There are a few
things that should no longer be a surprise on this blog. One is that I will
take any opportunity to discuss my favorite book series. (I have a lot of
favorites, I know, but still.) In this case I am writing about Catherynne
Valente’s Fairyland series. After the
election, Valente tweeted a lot about Fairyland and her disappointment about
current events. Not going to lie, I was disappointed too. And because good
things occasionally come out of bad, my favorite story got an addition. Valente
wrote “The Beasts Who Fought For Fairyland Until The Very End And FurtherStill.” I read it over Thanksgiving Break and was like, “I have to write about
this, because I love it.”
Before the
story, Valente says, “Ever since the election, people have been telling me to
shut up and go back to Fairyland. Be silent. Be good. Accept. Submit. Stop
talking about politics. Stick to fairy tales. (As if fairy tales have ever not
been about politics.) Go back to Fairyland. Go back to Fairyland. So I did.”
***HERE BE SPOILERS***
This story takes
place between the original prequel and the start of the actual series. We
re-meet our old friends Ell, the Leopard of Little Breezes, and the Green Wind
after they have suffered a defeat at the hands of the Marquess. We knew this
defeat happened and we have seen the effects of it. If you’ve read the series,
you know what the Marquess is capable of. And you know how Ell and the Green
Wind resist. But how do they get there?
Ell, like me,
like so many of us, is almost despondent: “We lost…But we tried so hard…Stories aren’t supposed to end like
this… Things are supposed to get better.
Things are supposed to make sense.”
How could this happen? It wasn’t supposed to end up like this. How did we get
here? And now what?
And like he so often
has, the Green Wind has the answer: “Perhaps this is not the end of the story…”
Green tells Ell about the magic of narrative and the power of making someone
the hero of their own story. The Leopard of Little Breezes talks about the
magic of No: “It’s very much harder to say No to a tyrant…harder still to do it
while your wings are tied down…” And the magic of Yes: “We must band together,
back to back, and say Yes to everyone who lost today, for we are all family
now, and our loss is our new last name.”
“But most of
all, we must say Yes to the truth and the speaking of it. We must say No to
silence.”
Through all of
this, they are speaking to us, just as they are speaking to Ell. And Ell is
encouraging all of us too: “I understand what you mean…You mean defiance. I
know all about Defiance. It begins with D.”
This is it. This
is the lesson we all have to learn. Yes, times are rough. And they don’t look
like what we expected or what we are used to. Many people find hopelessness. I
find strength. There are many more of us who choose unity over hate. As more
and more votes are counted and official number come out, and more news about incompetence
and cronyism comes out, we see that We the People can be stronger than those
who sit in the seats of power. After all, this is, supposedly, a government of,
by, and for the people. So we need to say No, as long and loud as necessary.
Until the “dark lord” of the story is “cast down into infinite nothingness or
[is] burnt to a crisp of at the very
least sent to bed without supper.”
I don’t know
what the future holds, but I have found some hope and courage in this story. I
hope you have too.
