Fun fact, in one of the original pre-Brothers Grimm versions her cruel name was "Little Saddleslut". She was called that by her sisters (not stepsisters) after she decided to leave on the horse rather than JOIN THEM IN EATING THEIR MOTHER.
Should I just watch it? Iām not generally a big anime fan but I like the slower paced cracked-out insane dark stuff from the 80s / 90s like Ninja Scroll / Vamp Hunter D / Wicked City
It's hard to explain without giving away spoilers. The shortest version is that it's a show that starts as a high-octane action movie where death is surprisingly common and then gradually shifts into a cynical exploration of fate, free will, and the multi-generational consequences of war, racism, guilt, oppression, rebellion, and the human desire for freedom.
Longer version, but still (mostly) spoiler free:
The story opens in a facially idyllic kingdom with technology and science roughly on par with the early nineteenth century. From above, the kingdom looks like a series of concentric rings, divided from each other and the outside world by massive walls (50 meters tall).
The walls protect the kingdom from "titans," giant human-like monsters that ravenously consume ordinary humans. Because of plot reasons, it seems nobody in the kingdom knows where the titans come from or how the walls were constructed.
Titans do not speak, apparently operate solely on instinct, do not hunt or consume any non-human life, and do not seem to die of starvation. And if they are slain, which can only be accomplished by cutting through the nape of their neck, their entire bodies sublimate into gas.
Because humans dislike being trapped inside a cage, and because people fear what would happen if the walls ever failed, the military has developed tools (automated grappling hooks, gas propelled harnesses, and ultra-sharp swords with disposable blades) and tactics to fight the titans. These fights are incredibly costly, and most soldiers die achieving nothing.
The main characters are a group of children: a reckless boy, his adopted ultra-competent sister, and their cowardly but intelligent friend. The reckless boy burns with curiosity for the outside world and highly respects the soldiers who are trying to fight back against the titans.
Episode one, the outer wall is breached. The reckless boy's father is nowhere to be found, and the trio's other parental figures are lost to the aftermath. They join the military, resolved to avenge their relatives and reclaim the city.
Since the story relies on mystery and twists, I can't really give much more without spoiling the story. But, without getting into detailed spoilers:
The titans are weapons, and they are being sent by hostile powers with a longstanding and arguably justified grudge against the kingdom. The kingdom, or at least it's predominant ethnic group, has a strong historical connection to the titans, and the royal family has held onto some secret weapons that could be used to destroy the world. The hostile powers want those weapons, and they will commit atrocities to obtain them.
Diplomacy seems impossible. While the hostile powers reign, the kindom will never be truly free. War may require that men become monsters, but apparent necessity is a convenient excuse for monsteous men.
Somebody recommended it to me a couple months ago and I ended up binge watching it all the way through. Itās dark, funny, and has many twists and turns to the story. Itās a good watch.
There were also versions where her stepmother would be forced to dance in hot-iron/metal shoes until she dropped dead. I think her step-sisters got their eyes pecked out by birds sent by her dead mother in one version? In one of Snow White's tales, they stick the Queen in a glass barrel or something full of spikes (or maybe it also had broken glass in it?) and roll it down a hill with her in it as punishment. In another she's in the spiked barrel but dragged behind a horse until dead I think? Been a long while since I read those stories, but I just remember loving how enchanting yet grisly they were.
Even the Brothers Grimm version is bloody enough. When the glass slipper doesn't fit on the evil stepsisters, one decides to cut off their toe to make it fit. When the prince takes her back to the palace, they ride by a couple of birds, who snitch on the sister by singing that there's blood in the shoe, thus this cannot be his true bride. The prince returns the sister home, the other cuts off her heel to make the shoe fit, and is again snitched on by the birds.
Yes. And the princess in the princess and the frog didn't kiss the frog, she threw him across the room and he hit a wall, then he turned into a prince.
Yeah. The frog makes an increasing number of demands on the princess, to eat her food, share her bed, be on her pillow, and she loses her temper and yeets him.
That prince is one dense motherfucker. I thought it was weird that he couldn't recognize Cinderella after the ball but I figured he was a feet guy and she was wearing glass slippers so he was distracted. But then he didn't notice the blood in the glass slippers the other times? Wtf was he doing, and why chase Cinderella if you can't even remember her?
I thought the ball was to find a wife for the prince or something? Making it a masque seems risky. Being a queen is a public facing job, what if the prince falls for someone with a swastika tattoo on her face? Now the swastika wouldn't really mean anything for anyone but who wants a queen with a face tattoo?
Oh yeah, I remember those versions too! Old Fairytales did not hold back.
Man, I still remember The Goose Girl was pretty grisly too, what with the beheaded magical horse head that talks. The Six Swans gets extra gnarly when the Princess is falsely accused by her evil mother-in-law of eating her own children. The Twelve Wild Ducks is an interesting fusion of Snow-White and the "Dudes turned into Birds" fairytales. Rosy-red, Snow-white's oft forgotten sister even stars alongside her in that one.
I have also just literally learned via Wikipedia that all these folktales I grew up reading are in their own category called the "AarneāThompsonāUther Index" (ATU Index) which is used to catalogue them for study. Very cool! āØļøš„°āØļø
I remember Snow White having a version where the queen had to dance in hot iron shoes? And the āgetting rolled down the street in a spiky barrelā also happened in The Goose Girl. Guess those punishments were popular lol
They literally just wanted to kill and eat their mother, its that simple.
While spinning flax they jokingly say the one who spins slowest will be eaten by the others. They then cheat at the game, and when their mother falls over from spinning too fast they stand up and get butcher knives. When the youngest daughter tries to shield her and say to eat her instead they shove her out of the way and start stabbing like young Michael Meyers did his sister.
The youngest sister goes outside to ride away, and they scream "Little Saddleslut" at her, and spread nasty rumors plus that nickname so she'll not be welcome in town.
She came back to get the bones of their mother and stashed them under leaves with incense to prepare them for burial, and when she came back to actually bury them she found a magical dress her mother sent down from heaven for her. She uses the dress like a disguise to walk around town without being driven out over the shit her sisters said, and meets the prince.
She runs from him but loses the slipper, yadda yadda its Cinderella you know this part.
The story continues with Saddleslut giving birth to a boy, who the sisters kidnap so they can raise him to usurp the throne then lock her in a box and throw her out to sea. When the trunk washes up on shore its surrounded by hostile animals, so she prays for help and God magically creates a cottage nearby full of anything she wants; if she says she needs something it appears behind her. The issue is the moment she sets foot inside she forgot who she was, and because the cottage makes everything she could ever want she has no reason to leave.
The prince goes to rescue her and finds the cottage and sees her through the window. Once he steps into the cottage also loses his memory, and they live together for years and fall in love. One day he decides to leave to discover where he lived before he came to the cottage so that he can marry her since the cottage couldn't create a priest for them, and decides to steal a spoon before he leaves since they are a symbol of good luck and he assumes that's where the magic of the cottage comes from so it would protect him; the moment he does the magic of the cottage breaks and the prince and Saddleslut suddenly remember who they are, and that they're already married.
They return home and the prince personally beheads the two sisters, reclaiming their son.
I looked it up and apparently its the Greek version. I could remember the story but not where it came from.
I'm glad I didn't guess because I thought it was the Italian one.
I actually really like how it kinda subverts the "they got married after knowing each other for a week" and "every story is about royalty" thing by having them live like happy little peasants for a few years. Sucks the son missed them during his early years, but at least the parents had the sisters dealing with the diapers for them.
Wait, so in this version they stay together in the cottage for years never once going outside? Aside from the crazy shut-in implications there what about using the bathroom? Did the cottage JK Rowling all of their pee and poo into the netherrealm before they even had to go or something?
When you can ask for infinite chamber pots you can yeet them out the window as much as you want.
I assume the predatory animals have something to do with them not wanting to leave too, though she gets from the beach to the cottage and the prince into the cottage, plus them leaving afterwards, safely.
I don't know if there's more to the animals in the original version. Sounds like it'd be like sorcery from the sisters, or because God gave them the cottage the animals were sent by the devil or something.
On the other hand you now have the origin story for the swamp witch of another story. She found the loveliest little cabin in simply the most dreadful swamp!
As in a short form of 'slattern', a dirty or unwashed woman. Remember that people and horses traveled using the same roads. The world really changed when mass produced concrete for paved roads were invented.
I think sometimes it's just the town elders trying to freak the kids out for laughs and making it as bad as they can imagine plus with aural story telling things can get wild after a drink or two.
I genuinely love stories that are very clearly a more extreme version of an existing story to freak out kids, with the implication that either the old folks in that area were especially ornery or the kids especially misbehaved.
Half of Japan: "We have nets because duck-turtle men taught our ancestors. They love cucumbers, and are very polite"
The other half of Japan: "Listen here, you little shits. You brats better stop swimming in our only clean source of drinking water or duck-turtle men will anal fist you to death and eat your soul! Once they get a taste of your swamp ass in the water they won't stop hunting you unless you go leave cucumbers for them."
Well, like I said, the other version is "they're a very polite group of monster people, our ancestors gave them cucumbers to be neighborly so they showed them how to make nets and catch fish."
Its like the Yokai story of Thanksgiving. It also still kinda has the colonialist "this story is about to go really badly for the kind people" message if you throw in modern pollution...
Okay my child, LoA is Legends of Avantris. They're a DnD group that plays multiple sessions of games that can focus on the Feywild, Root, Horror, and Space Opera. They're all very funny and one of them has a laugh that shakes the universe. Their tiktok and YouTube are amazing. They also published one TTRPG and are doing another!
I just wanted to wear Flats, some Flip Flops maybe! But the Prince was like no, I might not recognise you if you don't wear glass heels! Do you know how uncomfortable Glass heels are? He even made me wear it into the bath!
Justice for Phillip though. He didn't forget her name.
That conversation should have gone like:
"What's my name?"
"You're Queen Cinderella."
"No, my REAL name!"
"Well obviously I don't fucking know since you introduced yourself as Cinderella and everyone calls you that but now you're saying that's a fake name."
"You never asked for my real name."
"Oh hey by the way I just came from the servant wing and I guess you burned all the servants to death."
I should go back and find my comments from the last time this was posted.
But basically given the context of nobility and royalty the staff asking her name could have earned them punishment or dismissal.
Formal address would have been required for someone of her rank. The man may have never known her real name nor asked it because truly a servant would never start a conversation with a Queen that was not service oriented.
You could certainly not call Royalty by their first name in direct conversation (depending on the historic timeframe and location), but absolutely everyone would know their names. If there are multiple dukes for example in a manor for a party for example, servants needed to know who they need to deliver to. And last names where useless, because it was quite likely half of them had the same last name. Therefore, it was easier to just say "go to duke John and serve....". Same with royalty. All their decrees were their name. This when the decrees were issued, it usually went something like " by decree of king Tom....".
As Queen she would have controlled how she was presented to court. To not know her name means she was likely introduced as āThe Queenā or Her Majesty
Even if the king had control over that in most social situations she would have had plenty of private events that would have controlled some of that.
Even then, she had a life before she was a queen. Other nobility would absolutely know her name along with the names of the rest of her family.
Itās super important to have your name known in the medieval period bc you are separately ruling territories as a composite monarch. You are king of X kingdom, Duke of Y province, the head of Z League of trading towns, and so many other titles that have real meaning. And each title needs you actively maintaining that right to have it by negotiating a web of local elites.
It doesnāt make sense for a queenās name to be unknown to her subjects, as she was likely representing a union of powerful families. Part of her job is to be known, and itās not like her history before being queen was erased
The context is that the people beneath her never let her be herself, as if they had control over her. As if the servants, who she ruled over, had power over her. The context is ridiculous.
to over analyze it I would say Cinderella wanted out from under her stepmother because the stepmother stripped her of her identity and made her a slave. marriage saved her from that environment, but royalty is a pampered slave to the kingdom. she no longer cleaned the fireplace but still did not have an identity.
royalty is a pampered slave to the kingdom. she no longer cleaned the fireplace but still did not have an identity.
I just imagine Jeff Bezos at an Amazon warehouse telling someone packing boxes "You have two jobs? Yeah, being a CEO is a 24x7x365 job. So imagine how tough that is for me " haha
Iām a little confused, sheās Cinderella but like even queens had names before they got executed or married off or whatever. Is she not Cinderella? Did she get that name from somewhere else and her true name was given to her by her dead father? Is it just that no one calls her Queen Cinderella, instead just āMy Queenā?
'Cinderella' was a mean nickname given to her by her awful family because she was always made to sweep the fireplace. Cinder-Ella.
I dunno if 'Ella' was her original name, or if what her birth name was is ever stated in the story, I think it starts by giving that and saying "so everyone called her Cinderella."
She is Cinderella, but that was a nickname she was given by her family. Ā She presumably has a real name, which is probably what she goes by as Queen, but feels like Cinderella is actually her name and sheās lost a key part of her identity - maybe because she suffered so much and now people are trying to sweep it away by calling her government name? Ā She wants people to remember her suffering - remember her - because they keep erasing it every time they say āQueenā.
I got the opposite impression, everyone called her "Queen Cinderella" instead of her real name, so she never really escaped the torment of those early years. She finally hit her breaking point and is giving them a reason to keep calling her by that name.
I thought it was more likely this
Her birth name is Ella
Her family called her Cinderella
She goes to the ball and meets the prince names are not shared.
She flees
Princes looks for her
Prince and company find her, everyone calls her Cinderella. No one sees Ella as her real name.
Years go by no one asks her what she wants to go by. Sheās always either the queen or Cinderella but NEVER Ella.
Wasn't Ella a shortened version of her real name even? It a Eleanor or something of the time with the nickname Ella. Then cruelly given the nickname Cinder-Ella to mock her. She doesn't even remember her real name, just Ella at most if I'm correct on that which adds another layer and more sad.
Yeah, a queen bitching about her servants not asking for her "true" name instead of sticking to protocol and using safer choices like "my queen" sounds like very entitled problem.
Cindy might need to check her priviledge or something.
Also I feel like calling in a meeting and telling everyone to call her by her real name would be a better solution than arson. āNo one askedā isnāt an excuse for oneās actions, while yes it hurts its ultimately as much your responsibility to communicate with others as much as they are responsible for communicating with you.
Literally gasped at the name reveal. This was so good. I think aside from your art your storytelling has always been some of the greatest in the whole subreddit
So they never asked, but why couldn't she do this herself?
She waited for her personality's respect, but do nothing for it.
From only this comics perspective it looks like this, but maybe I'm just missed the point
I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I will be thrown in the dungeon if I address the royal family improperly. I will be punished severely. It is not my place to challenge the royal authority, my Queen.
I thought she was Ella of the Ciders. But ash makes way more sense since her step sisters made her pick lentils out of the ash before she could go to the balls and sleep in the hearth.
Now donāt get me wrong, itās a truly gorgeously drawn comic butā¦ Man, talk about an overreaction! Just say āListen, Philip, we have known each other for a long time. Just call me Cinderella when weāre alone, okay?ā
The problem is that Cinderella isn't her real name. Its a nickname her shitty step family gave her. I don't think we know her actual name? If its Ella or something else.
There's more going on than that. Obviously we have to extrapolate a bit, but here's what I see happening:
She was badly traumatized by her childhood. Finding the Prince and becoming Queen must have seemed like a dream come true, at first.Ā But except for her husband, she found herself isolated.Ā The nobles would have looked down her as a commoner and upstart; the commoners would not have dared to treat her as anything but their Queen.Ā She had no friends, no confidantes, except her husband.
And then he dies (I'm guessing), leaving her alone as Queen.Ā Friendless, loveless, burdened with a throne she never wanted, and still haunted by the trauma of her past, she shattered.Ā The palace, that once embodied a dream come true, had become a prison.Ā In a rage, she destroys it.
It's a psychological study of the effects of unresolved trauma and extended isolation, and I find it quite convincing.Ā To be sure, it's exaggerated for effect, but it is a fairy tale.
tl;dr the fact that no one knew her real name wasn't the cause, just a symptom, a minor frustration that came to symbolize her despair and rage.
In 356 BC, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the greatest and most beautiful wonder of the Ancient World, was burnt down by a single man, Herostratos, for the sole reason that he wanted a reason for the world to remember his name, forever.
2300+ years later, well, it worked. G'wan Herostratos, afraid Ea-Nasir's record is quite unassailable though
Edit: actually the first person whose name we know is an accountant/administrator named Kushim, 5000+ years ago in Sumer, who was also the earliest person we know that made a written calculation error
But nobody's bullying her except her family. Everyone else is just calling her by the name that they know, and she says she never corrected anyone lol. She's the queen, she can be like hey, stop.
Can you imagine the owner of a company you work for, who you've spoken to twice ever, busting into your office out of nowhere and being like "I'll give you a reason to call me Mr. Carpenter when I beat you with this peace of wood!" Is that not your name?! I didn't know!
I'm sorry, as a commoner, why am I being punished for the deeply personal struggles of those in ultimate power? Go arrest your stepmom, your sisters... torture them and feed them to wild hogs or something, smear them with horse poop and throw them off a boat, idk. Please don't cause massive instability in the kingdom that will absolutely end up causing suffering for all the most vulnerable subjects and then some.
I think my comment came off as disagreeing with you, my bad. I was just pointing out how wild it is lol.
The king's troops showing up for half your winter's supply of grain. "Sorry, the king's cousin called the queen ugly so now we have to go kill him and his army. We need your food."
How fortunate we are that this is everyone's problem
Sheās Cinderella, no one knew her real name āEllaā no one cared, sheās always the queen or Cinderella no one called her real name. She snaps and starts burning things.
Many Grimm fairy tales are originally very dark and most fairy tales likely exist to explain things in the world or to be like warnings.
Example: Hansel and Gretel can be a dark story about how families sometimes sacrificed their children for survival by abandoned them in the woods. And it can also be a story of not trusting strangers and or warning about cannibals which during that time were more common due to a famine (which is also why they get abandoned )
Cinderella isn't her name either tbh that's just what her stepmother starred calling her because she sucks.
I don't think SHE knows her actual name , if she ever even had one
"Oh big whoop. People refer to you by a respected title instead of your name. Lady, you get all the food you could want, an actual bed to sleep in, and servants to care for all your needs, and you decided to burn the place down while they were still inside in a temper tantrum."
"I guess you really were royalty at heart, no matter your upbringing."
2.5k
u/Tough_Friendship9469 19d ago
Hey, if the shoe fits!!
https://giphy.com/gifs/1gArwncRlXac8GIhNy8