Cinderella III

Thanks for joining! We're going through Cinderella by Charles Perrault and having as much fun as much as possible -- providing funny commentary and helpful tips for the author's general improvement. Quick legend: We refer to the original author by several nicknames, including CP, Chaz, or, simply, Charles.

Last time, we left Cinderella marveling at six very fine horses...

Welcome back! Last time in our travels with Cinderella and her gang [read: her stepsisters who really don’t like her much], we learned about magique! and about anticlimaxes (thanks, Chaz), and learned a quite amazing and reliable method for baking pumpkin seeds. If only this installment were as interesting! Keep your hopes down, and let’s get to it.

We last saw Cinderella realizing it was time to leave the ball…Cinderella’s starting to get how magic works: she offers to go look for a rat, because she needs a coachman, reasoning that “we” can make that happen. Is she a fairy’s apprentice? What a fascinating possibility. More likely, she’s just getting caught up in the emotion and adrenaline of the evening and using improper communal pronouns as a result. SO RELATABLE. 

She goes and finds three huge rats; it’s nice to know that she’s not scared of them or anything. I would be. (Cinderella’s personality traits now include “very nice” and “good with rodents”. She is far from the most ordinary.) Her fairy godmother’s next move is something I will be thinking about for a very long time. She assesses the rats, chooses the one with the longest beard (do rats have beards? Is this just a shaggy rat?), and decides that that means that this rat is good coachman material. Does having a longer beard make you a better driver? I feel like I could pull up some stats on that. I also feel like my husband and I should grow beards for our personal safety, and that the CDC should issue some sort of statement on the desirability of facial hair as an inoculation against car wrecks. 

She turns the long-bearded rat into a coachman. The resulting humanoid has “the smartest whiskers that eyes ever beheld,” which is a great perk for the driver, seeing as Cinderella will be in an opaque pumpkin-coach with him facing away from her for 98% of their time together. 

FG requests some lizards, now, which I’d like to say DID NOT make it into the OG Disney movie. I think they may have been in one of the remakes? I’d also like to point out that FG says to go out into the garden to get them; and, unless we’ve moved and Charles didn’t say so, this indicates that we’re currently standing in Cinderella’s deplorable garret with six very fine horses, a pumpkin-coach of uncertain size, a rat-man with estimable whiskers, two women, and a straw pallet that everyone wishes weren’t there. Just gonna say that FG could have chosen a better location for the magic-doing, because horses are not great at going down stairs, even if they are wonderfully mouse-colored. (Note to CP: Logistics.) 

Six lizards are turned into six footmen. They’re immediately very good at being footmen, which does instill in me a sense of confidence that the driver is probably an okay driver and Cinderella will not die en route to the ball. 

FG surveys her work and says that Cinderella is good to go. As she’s metaphorically washing her hands of the situation – although, noted, I hope Cinderella has washed her hands in that secondary kitchen of hers, because she was holding both bearded and non-bearded rats a minute ago – Cinderella’s like, but, wait. FG has missed something very important. 

And we have the dress transformation scene. Cinderella’s ‘nasty rags’ are poked by the magic wand, and instantly are blipped into stiff gold cloth, studded with jewels. (Sounds a bit more like very fancy armor or like C-3P0’s going out on the town, but that’s probably just me.) All in all, CP has done more description of the footmen’s livery (also very glam) than of Cinderella’s dress and FG’s magic combined; and, for things which made it in the movie vs. things which didn’t, this seems like a little bit of a lopsided distribution of words. (Note to CP: Priorities.) 

We get the ‘don’t stay past midnight’ thing, which is about like we’ve all remembered it. Question, though: Why midnight? Did FG not stay in magic school for Spells 102: Continuity and Permanence? Doesn’t seem like a particularly helpful application of magic. Like, the romance of a disappearing dress (ooo) is one thing, but what if she were helping Cinderella stay alive, or literally any situation in which the stakes were higher than going to a fancy party? 

Cinderella does not stop to think about this or collect $200. She goes to the party, “scarcely able to contain herself for joy.” It’s okay. The armor’s probably containing her rather well. 

The host of the party – “King’s Son” Charming; not a prince – was handed false information from staff members who probably enjoy judging books by their covers. A great princess has arrived! Murmurs cascade through the court. King’s Son Charming runs outside, abandoning all of the guests who bothered to arrive on time – manners! – and escorts her from the pumpkin. They go back inside and “there was immediately a profound silence.” This is a nightmare situation. Also, a less charitable reading of this is that Cinderella killed the party immediately upon entrance. 

Ah, but it’s okay, see, everyone’s quiet because they are “so entranced with the singular beauties of the unknown newcomer” (assumed to be a great princess). The assumption is problematic. Also, is King’s Son likewise muted due to the spectacle of Cinderella’s glitzy getup? I hope he at least introduced himself. (Note to CP: In a story entirely without names, this might have been a fun moment to include) 

Out of the silence, everyone begins shouting about how beautiful Cinderella is. Poor girl has been through a gamut of external feedback today. I would be dying. To her credit, she handles it rather well. 

The king (character traits: “old,” “also in room”) tells his wife that he has never seen anyone so beautiful as Cinderella. This seems like a questionable decision on his part. I wonder if the royal chambers include a couch for him to sleep on.

Every single lady in the room immediately assesses Cinderella’s clothing, including her headdress, which, hold up, I was not informed that there was a hat situation. This changes everything, because, neauxp, I am decidedly not picturing a tiara (since when is a tiara considered ‘headdress’? To me, a headdress implies bulk). Anyhoo, they’re all instantly figuring out how they can have similar pieces made so they can be as beautiful as she. 

Once Cinderella’s influencer status is cemented, King’s Son seats her at his right hand at the high table; and, after sitting there for a beat, they whirl down into the center of the dance floor. (ICYMI, this is Overly Literal Reading Comp Hour). Apparently only Cinderella and King’s Son are dancing – everyone else is just standing there gawking, their estimation of Cinderella growing by the minute due to her graceful dancing. It’s convenient that she’s a graceful dancer; in the face of mass scrutiny, I’d be blushing and tripping over my toes. During this time, the chefs serve up a fine meal, but the – aha! – the young prince (thank you, CP) doesn’t want to eat, “so intently was he busied in gazing on her.” People need to eat in these stories. A, this is France, so the food is likely superb; B, Cinderella hasn’t eaten anything in many paragraphs, and I didn’t hear him ask her if she’d like something to eat; and C, people need to eat in these stories. Also that sounds creep.

Alert, alert, we have a flex from Cinderella. Once the prince is done staring at her, she goes and sits down by her sisters! Did she knew that they wouldn’t recognize her? I mean, this is crazy confident (=nice way of putting it). Cinderella, the Very Nice Girl (who is good with rodents) is very polite to her stepsisters. To put it mildly, I would probably play this another way. Cinderella is better than me. She even shares the citrus fruit (?) which the prince had given her (?) with them. Is this a custom in seventeenth century France of which I am unaware? Likely not: at the sight of the oranges, the stepsisters were very surprised. But this may have also been because they thought they were sitting next to/being fed oranges by a complete stranger: “for they did not know her”. Haha, suckers. 

Cinderella and our narrator might not be the best at reading the room, because the story moves forward thusly: “While Cinderella was amusing her sisters…” (Note to CP: ‘Amusement’ is probably not the correct emotion in this case.) (Note to…everyone else: This may be a translation thing? As CP wrote this in French? I’ll probably need to grit my way through the OG text and report back to see if things make more sense.) 

Anyway, while Cinderella was amusing her sisters, the clock struck 23:45. Queen of subtlety that she is, she pops up (probably dropping oranges everywhere) and runs from the room.

And, on that cliffhanger – Rebecca out.