GFT Retrospective #64: The Fairy And the Dwarf

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

Google hates me, Ticketholders.

In preparation for these GFT Retrospective pieces, I research the original fairy tales that each issue is based on so I can provide some comparative analysis between the versions and point out the more absurd and poorly aged quirks of the cultures and story structures that made these (originally word-of-mouth, because they came about in cultures that either hadn't invented regional paper stock yet or were too elitist for the poor to afford writing materials or the education to use them) moral allegories into the pop-culture foundations for modern society that they became. There's a reason the Disney Princess era films are so popular, why YouTube is full of slideshow, storybook, and international knockoff versions of common fairy tales, and why Zenescope even exists at all. They're the main, wear it on your sleeve inspiration for RWBY. Hell, if not for China doing a subverted hero's journey fairy tale about an egotistical monkey-demon challenging the heavens and gaining enlightenment, Dragon Ball would not exist.

But unfortunately, some fairy tales are so popular that they prevent content creators like myself from properly searching for what we need.

Just the Ticket isn't nearly popular or lucrative enough to interfere with The Algorithms, but I hope to change that, so please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can bribe AI into acknowledging my existence, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my content.

What I was able to find in my search (aside from multiple, irrelevant top results about Snow White) was an article by Eniko Stringham, going into the history of dwarves in German or Germanic fairy tales, and detailing five categories of how dwarves are portrayed and used to serve the story in these tales. Aside from spelling "heroine" like the drug (no 'e') and using mainstream fairy tales as examples (so there was nothing that I immediately went, "that's just like the story in that comic book I read!"), it's a good, informative piece. Now, let's get into talking about "that comic book I read."

GFT #53: The Fairy And the Dwarf

Picking up right where the last issue left off, we're in media res (because I just watched a Linkara video where he says that a lot, I know what it means, and that's the perfect time to use "expensive" language), with Sela at the mercy of Morgazera's bull form. He manages to send Sela over the cliff, but she is saved by Blake's size-shifting (and talking?, but it does that between panels) bird, Pyros, and in steps the titular dwarf, named Bolder (who will join Blake much later for one of my favorite early miniseries ever), to save the day with Earth magic, a big pickaxe, and some witty banter. If you can't tell, I like Bolder.

We quickly learn that the Golden Stag who sacrificed itself for Sela might have been a spirit animal, as Bolder seems to know that there has not been such a creature in that area of Myst for "ages."

The duo's conversation about the stag and Delphina (an oracle, whom Morrigan sent her to find so she could more easily locate Erik's soul) leads into a tale of Morrigan's origins.

Death, a.k.a. Morrigan, was once a human knight in love with a princess named Esmerelda (who gets a variety of very Zenescope wardrobe designs throughout the course of Bolder's tale). Because classism and fairy tales, the king used dark magic to summon an evil dwarf named Blagg to break up Morrigan and Esmerelda's relationship. And despite Blagg being summoned with dark magic and looking like a cross between Rasputin from the Anastasia movie and the snaggle-toothed beggar Jafar shapeshifts into in Aladdin, everyone seems to trust him, so he easily manipulates a fairy (who is very similar in design to Belle from the Neverland miniseries, but clearly not the same character) into kidnapping Morrigan, worms his way into being the king's advisor, tricks Esmerelda into trying to rescue Morrigan, kills the fairy, burns Morrigan's face so Esmerelda will reject him, convinces the king to let him marry her because he's a hero now, then has the king and Esmerelda killed so he can take the throne for himself. Since Morrigan lacked the strength and manpower to save his true love, he sells his soul to the Dark One (as you do if you're a GFT character whose life sucks), becoming Death and exacting his revenge.

Given its concessions-by-ignorance to make the plot happen, Morrigan's origin story was a fun read with more decent-to-great artwork and good but safe action paneling, and it leads into the revelation that Blagg was Bolder's brother.

But it also leads to some more infuriating dialogue from Sela, who (despite having used a magic book to send people into their fairy tale past lives; summoned weapons and monsters to battle Belinda; met Death, a knight, a fairy, a dwarf, a lion-man, an orc, a prince with toy-mancing powers, rat demons, the Dark One, a shape-shifting wizard, and a unicorn; traveled to multiple alternate dimensions; and can fire magic lasers from her hands) still insists on asking if the story she just heard from a dwarf inside a dead oracle's house really happened or if it's a fairy tale. I mean, come on, Sela! At this point, you should just shut up and assume that any time you hear a story and even think about asking that stupid-ass question, the answer is yes; in a series called Grimm Fairy Tales, all fairy tales really happened!

Meanwhile, back in the B-plot's B-plot, Gruel finds Morgazera at the bottom of the cliff, impaled on a rather large tree branch and unable to fully revert to his humanoid state, as he still has bull horns. Morgazera gives Gruel his remaining power, and they swear revenge on Sela before the wizard dies and the issue ends.

Aside from the continued insistence on writing Sela as an oblivious idiot, I remain surprised at how much I'm enjoying this next run of issues. The pacing, even when it slows down for an exposition dump like this, flows incredibly well, the action is well-depicted and much easier to follow than in something like Wonderland or the one-off, independently outsourced issues that Grimm Fairy Tales began with, and Zenescope are showing off just how well they can do at a serialized narrative after mainly being episodic for so long.

To keep Just the Ticket serialized, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Out.