Bored to Death

A Review of Disney's Maleficent

The first thing I do after watching a movie is to head over to Rotten Tomatoes to peruse the film reviews by proper critics.  The second thing I do, if it is a fairy tale movie, is to hit up all my fairy tale blog peeps for a more balanced perspective.  Sadly, my colleagues have been rather silent on the matter, with a few exceptions, so I suppose I ought to help get the ball rolling.

source

Before we go on, let us first note:  Here there be spoilers.

We've been hearing about Maleficent for years, but in the end my experience of the film can be summed up in one word: bored.  I don't know if I'm the best judge of entertainment, since I have a peculiar and finicky taste, but from the opening voice-over to the ending credits, I found little to hold my attention.  If it had not been for the pretty costuming and talented actresses, I might have lost interest entirely.  It was just all very tepid, underneath the fancy CG.  I didn't feel there was much at stake.  Maleficent lost her wings, and her love, but she was good and happy before she met Stefan and during his absence.  If she could walk into the castle to curse a baby, surely she could have retrieved her wings while she was at it.  Even the curse is tamed to a sleep-like death, without a desperate, last minute intervention from a good fairy.

"Mom, is that you?", source

The supporting characters are boiled down to their lowest common denominators, becoming tedious distractions rather than tools to help the story along.  Certainly not characters in their own rights, with complexities and inner goings-on.  

Stefan  is a kind of caricature born out of the necessity for a villain, and his motivation is weak.  The filmmakers need to give us a little bit more to work with if they want us to meet them in the middle; it's hard enough to believe that a kind boy, who would throw away his iron ring because it hurt a magical creature he only just met, would then become so heartlessly ambitious so as to turn around and try to kill the same creature, someone he cared for enough to have spent time growing up with her.

The pet raven is given a speaking voice by occasionally taking the form of a human but still doesn't have much to say.

In the end, Maleficent and Aurora alone are given room for growth and exploration, while the other characters and plot developments move around like props.  But even poor Aurora's character is charming and bland.  Her greatest moment is when she speaks out to the witch hiding in the shadows and does not recoil from her.  Not much of a monumental and memorable game-changer.

For me, the most engaging moment of the whole movie was when Maleficent stands over the sleeping Aurora and wills her curse undone, only to have it thrown back in her face.  And I credit all that to Ms. Jolie's powerful acting.  (Also done well in the moment she realizes her wings have been taken from her.  Maybe a tad melodramatic, but so wrenching and real that it made me hurt for her!)

Adam of Fairy Tale Fandom writes,

[Maleficent is] about two people and how their hearts become darkened by ambition, anger, bitterness and revenge. It’s also about how one of them starts to regain some light through exposure to someone who is good and innocent.

and I think he's absolutely right.  But I feel like the key relationship, between Maleficent and Aurora, is not given any time to develop, what between Maleficent watching her in her sleep and Aurora playing in the Moors with the magical creatures which are all show and no soul--the eeriness of Faerie is lost in this film, and I'd like to think I've cultivated a good radar for it.  In Brave, for instance, that otherworldliness remains intact.  It's hard for me to suspend disbelief and get behind Aurora's running away to the magical Moors forever, when it's just.  So.  Boring.

laughing and twirling and playing with magical creatures can only entertain me for so long
source

Besides that, there were a lot of other little frustrations.  How did the writers choose which elements of their original movie to keep?  When does one draw the line?

"We won't have Maleficent turn into a dragon, but we still need a dragon, so we'll have someone else be it."

Or, "there's no need for thorns around the castle, but it's such a major element to the original, so we'll have thorns protecting Faerie instead."

Even the spinning wheel is chosen because Maleficent happens to see it when placing the curse.  I much prefer the mystery of not knowing to that.  Why would a benign fairy even be named Maleficent, for that matter?  I hoped it would be a name she took on, as she did her new staff and cloak.  But apparently her parents had a strange sense of humor, or else didn't have a dictionary on hand at her christening.

irrelevent but still interesting, source

When I was a little girl, I lived and breathed Sleeping Beauty.  It was my absolute favorite Disney movie.  I wanted to be Aurora/Briar Rose.  And I never wanted or needed an explanation for the, well, maleficence of Maleficent.

While I'm all for revisionist re-imaginings and villainous back stories, I worry this new trend is overlooking an important aspect of fairy tales: the fact that there is evil and ugliness in the world, just as there is hope and unspeakable beauty.  To try to reason away these things (or, as the case may be, relegate them to a bland, mortal antagonist) steals a little bit of their wonder, and it robs us of one of the great consolations of fairy tales.  Whatever the reasons may be for them, dragons exist, and so do wicked fairies.  Yet there is always hope: a low door in the wall, a maiden's tears; a magic circle, a fairy godmother; a hole in the spell, one last gift-bearer overlooked and forgotten.  The bad is not absolute, though it may seem impenetrable as a wall of thorns.

And even death becomes only sleep in the end.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Sweetness and Bite: A Book Review

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Turning to the fist page of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is like stepping into the midnight garden of the initiated--those who tenderly love fairy tales and Know What They're About, all sweetness and bite and none of the Disney sanitation.  The very first line of the novel is fair warning to the casual wader:

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog.

And if there were any hint of doubt left, the sentence immediately following casts it aside:

Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday.

Here, in two sentences, is the bone and sinew of fairy tale: something ordinary expectedly-unexpectedly intercepting the extraordinary.  This knowing tone--the expected unexpectedness--is carried through the story seamlessly and with much obvious enjoyment by Ms. Valente, making it a delight to read and a sort of wink aside to fairy tale enthusiasts.

Ann Lambert, source

The story itself is not complex and takes the form of the hero's journey, but the characters, respectful attention to fairy tale tradition, and exquisitely crafted syntax make for a heady feast.  Ms. Valente chooses to circumvent the cultural-specific folkore and go straight for the idea-of-fairytale-personified: the Strange Country, the universal otherworld.  This mix of folkloric traditions might be jarring if it wasn't done so thoroughly.  There's a pooka, or pwca from the Welsh (love it!!); spriggans from Cornwall; a marid from Indian mythology; glashtyn from the Manx; the tsukumogami of Japanese tradition, and witches.  All tied together into an exotic bouquet with a steel wire of steampunk.  I love that September's mother works at a factory and sports the greasy muscles of Rosy the Riveter.

September's relationship with her parents is an example of how Valente skilfully works the Victorian narration.  A lot of the character development and revelation is secondary--not part of the action but disclosed to us in prose.  It's done extremely well, by the curious technique of witholding knowledge.  We get the impression in early chapters that September is a disloyal child, but we are given a glimpse into her growth as time goes on, only becoming aware of it as September does.  I'm finding it hard to describe, but if anyone who has read the book and has something to add, let's discuss it in the comments!

artist? [not credited in my copy]
September going "native" in the country of Autumn.

Other things I enjoyed about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making:

• the vocabulary.  I learned several new words, no lie.
• the Victorian chapter introductions--clever, whimsical, and functional!
• the ridiculously long title
• the subtle love story.  I don't think Saturday's name would have worked as well without it.  As a pair with September, though, it makes sense.
• September's love of Halloween.  Valente nails the autumn mood and suspense the same as Ray Bradbury, and that's saying something!
• A-Through-L, the Wyverary.  I've been cultivating my own type of book-loving dragon since learning about the my high school's literary magazine the Pendragon

I'm looking forward to reading the sequels and sharing the stories with my son as he grows.  The Fairyland series is a modern classic, and is an luscious addition to any fairy tale library.

A few closing notes:

I can't emphasize enough how much Ms. Valente knows her stuff.   It's delightful to read an author who has so carefully studied Faerie--and as is the way with Faerie (and fairy tales) this book isn't simpering and innocent.  There must be blood is one of the sovereign rules of Fairyland.  There's also lying, witches, blood tithes, and unsympathetic creatures.  But the fickle, dangerous, and mysteriously ordered otherworld of folklore and human memory is intact and recognizable. The witticisms abound, and are somewhere between fact and nonsense--which means it's probably, as is the way with literary things, truth.  Such as the assertion that children have no hearts, which is what makes them terribly thoughtless, reckless, and selfish, and that we grow hearts as we age.   It's biting but beautiful observation, and put in a way that maybe skims the truth of the matter far better than psychoanalysis.

This is a book of Fairy, and sojourners should expect to get messy; charmed; ravished; and even lose their hearts. . .

{If you liked this review, please consider supporting this blog by purchasing the books via my Amazon Affiliate links.  Thanks for your support!}

Missing the Heart of the Fairy Tale

A Review of Disney's Frozen

I should be sleeping, or reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but I stumbled upon this review of Frozen and remembered that I had similar things to say about it.  So.

I liked Frozen.  It was funny, sweet, and well-animated, if a bit buggish (whatever happened to the beautiful, graceful characters from original Disney, making appearances as late as Princess Tiana?).  The songs weren't particularly moving, but I did get the refrain do you want to build a snowman? stuck in my head, so I suppose it was effective.  It takes place in a clear and easy-to-pinpoint location with decent attention to the visualization of culture and customs.  Being a fan of folk culture, and especially Scandinavian folk culture, I enjoyed that part of the film immensely.  But for our purposes here on Straw into Gold, it is imperative that I communicate the residual impression it left with me, which was this: Frozen was not, except by a deft maneuvering of the imagination, a fairy tale.

Minkyu Li, Frozen concept art

My problem with Frozen is that it was virtually gutted of all things Faerie.

I don't mean that it was hardly recognizable from its inspiration, Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, although it was that.  I mean the magic was all but absent.

Oh, there was magic, as in the powers of Princess Elsa to make ice and snow from the touch of her fingertips.  But there was an utter lack of the magic of Faerie; the sense of and cautious reverence for the Otherworld; of danger from an almost-but-not-quite pernicious sentience; of the fickle, and uninterested, yet inexplicably connected existence just beyond the reach of of our own.  There was no alarm at Elsa's powers or inkling that something deeper was going on in relation to them (the curse of a slighted fairy, or the residual trait of an ancestor's mingling with gods); and even the characters' fear of Elsa was not found in the nature and source of the powers but in her potential to do damage with them.  After the ball scene when the new queen's secret is revealed, Anna doesn't even pause to wonder at this astounding development; it's all par for the course.  "So that's why she's shut me out all these years."  O-kay.

Granted, in traditional fairy tales, fantastic events are often presented without any commentary on their fantasticness.  But the fairy tales never mean to make the fantastical belong to the mortal.  There is always an explanation of sorts, even if that explanation shuts out further investigation, like the lid of box snapping shut on a hand.  "She was actually a faerie changeling in disguise."  That's it, that's all that's needed.  A recognition of the Other, of some always-and-ought-to-be unknown.

Even the trolls are pared down to their lowest common denominator, emptying them of all the mystery and danger of the otherfolk and making them mere comical, cartoonish creatures.

Finally, the glass shard in the heart* loses its potency.  Rather than darkening the sight of Anna,** the shard in the eye (generalized to "head" in the movie) only knocks her unconscious and turns white a strand of her hair.  All her memories have to be erased so she forgets her sister's gift-curse and doesn't question Elsa's separation from her.  But that is a secondary, and not a direct, result of the ice shard.  The second ice shard slowly freezes Anna's body but leaves her heart untainted.  What kind of congress with Faerie only touches the outside of a person, only his physical existence; leaves his perception of the world unshaken?

When Anna finally reaches the palace of her ice queen sister, it is opposite of what little Gerda finds when she arrives at the sheer and terrible fortress of the Snow Queen.  Anna finds only a very human girl, with very human hurts and emotions and fears, and the rest of the palace empty.  But Gerda finds the Snow Queen absent--as her nature, one might say, is a great, gaping absence--and dear Kai with his soul half-killed, working away mechanically at a puzzle made of shards of ice, trying, yet ever failing, to form the word eternity.  Anna's act of sacrificial love for her sister Elsa breaks the spell, as one would expect.  When Elsa feels and knows her sister's love for her, her frigid emotional walls falter and crumble.  It is a self-administered cure.  But when Gerda finds poor Kai enslaved to logic--the ice-cold logic of the mind, of science, of nature, and of seasons--her shed tears melt his heart and wash loose the shards of glass.

source

For Faerie is vast and fierce, and we often tremble before it and believe ourselves helpless.  But in this, the heroes and heroines of fairy tales prove us mistaken.  We are not helpess.  Faerie is wild but not immune to obeisance--for those with stout hearts and stubborn wills, though the winter seem endless, and the journey long.




*  changed from glass to ice in the movie, so as to remove the uncomfortable and politically incorrect hell-mirror-falling-from-heaven scenario
**  who is the combination of Kai and Gerda from Anderson, though Elsa, the Snow Queen figure, has bits of Kai in her as well

Something in the Water

Do do do do do do do do do do

I wear a demeanor made of bright pretty things
What she wears, what she wears, what she wears
Birds singing on my shoulder in harmony it seems
How they sing, how they sing, how they sing

Give me nights of solitude, red wine just a glass or two,
Reclined in a hammock on a balmy evening
I'll pretend that it's no thing that's skipping my heart when I think of you
Thinking of me babe I'm crazy over you

Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water, something in the water
Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water, that makes me love you like –

I've got halos made of summer, rhythms made of spring
What she wears, what she wears, what she wears
I got crowns of words a woven each one a song to sing
Oh I sing, oh I sing, oh I sing

Give me long days in the sun,
Preludes to the nights to come
Previews of the mornings laying in all lazy
Give me something fun to do like a life of loving you
Kiss me quick now baby I'm still crazy over you

Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water, something in the water
Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water that makes me love you like I do

Oooh oooh oooh [x3]

Give me nights of solitude, red wine just a glass or two, give me something fun to do

Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water, something in the water
Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water that makes me love you like I do

Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water, something in the water
Aaah Aaah Aaah
There's something in the water that makes me love you like I –

Do do do do do do do do do do

HPP: Engaging the Critics, Part I

A few weeks ago, Masha shared a couple of links to commentaries about Harry Potter from renowned scholars, each in their own field--Harold Bloom of literary canon fame and Michael O'Brien from the classical Catholic educational background (think Tolkien and Lewis).  Both are the types (I think, in O'Brien's case) to rally behind the white Anglo-Saxon male dominated canon, and that's not necessarily a condemnation from me.  I just think it's interesting that we have two critics with similar tastes, who dislike Harry Potter for differing reasons, and worth mentioning.

Never one to shy away from stating the obvious, below I am going to examine their arguments in full, starting with Bloom.  At current writing, I do not know whether I "agree" or "disagree" with either Bloom or O'Brien.  Rather, I am writing this break-down as an examination, and we shall see where we stand when we arrive at the end.

Harold Bloom does not begin well when he likens the popularity of Harry Potter to that of Tolkien--something that is inexplicable and cheap, that will wane with time.  Then he makes the claim (as many have, I am told) that Harry Potter is not well written.

Harold Bloom and JRR Tolkien

Now, if he means that the lexicon is limited and the syntax straightforward, he is right.  It is a children's book, however, and the first of a series: it is to be expected that it will start simple to attract a young, wide audience.*  But fair enough, I'll give him that.

If he means in terms of plot, I'm not sure I follow (no pun intended).  The plot is engaging, grabbing the reader in from the first page and keeping the events fresh but relevant.  I suppose he is looking for something more cerebral, like a late Henry James?  A novel of manners, like Jane Austen?

As for the characterizations, I cannot see how they are simple or one-dimensional.  Quite the contrary.  There are layers there to Snape and Dumbledore that are communicated very well for the simpleness of the novel.

Rowling also draws from tried-and-true mythological traditions.  Perhaps Bloom is looking for something revolutionary?  But then, canon is a predictable cycle of action and reaction, each new literary movement a direct opposite from the one preceding it, so often the novelty of a novel (see the irony** there?) is overstated and over-represented by the juxtaposition, and truly "new" literary inventions are much rarer than first made out to be.  So is Bloom disapproving of Rowling's following of the (very successful) conventional literary formula?  (See * below.)  It seems this is the case, when he says that Harry Potter does not posses an "authentic imaginative vision."

I know his intentions are good, but after reading the HP essay,
it's such a presumptuous title!
source?

He writes

Rowling has taken 'Tom Brown's School Days' and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkein (sic.).***  The resultant blend of a schoolboy ethos with a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of children and their parents desire and welcome at this time.

Yes, okay.  Well . . . so?

In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of  "Harry Potter."  But I will keep in mind that a host are reading it who simply will not read superior fare, such as Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" or the "Alice" books of Lewis Carroll.  Is it better that they read Rowling than not read at all?  Will they advance from Rowling to more difficult pleasures?

Ah, now I see.  He's concerned for the youth.  c;

Rowling presents two Englands, mundane and magical, divided not by social classes, but by the distinction between the "perfectly normal" (mean and selfish) and the adherents of sorcery. The sorcerers indeed seem as middle-class as the Muggles, the name the witches and wizards give to the common sort, since those addicted to magic send their sons and daughters off to Hogwarts, a Rugby school where only witchcraft and wizardry are taught. Hogwarts is presided over by Albus Dumbeldore as Headmaster, he being Rowling's version of Tolkein's (sic.)**** Gandalf. The young future sorcerers are just like any other budding Britons, only more so, sports and food being primary preoccupations.

He's absolutely right about the two Englands, something I find delightful about Harry Potter, from the first time I picked up The Sorcerer's Stone years ago.  It's the typical set-up for a fairy tale, the mundane of everyday weighing heavily on the reader via the character; only too soon to disappear, we know, else we would probably put the book down and cease reading (or we'd have been reading Virginia Wolf to begin with).  And yes, there is a caricature of normal people as "mean and selfish," but I see parallels there to other children's authors such as Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett.  Does the caricaturing make it unacceptable, but (and correct me if I'm wrong, really) doesn't Charles Dickins do a bit of that as well?  And is the flat-out, accurate-in-all its-ugliness depiction of human depravity in stories such as Heart of Darkness acceptable?*****

The statement about those "addicted to magic" seems inaccurate, as it is clearly shown that magic is an inherited trait and not something achieved by mere wishing.  Bloom says that the reasoning for Harry's being handed to the guardianship of his aunt and uncle is never disclosed by Rowling, but I've been told by those knowledgeable of the series that this is not the case.  So there's some inaccuracy about the books, which, if not undoing his points, certainly throws uncertainty on his credibility.  He goes on about Harry's upbringing for a while, and I gather that his issue so far has been with HP's conventionalism.  So Rowling's is a sin of unoriginality.

"A born survivor, Harry holds on until the sorcerers rescue him and send him off to Hogwarts, to enter upon the glory of his schooldays."  Point well made.

He admits the admirability of Harry in the climax [SPOILERS], then says, "Why read, if what you read will not enrich mind or spirit or personality?"

Now, as far as I have read, Harry Potter is not a challenging, game-changing story.  But I have to protest the implication that reading it will not at all enrich mind, spirit, and personality.  What is the anthropomorphic castle if not an introduction to the Gothic genre?  And the Flamels' longevity coupled with Voldemort's rabid lusting for the Stone (and the blood of innocents) if not a grammary to Paradise Lost?  On the contrary, I think Rowling's borrowing of these classic elements is essential to and accountable for, at the very least, some of the interest in Harry Potter, beyond action in the form of zipping brooms and hi-jinks with clever and uncomfortable spells.  To the meat of the story, those things are pink fluffy frosting; they give a temporary sugar-high, no doubt, that distracts from the more substantial substance (seewhatIdidthar?) of the story; but the ingredients for a good, sturdy recipe are present underneath, and they remain when the saccharine "tricks" and "spectacle" fade.  And yes, it is a recipe, in the sense that is a formula.  But we follow recipes and formulas because they work.

Finally, the zinger:

I hope that my discontent is not merely a highbrow snobbery, or a nostalgia for a more literate fantasy to beguile (shall we say) intelligent children of all ages.

So, there it is: literary fantasy beguiles.  It can't be worthwhile if it isn't true, or based in reality, or boring realism, or fantasy treated as realism (Henry James again?).  But the same doesn't stand for The Odyssey and the Arthurian romances . . . or did the people back then just not know any better, and so are excused from providing better fare for the literary canon?  Or is it only okay when it's satire, like Mark Twain?  Or when it's overwhelmingly dark like The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Is our lad Harry Potter on par with the greats, worthy to take his place alongside Shakespeare and James Joyce and The Canterbury Tales?  I don't think so, at least not at this point in the execution of my Harry Potter Project.  But I can't see how the reading of it is worthless and without merit entirely.

source

And I think "common" readers realize that.  As Chesterton would say, regarding the "awful authority of the masses," sometimes our humanity instinctively leads us to what is good and affirming.  Something unknown within us responds to truths never named: that friendship and self-sacrifice, and standing by what's right in the face of impossible pressure, is more than mere escape, but a glimpse toward that which the soul knows and misses, and not something to be swept up in the "dustbin of the ages."



*  The "stretching his legs" cliches he mentions on page 4 I happen to like, as it establishes the "this is just an ordinary story about an ordinary family" tone before jumping into the Shocking Reveal--this is more a sense of trite storytelling, as I am sure of the art and intelligence of Rowling enough to know that she could do better if she'd wanted to.  Then we wander into territory that asks, "Is using pre-established formula considered bad form for literature?"
**  I'm probably not using the correct definition of "irony" here!
***  You should see my expression as I acknowledge the glaring spelling error.  Let's hope it's a typo.
****  Still trying hard to believe it's a typo.
*****  Would Harold Bloom accuse me of peacocking by dropping my knowledge of literary canon?  Probably, but he'd be wrong about that, too.

The Horns of Elfland

Following up on Masha's excellent guest post of the experience of unnamed beauty as a strange country:

“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness.  I am almost committing an indecency.  I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.  We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.  We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.  Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past.  But all this is a cheat.  If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering.  The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.  These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers.  For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”--C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

This thin, clear note is a common thread running through all fairy tales.  It's the shudder felt when a poet mentions "the horns of Elfland," or the familiar longing--what a conundrum! how can you so know something you've never possessed--that rises like smoke and freezes at the mention of "glass mountain," or  "seven miles of steel thistles."

Pawel Matys, New Day, source

It's what makes them resonate with us and pause and say, "I've heard of you before . . . but where?"  It exists not in three dimensions, but in loose ties to this mortal realm, with overlapping every now and then, which we label beauty and magic and enlightenment.  But, I think, it is truer to call it Faerie.  Faerie does not disclose itself.  Fairy tales recognize its amorphous nature; they make it almost a living thing, with fickle whims, extreme devotions, a fast temper, and unspeakable benevolence.  It's what makes Faerie, in so many traditions, a blessed isle.  A place so near yet separated from us by a brooding, impenetrable mystery.

We cannot go to that land together.  At least not in this life.  But we can find consolation in meeting the traveler on the road, making a friend of a stranger, and saying, "I, too, have heard them sound the horns of Elfland."

Guest Post: The Strange Country

by Masha, of Cyganeria

On St. John’s Eve the revelers go from bonfire to dark woods--hunting the flower that offers elusive beauty and second sight, that blooms--bright red at midnight--for just the moment when earth hovers between dark and light.  Well-guarded: with dark spirits calling from the trees "look away!"  One distraction--the flower withers, good fortune flees, and death come sneaking beneath the moon.

Nikolai Astrup, St. John's Fire

Beauty is never safe.  It’s full of shadows and whispers in the dark.  The pursuit is like the hunt for that hidden flower--it leads us off into the dark, into distant lands--where those we love cannot follow.  As God does, it promises to build on the desires of our hearts, but slowly--as God taught Abraham to wait for a son--all alone in a strange country.

The country of beauty is one of possibility, in which "desires are the memories of our future"(Rilke).  A place of mystery and magic and the ever present danger of falling too completely--of loosing that which brought us out to begin with and going native.  Turning to the dark voices, or taking up with small gods and their pretty lies.  Fairy tales draw us into this world, they open up avenues at our feet, teach us to walk quickly--to make our decisions and not look back at the brambles that grow up behind us.  All things pass away in time.

Edward Robert Hughes, Midsummer Eve

Fairy tales whisper, with Rilke, that we needn’t fear too much the dragons, that "perhaps all the dragons in life are in fact princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave."  It’s a heady thought.  An invitation to love the shadowy bits of earth as much as the bright--“to feel out the shapes” that frighten us, and “be not strangers to the unspeakable terrors of [our] abode.”  Because even Faery is not so far from us after all, and when we fall into it--after the first disorientation--we discover that Faery, like our own world,

is not against us.  Has it terrors, they are our terror; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them…  Then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust.

And we will find, like those men who marry fairy queens and live for ages apart, or like monks whose long lives have seen only the cloister walls and chapel, that we can see the world with new eyes and be aware of all that is still hidden in sunlight.  The sense of beauty I see in fairy tales is the wild beauty of a fallen world--the wood that holds both good and evil, as all woods do; as my own wood welcomes our happy relics and the dead we love, as well as something that haunts the evening.  It is a beauty that helps me see my own imperfect beauty and welcome it as well--to grow in light and darkness, in the holy moments and in those that feel profane.  Because beauty is always rushing madly toward a heaven that, in this world, it never quite reaches.

Harry Potter Project: The Beginning

Welcome to the grand beginning of the Harry Potter Book Club!

The project has been in the works since late December when I announced my lofty goals for the year, one of which was to read the entire Harry Potter series and blog about my impressions.  The idea was met with considerable enthusiasm.

Almost five months later, here we are!  Jenna of A Light Inside is acting headmistress of the project, but you can find the discussions headquartered here and over at Cyganeria as well.  There promises to be a lot of fun and games in addition to serious scholarship and close reading, and there should be something for everyone.  I hope you'll join us.

Click on the spell bellow to begin at A Light Inside with a more thorough introduction and insights into Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

Consider it your syllabus to this introductory course in magic.  Then hop back over here for my reflections on the first chapter.  And keep a look-out for the third and final introduction from Masha at Cyganeria toward the end of the week.

Before You Read

Please note that I am reading the American versions because those are the copies to which I have access.  Hence I'll be calling the first book The Sorcerer's Stone, though it's original title is The Philosopher's Stone.  I'd love it if a British reader could share significant differentiations as we go along, however.

Additionally, here are a few things you might like to have for the Harry Potter read-through:

• some used or cheap copies of the books that you don't mind jotting notes on and stashing into your purse or the glove compartment of your car
• a small notebook if you can't get access to the above
• candles for late-night castle reading
• a Latin-English dictionary for deciphering spells (and making up your own!)
• a cloak of invisibility for hiding from Muggles while reading
• wizarding music (soundtrack/playlist--compiled by yours truly--forthcoming)
• wizard recipes for delicious and subject-appropriate snacks (also forthcoming from Masha!)
• a mythology or Harry Potter reference book

If there's anything else you think should be on the list, let me know and I'll add it!  Now that that's covered, it's time for . . .

The Beginning

Minaali Haputantri Photography

A wise person once said somewhere that the best place to start is at the beginning.  It's impossible to read the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone without an inkling of what you're getting into:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Methinks the lady dost protest too much.  Right away, we know this story is going to be out-of-the-ordinary.

"The Boy Who Lived" scores well in my book for first impressions.  It's characterization of a boring, straight-laced, rather self-centered English family is affectionately disapproving and puts me in mind of the children's  books of Roald Dahl and his successor Lemony Snicket.  I agree with Jenna that a children's story that only engages children is not a very good children's story, and this chapter engages the reader's curiosity and imagination.

Jenna mentioned that the wizardry in Harry Potter is a spoof, and this too may account for the immediate familiarity and the ease with which I slid into suspension of disbelief.  Short bearded men in cloaks and bespectacled, black-haired, tight-bunned ladies who turn into cats.  Who doesn't have some fond memory of such things, woven in the background of their childhood so intricately and seamlessly as to be almost invisible?  But it's more than that.  The confidence with which the narration is presented is conversational, a kind of "what you are about to hear are real events" tone of storytelling.  I love that, that awareness of story as story.

As someone trained in literature and an amateur writer myself, I noticed things like simple diction, trite turns of phrase, and tendency to rely on adverbs.  But I've never been a fan of the high-brow literary school of critics--why can't plain but clear writing, as much as beauteous writing, be an effective stylistic choice?--and when I try to imagine HP written in a florid post-modern voice, it looses an essential quality I can't quite put my finger on.  Perhaps because the subject of the story is already eccentric.  The simple writing presents what would otherwise be a fantastical account of events in a fairy tale-meets-the-evening-news mode.  It also gives us a sense of the narrator, of ourselves as readers--again, that story-as-a-story effect--that stronger writing would take away by making the characters too immediate and the story too immediately immersive.  Though, don't get me wrong, I expect to be drawn into it more and more as it moves along and I get to know the characters better.

Cory Godbey

Other first impressions:

This Dumbledore is a stand-up kind of guy.  He's not a Gandalf wizard by any stretch, which is refreshing in this age of copycats.  He reminds me more of your favorite high school teacher who pretended not to know what was going on in his classroom when his back was turned to write on the blackboard, but who would surprise you with a knowing and relevant comment in passing when you least expected it.  You sense depths of knowledge and emotions to which you have not yet been granted access in confidence.

While Dumbledore conjures distance under a reserved silliness, McGonagall keeps us at arm's length with her prickly manner.  One thing in particular I didn't like was her comment about even stupid humans noticing all the strange things going on.  Yet after giving it some thought, and Rowling the benefit of the doubt, I considered the following.

Perhaps we are meant to be drawn into the realm of wizardry from the world of the under-ordinary, in the sense that we readers are confidants--even artists.  Our art is in recognizing the mysteriousness and wonder of existence in a way that sets us apart from others.  It is what makes us readers, seekers of fiction, and friends of the imagination.  Our very act of reading initiates us in a sense, while the Muggles are those of us who fail to recognize and seize upon the type of magic in everyday living; who reject imagination and fiction as children's stories, invaluable to the real world; who go about day by day like Mr. Dursley, unable to fathom that perhaps the homeless man at the street corner is a wise and benevolent wizard, much less a dignified human being.

Maybe the wizards in the universe of Harry Potter are those of us who are not blind to the greater struggle going on, outside our self-satisfied, comfortable, and sometimes mundane lives.  I suspect anybody who can be open to the type of love-magic and truths spoken in Harry Potter, or any fairy tale, would be a wizard within its pages.

Last, you have "the boy who lived."  Jenna makes an astute distinction between "lived" and "survived."  That one word turns the meaning of the entire story.  And while I am worried, with Professor McGonagall, about poor Harry growing up among those atrocious relatives; and a bit distanced by the main character already being introduced as not-an-ordinary-person (how do I relate to that?); I feel a bubbling hope with its source in the little baby left on the front step of number four Privet Drive.  Who sleeps peacefully in the night not knowing how important he is or how his being in the world is a sign of hope to so many; and I am reminded of the dark of early Christmas morning, with dancing stars and strange learned men who show reverence in secret, when another little baby came quietly, unobtrusively, to change everything forever.

What I Mean by "Merrie England"

A lot has been said about why fairy tales take place "once upon a time."

The consensus, at least as I have seen it, is that the vagueness allows the fairy tale to take place at all times and any time, making it accessible to all people throughout the ages.

It also shows that the "once" and the "time" of the story are parallel places and times, a fantasy world where we are asked to suspend our disbelief and play along with the magical, absurd, and pure evil things that can and do happen.

The idyllic pastoral way of life depicted fancifully in fairy tales is hard to pinpoint historically, though research like scholar Ronald Hutton's shows that some aspects of Merrie England did exist before Puritanism.

While "real" life--as opposed to reality in fairy tales--is far more complex (those that  mean us harm are not clearly ugly; goodness does not shine through a benefactor; and justice is never quite as satisfying), fairy tales distill truths about our living world.

Skeptics scoff to call anything magical, but what is the birth of a child?  In this context, the word "magical" falls way short of the mark.  So in fairy tales, a train of fairies and angels attend a baby's christening.

Trees die and drop their leaves in the fall but resurrect in the spring, when blossoms appear on their branches.  So in fairy tales precious gems grow on trees and gardens bloom overnight.

Men kill other men without reason, and through violence and disease our loved ones are robbed from us before their time.  So in fairy tales, hideous trolls live under bridges and obstinately block the way, frustrating the crucial journey.

But I believe in the Merrie England of fairy tales in yet another way.  Its no-time-but-any-time-and-all-time suggests there is reality outside our senses.  If it isn't historical it is because it transcends history.  Something of this effect is tackled by Charles Williams in his Arthurian cycle, in which a Utopian Logres peaks for a time as part of a larger empire.  In The Lord of the Rings, the wisest and saddest of characters are always looking West, either for a sunken Atlantis or Blessed Realm with fragile ties to the physical world.

Boucher, Shepherd piping to a Shepherdess

Michael Moorcock critiques the worldview incarnate in Merrie England as having no place in modern fantasy.  On the contrary, I think fantasy in any other context is just pageantry, flashing magician's tricks and astounding colors, entertainment without substance.

Merrie England stirs in us two things: (1) the idea that common and everyday occurrences have deeper meanings and (2) that the reason we are restless is because there is an ideal world (whether it existed or not, whether it can be achieved or not) for which our hearts ache.

More like Home

An interview with artist Cathy Sidhu, of The Old Burrow

[Dear readers, the mythic tradition lives and breathes, but never ceases to shock me with its timelessness and universality.  You'll know what I mean when you see these pictures by Cathy of the Old Burrow.  I've never seen images like these before, and yet, I know them intimately.  So when she so graciously agreed to an interview for Spinning Straw into Gold, I felt the profound communion of those-who-know-magic more than ever.  Enjoy!--Christie]

The Story Keepers

What first introduced you to wonder and fairy tales?

Oh gosh!  That’s a long time ago. 

I suppose I was brought up with stories.  My mother often read to us and my Grandfather would send us audio tapes of him reading stories and singing songs.  He lived in England and I grew up in Australia so the tapes were the only way we could 'spend time with him' in between visits.  Stories always carried me away to a place that felt as though it had more meaning to me than the everyday.  They spoke of woods and animals that I loved and felt a kind of resonance with.  Although the Australian bush has its own unique beauty and the wildlife is amazing . . . I always felt a longing for the Woodlands of Britain and Europe.  I suppose Fairy tales in a way took me to a place that felt more like home than the place in which I lived.

Who or what inspires you?

Nature inspires me . . . it’s overwhelmingly magical.  Particularly old trees, streams, valleys, and wildlife, but the magic can be found in anything . . . from a pebble to a snowflake. . .  It sets my imagination ablaze.  I remember one particular time after I had spent a day walking in the Lake District, I closed my eyes in bed that night and my head was filled with moving images of gnarled trees turning into men and walking around the woods. . .  It was incredible and so clear. . . I so desperately wanted to show someone what was in my head.

Do you have a favorite place to create?

Not yet . . . one day I hope to have an old cottage made from natural materials . . . and in it I will have a little nook for me to create in.  I would like it to be on the ground floor with a view to a woodland and stream, oh, and I need to be near a door . . . for easy escape to the outside between brushstrokes (not asking for much, hey ?).  For now I have a little room that looks out to a hawthorn tree from which hangs all my bird feeders . . . so I watch the birds and the little voles between washes.

Baba Yaga

Who are your favorite mythic artists?

Hmm . . . there are probably quite a few: 

• Ivan Bilibin
• Iassen Ghiuselev
• Gennedy Spirin
• Arthur Rackham
• Kay Neilsen
• Mercer Mayer
• Alan Lee
• John Bauer, 
• Lizbeth Zwerger 
• Errol le Cain 
• Edmund Dulac  

And then of course there is the Pre-Raphaelite era. 

Also I love the Russian Lacquer boxes. . . (the painters have to be extraordinarily talented.) 

And, although I've never seen any work of his that relates to Myth or Fairy Tales, I can't not mention Kit Williams.

What is your favorite fairy tale, and why?

You know, I don't think I have a favourite tale . . . it's more the 'realm' of the myth and fairy tale that I'm in love with.  I just love the space it takes me to . . . out of time and out of mind to a source of wonderful creativity.  If I'm truly honest, I am often disappointed with the ending of fairy tales. . . they sometimes feel too simple, too quick and unsatisfying somehow. . . but then I'm not altogether sure whether that is just because they are ending and that means I may have to get on with the 21st century mode of 'doing'. 

But if pushed, I have a fondness for East of the Sun and West of the Moon, especially Mercer Mayer's retelling.  I think I like it because of the kindness, help, and gifts that she [the lass] receives along her journey.  Each step and each experience she has is an integral part of the quest . . . bringing with it a feeling that nature is supportive and has a bigger picture, a bigger plan than we are aware of.  At the end of the story we are left feeling in no doubt of her love for her young man because of the difficulties she has faced to be with him.    He, in turn we feel safe with because, although she was very beautiful and rich, he chose her at a time when she was bedraggled and poor. 

Hmm . . . I think it's safe to say I am an idealist and a romantic. 

I also love the Celtic Selkie Tales.  All the Selkie tales involve shape-shifting of some kind.  I feel very at home with the idea of being part human, part animal . . . just an extension of my connection with nature, I suppose.  I also love water . . . as a child, and less frequently as an adult, I often had dreams of being able to fly and being able to breathe under water.  The most well known tale of the Selkie Wife has something about it that I resonate with.  She is slightly adrift and different from humans and yet a no less devoted wife and mother.  Her inner yearning for home is always there and undeniably strong.

Troll Song

What are your upcoming projects?

Hmm . . . well I have a few in progress and they won't be rushed.  I have at least two stories on the go but they will only be written (and then illustrated of course) when they feel like it.  Both are folk tale-like in their quality.  One of them is 'Troll Song' that appeared on a blog post of mine a while ago . . . it is turning out to be a sort of Shamanic Alice in Wonderland with stories interwoven within stories taking place both on land and within the realm of what I suppose might be described as Shamanic consciousness.  Both influencing and interacting with one another, each with equal power upon the other.  It is, on the surface, a story about Unn and her journeys with a kind, wise and magical old troll who guides Unn to find her real home.  They share a journey on land during the day and, at night they share dream journeys and neither one is more important nor more real than the other.  As the story progresses, the veil between the two world becomes very thin and, I hope, a sense of oneness between the two is felt. 

The other is again a folktales within a folktale type of story.  It's about a kind and talented carpenter and a beautifully magical piece of furniture that responds in a delightful way to the fireside stories that are being told within the room that it sits.  The family are unaware that it is silently, intently listening, soaking up the stories word by word. 

I am also delving into the realm of painting miniatures on wood with a view to making Music boxes decorated with Fairy Tales or Myths and Legends. 

. . . And then there is another exciting one, but I am in the process of seeking help to design and engineer it, and . . . well . . . it's a secret.  I can only say if it turns out any where near the image I have in my head I will be truly pleased. 

On top of that I am starting up an holistic healing business . . . my other hat!

Why do you think fairy tales matter?

I just 'feel' deeply that they are truly important . . .  I have never studied the subject but I feel they have a healing and magical quality about them . . . they speak to a part of us that is ageless and timeless.  How old are you when you are listening to a storyteller?  I am no age . . . I'm just there . . . in the moment . . . held within that space of creativity. . .  It is very difficult for me to describe.

Where can we reach you?

Drop into theoldburrow.blogspot.com or email me theoldburrow@googlemail.com, and I'm also on etsy.  The world of Facebook is as yet unknown to me but I may get there one day.

The Desire for Dragons

This post is a response to the Moveable Feast hosted by Terri Windling's Myth & Moor, and other contributors to the discussion can be found here.

Jessie Wilcox Smith, The Bed-time Book

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, in words that have initiated those they have touched into a cult of wonder ever since,

I desired dragons with a profound desire.  Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood.  But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.

Ms. Windling goes on to write,

I chose this title because Tolkien's passionate desire for a world colored by myth and mystery is one familiar to all of us who create and love mythic arts.  [. . .]  What we're discussing here is the why.  Why are we drawn to stories and other art forms (both contemporary and historic) with their roots dug deep into the soil of myth?  [emphasis mine]

It's a good question, but one which an anthropologist is likely to muddle.  As is said in the charming, post-Confederacy version of Homer's Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, "It's a fool what looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

But there is a logic in the longing for Faerie.  It's a different kind of logic.  The kind, G.K. Chesterton notes, that makes us instantly satisfied with the laws therein: don't go into the back room at midnight; always carry bread crumbs in your pocket; don't look a white stag in the eye; knock three times, no more, no less; if you take something back with you, be prepared to face the consequences; and never eat the food.

The anthropologist could say that our interest in wonder, in the unknown, in the unexplainable, arose as a survival mechanism to warn children of danger; or as a political move to keep tribal and religious leaders in power and to discourage questioning; it might have been a way of explaining the miracles of science at a time when people knew little about the workings of the world; maybe it was a way of comforting people and helping them deal with psychological hardships, a beautiful lie.

Why then do we still long for wonder, desire dragons "with a profound desire"?  If we have outgrown these primordial needs and they no longer serve a function; or if we are at least too sophisticated to fall into them, why do they linger?  As artifacts?  Is the desire nothing more than a vestigial organ?

skian-winterfyre of deviantART, Night Drake

Supposing it is a kind of organ.  The presence of such a thing suggests that it was once a need, and the above mechanisms of practicality do not sufficiently and satisfactorily explain it away.  For we have found other means of meeting those needs that don't require myth and fantasy.  Just look at nihilism.

So the need, or desire, is built in--not in some, as we might suspect by our tight-knit community, but in everyone.  Especially children.

As we grow older, we are discouraged from playing make believe, are told to prepare for the "real world," and forced to adapt by relegating wonder to the nursery, or, as is the case for many, to a private hobby (thanks, Richard Dawkins).  Those that don't appear to long for fantastical wonder find wonder in other ways: such as the baby-crazy teenager who ogles pictures of newborns; the devout widow who wears a veil at daily mass; the father and son who love to take apart machines and see how they work, or, if not quite so involved, at least marvel at their functioning.  This attraction to wonder is intrinsic.

If we occur, un-tampered, with a need for wonder, it logically follows that wonder is something we need to be complete.  We need it the way we need lunch, the way plants need sunshine, the way humans digest food and plants photosynthesize light.  We transform those things into our very substance.  They become an inseparable part of us.

Where is this wonder?  Why were we built without it, but wanting it, the way a plant needs photosynthesis but doesn't contain the means to photosynthesize within itself?

Such questions could easily dissolve into a tangle of religious and philosophical sophistries, but let us at least admit this: we were made for something other.  So much is that absence woven into the fiber of our being, that we know the other the minute we touch it.  It is what Edward Gardner so aptly called "familiar otherness."  Like setting foot in a real place we've only ever seen before in a dream.

Charles Santoso, source

So.  My answer to the question "why do we desire dragons?" is simple: because dragons were made for us.

This is the poverty of a society devoid of wonder, of the materialist world of men and women who say "this is all there is."  They are starving themselves, as a flower starves for sunshine.  Count yourself truly blessed, dear reader.  You are one of the few at the feast.

Please also see: The Nature of Conditions in Japanese Folk Tales, Longing for the Elves, The Domestication of Dwarfs, and What I Mean by "Merrie England"

Wonder Voyages

Look what I got in the mail this week!

Can I just say how invigorated I am to see a fairy tale publication whose purpose goes hand-in-hand with the philosophy and aim of Spinning Straw into Gold?  Oh, I already did?  Well, then!  I might also mention that my friend Jenna St. Hilaire is associate editor, among a staff of other well-known fairy tale artists and scholars in the community.

The first publication is Wonder Voyages, a suitable theme for starting out on a literary journey.  You can buy your own copy, digital or hard, here.

The Potential of Unanswered Questions

Mihalskaya Maria

Here's a treat: a blog dedicated to the specific purpose of reading and reviewing modern fairy tale retellings.

I've enjoyed reading Cassie's (and friends') thorough summaries and reflective opinions of 52 adaptations on 12 fairy tales in twelve months.  I also heartily disagree with their philosophy of fairy tales.

From what I've read so far, the reviewers from Tales Old as Time approach fairy tales from a very different angle.  Cassie writes, in her wrap-up of the Snow White stories, that

Snow White is one of those fairy tale[sic] with not a lot to recommend it, and if Walt Disney hadn't sunk his teeth into it, it probably wouldn't be remembered much at all these days.  The evidence of this is, I believe, in the way we saw the story retold this month.  More than any other fairy tale we've looked at, this month's novels seem to stray far from the original plot line.

Here's where we misunderstand each other about the nature of fairy tales.  Snow White is one of the most striking and influential fairy tales, one of the most universal (I'd say second only to Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast), and, if numerous adaptations of the tale and fascination with it--in art, photography, pop culture, food, fashion--wasn't enough proof of that, one only need look at the bones of the story.

Consider: a motherless child, either through maternal death or maternal neglect, approaches female maturity.  Her jealous mother/stepmother, obsessed with keeping her own youth and keeping her claim to the most beautiful in the kingdom, sends the child to her death.  But the child is spared, many times over: first by a huntsman, then dwarfs, then a prince's hunting caravan.  She marries the prince and becomes queen of her own kingdom.  The child is now a woman come into her own.

W.C. Drupsteen, Snowdrop

Now, the objects in the story infuse this simple narrative with a chord that is so in harmony with our human natures we have been telling it over and over again for centuries: snow, a magic mirror, a heart in a box, otherworldly caretakers, a poisonous apple.

Cassie writes, "there's just not that much to this story, and there's so much about it that is problematic."

But that's a fairy tale.  If it took place in 12th century France, for instance, or in modern Turkey, it wouldn't be "once upon a time."  If we knew how and why the mirror talked to the wicked queen about her rivals in beauty, it wouldn't be insidious   If Snow White was ready to be kissed by a prince the moment she set out from the castle, she wouldn't have had to endure all the trials of deception and the pains of growing up.

If all the questions were answered, there would be no mystery, and it wouldn't be magic.

Exploring what about these questions grasps us so, and the beautiful potential in the lack of answers, is to me a chief function of fairy tales.  They have been used in society to rebel against the status quo, reinforce social restrictions, or communicate profound religious and philosophical truths.

Except, they've done all this--and more--without having to say it.  That's what makes them so powerful.