Winter... or Snow White?Once upon a time, there was a fair princess of a royal kingdom. Everyone in the city adored her, everyone besides her wicked stepmother. Her stepmother made every attempt to wipe her own daughter out of existence so that she can be the most beautiful person alive. By now, most people reading this would be thinking about the iconic fairy tale, Snow White. However, I just gave a rudimentary summary of Marissa Meyer's book, 'Winter'. This book is the finale of the Lunar Chronicles, a fantasy science fiction series where each book bases itself off of an iconic fairy tale such as, 'Cinderalla' (Cinder), 'Scarlet' (Red Riding Hood), 'Cress' (Rapunzel), and finally 'Winter' (Snow White). In 'Winter', the book is separated into sections with a few small sentences I'll refer to as 'fairy-tale relations'. These fairy-tail relations link the book 'Winter' to its fantastical counterpart Snow White. I'll discuss in this essay most of the fairy-tall relations mentioned in this book as well as how these sentences are implemented in a more science-fiction way.
On page 182, the first major fairy-tail relation was written, 'The huntsman took pity on her and said, "Run away into the woods, child, and never come back." For this particular fairy-tail relation, the author puts a special twist on the story by making the 'hunter' a love interest to the main character, Winter. However, there are also many other differences between the book and this particular 'fairy-tail relations' from the original book. Firstly, the 'Hunter' already had disloyal ideas in his head. In fact, when the evil-step mother (named Queen Levana) told the 'Hunter' to assassinate Winter, he was already forming an intricate plan in his head. This is much different than the original fairy tale as the 'Hunter' was supposed to have never met Winter/Snow White before. Therefore, the readers would not have known that the 'Hunter' would let the princess escape. Secondly, the escape sequence was much more tense in the sci-fi adaption than the original fairy tale. This is because the surveillance technology that existed in 'Winter' was much more advanced than the fairy tale and the 'Hunter' had to kill someone else to fake Winter's murder.
Another interesting 'fairy-tale relation' was presented on page 517. This fairy-tale relation portrays the event of the evil-stepmother poisoning Winter, by saying " 'Are you afraid of poison?' asked the old woman. 'Here, I will cut the apple in two. You eat the red half, and I shall ear the white.'" What's interesting is that this fairy-tale relation added a unique element that was not in the original fairy-tale. In 'Winter', the princess was lured into the woods by an illusion of a 'handsome young man' (who happened to be Winter's childhood friend). Although, by the time she caught up, the man was replaced by an old and 'innocent' women. Besides that particular part of the story, there was no major difference in how Winter was poisoned and how Snow White was poisoned. This part of the story was more similar to the original fairy tale than any other 'fairy-tale relation'.
Overall, the 'fairy-tale relations' provided a unique element to the story which intrigued me a great amount. Even though some readers might think that 'fairy-tale relations' would spoil the book, it instead gave the readers a false sense of understanding as the book would sometimes completely takes the readers off guard when there is a difference between 'Winter' and 'Snow White'. The 'fairy-tale relations' also surprises the readers when they first realize the difference between the two stories, such as when the 'Hunter' was revealed to be a love interest and the 'evil-stepmother' disguised herself using her powers and not magic like in 'Snow-White'. In conclusion, 'Snow-White' and 'Winter' share many similarities and differences, but this does not make 'Winter' any less of a unique and unpredictable story that would excite all kinds of sci-fi and fantasy readers alike.
I think many people disregard fairy tales just because of the "childish" stereotype surrounding the genre. A enjoyed reading your introduction, partly because I thought your book was about Snow White, and partly because it was actually gripping. I would consider reading this book, but from your summary, it seems pretty long. :(
ReplyDeleteThe way you described how 'fairy-tale relations' provided a unique element to the story really got me interested. Fairy tales are not something that usually peak my interest, but this science fiction spin on common stories seems intriguing. I like how you explain multiple examples of these 'fairy-tale relations' in your blog, as it gives me a better understanding of what the book is about.
ReplyDeleteI found your introduction incredibly appealing because you knew exactly what I was thinking when I read the first couple of sentences, and then you surprised me by telling me that it was not what I thought. I think that rewriting an old fairy tale with new plot developments is a great idea because it provides a new way of looking at the story. I liked the fairy-tale relations you pointed out as they did not spoil the story too much, although I think you could have selected a better phrase than "fairy-tale relations" because that misled me into thinking it was something else. However, your blog post and the book are still very interesting and I may read it in the future. Great job!
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job in the opening paragraph by describing just how unique this book is, and how it puts its own twist on an iconic fairy-tale, and I like how you highlight the "fairy-tale relations". Good job.
ReplyDeleteGreat review! I have read this book before, but your review brought back all the good memories I have of this series. Good job explaining the parallels between this book and the classic fairy tale. Your usage of evidence really ties in the whole review quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteI recently posted a blog post on Cinder (one of the earlier books in the series), so it was interesting to hear your perspective on the continuation of the story, especially from the perspective of a different character. I liked how you included a specific example from the text, which helped emphasize your analysis. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI have read Cinder, the first book in the series, but I haven't finished the others. Your blog post made Winter sound very interesting, and now I'll have to finish reading the Lunar Chronicles. You did a great job of comparing and contrasting Winter and Snow White. I found your observation that Winter being based off of Snow White gives readers a "false sense of understanding" to be particularly interesting.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you start the post with a summary of snow white but one that also summarizes some of this book. Then you take the 'fairy tale relations' in the books and talk about those in the rest of the blog. You did really well to tie in other stories that are well known to many people.
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