FAIRY GODMOTHERS HAVE NEEDS TOO.
I think I've just seen too many of those 'Pygmalion'-type plots in the visual media; where the helpful matchmaker character ends up Getting The Guy/Girl in the course of Fixing Them Up for their bland Love Interest C. Because just once I want to see one of these fairy godmother types - Propp's 'donor' characters - get some action.
It doesn't help at all that the supernatural helpers in these sorts of stories ('The King of England and His Three Sons', 'Ferdinand the Faithful', etc.) are often the exact same handsome-princes-cursed-into-animal-shapes that show up as romantic leads in stories like 'The Brown Bear of Norway' or 'The Ungrateful Dwarf', and end up being cured by sex, or love, or marriage, or a kiss. (There's a weird link to this set of tropes in 'Prince Ring', in which the hound-shaped 'donor' is given back his human form by sleeping in the same room as the hero and his new bride on their honeymoon. Which, erm.)
The only even slightly satisfying variation I've found so far on the basic supernatural-helper-aided-quest narrative is in 'Brian and the Fox', a Gypsy take on the Grimms' 'The Golden Bird'. My dim-but-dashing young namesake sets out on his quest to obtain the love of a local henwife's daughter; he falls in love with the Sun-Goddess he rescues along the way; he and his Fox helper complete the quest; upon their homecoming, the newly human-shaped Fox marries the newly single henwife's daughter, tying up two romantic loose ends. (Admittedly, with his implicit aim all along being to get his sister the Sun-Goddess away from their controlling father, Brian's Fox is much more a Machiavelli than a Yenta. It's still nice to see a 'donor' get a happy ending, too - most of the time they just disappear.)
There must be a couple of realio trulio 'Cyrano'-type fairytales out there too, though, surely? FAIRY GODMOTHERS HAVE NEEDS TOO.