A Grimm Book of Knowledge

Nick and his young protege Teresa Rubel

Recently, my friend Nick met a young woman who sees the world like he does. She grew up in foster homes, and any time she told someone she had seen a person who looked like a monster, they threw her into a mental institution. Thus she earned the nickname Trubel (pronounced "Trouble"). As she never had anyone like Nick's aunt Marie to explain why some people look and act differently from others, she assumed they really were monsters, or that she was going crazy. So Nick brought Teresa to his trailer, and showed her some of his aunt's books.

These books are filled with the history of Nick's ancestors, who traveled all over the world, and battled all types of mythological creatures. Every time one of them discovered a new type of "wesen," he or she would write about the creature, and the circumstances surrounding that encounter. Their entries encompass a multitude of languages, handwriting, and artwork, and are as unique as every individuals who recorded them.

The pages in these books explain the history of the Grimms, and the ways in which people of all types have interacted throughout time. They help Teresa understand that she's not going crazy, and that she really can see the world in a special way. Now, it falls to Nick to help her understand that not all wesen are monsters. Some, like his friends Monroe and Rosalee, are far nicer than many of the "normal" people Teresa has met in her short, troubled life.

This page tells of an outbreak of Fluvus Pestilentia,
also referred to as the Yellow Plague.
Nick's English translation (see the white sidebar)
explains that the disease manifests as yellow boils.
In its final stage, those infected are overcome by deadly rage.

This illustration shows how Fluvus Pestilentia
devistated Medieval villages.
Nick's friend Rosalee once contracted this disease,
and driven by rage, nearly killed Nick.
Thankfully, Rosalee had told Monroe how to prepare
an antidote, which he administered before she died.

One of Nick's ancestors encountered this Cracher-Mortel
in Haiti back in 1791. His spit induced a death-like trance.
Once awakened, his victims lacked any willpower,
and obeyed his commands without hesitation.
Nick was attacked by one of these last year.
While he seems to have recovered,
he still exhibits some worrying aftereffects.

Knowing I was interested in his work, Nick was kind enough to copy some of the pages from his books and bind them together for me. The knowledge they contain may not prove as vital to me as for Teresa, but I appreciate his gesture. They help me see the world as he does, and it's always nice to understand what our friends do with their lives. As a gesture of respect to his aunt, Nick labeled his little collection Grimm: Aunt Marie's Book of Lore.

Given the way he protects all of us from malicious wesen, and his constant willingness to help those in need, I happen to think my friend Nick is a special guy. But he must think I'm a little special too. Otherwise, why would he have given me this book to read, to enjoy, and to help me understand him better?

Dragon Dave

Related Drago Cache entries
A Grimm Family Portrait

Related Internet Links
Fluvus Pestilentia
Cracher-Mortel

A Grimm Family Portrait

Meet Monroe and Rosalee, two nice young people who inhabit the wonderful world of "Grimm."  In a recent episode, when Monroe told his parents of their engagement, they were so excited they flew off to visit him in Portland, Oregon. 

You might not know it to look at him, but Monroe is a Blutbad, or if you prefer, a werewolf.  Thankfully for us, he's given up the normal activities of his kind, such as running with the pack and hunting.  His parents know he's become a vegetarian, but they don't know that he plans to marry a Fuchsbau, or a real fox-y lady. They find this situation rather alarming.

Shaken, Rosalee leaves, but then his friend Nick arrives.  Nick doesn't possess a human-animal nature like Monroe and Rosalee, but he's inherited the rare trait of a Grimm, which enables to see the true form of people like Monroe and Rosalee. Traditionally, Grimms have hunted and killed Wesen, a generic term for Blutbad, Fuchsbau, and anyone who possesses extra-human traits.  When Monroe's parents learn their son has helped a Grimm hunt down Wesen, they are appalled.  

In Nick's work as a homicide detective, he meets people from all walks of life.  Some of them are Wesen.  Unlike most of his ancestors, he takes the time to look past external differences, and view all people as individuals.  He's even befriended a few Wesen, like Monroe and Rosalee.  Currently, he wants Monroe's help in tracking down a group of Wildesheer on a killing spree.

Monroe's father may not like Grimms, but he fears Wildesheer more. These Wesen weave the scalps of their victims into magical, impenetrable cloaks.  He knows that, with each victory, the Wildesheer grow more powerful, until they can summon forces of nature like thunder and lightning.  So he follows Nick and Monroe, and helps them defeat the psychotic, rampaging Wildesheer.  Meanwhile, Monroe's mother visits Rosalee, and tries to understand what her son sees in her.

Through working to overcome traditional boundaries, Monroe's parents gain a better understanding of their son.  So they accept his dinner invitation, only to find themselves sharing the evening with Nick and his fiancee Juliet. Unfortunately, Juliet tries to relax the stilted atmosphere by asking if they're looking forward to the wedding. 

This proves too much for them, and they instinctively revert to their animal form. Alarmed, Nick grabs his table knife to protect himself and Juliet.  

Monroe calms everyone down with a few soothing words. His father sums up the situation when he mutters, "This is going to take a little getting used to." Families and society constantly demand that we change our viewpoints, and adapt to new situations. That's why I want to be in Monroe's family...provided I can still enjoy a thick, juicy steak now and then.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
What Kind of Animal are You?
Those Grimm Customer Service Reps 

Related Internet Links
Watch Grimm episodes at www.nbc.com/grimm
Learn more about the wonderful world of "Grimm" at www.grimm.wikia.com

Those Grimm Customer Service Reps

"Grimm" shines a curious light on the state of modern entertainment.  In our enlightened age, filmmakers can't tastefully depict nudity without receiving an R rating.  Nor can a character use the F-word repeatedly, whatever the context (think "The King's Speech"), without cinemas inadvertently scaring away the broad spectrum of potential moviegoers with an R rating.  Yet the broadcast networks are allowed to show mangled corpses, severed limbs with bone and ruined flesh exposed, and copious amounts of blood on TV.  

"Grimm" highlights the extent to which we allow violence into our homes.  My wife and I find the stories so dark and intense that we record them on Friday evenings, and watch them on the weekend during breakfast or lunch.  While we're not wild about its graphic nature, what draws us into the program is how the characters relate to each other so realistically, and humorously, despite the intricate and complicated nature of their relationships.  We also like the mythos the show's creators have fashioned, which they continually develop.  They make you feel as if you might really be living in a world populated by Grimms, Royals, and all the Blutbad, Fuchsbau, and other types of Wessen creatures that, most of the time, look just like us.  More importantly, the show underlines our need to accept others despite the differences that threaten to separate us, a message every generation needs to embrace.

What prompted me to write this post was the good service we received after we purchased Season Two.  As you can see, the packaging promises that, in addition to the Blu-ray discs, you will also be able to steam and download each episode via Ultraviolet.  When my wife did this, she only received a portion of the episodes.  When she checked the next day, nothing had changed.  So she sent an email to customer service, and the following day she received a reply that she should have all the episodes now.  She checked again, and sure enough, all the episodes were on her cloud.  

So often we write to big companies like this, and receive no reply to our queries.  So often we complain about the companies who treat us poorly.  So I wanted to take this moment to thank all those customer service representatives who assist Grimm viewers in watching the program they love.  Thank You!  We really appreciate your efforts!  Now my wife and I can watch "Grimm"on our laptops, whenever we go on vacation.

Just not in the evenings.

Dragon Dave

Intrigued by Fairy Tales

One of the childhood reading experiences that stuck with me was Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  As I worked my way through stories collected in that old hardcover volume, I remember being mystified by characters performing bizarre actions, such as sawing the heads off children, and then sewing them back on.  Of course, the children return to life.  Well, even I knew back then that such actions didn’t represent reality.  Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what the stories were intended to convey.  I just knew they were weird. 

In the past few years, publishers have rolled out a seemingly endless succession of volumes relating in some way to classic fairy tales, which are a subset of a given culture’s folktale tradition.  Scholars study old volumes and manuscripts, and then herald what they believe to be the oldest, truest, and most original form of particular stories, accompanied by their exhaustive notes and commentaries.  Popular authors contribute to collections of new Fairy Tales that celebrate this storytelling tradition, or discuss the merits of the old favorites at Science Fiction conventions.  Through them, we learn that the original stories are darker and stranger than anything published today.  Picking up on this trend, Hollywood has produced an explosion of big screen adaptations lately, including three featuring Snow White.  Fairy Tales have also invaded the small screen, with shows like “Grimm” and “Once Upon A Time” that scramble up characters or elements from these old stories and intermix them with those drawn from modern life. 

Ever since that first childhood reading, I’ve regarded Fairy Tales as unfinished business.  I’ve intended to return to them at some point, to study their structure, the common elements such stories share, and their historical and cultural contexts, in the hope of understanding not only what I read as a child, but a tradition that seems to be part of the foundation upon which modern storytelling is built.  Early last year, I read a novel based on “Snow White and Rose Red,” a German story collected by the Grimm brothers.  (This is a different story from the “Snow White” that Disney later transformed into the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”)  As with all oral storytelling, the fairy tale evolved with time.  In its shorter, original form, it was called “The Ungrateful Dwarf,” and contained fewer elements than the version later collected by the Grimms.  In her novel, Snow White and Rose Red, Patricia C. Wrede expands the classic story.  She changes the setting to Medieval England, and paints a convincing world in which the lives of magical beings intermix with that of our heroines, Snow White and her less-known sister.  

I found the novel a refreshing change from my normal fantasy fare, and I particularly liked how Wrede intermixed the classic tale with her version.  At the beginning of each chapter, an italicized paragraph serves as an introduction.  After awhile, I came to realize that these paragraphs were actually segments of the classic fairy tale, and each chapter her elaboration of the paragraph.  Thus I could see how a modern writer might update older story elements and structures, and expand them to novel length.  Through reading the novel, I learned that it was part of a series commissioned by Terri Windling in the 1980s, and one of my favorite authors, Steven Brust, had also contributed a novel.  So of course, I had to check out Steven Brust’s Fairy Tale!

In The Sun, the Moon, & the Stars, Steven Brust pursues a different strategy.  Instead of elaborating on a classic story, he gives us an entirely modern one, and weaves into it portions of a Hungarian Fairy Tale called "Csucskari," which is named after the story’s protagonist.  After reading his novel twice, I contacted Brust, and he recommended that I track down Folktales Of Hungary by Linda Degh if I was interested in reading the original story, as well as learning more about the Hungarian Folktale tradition.  So that’s what I did, but more on that tomorrow.

Isn’t it interesting how one good story can lead to another, even if the readings are separated by years or decades?

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

The Sun, the Moon, & the Stars

What Kind of Animal are You?

“Life in the R.A.F. reminded me of something I always knew: Men are like animals.  I don’t mean men are ‘beastly.’  What I mean is that no two are exactly alike.  Many people think my farm patients are all the same, but cows, pigs, sheep and horses can be moody, placid, vicious, docile, spiteful, loving.”

James Herriot, All Things Wise And Wonderful, Chapter 29

One show I’ve been enjoying recently is “Grimm.”  I really like how the protagonists don’t let their differences get in the way.  Instead of wasting their time and mine by bickering, sniping, or having arguments over interpersonal issues that they cannot change, they accept each others’ strengths and weaknesses and get on with the task at hand. 

For those of you who don’t know, “Grimm” follows a police detective who can see were-creatures for who and what they are.  These creatures come in all varieties.  Most humans cannot see them for what they truly are, unless they wish to reveal themselves.  (Usually, they only do this when they are attacking someone).  Nick, who is called a Grimm, can see their true form at any time.  With the help of normal humans and his were-friends, he learns to recognize these changelings by their species’ characteristics, personalities, and traits.  These were-people tend to lump members of other species into easily definable categories.  Nick, like Herriot, recognizes that an individual is more than just the type of animal that others might choose to view them as.

What resonates with me most about the series is how unique all of us are.  Sometimes, we don’t even recognize our true selves.  It’s easy to define ourselves by our looks, body type, jobs, personalities, or interests.  It’s also easy to define ourselves by our history.  All too often, we tend to think that what we’ve done in the past is all we’re capable of. 

This weekend, I’m going through the piles of paperwork (and other things) in my office.  I’m finding all those drafts of previous manuscripts I’ve written, plus all the associated outlines, character histories, and notes, notes, notes.  Personally, I don’t know what I’m capable of, but I hope there’s a writer whose capable of being published lurking inside me.  One who will stop giving up on stories at a particular stage, for whatever reason, and say “It’s all too much to put together,” or “This is no good, I can’t possibly sell this.”  I’m hoping that the outside person—how others view me, and how I tend to view myself—isn’t the real me.  Like the were-people on “Grimm,” that process of transformation promises to be painful, but if I really want to reveal that person, I have to work toward my eventual transformation. 

What kind of animal do you see yourself as?  If you have not yet become the person you wish to be, what will you have to do to complete the transformation process?

"Hey, don't over-think this!
I'm a dragon, okay?"

On a lighter note, a family member recently gave me this animal.  She enjoys playing games of chance, particularly ones in which she can win something.  She loves going to Circus Circus in Las Vegas, playing machines where you operate a claw to pick up the animal, even Chuck E Cheese.  Somewhere along the way she found this fellow.  She said, “You call yourself Dragon Dave, so here’s a dragon for you.”  While he bears a slight resemblance to a dragon, he also reminds me of Godzilla, or simply an alligator who, in addition to changing his color, has also learned to walk upright.  What do you think?  Any thoughts on who and what this guy is? 

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to terrorize Tokyo."

Perhaps it’s mere whimsy, but I can’t help wonder what James Herriot might make of him.

Dragon Dave