Poll: Year End

[thefourthvine]

I've seen lots of people doing year-end wrap-ups, but, well, I don't really have a lot to wrap up. You all know how my year went. Instead, I thought I'd ask you: how was your year? Are you happy, baby? (I'm also curious because a lot of people seem to have had absolutely terrible 2007s; I'm wondering if it was just the Cursed Year or what.)

And the question at the end is a very important one. Best Beloved and I were talking about that story, and we totally disagreed about what happened. I'd like to be proved right by majority rule, please. Voting is key.

[Poll #1114196]

Comments

[runpunkrun]

I went with the tiger because the author repeatedly refers to the king and his daughter as "semi-barbaric" which is as good as calling them "semi-evil." It would have been a different thing if they had been repeatedly described as "semi-civilized" instead. The mention of the daughter's "fervent and imperious" qualities is far more open to interpretation. That could mean she's civilized and passionate or blood-thirsty and self-absorbed.

My feminist hat may be on a little too tightly, but the author didn't spend as much time telling us about the daughter as he did about the father. Who knows what she's fervent about.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I went with the lady. I don't trust the narrator -- he's too busy reveling in the "barbarism" of the father and daughter. What good qualities of the princess's does he leave out in order to make the tale as salacious as possible. We don't know, but the lover certainly didn't have a second's hesitation in trusting the princess both to find out which door was which, and to direct him appropriately. Possibly he's an idiot, or possibly they both agreed that it would be better for him to be eaten by the tiger. But if he really knows her and was looking to be directed to the lady, I think that's what he got.