Tag: magic

life, Personal

Three Wishes – what would they be?

Clementine Fraser

Wishing upon a star, a blown out candle, or a genie lamp. Getting the world on a plate and then oops! suffering comeuppance from your granted wishes.  What would you wish for? and do wishes always have to backfire?

 

The wishes backfiring on the wisher is a tale as old as Aladdin.  And, after all, it worked out nicely for him in the end. But the Japanese folk tale The Stonecutter, and the European tales of The Woodcutter or Loppi and Lappi, even the movie Labyrinth are all stories that carry the warning “be careful of what you wish for”. They also warn against taking things and good fortune for granted, or abusing your new power. Often the traditional stories are also tales about the foolishness of women and how their advice makes the man suffer, or they are lessons about being satisfied with your lowly social position and not longing for more.

 

 

With that in mind, what would I wish for? For the world and for me? Continue reading “Three Wishes – what would they be?” →

Musings on Fiction and Tropes

Making the usual unusual – how I fell for Paranormal and Urban Fantasy

Clementine Fraser

When I was young there wasn’t much urban fantasy to choose from. I remember the delight of Which Witch (a story I recently read to my own children), and a multitude of children’s stories about witch schools (all pre-Hogwarts and all of which I desperately wanted to visit). I was an avid reader of Maurice Gee and Margaret Mahy, and The Changeover and The Halfmen of O were perennial favourites. I’m not sure I would call The Halfmen of O urban fantasy so much because, like the Susan Cooper Dark is Rising sequence books and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, children leave the real world here and are whisked off to a magical realm. The magic happens elsewhere.

 

I loved magic. I so wanted it to be real. When we played witches at school I was always the witch. Except that one time they said someone else could be the witch. I wasn’t happy about that. #notstillbitter #okayjustalittle Continue reading “Making the usual unusual – how I fell for Paranormal and Urban Fantasy” →

Musings on Fiction and Tropes

Why Fairy Tales are Important

Clementine Fraser

Fairy tale fighting dragon

Fairy tales, and their modern counterparts, teach us more than unrealistic expectations about love and the chance of being hidden royalty. They teach us about courage and bravery, about the importance of using your wits, about dangers and evils and tragedy. They teach us that the monsters can be fought and dreams can be achieved.

 

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Neil Gaiman

 

Fairy tales keep alive the hope that there is such a thing as true love, and that it’s almost part of your destiny. In a world where the path to love is frequently bumpy or long, and loneliness is all too common, stories promising love as destiny, love as the Happy Ending, help us hang on to hope. Sure, they sometimes might set us up for unreal expectations too, but whats a little unreal expectation between friends! Continue reading “Why Fairy Tales are Important” →

Musings on Fiction and Tropes

It’s a Kind of Magic

Clementine Fraser

shutterstock_627596411

Magic seems so real when you’re a child.  The world is a miraculous place where caterpillars turn into butterflies and you’re taught to wish on stars. When the world is so full of possibility, the idea of magic doesn’t seem out of place. Magic explains the world.

 

I can’t remember when I stopped truly believing in magic. Maybe it was when i figured out that Santa wasn’t really real, or that the wishes I made on stars actually didn’t get heard. Of course, it might have been when that picture of the witch that I saw so vividly in my head looked like a green painted mess on the paper in my art class. Whenever it was that I figured out magic had no place in our world, I definitely remember my sadness and disappointment that I could never be a magic user, or visit magic realms where I would (naturally) suddenly discover that I was a long lost saviour bursting with magic. Like I said: disappointing. My desire to see magic actually exist was, for the most part, equally satisfied and fuelled by falling into enchantments in books.

 

Enchantments give our world some hope that things can not just be better, easier, more fabulous, but that there is some meaning behind the meaningless. Some sparkle to be added to the banality of existence. Continue reading “It’s a Kind of Magic” →