Laura Occasionally Blogs

In the spirit of duneguy's ongoing Little Women commentary, here's a review of the fairy tale I just read.

( St. George of Merrie England )

Assessment: There are some cool events in this story, but it lacks a strong central line. The main theme seems to be the superiority of Christian Brits to everyone else (pagans/non-English kings/witches/necromancers/Muslim giants), but even that squicky message could be better exemplified if the writer had, say, written an outline ahead of time. Plus, there are some issues which, in that case, really need to be addressed. For example, if Princess Sabia could be so completely saved via conversion, how come the knights' first resort is mass slaughter and not, you know, a quick word to the wise in re: the Christ?

I feel like this story was made by just throwing together a bunch of totally awesome storybook elements, like, "Dude," or 15th.c. English equivalent, "wouldn't it be rockin'-awesome if St. George did that?" But there are so many random adventures in the story that they work against each other; none is given sufficient detail or narrative importance.

They're not even original to the story. The sword in the stone, for example, is so totally King Arthur's thing it's not funny; and the whole homoerotic Sleeping Beauty bit is shamelessly stolen from the Xena: Warrior Princess Ring Cycle.