Traditional Fairy Tales, Class Seven (02/19)

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Monday, February 19, Second Period

The usual offering of breakfast pastries and drinks was laid out on the table. Aziraphale was looking slightly distracted, and occasionally would lose track of what he was doing and stare off into space with a bemused expression. He appeared to be in good spirits, however, albeit a bit sheepish.

“Before we begin our discussion, I have a bit of other business to take care of. First, there is a list on the wall of students who missed class last week, and from whom I will need written excuses.

Armony Eiselstein
Phoebe Halliwell excused
Jack Harkness excused
Jude Lizowski excused
Miley Stewart excused

Second, I’d like to remind all of you that I need to speak with at least one representative from your project groups regarding your end of term projects. My regular office hours are third and fourth periods on Tuesdays, or you can sign up below in the comments to schedule a meeting at another time. Lastly, I also want to remind you all that we’ll be making a trip to New York City over the weekend of March 16-18 with Dr Wilson’s Conflict Management class.”

LECTURE/DISCUSSION: “Your reading assignments for this week, and the reading assignment you’ll have tonight, deal with the themes of morals and morality in fairy tales. Not only do the tales present common character types, but they often deal with the concepts of sin, corruption and punishment, as well as the dichotomy of good versus evil.

“For today’s discussion, I want you to look at the tales you read, "Little Snow White" and "Lambikin", and consider how they depict the Seven Deadly Sins:

Wrath
Greed
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Envy
Pride

“To start you off, I’ll use the example of Pride as it’s found in “Little Snow White”. The evil step-mother, who is a witch or sorceress, owns a mirror which she uses to reinforce her self-image as the most beautiful woman in the land. When this self-image is threatened – when her Pride is threatened – she lashes out and attempts to destroy her competition. In this way, the evils of the extremes of pride are depicted for the tale’s audience, presenting a case for moderation and humility.”

READING ASSIGNMENT: “Your reading assignment for our next class is "Jack and the Beanstalk". Remember that there’s no class next week due to Spring Break. However, the week after we’ll be meeting in the Danger Shop for another Immersion Study.”

[OOC information about the group projects: Your group project assignment is choose a tale not on the reading list for class and to update it for a different setting, maintaining the character archetypes, themes, etc. There are a number of ways you can do this: rewrite the tale so that it takes place in a modern/futuristic setting, keep the “medieval” setting but rewrite the story itself to reflect modern sensibilities, rewrite the tale for a different cultural setting, etc. If you’re not certain how to go about this, please contact me OOC or talk to Aziraphale IC for assistance.]

[ooc: Please wait for OCD is up and class is in session.]

Syllabus
Class Roster
Project Groups
Linkdrop for classes

Comments

DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

For today’s discussion, I want you to look at the tales you read, "Little Snow White" and "Lambikin", and consider how they depict the Seven Deadly Sins.

Re: DISCUSSION

[sensethevisions]

Phoebe keeps her head down as she takes notes and keepss to herself.

Re: DISCUSSION

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia was taking careful notes, especially on the seven deadly sins, when it suddenly became much, much harder to keep her eyes open. Impossible, even, and her head was certainly now much heavier than it had been a few moments ago.

Soon enough, she had her head pillowed on her notebook and she was out like a proverbial light.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale saw Nadia's head drop, and realized what was happening. He didn't have any details regarding her discussions with Wilson, but he did know about her sleep problems, and it worried him.

Keeping a very close eye on her, he allowed her to remain asleep for the time being.

Re: DISCUSSION

[nadiathesaint]

It didn't take long for it to become clear that Nadia's dreams were, as usual, not very nice. In fact, they included things like watching people she knew transform into other things (Marco turned into a gorilla, Ami turned into . . . what seemed to be some kind of superhero), or bad things happening to them (Billy getting shot, Walter going down in a helicopter crash), and, of course, weird things that she couldn't quite classify (Mac, naked, wrapped in a shower curtain. Cassie snogging a robot, wtf?).

The result was restless, soft, incomprehensible muttering of the upset variety, and the notebook she been using as a pillow getting shoved off the desk, though she didn't wake up.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

When Nadia's sleep became restless, Aziraphale walked quietly over and crouched by her chair.

"Miss Santos," he said softly, putting a hand on her arm. "Miss Santos, wake up now."

Re: DISCUSSION

[anextimeagent.livejournal.com]

Jack's bruised jaw had stiffened over night, which made talking not fun at all. Add in the incredibly painful shoulder, and the painkillers he'd taken before class, and Jack was so not up for discussing much of anything.

Re: DISCUSSION

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"Jack? Oh, lord. You look like you should lie down. Unless you want to talk about the Jackal and Lambikin being very full of himself, as well as grain?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[anextimeagent.livejournal.com]

He smiled at her as best he could, which was really sort of a half-smile, and said, "Hey, Evie. Lying down sounds good. Talking not so much."

Re: DISCUSSION

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"What happened? Not more space cannibals?" Evie went and retrieved and iced juice for Jack, and said, "Here, hold the glass against your face. That helps, sometimes."

Re: DISCUSSION

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's rather funny that only the villain in Little Snow White has those flaws, and the protagonist in Lambikin has quite a few in comparison. Unless we consider Little Snow White being as thick as two planks to be a Sin, which it isn't, just vastly annoying."

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Chuckling, Aziraphale said, "No, I'm afraid Little Snow White's seeming lack of sense would fall more into the category of a plot device than a moral failing. Can you tell us a bit more about what sins the Witch or Lambikin might embody, besides Pride?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"Well," Evie said thoughtfully, "They repeat fairly often that the Queen is envious; not just jealous and upset that she's not the most beautiful, but unable to endure the entire concept, obsessed, in fact. Which leads to wrath, and the urge to remove her step-daughter and competitor which leads to the Dark Side." She paused, then added, "And whoever gave her those little hot shoes was suffering from wrath too. Because, really-- execute her or something, but that was just... ugh."

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale nodded. "Why do you think that the use of the shoes as a punishment was included in the story, instead of an execution? Is there a way that the punishment can be linked back to the Queen's sins?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Greed might possibly lead to carnivorous lamps eating you up."

True, it had absolutely nothing to do with either of the stories, but there you go. Turtle's big contribution to the class today. And it made her grin like like the idiot she probably sounded like.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Raising an eyebrow, Aziraphale said, "That's an interesting theory, Miss Wexler, although I don't believe I recall any carnivorous lamps from this week's reading. Do you think you could address your ideas to the characters from either 'Little Snow White' or 'Lambikin'?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle...really needed to do less reading of the Wall Street Journal and more reading of the class assignments. "Well," she said after a moment, "I think your example of pride is an interesting one, because I would have placed it more along the lines of envy than anything else...." She shrugged.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale's lips quirked in a little smile, and he nodded. "There does seem to be a good bit of Envy mixed in as well. You're quite right."

After a pause, he said in a soft but amused voice, "You may want to catch up a bit on the readings before the next class, Miss Wexler."

Re: DISCUSSION

[dude-its-jude.livejournal.com]

Jude snickered into his notebook. Sounded like something Rikku would say.

Insert dorky grin here.

Re: DISCUSSION

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle arched an eyebrow at Jude. What the heck was he snickering about? He wouldn't get greed-consuming man-eating lamps. It was, like, her and Tannim's thing. So she threw a ball of paper at him and stuck out her tongue.

Re: DISCUSSION

[dude-its-jude.livejournal.com]

It bounced off his head and he looked wounded. He had given her a flower and everything. Harsh, bra.

Re: DISCUSSION

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Well there's also envy in Snow White." Billy said. "Which would seem to go hand in hand with Pride in that case."

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Nodding, Aziraphale said, "Very good. Can you explain how Envy is used as a catalyst for the events in the story?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Well pride itself just set up the plot really." Billy said. "It wasn't until envy entered the picture that the queen started trying to kill Snow White. Do you suppose that name is a metaphor?"

Re: DISCUSSION

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

"The name 'Snow White'?" Aziraphale asked, nodding approvingly at Billy's answer. "It's entirely possible that it could be a metaphor. What do you think it might mean?"