Requires Fantasy Novel Things (feel free to add more)
– Title contains the words “Wolf/Rose/Sword/Dark/Crown/Throne”
– Unexplained white haired girl
– Evil Queen that is definitely a red head
– The one black haired guy that dresses in all black but his eyes are blue and beautiful
– Special Eyes™
– Someone turns into an animal and exactly one (1) person might question it
– The Blacksmith
– The mysterious hooded woman in the woods (bonus points if she has a fancy stick)
– Barn sex
– The fastest horse in the land that gets shot by an arrow on page 215
– The one soft spoken healer that gives life changing advice and then is never mentioned again
– A truly excessive amount of dead parents
– Everyone is British except for one inexplicable Irish guy
-traveling unreasonable distances by magic and still not having time travel to save aforementioned dead parents
-that one person who calls magic stupid and believes surgery is the next step for man
-dragons in general
-at least one character or place with a Y in the name -The Village Festival is the biggest event of the year -the word “lithe” -the nice innkeeper with their mean spouse -a character unused to hygiene who freaks out about having to wash
– long and arduous road trip to the Place of the Specific Adjective and/or Noun – the Castle Ball where the heroine wears The Dress which is described in great detail – medieval weaponry 101 – the three drinks of fantasy: ale, wine, and fairy wine – there’s always someone with a Napoleon complex – the Moon cycle and the Solstices
I spend no small amount of time looking at paintings unhappy women in Western art. Women pursued by undesirable men, women forced to listen to lute-players in an enclosed space, women trapped in a web of inescapable male conversation, women desperate for the release only death can bring them. So it brought me no end of joy to discover a portrait of what I believe to be perfect female happiness during a routine reconnaissance through Wikimedia Commons.
Let us pause and set aside a moment to take stock of just what makes this painting so supremely satisfying.
The woman is alone. Do you know how rare finding a moment’s peace has been for women throughout human history? If you spent the rest of your days alone in a cottage on a solitary Alp, it would not begin to make up for the years your foremothers spent having to listen to men as a profession. (You can tell that this woman is happy because there are no men in this picture.) A woman alone is a beautiful thing.
There is a small beast making itself pleasant to her. You may prefer dogs to cats but surely you can appreciate the pleasure of a small, contented animal leaning slightly against you as it perches on a red balcony.
Her bare shoulders slope elegantly downwards, much like a glacier does when it reaches the sea.
This woman is surrounded by food and fine linens. She is drinking her tea out of a saucer, which is the height of fanciness. She has set before her fruits, charmingly arranged, and panettone, with little pots of jam and cream and an assortment of hard rolls, to be selected and eaten at her leisure. This is a woman whose eyes nor stomach will go hungry today.
The woman is wearing an elaborate headwrap and a gown the color of self-satisfaction. She has dressed up for her own appreciation. She has the greatest dining companion in the world – herself.
Lucy: there’s a magical world inside of this closet
Edmund: don’t believe her
Peter: I don’t believe you
Aslan: believe her
Susan: Jesus Christ, a talking lion
Aslan: you are correct in multiple ways
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