Beedle the Bard
A New Year's quasi-resolution: To post to this thing at least once each calendar month. Also, maybe, to find out why my LJ-cuts aren't working.
///SPOILERS AHEAD!///
Today's post, more in sorrow than in anger, has to address the Tales of Beedle the Bard, for which Amazon.com once paid four million dollars, or roughly $3,999,995.05 too much. Now the spoilers:
There are five tales, one of which you already know. Each is followed by commentary by the late Albus Dumbledore. The first is "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot." A wizard inherits a pot that makes his life miserable when he refuses to solve all of his Muggle neighbors' problems with magic. Dumbly, showing the clear moral judgment we have come to expect from him, finds the story admirable, apparently failing to notice that (a) the wizard in the story hasn't learned compassion; he helps his neighbors because he's tired of being harassed by his kitchenware, and (b) the help he gives them isn't helpful help; he's giving them a fish, not teaching them to fish. Creating a culture of Muggle dependency on wizards doesn't sound like something Dumbledore, or anyone, should be applauding. I can't go further with this train of thought without verging on politics, which are strictly forbidden in this space, but it should be sufficient to note that Emma Nicholson, surely the archetypal British aristocratic high-minded do-gooder (a lot like Dumbly himself), is involved in this project. The book is published not by Obscurus Books or even Fluorish & Blott's house imprint, but by what must be the most awkwardly named charity of all time, the Children's High Level Group.
"The Fountain of Fair Fortune" is Dumbo's magic feather, or Harry's tricking Ron (and Hermione) with Felix Felicitas. You don't need magic as long as you believe in yourself, but if believing in magic makes you believe in yourself, believe away, or something like that. Dumbledore's commentary does one of the things I had hoped JKR would resist the temptation to do -- fill in unnecessary backstory. In this case it's the explanation for one of the many charming throwaway comments in the series, in this case Professor Kettleburn, the Care of Magical Creatures professor before Hagrid, who "decided to retire in order to spend more time with his remaining limbs." That was perfect the way it was -- don't mess with it! I would have thought she'd learned her lesson from the reactions to the Epilogue -- some things need to be left to the imagination.
"The Warlock's Hairy Heart" is the one genuinely creepy story in the book, at least for kids. Dumbly's commentary is mostly interesting b/c one of the footnotes mentions a wizard named Hector Dagworth-Granger. Granger's not really an unusual name, but still...
"Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump" doesn't really give me much to work with (or I might just be getting tired), and "The Tale of the Three Brothers" you already know. A couple of final cavils: (1) Why the hating on Beatrice Bloxam? And is she supposed to represent just a style, or a particular author of Very Nice Tales for Very Young Children (Enid Blyton, whose brand of treacle seems to have no appeal to audiences outside her homeland? Beatrix Potter, who shares a first name with the despised Bloxam and a surname with Harry? If the latter, I really must protest.) And (2) JKR (not as Dumbledore, but in her own voice) tells us in the intro, before we've even read the stories, how empowered her female characters are: They "are much more active in seeking their fortunes than (Muggles') fairy-tale heroines. [They] are all witches who take their fates into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe." Well, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, OK. But I think Cinderella is more proactive than JKR gives her credit for, although she has to operate within the constraints of her milieu. And what about Baba Yaga? Or Belle from Beauty and the Beast? Or Mu-Lan? (In the latter two cases, it’s not Disney who made the heroines strong and independent; they already were. Mu-Lan would kick Babbity Rabbity’s cottontail, magic or no magic.)
Oh, and there’s also a disturbing footnote about fondling Horklumps.