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meganbmoorePrincesses Meryl and Addie have grown up sheltered in their father’s castle in Bamarre, raised on the legend of Drualt, a hero who slew dragons. Outside the castle is the Gray Death, a plague with no known cure. Addie is meek and timid and afraid of almost everything, clinging to Meryl, who is brave and adventurous, and who protects her younger sister from everything. Meryl would have her own adventures, instead of reenacting those of Drualt, but when they were children, Addie made her promise not to leave on her adventures until Addie was married.
But then Meryl saves Addie from a specter and then forces it to tell her when her adventures will begin, to which it replies that she just had one, and another is about to begin. But then Meryl is struck by the Gray Plague, and Addie, remembering a prophecy that the cure can only be found when a coward is able to overcome fears, sets out alone to find the cure, reenacting parts of Drualt’s story as she goes along.
Unlike Ella in Ella Enchanted, Addie isn’t brave and clever and strong almost from the start. She’s weak and clingy and afraid to do anything without Meryl’s help and protection. And while she’s selfish in her demands of her sister, she does love Meryl absolutely and selflessly, and it’s that that gives her the strength to go on her quest. Like Sophie in Howl’s Moving Castle and Tristan in Stardust, we begin the story from Addie’s perspective and follow it to the end, watching her grow up and become brave through her own eyes.
Levine isn’t as cruel to Addie from beginning to end as she is to Ella, but Addie’s troubles are just as hard on her, even if they take a different form, and she has many hard lessons to learn about life and heroism along the way, including some of the hardest ones there are.
But then Meryl saves Addie from a specter and then forces it to tell her when her adventures will begin, to which it replies that she just had one, and another is about to begin. But then Meryl is struck by the Gray Plague, and Addie, remembering a prophecy that the cure can only be found when a coward is able to overcome fears, sets out alone to find the cure, reenacting parts of Drualt’s story as she goes along.
Unlike Ella in Ella Enchanted, Addie isn’t brave and clever and strong almost from the start. She’s weak and clingy and afraid to do anything without Meryl’s help and protection. And while she’s selfish in her demands of her sister, she does love Meryl absolutely and selflessly, and it’s that that gives her the strength to go on her quest. Like Sophie in Howl’s Moving Castle and Tristan in Stardust, we begin the story from Addie’s perspective and follow it to the end, watching her grow up and become brave through her own eyes.
Levine isn’t as cruel to Addie from beginning to end as she is to Ella, but Addie’s troubles are just as hard on her, even if they take a different form, and she has many hard lessons to learn about life and heroism along the way, including some of the hardest ones there are.
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Date: 2008-08-13 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 06:57 am (UTC)The ending, with Meryl, made me WTF even way back when, but the dragon and Addie in the cave was the best part of the book. I liked Ella Enchanted better, though.
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Date: 2008-08-13 07:09 am (UTC)I think EE is the better book of the two.
The thing with Meryl was meant to show that she was thinking too small. Addie was thinking only of saving Meryl, but failed in that. In doing so, though, she saved thousands of other lives. It also made her be able to let go of Meryl, so Meryl could finally live her own life, instead of being ruled by Addie's needs. Levine seems to be pretty big on having her heroines learn life's lessons via a figurative punch in the gut.