Once Upon A Fandom
  • Home
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Conventions
  • Recaps
  • Roundtables
  • Origins
  • OUAT Merchandise
  • Forum
  • OUAF Podcast
  • Once Upon A Time In Wonderland
  • Operation Storybrooke
  • Other Shows and Movies
  • Meet The OUAF Team

Enchanted Zombies

29/11/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Enchanted Zombies
Teresa Martin--@Teresa__Martin

     There have been many fantastical creatures to which fans of Once Upon a Time have been treated including ogres, wraiths, and dragons, to name a few.  The most recent monsters to visit the Enchanted Forest have been zombies, presented with the now classic Once Upon a Time twist.  The history of these creatures encompasses an extensive lore originating from the earliest civilizations in all continents.  However, zombies, explicitly as they are named and most well known in the Twenty-First Century, have traced their roots directly from Voodoo traditions in Haiti.  It is these upon which the writers of Once Upon a Time drew for their incarnation and lead to the reason why these creatures are not merely a random choice, but rather most appropriately featured in the Season Two story arc.

     The word “zombie” is defined by Brad Steiger as “a reanimated corpse . . . brought to life to serve as slave labor.”  The belief that such beings exist was brought from Africa to the Caribbean and Southern states by the slaves who practiced Voodoo.  “Voodoo holds that a supernatural power or essence may enter into and reanimate a dead body (Steiger 5-6).”  The more ancient incarnations of this creature were chronicled in the History Channel documentary Zombies: A Living History which includes the Chinese Jiang Shi, a corpse brought back to life (Abramowitz).  This undead predator hops about and pounces on humans, feeding on their life-essence.  Human victims of the Jiang Shi will resurrect and become the very creatures which brought about their deaths (Radford).  Also listed by the documentary is the Arabic Ghoul, a demon that eats human victims, the Draugr of Scandinavia that swallows its victims whole, and the Revenant of England which terrorizes family members and shares many characteristics with a vampire.  An ancient source mentioned in Zombies is The Epic of Gilgamesh in which Ishtar wishes for the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh.  He declares in Tablet VI:
"If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven,
I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!”


Read More
0 Comments

Fairy Tales: Adult Stories

15/11/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
These are not concepts reserved to the very young.
 Ultimately this is what fairy tales are: stories, albeit with certain characteristics that have been observed by later scholars.  J.R.R Tolkien commented in his essay: 

          And actually fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or 

fundamental Things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the 
more luminous by their setting. For the story-maker who allows himself to be ‘free with’ 
Nature can be her lover not her slave. It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the
 potency of the words, and the wonder of  the things, such as stone, and wood, 
and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.
          
     How then did works of this genre begin to receive the reputation of being children’s literature?  Tolkien notes that is “an accident of our domestic history . . . .” and explicitly states that “ . . . . fairy-stories should not be specially associated with children.” This “accident of domestic history” includes the fact that many fairy tales were told in the nursery by nannies spreading the oral tales they heard while growing up.  The popular children’s adaptations of the Twentieth Century helped perpetuate this perception, especially the Disney movies.  Yet just because people view these as stories for children, do not make them so.  G.K. Chesterton obliquely asserted this when he wrote that “A fairy tale is a tale told in a morbid age to the only remaining sane person, a child.”


Read More
0 Comments

Science Fiction Double Feature: Doctor Frankenstein and Literary Genres in Once Upon a Time

8/11/2012

0 Comments

 
by Lori J. Fitzgerald

Jefferson:  Stories.  Stories.  What’s a story?  When you were in high school did you learn about the Civil War?  How?  Did you read about it, perchance, in a book?  How is that any less real than any other book?

Emma:  History books are based on history.

Jefferson:  And story books are based on what?  Imagination.  Where does that come from?  It has to come from somewhere.  You know what the issue is with this world?  Everyone wants some magical solution for their problem and everyone refuses to believe in magic….

Emma:  This is it. This is the real world.

Jefferson: A real world.   How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one?  There are infinite more.  You have to open your mind.  They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last.  All have their own rules.  Some have magic, some don’t.  And some need magic.  Like this one.

Once Upon a Time, Episode 1x17, “Hat Trick”

Picture

Read More
0 Comments

    Origins

    Explore the Arthurian legend surrounding Lancelot, take a trip into the woods to discover the mythology behind Red Riding Hood or learn more about a modern day hero called Snow White. Origins provides unique insights and perspectives from talented writers into the characters we know and love, going far beyond the boundaries of Storybrooke.

    If you have an essay or article that you would like to contribute to 'Origins', please contact us at [email protected]

    Archives

    August 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    Alice In Wonderland
    Amy Hood
    Ariel
    Aurora
    Beauty And The Beast
    Belle
    Blue Fairy
    Brothers Grimm
    Charming
    Chris Fitzner
    Cora
    Diejj
    Emma
    Excalibur
    Fairy Tales
    Frankenstein
    Frozen
    Furies
    Governing
    Greek Myth
    Hades
    Hans Christian Andersen
    J.M.Barrie
    King Arthur
    Lancelot
    Lori J Fitzgerald
    Magic Mirrors
    Maid Marian
    Maleficent
    Mauri Lazaro
    Merlin
    Mermaids
    Mia Bennett
    Midas
    Music
    Peter Pan
    Poseidon
    Prophecy
    Queen Eva
    Rapunzel
    Regina
    Robin Hood
    Rumplestiltskin
    Shipping
    Sleeping Beauty
    Snow White
    Sword In The Stone
    Symbol Analysis
    Teresa Martin
    The Little Mermaid
    The Snow Queen
    Wraiths
    Zachery Van Norman
    Zombies

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Conventions
  • Recaps
  • Roundtables
  • Origins
  • OUAT Merchandise
  • Forum
  • OUAF Podcast
  • Once Upon A Time In Wonderland
  • Operation Storybrooke
  • Other Shows and Movies
  • Meet The OUAF Team