Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective #3: The Little Rattle Post Man
Good afternoon, Ticketholders!
For those of you wondering about the unusual nature of this post's title, it is a reference to the translation of the name Rumpelstiltskin, which itself is translated from Rumpelstilzchen, referring to a goblin of German lore that rattles or raps on gate posts and wooden planks as a means of inducing fright or annoyance. The origin of the name has less to do with the fairy tale it inspired than with a similarly behaving spirit that is more commonly known today by the name "poltergeist," a ghost that clatters and moves household objects. Fun, obscure facts, I've got them. On to the issue at hand.
GFT #4: Rumpelstiltskin
Knowing what I know now, this issue blew me away on so many levels.
So, it starts with a girl named Milly (because the miller’s daughter, get it?) who is pregnant, and her selfish jock boyfriend Eric, who wants her to get an abortion or sell her baby to his friend Jimmy, who “knows this agency” (as of this second reading, I could practically hear the capital-A, and I got chills from it).
Enter Sela Mathers again (whom I forgot to mention also has the ability to read minds or souls or something, and instantly knows everything about the person she’s about to talk to) with a fairy tale about a girl who agrees to give up her baby to the titular imp. Through a signature GFT twist, the maiden Miller’s son becomes the new Rumpelstiltskin.
The framing scenario this issue ends on a single page with one bubble of dialogue (seen on the right), but the imagery and the--revealed much later--backstory speak volumes. Skip the next paragraph if you'd like to read those volumes yourself.
SPOILER ALERT: It turns out, in the course of events in the Grimm Universe, that there is an Agency. And it’s evil. It takes kids from their parents and turns those kids into monsters.
I guess this technically counts as a SPOILER, too. But it's sort of worth spoiling at the expense of appreciating the final page of Rumpelstiltskin that much more. It will be revealed (again, now that you've committed to reading this sentence) later that Sela had a child taken from her earlier in her life, and that the ominous-capital-Agency, is responsible.
But, WAIT! Sela’s good now? Confusion! Guess I’ll have to sleep on it for a hundred years or so. Or, at least until someone wakes me up.
If you didn't catch the plug there, next issue will be devoted to Sleeping Beauty. Before I go, however, I feel I must leave you with the following words of Rumpelstiltskin-relevant wisdom:
People make mistakes. And, as parents are people, parents logically make mistakes, too. One mistake a parent should never make, however, is to tell their child that he or she was one of those mistakes. It doesn't matter if you say it directly or say something that someone with a grasp of English and logic structures can parse that meaning from.
Never. Tell. Your. Child. That.
Children may be unexpected, difficult, annoying, messy, loud, spoiled, and inappropriate, but they are not mistakes, failures, idiots, sources of weakness, curses, nor in any way unwanted. They are fresh, innocent, brilliant avatars of the future, and if the future is a mistake, then we are all doomed.
For those of you wondering about the unusual nature of this post's title, it is a reference to the translation of the name Rumpelstiltskin, which itself is translated from Rumpelstilzchen, referring to a goblin of German lore that rattles or raps on gate posts and wooden planks as a means of inducing fright or annoyance. The origin of the name has less to do with the fairy tale it inspired than with a similarly behaving spirit that is more commonly known today by the name "poltergeist," a ghost that clatters and moves household objects. Fun, obscure facts, I've got them. On to the issue at hand.
GFT #4: RumpelstiltskinSo, it starts with a girl named Milly (because the miller’s daughter, get it?) who is pregnant, and her selfish jock boyfriend Eric, who wants her to get an abortion or sell her baby to his friend Jimmy, who “knows this agency” (as of this second reading, I could practically hear the capital-A, and I got chills from it).
Enter Sela Mathers again (whom I forgot to mention also has the ability to read minds or souls or something, and instantly knows everything about the person she’s about to talk to) with a fairy tale about a girl who agrees to give up her baby to the titular imp. Through a signature GFT twist, the maiden Miller’s son becomes the new Rumpelstiltskin.The framing scenario this issue ends on a single page with one bubble of dialogue (seen on the right), but the imagery and the--revealed much later--backstory speak volumes. Skip the next paragraph if you'd like to read those volumes yourself.
SPOILER ALERT: It turns out, in the course of events in the Grimm Universe, that there is an Agency. And it’s evil. It takes kids from their parents and turns those kids into monsters.
I guess this technically counts as a SPOILER, too. But it's sort of worth spoiling at the expense of appreciating the final page of Rumpelstiltskin that much more. It will be revealed (again, now that you've committed to reading this sentence) later that Sela had a child taken from her earlier in her life, and that the ominous-capital-Agency, is responsible.
But, WAIT! Sela’s good now? Confusion! Guess I’ll have to sleep on it for a hundred years or so. Or, at least until someone wakes me up.
If you didn't catch the plug there, next issue will be devoted to Sleeping Beauty. Before I go, however, I feel I must leave you with the following words of Rumpelstiltskin-relevant wisdom:
People make mistakes. And, as parents are people, parents logically make mistakes, too. One mistake a parent should never make, however, is to tell their child that he or she was one of those mistakes. It doesn't matter if you say it directly or say something that someone with a grasp of English and logic structures can parse that meaning from.
Never. Tell. Your. Child. That.
Children may be unexpected, difficult, annoying, messy, loud, spoiled, and inappropriate, but they are not mistakes, failures, idiots, sources of weakness, curses, nor in any way unwanted. They are fresh, innocent, brilliant avatars of the future, and if the future is a mistake, then we are all doomed.
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