The Pied Piper of Transylvania: Tripping Over Fairy Tales

“If you want to tell grown-up fairy tales, you have to look for the dark side” – Juan Antonio Bayona

But your match.com profile said “handsome prince”!

Life is not a fairy tale.  There isn’t a handsome prince waiting to emerge from the beast.  The princess is just a pawn in the game of thrones, and a means to secure dynastic succession.  Grimm’s collections, when not properly sanitized for the modern rug rat and their hyper-sensitive parents, are awash in blood and depravity.  The fairy tale of ages past was history, philosophy, and cosmology all rolled into one, a warning that at any time, the universe may conspire to befuddle your much vaunted powers of logic and rationality, demanding adaptation to overcome a descent into insanity (or being eaten).  We still tell ourselves fairy tales, but they are resounding litanies of social mundanity where the protagonist must enchant themselves into…