In Which I Post A Meme - DVD Commentary

[zelda_queen]

Yoinked from gehayi!



Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

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Comments

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

From Zelda of the Sun, Zelda of the Moon:

The next morning, Zelda of the Moon begged her father to arrange for a feast to be held in Zant's honor.

"What good will it do to make him feel welcome?" the king asked.

"After all father," said the princess, "he is still our guest, as well as a man of nobility. There is no harm in it. And perhaps paying tribute to him will stir some kindness in his heart and help him reconsider what he asks."

The king knew there was no chance of that happening, but gave orders for a feast to be held regardless. He had long since learned that Zelda of the Moon had reasons for all of her requests, no matter how strange they might be. He only hoped the ones this time would be helpful.

Every chef cooked their finest dishes. The most luscious fruits and vegetables were picked from the royal gardens and orchards. Ducks were roasted and suckling pigs were cooked on spits until their meat was delicious and tender. Rich desserts were baked and, to top it all off, the finest wines were opened.

The guests at the feast were fearful and silent, however if Zant noticed, he certainly didn't mind. He steadily ate his way through every course and had his goblet refilled again and again and again.

When the last course had been served, Zant stood up and looked blearily around the room. His eyes were unfocused and he swayed slightly. If he had not proven himself able to handle twice as much wine as he drank at the feast, the guests would have assumed him to be drunk. He grinned and, without any warning, fell backwards into his chair and began to gently snore.

"Well!" said the king.

"Father," said Zelda of the Moon, "perhaps we may all leave the banquet hall and let King Zant rest in peace? He is sleeping so soundly that attempting to wake him will surely do nothing but put him in an ill temper."

"Perhaps you are right," said the king, furrowing his brow. He and the queen left the room, with their daughters and all of the guests still awake following suite. Zelda of the Moon, however, fell to the back and was able to remain in the banquet hall without notice. Now it was only she and the slumbering Zant. He showed no signs of waking, and Zelda of the Moon knew what she must do.

It was most fortunate that the banquet hall was decorated with many suits of armor, Zelda of the Moon reflected as she reached behind one and retrieved the dagger she had smuggled there. Her body shook as she approached the sleeping magician, but her heart and her dagger held steady. She would let no one threaten her family. Zant thought he could bully and frighten her sister, but she was going to put a stop to that. He was just a snake, and Zelda of the Moon had proved it. She smiled faintly at the memory of sneaking the bottle into the kitchen and emptying it all into the pitcher of wine. There was no danger to anyone else, of course. None of the other guests noticed a difference, save for the wine being a bit creamier than usual.

Except for Zant of course, thought Zelda of the Moon.

Part 1

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

The Legend of Zelda is a series that lends itself to a surprising number of fairy tale adaptations. When I wanted to write a fic that used those tropes, I had to figure out which ones to go with. One of the first things I decided, when choosing the villains, was that each one would appear human but be revealed as something monstrous. I was drawing from a sort of Bluebeard template.

I chose Zant as one of the villains because despite suffering major Hijacked By Ganon syndrome, I loved the dude to death. He was very memorable, to say the least. (Though his breakdown was...rather unexpected). As a Twili (a race of beings introduced specifically for Twilight Princess), he also was clearly inhuman, mysterious, and creepy, which fit very well for what I was going for.

I decided that Zant would be serpantine based on his long neck and the shape of his head. I also wanted a snake-based villain, because they often crop up as bad guys in fairy tales, be it as a regular snake or a dragon.

For whatever reason, the fairy tale that I mainly associate with villainous snakes is The Prince and His Three Fates. Perhaps it's because the image of his wife quietly subduing the snake with milk and killing it is so striking. In any case, I decided that that would be the way Zant would be defeated.

Part 2

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

When I was coming up with the heroine(s) for this fic, I wanted to give a good sense of the two sides of Zelda that show up in the series. On one hand, there's the fiery, action-oriented version, who sets out with her weapons to fight. That became Zelda of the Sun, of course. On the other hand, there's the quieter version, who fights by doing a lot of behind-the-scenes planning to ensure victory. That became Zelda of the Moon.

While I do love a good action girl, I must admit that I'm a sucker for people who fight like Zelda of the Moon. There's something awesome about carefully stacking the cards in one's favor, to ensure a quick and easy win. I actually think I enjoyed writing Zelda of the Moon's fight best of all.

When writing about Zelda of the Moon arranging for the fancy dinner, I drew inspiration from how fairy tale heroines would prepare for a fight by asking for noodle implements and, almost always, actually getting them (for example, in the tale of the Linderworm, the heroine faces her wedding night with a dragon by bringing a wash tub, seven dresses, and seven brushes coated in lye, all of which kept her from being killed). Those scenarios were like the fairy tale equivalents of Rube Goldberg contraptions. You just keep reading to find out how all of those things would save the day.

I think Zant's huge appetite came from how power-hungry he was in the game. Or the image of an animal eating huge amounts and then sleeping it off. Whichever. ^^

I felt rather guilty about putting in milk making snakes drowsy, because I did look it up and saw that snakes didn't drink milk. I was tempted to make a change of some sort, but I couldn't think of a good alternative.

I nearly had Zelda of the Moon use a full-sized sword to decapitate Zant, mainly because she was based off of the Princess Zelda of Twilight Princess, who was seen fighting with a big sword. I began to think this was a bad idea when I tried to visualize her hiding a sword in a banquet hall and found it rather silly. I nearly went with the idea of the armor being made to hold swords and her stealing one of those, but that still felt off. I told parrinoyd (my beta) about this issue, and she linked me to an article about how swords were overused in literature, and what some good alternatives were. That gave me the idea to have Zelda of the Moon use a dagger.

I did realize that it would take multiple cuts to decapitate someone with a dagger, as opposed to one or two sword strokes, but I figured that Zelda of the Moon would have the strength (physically and emotionally) to do it, so I made the swap.

On a semi-related note, the swap to a dagger made a later scene work a lot better. The scene was the one where Vaati tries to kill Zelda of the Moon at night, and she uses the dagger to stab him. If I had kept it with a sword, it would have been VERY hard to picture her hiding it under her bed, pulling it out, and swigging it accurately while being strangled. The dagger, being smaller and easier to handle, worked much better there.

I would like to state for the record that I actually have no idea what the effect of pouring milk into wine would have. I'm pretty sure it would affect the taste beyond making it creamier, but I've never had wine period (let alone wine with milk), so I can't say. If I got it really wrong, I do apologize. ^^;

Re: Part 2

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Actually, the wine-and-milk mixture exists and was very popular in medieval times. It was considered a treat, in fact. And it's still served nowadays as a dessert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posset

And I remember that fairy tale! I always loved the Egyptian princess and I love Zelda of the Moon being just as cunning and subtle as she was.

Re: Part 2

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I never knew that was what possets were! Thanks for the info. I feel much better about that, now. ^_^

And thanks! I remember you said you liked that one. :) It always was one of my favorites, because it was one of the few "different" ones (not the standard stories like Cinderella or Snow White) that I was read as a kid. That, Tatterhood, and the story about the Phoenix, the Golden Horse, and the Porcelain Maiden.

Re: Part 2

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I don't know The Phoenix, the Golden Horse and the Porcelain Maiden.

Favorite stories of mine:

The Prince and His Three Fates (Egypt)
The Bad Wishers (Paraguay) (The first link shows the frontpiece of the book that contains the story)
The Tale of the Name of the Tree (Bantu)
Master of All Masters (Scotland)
Tikki Tikki Tembo (China)
Katie Crackernuts (England) (notable in that the two stepsisters love each other)
The Death of Koshchei the Deathless (Russia)
The Bremen Town Musicians (Germany)
The Ugly Duckling (Denmark)
Baba Yaga (Russia)
Bluejay Visits the Ghosts (Chinook)
The Water of Life (Catalan--and features a very resourceful sister)
The Princess in the Chest (Denmark--kind of a cross between a fairy tale and a ghost story)
Prince Darling (I'm not sure of the origin, but I think it's French)
The Groac'h of the Isle of Lok (Brittany--and features a resourceful heroine)

I had a real thing for sad stories from Japan:

Oshidori
Yuki-Onna (The Lady of the Snows
The Story of Aoyagi

And--though Kipling's not popular these days--I grew up hearing Sterling Holloway reading the Just So Stories on LPs. These stories taught me so much about the sound of language. My favorites:

The Elephant's Child ('Satiable curiosity. And "the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.")
The Cat Who Walks By Himself ("...and all places are alike to him.")
How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin

Also, this isn't counting in the various mythologies I grew up reading.

So one Grimm, one Andersen...and non-traditional everything else.