The Non-Facebook Post #105

Let’s begin with the latest filler word of the moment – so.

So, last night I was reading out a bedtime story to a perceptive 7-year old. It was titled “The Flying Prince.” The story began with introducing a prince who encounters 4 “thieving trolls” in a forest. The trolls had stolen four magic items – a carpet, a bowl, and two others that I forget – from a village. The narration described that the Prince then “took” the items from the trolls while they were busy accomplishing a test he had put them to and made away with the loot. At this, the insightful little 7-year old beside me shrieked, “He’s a bad guy. He’s mean. I hope the Princess doesn’t marry him.”

And that set me thinking about a lot of different themes coming through from this juvenile story. The 7-year old was right – it was a mean thing for the Prince to do. He, effectively, stole from the trolls, disregarding the fact that they themselves had stolen the items. As rightly pointed out, that was a mean thing to do. And even more rightly stated, the Princess he was trying to woo should not have married him.

It also struck me how labels define the character and personality of a person. He was a “Prince” and so his actions were “right”. They were “Trolls” and everything they did was automatically “wrong” even though the prince committed the same base thievery as they did. Additionally, this story’s narrative did not care to sketch out details of what made the trolls the bad guys when these characters were introduced. It simply said they were “trolls.” And that’s it – that’s apparently sufficient to criminalize them.  

I don’t know about the trolls but the Prince definitely had a little troll in him.