#foreshadow variant

[emmafrostcovercollection]

Rise of the Powers of X #5 (2024) - Foreshadow Variant by Carmen Carnero

[raayllum]

This is the game room. The cube should be in there. [...] That door's locked. So you wait a minute, maybe two minutes, however long it takes, I'll go find a key.

[themoonking]

ok wolverine nation after the new trailer release for deadpool & wolverine and getting a sense for logan's role in the film what are we thinking about the potential logan-as-patch appearance from the earlier teaser

[comicaurora]

Is there a name for the trope where the protag is suddenly backed up by an army of allies, when their about to go face a massive threat alone. That trope gives me life but I cannot find a name for it.

This is a variant of The Cavalry! Our severely outnumbered/outgunned hero or heroes need to reach the brink of utter defeat before their allies can show up to even the odds. There's a few variants, but in order for the setup and payoff to not feel like a deus ex machina, the cavalry needs to be foreshadowed one way or another:

One of the heroes went off on their own to Not Endanger The Others, so the audience expects their friends and allies to show up at the eleventh hour to something something power of friendship

Our heroes tried to get outside help from a powerful potential ally before the final battle, but they didn't seem willing or able to divert their forces to help them out. Our heroes have written them off, but they show up because somebody changed their mind

A random background character they helped out once is like "hey I've been rallying some friends offscreen ever since you saved my village" and we get a big cameo fest of everybody our heroes ever hung out with

Team loner was like "this is a suicide mission and I'm leaving" and then they turn up at the last minute with friends and a gunship and probably some apology chocolates

Hey, guess who ALSO doesn't want this apocalyptic threat to win? That's right it's all the previous major villains and they brought ALLLLL their guns

[thesylverlining]

Okay, this is likely the only thing I'll post on the Bad Batch finale situation:

Tech fans, I would like you to stop calling yourselves "delusional." (Or delulu, or any variant.) I would sincerely ask others to stop as well.

It is both ableist and quite literally inaccurate from a storycraft standpoint.

(Especially because we're talking about a likely neurodivergent character and definitely many neurodivergent fans.)

You weren't. We weren't. The signs were there. The foreshadowing (falling into clouds, the goggles, CX2's Everything) was real and consistent and *intentional.* You are not delusional for LOGICALLY FOLLOWING writing convention patterns and leading where the writing is directing you. (If there's something the majority of autistic story-enthusiasts are good at, it's logical storycraft and pattern recognition, both in creating and consuming! We know how to follow basic steps!)

They can say "oh it was just a red herring", and that is Technically (ha) true, but it is one of the most blatant and frankly cruelly marketed ones, that smacks of stringing fan emotions along to keep us watching when they know many would stop watching if they knew what lay ahead. (Using a basically-confirmed-autistic character's death for shock value and little else, and then using the ambiguity of Is He Really Dead Or Is He This Extremely Similar Looking Guy We Brought in Right After' to keep churning up social media buzz. I might have.)

You were not delusional to have hope - that's what Star Wars is about.

You are not delusional to think this is wrong, a writing fumble, or simply them yanking the football away when *it was there all along.* The road signs were clear, they were just... lying, for lack of a better term.

You're not wrong for being upset about this, the latest in a long history of autistic characters treated as plot devices and catalysts for neurotypical characters' development rather than their own, and fans taken advantage of.

Please treat yourselves better. And if you're on the outside, or neurotypical, please treat us better. I promise, we have actual reasons for feeling pain right now, and delusions are not at all among them.

Thank you.

[alexanderwales]

One of my favorite worldbuilding things is combinatrics. Let's say you have one physical affinity, like Power or Speed or whatever, and one elemental affinity, and you mix them together, and even with short initial lists you get a lot of interesting things.

Like what does it mean for a person to be Power-aligned and Leaf-aligned? Here you're sitting down for a session of interpretation of your own elements and how they mesh together, and I find this easy to use as a starting point for getting creative with it. Maybe combining "Leaf" and "Power" means a single honking big leaf, the kind that you would wield like a buster sword. For me, that's the kind of idea that immediately feels like it has something to it. And then you move on to the next one!

The big problems with the combinatorial explosion is that you sometimes get stuck in the process, and you have a nice 5x5 set of 23 ... and then two others that don't quite fit together. This is something that you sometimes end up learning very late in the design process, that for this one little corner of the matrix, there are just two things that don't fit together, or that you don't have a good idea for. Sometimes this comes from one of the things on your list not being like the others, which is a problem you need to catch early, but having one of the things on the list not being like the others is also something that I find cool, because I love having an odd one out.

And sometimes this comes from not wanting to repeat yourself. If the Power+Leaf example is using a giant leaf for ... I don't know, combat, or you fly around on the leaf or something, then you also have to do four more Power skills/abilities/class/systems, and four more for Leaf, and each of those concepts needs to be "big enough" to handle variants. You don't want two different combinations to feel like palette swaps of each other.

The big benefit, aside from helping to boost the creative process and to foreshadow some elements of worldbuilding (or just leave them implicit), is that you can then do some compare and contrast. Two Power guys with different elements can play off each other, and you can see the differences along the one axis where they're no the same.

(Obviously a matrix of "attribute" and "element" is not all that thrilling, and it's also extremely obvious, but this method of mixing also works well with different cultures, professions, nations, philosophies, and other less rigid "lists" you're pulling from.)

[morallysuperiorlips]

The Morally Superior Guide to Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing. You probably hear the word and nod excitedly. Or, you shudder in fear. Whatever your relationship is with the concept, I'm here to break it down for you.

So, how do you foreshadow?

1.) Start by pinpointing what it is you want to foreshadow. Whether it's a huge plot twist or a conflict outcome, you should always know what your end goal is, and what you want to be prepping your readers for.

2.) Then, figure out what type of foreshadowing you're interested in using. Consider the following:

Direct: You explicitly state what is to come. This might come in the form of a prophecy, or a character stating their fears for the future, etc.

Indirect: You hint at what is to come with small details and actions that eventually build up into the final point. This might come in the form of subtle imagery, symbolism, and other literary devices.

Invisible: A variant of indirect foreshadowing, you present information as not seeming pertinent to what you're foreshadowing, only for it to make sense once your foreshadowed event happens.

Parallel: You craft scenes throughout your story to mirror the final outcome.

3.) From there, come up with what you want to do to convey these points. Ask yourself the following:

Can my character say something that hints at an outcome?

Is there an in-story item I can use to point toward an outcome?

Are there setting details that I can focus on that might convey an outcome?

Are there ways I can throw a reader off if things start to become too obvious (also known as Red Herrings)?

Once you have the answers to these questions, find places in your plot that you can work them into.

4.) As you're working your foreshadowing into your story, utilize repetition wisely. You can reinforce your dropped hints here and there by revisiting them in different contexts throughout your story. Try your best to make sure your drops aren't too close together, as too much repetition of the same idea in a short stretch can botch your reveal. Find different aspects of your desired reveal to point toward throughout your story, as to ensure you're not focusing on the same detail over and over again.

5.) Use those Red Herrings to subvert expectations. Even in the case of direct foreshadowing, like an explicit prophecy or comment, Red Herrings can help build a sense of anticipation. For more indirect foreshadowing, it can throw your reader off your outcome's scent, making it a much bigger reveal when it happens.

I hope this short guide helps you foreshadow the most foreshadowable stuff! Which reminds me...GO WRITE.

(If you like my guides, prompts, writing, or art, consider supporting the blog today! All donations help me keep this thing up and running and all are appreciated <3)

[birdsofthefictionalworld]

The Canary Problem

The Untamed(陈情令/Chén Qíng Lìng)(2019) is a mainland chinese xianxia drama, based on the popular danmei novel 魔道祖师/Mó Dào Zǔ Shī. The series isn't exactly peak birdwatching, but it has a select few appearances of Weird Birds.

The main problem I will be tackling here is the presence of a small, but incredibly confusing, problem: a wild Canary.

In the fourth episode of this show, a character—Nie Huaisang— smuggles a songbird into class.

He claims to have captured the bird from the wild on his journey from his home(Qinghe) to the current location(Gusu). This problem is that the bird he has in this scene is a domestic variant of the wild Atlantic Canary, Serinus canaria. This species is native to the Canary Islands, off the coast of northern Africa, and to make things worse, this particular individual has a color pattern known as Red Factor, which was created from humans intentionally hybridizing domesticated Atlantic Canaries Serinus canaria forma domestica with south american Venezuelan Red Siskin (Spinus cucullatus). This is essentially like he was wandering around in the woods of northeastern china and found a purebred Chihuahua.

But the actual species of the bird is not necessarily the only important factor in fiction. The species the birdy actor is intended to be portraying also comes into play. While the official english subtitles do refer to the bird as a canary, the words actually used in chinese are 金雀/jīn què, directly translating to gold bird. This name is colliqual, not scientific, and can therefore be referring to multiple different bird species of similar appearance. I am led to believe that the species intended to be portrayed here is, in fact, the Eurasian Siskin, Spinus spinus. If this is the case, a canary is a fine choice for casting, as wild type Domestic Canaries and Eurasian Siskins are quite similar in appearance.

Additionally, a Eurasian Siskin is a very realistic species to be found in between the real life northeastern china.

Unfortunately, by casting a clearly domestic red-factor, the similarity is lost.

I do believe Eurasian Siskins remain an ideal candidate for the intended species, if not aesthetically, then thematically. For you see, while Eurasian Siskins are sometimes referred to as jīn què, they are more commonly known as 黄雀/huáng què.

The word huáng què is used in the classic chinese idiom “螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后了/tángláng bǔ chán huáng què zài hòule” which is often translated to “the mantis stalks the cicada, but the oriole is behind”. This alludes to an individual that is so focused following their goal, they fall prey to others. In the context of this story, and the placement of the canary there appear to be two major options.

Warning: Its major plot spoiler time

In the early series, Nie Huaisang is characterized as an unserious and rather careless young man, but at the end of the it is revealed that he has spent many years(during a plot-relevant time-skip), engineering the downfall of one of the series’ major antagonists, Jin Guangyao.

The most straightforward option, is that Nie Huaisang is holding the bird as a representation of himself, being the “huáng què” to Jin Guangyao’s “mantis” in the eventual reveal, but i think there could be more to it.

Huaisang refers to the bird specifically as a jīn què, not a huáng què. While this may be intended to distance the bird from the idiom, in order to make the foreshadowing more obscure, it does not seem coincidental that the jīn in jīn què uses the same character as Jin Guangyao(and the entire Jin sect, but regardless-).

So i propose that the bird is more specific foreshadowing, meant to represent Jin Guangyao, the huáng què who, while stalking a prey intent on another, did not look behind himself for the greater predator, a man.

Nie Huaisang, specifically was said to have stalked the bird for several days before capture, a far cry from the rest of his characterization at this point in the series. It could be simply intended as a demonstration of his tenacity when given the appropriate motivation, but it becomes a far more pointed commentary if it was intended to mirror his quiet hunt for Jin Guangyao in the later series.

A lot of symbolism for a bird with 3 seconds of screen-time, or not, it could be simply flawed bird casting. Please don’t get me started on the chicken.

Thank you for reading!! If anyone has any good medias for me to look at birds in, send me an ask! I would love to hear about them!

I will be posting all my bird metas under the tag #meta as well as #bfw(my general works tag).

[5-spiders-in-a-trenchcoat]

So I was watching ATSV for the fifth time and I noticed a very interesting detail in the background of the panning shot when Miles is on the rooftop of Earth 42.

Right there in the top left, there's an incredibly prominent 8.

Now, I'm probably grasping at straws here, but I have a feeling that it wasn't placed there for no reason, since the reoccurrence of the number 42 ended up being important (it, for example, shows up as the lottery number that wins Miles a spot in Visions, on his shirt, and is also created by debris after Miles's 'failed' leap of faith in the first movie, where he breaks the goober).

So assuming I'm right and this number is, in fact, significant in some way, my next thought (obviously) was to wonder what it might just be. Initially I couldn't think of anything that significant (a spider has eight legs/eyes? The squad that's off to rescue Miles is composed of eight people?)

...and then I remembered about earth-8.

In case you don't know what it is, it's a universe in the comics (which I have never read) where Miles and Gwen are married and have children, so obviously I instantly latched onto this interpretation because my brainrot is near-terminal.

If (and this is a big if) my interpretation is correct, this might be foreshadowing for the next movie: seeing as it's been confirmed that we'll be seeing Gwen variants in Beyond I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that we'll be seeing Earth-8 next movie...

[sarafangirlart]

Where did the thing about Hephaestus asking for Aphrodite if he freed Hera come from? I've seen it a lot but haven't found any references to og sources

It’s a modern theory based on the François Vase:

“Dionysos leads Hephaistos to the assembled deities on Olympos.

Zeus and Hera seated on thrones are waiting for Hephaistos. Behind them Athena, Ares, Artemis, Poseidon (?) and Hermes. Ares sits dejectedly on a block, his head bowed, his spear pointed down on the ground indicating the failure of his previous attempt to bring Hephaistos back. Athena stands looking at him and pointing with her hands in opposite directions as if to say, you failed while the barbarians succeeded.”

It makes sense to think that maybe Aphrodite was involved in the story in some shape or form, but to say that she was straight up made into a prize by Zeus is such a weird conclusion, for all we know the artists might have added her in there to fill up the empty space or added her there as a sort of foreshadowing of their future marriage. Maybe she was promised to Hephaestus but I don’t buy it bc why does every reference to this story mention the fact that Dionysus convinced Hephaestus to come to Olympus not mention Aphrodite at all? That’s a pretty key part of the story to just omit.

Then there is Ares, I sometimes read ppl claim that Aphrodite sent Ares to get Hephaestus hoping that he’d win (a claim that was so repeated I thought it was legitimate) and that’s way he’s ashamed and on his knees but there is no evidence for that either, it’s way more likely that he feels ashamed bc he failed his mother and queen, Athena bullying him over it probably didn’t help either lol tho I have to wonder why Athena supposedly didn’t try to bring Hephaestus herself, or if she did try and then failed herself, maybe this is a variant where Hephaestus attempts to assault while she was trying to talk to him so she leaves through no fault of her own.

And bc scholars are allowed to make baseless theories, I’ll make my own little headcanon, I think Athena tried to reason with Hephaestus and was about to break through to him until Ares busted in all violent and shit that Hephaestus had to shoo him away with fire and he shut himself in again lol and Athena never stopped berating Ares over it on the way home.

[tree-obsession]

honestly after seeing anaxa in the trailer im excited but also SO WORRIED. bc literally almost every one of su's variants/expys so far are batshit insane. sa? a crazy god who literally created the sky people. vita? a clone of sa who's downright insane at best and one of the initial main villains of part 2. alhaitham's not crazy or any shit, if you consider him one of the expys, he seems relatively sane, but there were a whole bunch of theories about his connection to deshret for a loooong time, even if none of them are true. plus su himself said a lot of his variants are crazy or villainous- one of them, who's presumably sa, literally chased him across universes. atp it seems like su just stole all the sanity from his variants. anaxa... idk, but with the foreshadowing about his name, it's not looking great, to say the least. at least it'll be interesting!

[raayllum]

ALRIGHT, time to talk about the poster in lovely HD.

First things first, I want to talk about these two ladies (?). The upper one closer to the moon looks more like an elf, and is gazing down at the second, closer woman. I've seen people speculate Ziard due to the hair, but none of this usual clothing appendages are there, so I lean towards a new character, and possibly being the human Aaravos had a special connection to. We see what looks like the arches of the Moon Nexus framed behind them, which was the case both when Rayla went through the portal in TTM and when Lujanne used historia viventum to show Callum the way things looked before. Souls of hate and love, maybe?

We see other Moon symbols throughout the posture sure as archangel lunarises, which seek out Moon magic (1x01) and can be used in illusion spells (2x03, 3x09). We also see the enchanted lotuses from 3x03, though for what purpose is unclear (more on that later).

Moving down, we have a fully celestial, quite happy Aaravos. He's in full flourish and clearly using Moon magic for someone, as begetting the moon behind him, though whether he's constructing lotuses or channeling energy into his Key (perhaps making it able to sense Moon magic) is unknown. While the lotuses in 3x03 were occasionally different colours, the deep purple here makes me think of dark magic. If he is channeling his cube, perhaps he's taking moon energy from the lotuses (or moths) surrounding him to put inside.

I don't think I need to scream much further than I already have about the Moon rune glowing on his Key and having it displayed with his usual star symbol (rune cube foreshadowing symbolism my beloved). This bodes well for theories in which 1) Callum goes too far and does something knowingly risky to free the Moon fam for Rayla's sake or 2) does something risky to help Aaravos to protect Rayla's life, each subsequently to being possessed and/or playing into Aaravos' hands. Thank you goodnight.

Then we have the book, which is deeply fascinating. It seems like a very Moon book, the fragments framing it similar to the ones we see on the lotuses and possibly evoking one of the archangel lunaris' flying around. It wouldn't surprise me if the book contains a variant of Deep moon magic of some kind, whatever that would look like. The crescent curved moon is also similar to the symbol we see on Aaravos' poem page for the Midnight Star in show (2x08). I do wonder why each side of the book looks so different though, with no actual visible moon in sight besides the tiny gemstones and the crescent moon, the other side being entirely dark (which, to be fair, is pretty moon-y).

We also sort of but don't quite see Aaravos' famous chest piece, though it is a-glowing. Whether it glowed all the time pre-Fall we just don't know, as the only time we've seen it glow/be filled in is 2x09 when he's channeling magic through Viren, but who knows. It does mean that the cube is even older than his banishment and that if it does hold his chest piece, it was placed after (if it's tangible at all, which has always been one of the biggest questions).

This is perhaps the weirdest thing that I am the most interested in, as alongside his crown and bangles, this is the biggest design difference between Aaravos in-show and out. In show, both in his mirror and even 'pre-Fall' (aka the timeline for the 1x01 shot is probably a lie anyway), Aaravos' hip thingy is a lot more simplistic.

However, Aaravos does have all his flowery (and I mean that literally, it looks like petals) adornment in his concept art.

The fact they have a lotus flower flair to them always felt interesting but ultimately like a coincidence, but perhaps not. Either way as pictured below, it seems like he's either constructing or dismantling the lotuses, which is Eyes Emoji either way.

The most... surely metaphorical / abstract portion of the poster, though, is I'd imagine the very bottom. I hesitate to read into things too literally (one of the S5 posters had Finnegrin's ship being blasted with lightning and Domina watching the waves, and while she featured in the season and played a role in Finnegrin's aims, the scene itself as portrayed did not come fully to fruition) so I'm gonna go with a more symbolic read, just as as disclaimer.

Lastly we have these two figures. I'm assuming the one in white is an elf and betting on young Aaravos or Leola, though it could be someone else connected to the Moon arcanum (the elven daughter who vouched for exiling rather than eliminating humanity?). The red and black shadow figure feels far more sinister (blood and stardust, anyone) but if you lighten the shadows, you get something even more... interesting, shall we say.

Rather than standing up straight, this figure almost seems to swoop down with a draconic like claw and a face that reminds me the most of Sir Sparklepuff's features, honestly, perhaps boasting a similar kind of blood (Viren's) and star (Aaravos) and dark magic (the staff?). It is also clearly moving toward the more humanoid figure on the bottom right, which gives a "corruption is reaching / coming for / offering things to you" sort of vibe.

[izartn]

Not the Vanitas vol. 11 cover equaling Noé's desire for tarte Tatin locked behind the mirror, unable to touch it, for his desire for Vanitas.

(EDIT: SPECIAL VARIANT COVER! NOT OFFICIAL COVER!)

Bc Vanitas is the center of the cover, focus et all. It's the homemade by Vani Tarte Tatin and how it symbolizes their budding relationship and feelings. Vanitas serious face incongruous with Noé stars in his eyes. His clothes which aren't the typical he wears but his secondary/emergency ones, which we saw on that chapter he and Dominique commiserate about their feelings for Noé and the clothes thing is very heavily linked to identity and specifically a sense of security for Vani.

Holy shit. Vani is not dressing as Vanitas for this cover. He's not smirking or putting a front. He's holding up that Tarte Tatin as himself.

I'm gonna start clawing, climbing my walls. Mochijun!!!!??

The sandtimer earring is completely insignificant when usually is super prominent for Vani artwork! It's there but you miss it on first sight.

Murr is also behind the window/mirror with Noé! SUS! IT'S SO SUS!

Am I paranoid or just suitably scared of Mochijun ability to foreshadow? Who knows. Not me for sure.

I'm still reeling about how obvious this cover makes Noé attachment to Vanitas and viceversa. Come on! The way we all know those stars in the eyes are for the Tarte Tatin, but also Vanitas blood and the relationship Noé has/wants with him.

Mochijun!!!!!!!

[kloudystars471]

Is the kid at the end of episode 2 Mobius?

It would make perfect sense.

Mobius and Loki were literally just talking about finding Mobius's past hours ago.The foreshadowing all adds up. Plus, at some point they brought up that he would have a different name. His original name is not Mobius. What if it was Jack?

But anyway, if you look at how the kid is dressed-

(a tan overcoat, a striped tie, yellow? brown? clogs, and a white collared shirt)

-it seems a bit familiar..

The yellowish brown clogs, a white collared shirt, a brown suit, and tie.

Sure, we can take this as the TVA having their own dress code in hues of brown and suites-

But they all wear it differently.

B-15 wears black formal clothes with no blazer and a red tie. It's representative of being a hunter since they all wear black.

Loki wears the brown suits and all, but he constantly changes how he wears it. He pops the collar, takes off the blazer entirely, rolls up his sleeves, etc. Plus, he has a different tie than everyone else.

Casey never wears the blazer, so it's apparently not a strict requirement.

O.B. doesn't wear a suit at all due to the work he does.

Renslayer wears the suit and all, but it's different. She has a yellow undershirt, a colorfully patterned tie, she keeps it buttoned, etc.

The uniforms for McDonalds at the time were striped red and white, as seen in the episode. The kid chose to wear a tie of his own volition, it's his style.

THEN, Mobius is the only one where he a) keeps the blazer unbuttoned b) wears lighter, laceless shoes, and c) is that specific type of awkward when talking to someone.

When the kid was talking to Sylvie, he said: "Cool, cool." Repeating the same word, but softer. He does it without truly tripping over his words, more so repeating them. Pretending to be casual,but visibly nervous. It is Mobius's sort of mannerism.

The year is 1982. That means that in our present day, Mobius would be in his mid fifties just about. It would also suggest that he was taken by the TVA around now. Seeing as he has gray hair, this shows it could be accurate.

If this were to be true, it means a 2 things.

1. Mobius had a friendship of sorts with Sylvie when he was younger (could be why he is so interested in learning about Lokis in the TVA, they are familiar)

2. Sylvie chose this fast food place on purpose. It couldn't be random. To 'accidentally' find the same job that her variant's friend worked at as a teen. She is planning something.

[princesssarisa]

The hiatus is over: I've finally restarted my read-through of Heidi Anne Heiner's Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales from Around the World. Having finished all the Sleeping Beauty tales, I'm ready to start on the different versions of Snow White.

*Of course the place to start is with the classic German tale of Snow White (Schneewittchen) by the Brothers Grimm. I won't summarize that tale, because I think we all know it very well. But Heiner includes not only the familiar tale in her book, but the Grimms' notes on other German variants that they collected. There are also some notable differences between the version found in the original 1812 edition of the Grimms' Children's and Household Tales and the "standard" version from the final 1857 edition of their collection.

**In the Grimms' first edition of 1812, the wicked queen is Snow White's own mother. She's the queen who wishes for a child as white as snow, red as blood, and black as ebony at the beginning, only to bitterly regret her wish when Snow White grows to be more beautiful than she is. Only in later editions, to make the story more "moral" and more family-friendly, did the Grimms change the beginning so that Snow White's real mother dies and the wicked queen is a stepmother. Critics have sometimes argued that this change robs the story of its power; that at heart, the tale is about motherhood, and the envy that all mothers feel as their daughters blossom into young womanhood while they themselves age. I don't necessarily agree, however. As the Grimms noted themselves, there are other versions of the tale that predate theirs where the villainess is a stepmother, or where she has some other connection to the heroine. I'd say that the tale is more inherently about competition between women in general, and especially between older women and younger women, than it is between mothers and daughters, per se.

**Another difference between the first edition and later ones is how the piece of poisoned apple is dislodged from Snow White's throat. The 1812 edition has the prince take Snow White's glass coffin back to his castle and insist on having it near him always. One of the servants forced to carry it finally becomes so annoyed by the task that he opens the coffin and hits Snow White on the back: this is what shakes loose the piece of apple and revives her. In later editions, of course, this is softened to the servants accidentally stumbling as they start to carry the coffin away from the mountainside.

**In some oral versions, instead of sewing and pricking her finger with the needle, Snow White's mother peels an apple at the beginning and cuts her finger with the knife, like the mother in The Juniper Tree. This would be an interesting foreshadowing of Snow White's near-doom by apple later in the story.

**In another variant, a count and countess are riding in their carriage in winter, when they see three piles of snow, three pits of blood, and three ravens. The count wishes for "a girl" (it's not clear if he means a daughter or a lover) with skin white as snow, cheeks red as blood, and hair black as a raven. Soon afterward, they come across a young homeless girl who fits this description. The count takes her in and loves her (again, it's not clear if he loves her as an adopted daughter or a mistress), but his wife is jealous and resolves to be rid of her. From there, the story continues more-or-less like the Grimms' tale.

**In several oral versions, including the one above, there is no huntsman character. Instead, the queen or countess takes Snow White riding into the forest, makes an excuse for Snow White to get out of the carriage (e.g. to fetch a dropped glove or to pick flowers), then drives away, abandoning her.

**In one version, the dwarfs don't place the "dead" Snow White in a glass coffin, but are about to cremate her on a pyre when the prince fortunately happens along.

**In another version, the queen is Snow White's stepmother, has three daughters of her own, and hates Snow White for their sake. So she sends Snow White to a cave where, unbeknownst to the girl, there live seven woman-hating dwarfs who kill every maiden who comes across them. But when the dwarfs see Snow White, her entrancing beauty makes them not only spare her life, but take her in. Also in this version, the queen's magical source of information isn't a mirror, but a talking dog named Mirror. Nor does she disguise herself in her three attempts to kill Snow White, but comes to the dwarfs' cave as herself, lying that her own daughters were kidnapped by robbers and that she now wants to embrace Snow White as her child. Each time, Snow White is moved by her pleas to trust her.

*After the Grimms' overview of all the oral German variants they found, Heiner shares a German literary version of the tale that predates the Grimms' collection: Richilda by Johann Karl August Musäus, which was published in 1782.

**Richilda is the wicked queen figure, although she's not a queen, but the Countess of Brabant. Despite her villainy, she's presented as the story's protagonist: the story begins with her birth, which occurs after her mother's barrenness is cured by advice from Saint Albertus Magnus (a real medieval German bishop, scientist, and philosopher who was canonized by the Catholic Church). St. Albertus uses his mystical and scientific skills to create a magic mirror as a gift for the baby, which when she grows up will show her visions of anything she requests to see. Of course the primary thing the mirror shows her is that she is the most beautiful maiden in all of Brabant.

**Countless suitors compete and die for Richilda's hand, until finally her governess convinces her to choose a husband. Richilda consults the magic mirror and discovers the handsomest knight in Brabant... who unfortunately, is already married. But Richilda lies that she had a dream telling her that this man has been chosen by heaven as her husband, and this, combined with her renowned beauty, drives him to divorce his pregnant wife and marry her. Soon afterward, his ex-wife dies giving birth to a daughter, Blanca, whom he has raised by a governess and dwarf servants in another castle. (Presumably, Musäus took the forest-dwelling dwarfs from the oral Snow White tales and reimagined them as court dwarfs for his more "realistic" courtly version.)

*Fifteen years later, Richilda's husband dies and Richilda is eager to have suitors again. But when she consults her magic mirror to see if she's still the fairest in the land, she of course learns that she isn't: Blanca is now the fairest. She then commands her court physician, a Jew named Sambul, to make a poisoned pomegranate for her to give to Blanca. The plan apparently succeeds and Blanca dies: the grieving court dwarfs entomb her in a chapel vault, with a glass window in her coffin so they can still see her face when they visit her. But a few days later, miraculously, Blanca revives.

*At the news of this, Richilda has Sambul create poisoned soap to send to Blanca. But again, the same thing happens: she "dies," the dwarfs entomb her, but a few days later she revives again. This time – after having Sambul's beard plucked out and his ears cut off for failing her – Richilda has Sambul send Blanca a poisoned letter.

*Now we learn that Sambul isn't really the villainous antisemitic caricature he seemed to be. He's a righteous man, and though he gave into Richilda's demands out of fear (and desire for money – his portrayal isn't entirely free of antisemitism), he secretly used a temporary death-simulating potion, like those seen in certain Shakespeare plays, instead of real poison.

*Blanca doesn't revive as soon after the poisoned letter as she did the first two times, because Sambul strengthened the drug's dose. So her servants (and Richilda) think she's truly dead. But one day, a young knight named Godfrey of Ardenne stops at the castle while on a pilgrimage. He has with him a splinter from the staff of Elisha, which will allegedly break any enchantment. He places the splinter on Blanca's heart, and whether as a result or by coincidence, she instantly revives.

*Godfrey secretly takes Blanca home to his castle, letting no one else except her dwarfs know that she's alive. Then he visits Richilda, who becomes infatuated with him and makes every effort to seduce him. Godfrey pretends to give in and takes her home with him, allegedly to be his bride. But then he claims that twelve maidens and their lovers were to be married along with them, but one of the maidens has been murdered by her mother. In a twist that evokes The Goose Girl, he asks Richilda what should be done with the mother, and Richilda says she should be forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes. Thus she pronounces her own doom... although unlike the Grimms' wicked queen, she isn't forced to dance to death, but just until she's in extreme pain, and then is condemned to the dungeon. Blanca and Godfrey are married, live happily ever after, and richly reward Sambul, whose heroism in protecting Blanca (the narrator claims) is the reason why God has let the Jewish people survive against all odds.

Next come the versions of the tale from France and Italy...

@ariel-seagull-wings, @adarkrainbow, @themousefromfantasyland

[of-asgaard]

GHOST-SPIDER #10 FORESHADOW KING LOKI variant

Lee garbett

I'm sure Loki is singing some Bad Omens or Linkin Park song 🌚