The Three Sisters: Fantasy, Horror, and Marchen.: seanan

The Three Sisters: Fantasy, Horror, and Marchen.

As an urban fantasy author who grew up on a steady diet of fairy tales, horror movies, Disney princesses, Victorian Gothics, and other seeming contradictory influences, I'm pretty regularly asked "Well, can't you just make up your mind?" Unicorns aren't supposed to gore you; werewolves aren't supposed to save the day. Horror and fantasy aren't meant to exist on the same shelf, much less in the same story. And to this I say...

Once upon a time.

Once upon a time, there were three sisters, living in...well, not harmony, exactly, but living in the sort of uneasy cease-fire that comes naturally to a lot of siblings. Horror—we'll call her Rose Red, in honor of the color she tends to paint the landscape behind her—thought that her sisters played too nicely with their toys. They never stopped to smell the entrails. Fantasy, on the other hand—and let's call her Snow White, since that's a nice, familiar, fantasy name—wondered why Rose had to be so nasty all the time, and why her sisters couldn't see the virtue of sugar and spice and sleeping for a hundred years beneath the fairy hills. Meanwhile, stuck in the middle of it all, you had their poor sister Marchen—arguably the eldest, and somehow always the first to be forgotten—trying to hold it all together. We'll call her Lily Fair (and there's a reason for that), and she was constantly trying to strike a balance between the other two, or at least keep them from killing each other, because Lily understood something that people still have trouble with today: Lily understood that they were all telling the same story.

Sure, Rose's stories tended to wreak havoc on the poor woodland creatures, while Snow's tended to result in an unbearable overabundance of talking rabbits; sure, Lily's stories almost always came with morals, while the other two were perfectly content to just let a haunted castle be a haunted castle; but they were all sides of the same basic human need to imagine something more. Marchen contained all the horror and all the fantasy that anybody could want, and as long as Lily was in charge of that weird little trio, things held together.

But then, well, things changed. Marchen was reduced, cleansed and simplified, becoming "fairy tales" and getting regulated to the nursery, where they were taught alongside Mother Goose and her kin. The Fair Folk of the old stories began transforming into the Tinker Belles and Hot Topic decals of today. Little Red Riding Hood lived. Cinderella's sisters kept their eyes. And bit by bit, Lily lost control. Quite literally—the name "Lily Fair" isn't just a casual invention, but takes its source from the same tradition that gives us Rose and Snow. How many people have heard the story that it comes from? Not many. Like so many other stories that mixed the horrific with the fantastic, the tale that Lily came from was left behind when the decision was made to turn the darkest stories into tales for children.

Without Lily to provide balance and keep them together, Rose and Snow began rapidly drifting apart. While there were elements of horror in fantasy—Shelob, anyone?—they were reduced to the merely monstrous, becoming things for the glorious light to overcome, often to the strains of a gallant harper's jaunty airs. Meanwhile, while there might be fantasy in the horrific—even Frankenstein dreams of better things while making his monster, much as he'll later come to regret that particular plan—it became more and more fleeting, used to taunt the doomed while dragging them deeper down into the pit. Rose and Snow stopped speaking to one another. They didn't even exchange birthday cards anymore. And no one mentioned Lily, because who wants to go through that again?

And they all lived miserably ever after.

Only not, because "man" and "magpie" share letters for a reason. We never really let go of the older, twistier stories; we just put them on shelves for a little while, until we could figure out what to do with them. How to make the a functional part of our world again. Bit by bit, we've been rediscovering those old paths, and realizing that fairy tales really were urban fantasy, as we currently define it. "Fantasy set in what is essentially the real world, mingling with real people, in real situations." Well, once upon a time, "the real world" wasn't a city, it was a big, scary wood where there might be wolves, or robbers, or any one of a thousand other things. "Real people" weren't businessmen and police, they were woodcutters and tinkers and little old women whose granddaughters brought them baskets full of goodies. The world changed, the stories moved on...but the roots remained.

I see the current trend toward urban fantasy as, in some ways, the resurrection of Lily Fair. We always needed her; we always needed that middle ground, where the monsters and the fairy godmothers could get together and work out their problems without worrying about the curtains (they're stain-proof) or what the neighbors will think (they're all enchanted princes, anyway). Urban fantasy gives us that, and more, because it makes the trio whole again. I have made up my mind, thank you very much. I've decided to be a daughter of Lily Fair, who might not be as sweet, and might not be as sour, but is never, never boring.

This time, I think we're shooting for the happy ending.

(Originally posted as a guest blog for Penguin.com.)

vixyish

September 16 2009, 19:58:10 UTC 7 years ago

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Oh yay! I'd been wanting to read this since you told me about it.

seanan_mcguire

September 16 2009, 20:06:45 UTC 7 years ago

Well, then, good! :) I love my lovely Lily, and you made me think about her even more today.

professor

7 years ago

ladymondegreen

September 16 2009, 20:02:04 UTC 7 years ago

Beautiful work. It gives a nice introduction to your theory of Lily Fair, and places it well within the 'genre classification' debate that's been raging at various conventions, without setting any of them on fire. :)

Also, it's very much worth clicking through to the Penguin version of the page to see the illustrations.

September 16 2009, 20:07:48 UTC 7 years ago

I like the illos, but since they're all on my website, I didn't feel the need to re-post them. And also, thank you.

ladyqkat

September 16 2009, 20:09:45 UTC 7 years ago

The Disneyfication of the old stories always bothered me. I think partly because I never saw the world as the pretty, pretty candyland that Disney, and those like him, tried to pretend it was.

Candyland is a veneer. Look behind it and you see the darkness and monsters.

September 16 2009, 21:00:46 UTC 7 years ago

The monsters never go away. The trick is remembering how to look for them.

idancewithlife

wendyzski

September 16 2009, 20:09:54 UTC 7 years ago

You have to go Into The Woods to find what's really worthwhile. Just nowadays the trees aren't always made of wood.

September 16 2009, 21:01:04 UTC 7 years ago

Just get home before dark.

la_marquise_de_

September 16 2009, 20:12:14 UTC 7 years ago

That's a terrific post.

September 16 2009, 21:01:11 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you!

canadianevil

September 16 2009, 20:14:25 UTC 7 years ago

What a good post! I think I'm a daughter of Lily Fair too.

September 16 2009, 21:01:25 UTC 7 years ago

I think a lot of us are. I'm threatening to start a club.

Deleted comment

keristor

September 16 2009, 20:17:00 UTC 7 years ago

You're doing it so far...

What's the origin of Lily Fair? I can only find modern references using Google.

September 16 2009, 20:20:16 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, God, way to make me sermonize...

Short version: she's a seasonal monarch variant, currently relegated to "minor player in the Robin Hood cycle, of all things."

Long version: she's one of the debatable harvest girls in several really, really, "wow, we're not reading this in the translation" folktales, and I only found out about her when I went eyeballs-deep into my European folklore studies. She got cycled out pretty early, either because people wanted more severe extremes, or because her stories weren't among the ones collected for archiving. Regardless, she's basically become my favorite fairy tale girl, because she makes a lovely rallying cry.

amazon_syren

textileowl

September 16 2009, 20:20:11 UTC 7 years ago

Ooh, yes. I'm not coherent much beyond that unfortunately. But I agree with the need to reintegrate the three facets.

September 16 2009, 21:01:53 UTC 7 years ago

Possibly with a chainsaw, if Rose Red gets her way...

galeni

September 16 2009, 20:54:08 UTC 7 years ago

Yes! Thank you and well-written.

September 16 2009, 21:02:02 UTC 7 years ago

You're very welcome!

angel_vixen

September 16 2009, 21:19:59 UTC 7 years ago

You make this folklore/myth geek very happy. Thank you; this is very good. <puts it in her memories>

AngelVixen :-)

September 17 2009, 00:32:42 UTC 7 years ago

You're totally welcome!

technoshaman

September 17 2009, 00:22:52 UTC 7 years ago

Mmmm. Maiden, Mother, Crone, and Oak King/Holly King? It does kinda map out...

Good story.

sysrae

September 16 2009, 22:30:59 UTC 7 years ago

Well said! I've been thinking about this recently, too, and I think you've really hit the nail on the head.

...And for some reason, as I wrote that, my brain threw up a random quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, viz: "Damn you and your fairy stories - they're smashing up my home!", which was meant to refer to some council workers, but could quite arguably be refitted to mean that the fairy stories are, in fact, grasping for the metaphoric jackhammers. Which is awesome.

:)

September 17 2009, 00:34:25 UTC 7 years ago

Awesomesauce! Thank you. Also, hee.

archangelbeth

September 17 2009, 00:25:26 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, that is cool!

September 17 2009, 00:34:38 UTC 7 years ago

emberleo

September 17 2009, 00:45:22 UTC 7 years ago

And this is why I adore you so much.

--Ember--

September 17 2009, 04:25:35 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks, sweetie.

the_s_guy

September 17 2009, 00:53:51 UTC 7 years ago

Gnk. Reading this felt like having a boathook jammed into my psyche in order to pull me down paths I'd somehow completely overlooked. It locked straight into that core of whatever defines 'unputdownable'.

September 17 2009, 04:25:47 UTC 7 years ago

Dude. WIN!

cleothyla

September 17 2009, 01:02:15 UTC 7 years ago

I agree, I'd like to be a daughter of Lily Fair as well. I have loved fairy tales all my life but I have been really disappointed by the Disney-fication of most of my favorites. (Did like that they turned Belle into an brunette who read, tho..). Every fairy tale doesn't have a happy ending. But every story does require hope that life isn't just despair and that one shouldn't strive to make it better. And if that way requires a chainsaw, so be it. :)

September 17 2009, 04:26:31 UTC 7 years ago

I wasn't bothered by the Disney-fication, because it's a part of the natural process, and Disney has allowed a lot more darkness than some of the retellings that have come after. But oh, I love my original girls.

tigertoy

September 17 2009, 03:01:53 UTC 7 years ago

All I know of Lily Fair is the hints I've gotten from your blog, so I'm not quite ready to ask if I can be her daughter too. (Besides, some people might get the wrong idea if I asked, me being a guy.) But I definitely look for fantasy worlds that really have something from both Snow White and Rose Red, but not too overwhelmingly much of either.

This is as good a place as any for me to mention that my local Borders FINALLY got their shipping sorted out and got copies of Rosemary and Rue in, and I actually have mine now. I was at my mom's place for dinner, and I finished off the book I in the middle of and started Rosemary and Rue. I just got to the kelpie in chapter 1 when my mom said dinner was ready. Horsey with fangs, I'm so happy! If I feed him a nice telemarketer, will he be my friend?

September 17 2009, 04:26:49 UTC 7 years ago

Awesome! Thank you for letting me know! And yes, he totally will.

almeda

markbernstein

September 17 2009, 13:09:17 UTC 7 years ago

Apropos of absolutely nothing, and just to brighten your day, here are some superhero My Little Ponies.

September 18 2009, 18:59:41 UTC 7 years ago

Squee!

rhoda_rants

September 17 2009, 18:45:20 UTC 7 years ago

Totally agree with everything, and I want to know more about Lily Fair now! I had a conversation with my dad once, on a tangent about horror films in general and how he doesn't approve of how nasty they've gotten - and I agree, to a certain extent, because gore-without-plot is doing it wrong - but I tried to explain to him that monsters are important, every bit as important as faires and princesses, in terms of the things they teach us about life, the universe and everything. It don't know that he quite got what I was trying to tell him, so I might just link him here.

(PS - was directed to this journal by a commentor on Cleolinda's journal post about plagiarism.)

September 18 2009, 19:03:00 UTC 7 years ago

I love my lovely lady Lily. And welcome!

September 18 2009, 04:44:23 UTC 7 years ago

"It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth…The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change."
-- Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

You stand at the corner of Powell and Market, but you are one of my nominees for the mythmakers and storytellers we need today.

September 22 2009, 14:46:12 UTC 7 years ago

Aw.

Thank you.

orawnzva

6 years ago

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The Three Sisters: Fantasy, Horror, and Marchen.

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