GFT Retrospective #65: The Grateful Beasts

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Retrospective Ticketmaster.

Finally, I get to review an issue of Grimm Fairy Tales that's based on a fairy tale I can remember reading before!

Or at least, a variation of a fairy tale I've read before.

I will get to that shortly, but first, here's some other text that you might have read before: please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your three impossible tasks at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to gain the favor of grateful beasts, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my content.

The Grateful Beasts is a Hungarian fairy tale first collected by Georg von Gaal in Mährchen der Magyaren (which I think translates to Tales Of the Magyars or Hungarian Tales) in 1822. There is a similar tale from Kinder und hausmarchen called The Queen Bee, which is the variation I read, and a non-Grimm German tale called The Enchanted Princess, which also has a similar premise and plot. The Grateful Beasts is the first doubly classified Aarne-Thompson tale, with type 554 (The Grateful Animals, which is obvious) and type 613 (Truth and Falsehood, named after the Norwegian fairy tale, True and Untrue, which weirdly has its own classification despite being very similar in plot to The Grateful Beasts).

In the namesake Hungarian version, a handsome boy gets tricked into blinding and maiming himself by his two brothers because they are ugly, evil, hungry, jealous assholes and this is a 19th century, Eastern European fairy tale. And because this is a fairy tale, and those always make sense, the blinded and crippled pretty boy just happens to crawl to a gallows that is within walking distance of a lake with magical healing powers and is the favorite hangout of a pair of talking crows.

After healing himself in the lake, he bottles some of it to take with him and ends up using it to heal a wolf, a mouse, and a queen bee.

The coincidences pile up as he later seeks employment with a king, where his two asshole brothers are already working, so they trick the king into pulling a King Eurystheus on him (but there are only three labors instead of twelve because fairy tales have to follow the Rule Of Three). But despite the impossible nature of the tasks and his brothers' meddling, he completes the king's trials with the help of the three beasts he healed before, including your typical fairy tale "happily ever after" where the main character marries the princess while her father, his court, and the two asshole brothers are dismembered and eaten by the wolves...you know; for kids!

GFT #54: The Grateful Beasts

The Zenescope version begins with a flashback and dialogue that is worded to make it seem like Sela is happy that everyone she ever loved is dead, which is why context is very important. See, at some point, Sela and Erik (who looks like he's going to audition to be the next Brawny mascot) managed to escape from the omnipresent, watchful eye of the Dark Horde and have a baby. Sela is a nigh-immortal Falseblood (since GFT #49 and Hard Choices retconned that for us) and Erik is a Highborn/Pureblood (depending on which side of the genetic supremacy argument a given character stands), so what she really means is that she's happy to finally have a family whom she will not outlive (so, screw Erik's feelings if Sela died first, I guess?).

Because Erik traded in his Nutcracker monkey suit to be Snow White's Huntsman and all axes are created equal, they live in a log cabin and Erik is out pondering how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood when Fenton and Volac (from The Devil's Brother and the Las Vegas Annual) show up to "talk," which means intimidation and blackmail...and summoning the Greek god of war to destroy their house.

The appearance of Ares here will play into many future event series and character origins, but the deity himself will seldom, if ever, be seen again.

This is also where Sela's nightmare ends, and she wakes in a panic to find Bolder packing (they've apparently spent several days living in the deceased oracle's house between issues because Bolder was Delphina's assistant) to join her on her journey to find Erik's soul. He says he knows where to find the key to the Underworld (which is different from the Greek Underworld and the Inferno even though we know Greek gods exist in GFT lore now?), so he's going to be her guide through Myst. But because a fairy tale needs to be adapted, Sela gets mad and goes Super-Saiyan to save a beehive from some orcs, uses Healing Magic the right way to save a couple of ducks, and frees a bound wolf who had been hunted and captured by the next issue's titular villain, the Goblin Queen.

That will have to wait until next week, but for now, there are a few other details that bear mentioning. First is the family whom Sela and Bolder encounter after she saves the bees. They live in fear of the Dark Horde, and the mother says she wishes the Horde had been able to conquer the Nexus so they would leave her family alone, not understanding why the people of Earth should matter to her. This spotlight on self-preservation through narrow-minded ignorance is a message that especially rings true now, more than ten years after the issue's publication. The world is so much bigger and smaller than it used to be, with increased technology, populations, societal problems, and means of distracting ourselves from those problems. There's so much connection possibility and data availability that our only options seem to be all or nothing. Instead of "where can I help and how?", it's a toxic mix of "we need to focus on us right now" (or "I need to focus on me right now") and "as long as it isn't me." As someone who is currently focusing on his own problems (from both an acknowledgement and procrastinating escapism perspective, minus the alcoholism and financially crippling gambling this time), I cannot begin to offer a solution or contribution to anything of significance, so fostering awareness will have to be enough.

The other, less important and more socially detached detail of the issue is that Gruel returns to Orcus with Morgazera's body in hand. Also, I guess we're still trying to make Pinocchio happen because he's just a cannibal now, proving that Pinocchio should have never been a thing because underneath all the wood, he's just a child and doing anything cool with him would have incurred the wrath of the Marvel-owning Mouse. Talk about your ungrateful beasts, huh?

Sela's "I'm suddenly mad and super-strong and can pull magic powers out of my ass because of bees and ducks and a big dog" character flip was clearly a stretch to make the narrative fit a fairy tale, and some of the dialogue is stilted, but the outbursts themselves were cathartic and well paneled, the art style is staying consistent (with perhaps a little bit of off-model stylistic flourishes being put to appropriate use near the end), and Bolder is a great character for Sela to bounce off of, providing strength and quippy dialogue that can either match her or compensate for her as needed.

Once again, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your three impossible tasks at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read to gain the favor of grateful beasts, 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.