tell me a story
Dec. 27th, 2019 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliSo winter is passing and the hero and heroine amuse themselves by walking to, and in, the gallery of her father's castle. Which is the occasion of the telling of past tales.
I hadn't realize how much one tale would make them flirt.
But then, I realized that I needed another tale. Because the ones they told all ended with the wedding, and then living happily ever after. I needed one that continued after. Since the hero and heroine are already married in the novel and the tale's only half written.
Not that I lacked in choice -- there's lots of them. (You don't put Snow White's stepmother in red-hot iron shoes and make her dance until she drops dead because you will be so safe afterwards if you neglect that precaution.)
So threw in one where all the adventures happened after the wedding. (Usually the tale opens with an incident of the kind and unkind girls, which is how she ends up marrying the king. But it's not necessary.)
Which is not, of course, how the story will go on, since she doesn't have a stepmother do to it. But it does point to the opening up of more story.
I hadn't realize how much one tale would make them flirt.
But then, I realized that I needed another tale. Because the ones they told all ended with the wedding, and then living happily ever after. I needed one that continued after. Since the hero and heroine are already married in the novel and the tale's only half written.
Not that I lacked in choice -- there's lots of them. (You don't put Snow White's stepmother in red-hot iron shoes and make her dance until she drops dead because you will be so safe afterwards if you neglect that precaution.)
So threw in one where all the adventures happened after the wedding. (Usually the tale opens with an incident of the kind and unkind girls, which is how she ends up marrying the king. But it's not necessary.)
Which is not, of course, how the story will go on, since she doesn't have a stepmother do to it. But it does point to the opening up of more story.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-29 03:41 pm (UTC)That’s an interesting idea. Minus the red-hot iron shoes. (It never takes long for European tales to get nasty, does it?)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-29 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 03:28 am (UTC)Sell her to the Saracens, obviously! I mean, hey.
- But I like the idea of telling stories that affect the action. Flirt, yes, but there’s another route:
https://youtu.be/kdgpx_VtO30?t=938
[Glyn Turman (‘Billy’) does a good job.]
no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-10 03:25 am (UTC)That screenplay was by Harlan Ellison, and it was good. (Also Danny Kaye’s last performance.)
Billy had spent all the years since trying to be worthy of the gift he’d been given at such a cost, a life for a life (as Yin Sen said in Iron Man, “Don’t waste this”). How the story turned out, being the Twilight Zone, he was given a chance to speak to the young soldier - and oh, that scene gets me even now, writing this. We don’t hear him. He appears, in full dress USMC uniform - they’re seen facing each other - the soldier salutes - and fades away.
He hadn’t even known Billy was there. He was just a nineteen-year-old immortal stoked on adrenaline and Hoo-ahh! and he met the end that kind of behavior invites! (Famous last words: “Hey, y’ all, watch this!”) The terrible burden of obligation was lifted - had never existed. But because Billy was the man he was, instead of diving into a bottle or whatever, he’d tried to be worthy. Which of course is what really matters, and why Danny Kaye chose him to inherit this divine trust, the magic single hour that would end the universe if it ran out. The close of the screenplay has Danny Kaye die… and that pocket-watch lifts and floats thru the air to Billy, as it had to D Kaye in the beginning. To you with failing hands the torch is passed…
He was obnoxious beyond endurance, but H Ellison could write.