"Everyone knows how it goes: Once upon a time, in a far-off kingdom, a princess awaits rescue, locked away in a tower guarded by a terrible fire-breathing dragon. Now, hold it right there. Freeze frame. What's wrong with this picture? Can anybody tell me what the problem is here?

"Doesn't this whole thing look contrived to you? This scenario. I mean, how did everything happen to be just like that? A hostage in such a choke hold, inhibited by over-redundant controls. And this dragon; pure overkill. Doesn't it have anything better to do? Why terrorize such a helpless girl? Does it have a crush on her I wonder? That would certainly raise a lot of questions about inter-species relations.

"Needless to say, such a rare specimen of a species that has been pushed to the brink of extinction should be flying straight to its natural habitat, not exposed like this and out of its element. Its behavior is clearly out of line with its dragon nature.

"Moving on, we have the knight... fast forward please. Hold it. Hold it right there. Here we have the knight, ladies and gentlemen. The prince charming, naturally, in shining armor.

"We now have a gap in the timeline as to how the focus shifted from a female protagonist to a male one. After all, original fairytales were spun by old women, grandmothers and mothers passing down the narrative to their children, on sewing duty next to the fireplace. Most of their menial work called for the stereotypical qualities of attention to detail and dexterity as imposed in Third World sweatshops to this day.

"Taking that further: who took the limelight away from the Volk – the common people – in folktales; from the peasants to the nobility, from the illiterate to the elite? And how did the tales come to incorporate elements of courtly love?

"Finally, although the stories are Wundermärchen – wonder tales – and carry distinct motifs of enchantment and other fantastical affairs, equally palpable is the absence of the actual 'faeries'. In truth, these beings were subconsciously employed to symbolize the self-serving and petty aristocrats. It's the irony of ironies that the powers-that-be in those times were in fact more present and involved than the masses ever realized.

"Why, this setup they had going here smacks of commercialism! They might as well have been a modern-day advertising agency. This knight is our Marlboro Man, rugged but still sophisticated enough to smoke dainty cigar-ettes; this princess is our nineties homemaker with plenty of ready cash and idle time in her hands; the tower is our condo building and the dragon the security guard.

"Or the beast could be the lord of temptation, an oversized serpent on loan from the Garden of Eden. Symbologists, too, would have a field day with this content.

"And so, ladies and gentlemen, this is how I propose the prevailing powers of those days chose to keep the masses in check, by providing them with a cheap trick, a con, a false hope; something they can all aspire for but never reach. No more than they can shake off the bonds of servitude and change the almost fated certainty of their social stations. But the only hope, if that was what they truly wanted, the only way to... Yes? Questions?"

("Professor, perhaps one can argue that the mass and enduring appeal of fairy tales, as with most great works of literature, lies in their universal and timeless themes. This raises the question: If we were to simulate a fairy tale in this day and age, what form would it take? Shouldn't we stick to the mold and not do away with the formula?")

"Well, if we're to discuss textual choices, we could do worse than quote Arthur Clarke with regards to the Wunder element of fairy tales: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'

"It'd be well and good if it were only a matter of semiotics, my boy. The heart of the matter is, the whole machinery of fairy tales is yet another heinous case of history being written by the victors. I know because I do not only collect and interpret fairy tales. I've also had the rare privilege of being in one."

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