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I didn't realize that beast tales are the male version of Cinderella:

“Unlike classical myths, fairy tales usually restore the victims of metamorphosis to their original form. Or they transfigure them to be far more beautiful than before. The restoration leads to recognition: when the beast guise falls away, the true prince appears. In every case, the outer form has hidden the inner man, and it takes something momentous to overturn the beast’s fate. Beast fairy tales like these follow a narrative arc: the story begins with a spell or a curse that binds the male hero under a terrible disguise, and after a passage of ordeals and horrors, closes with recognition and fulfilment (these are Cinderella tales with a male protagonist).”

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“Beast fairy tales like these follow a narrative arc: the story begins with a spell or a curse that binds the male hero under a terrible disguise, and after a passage of ordeals and horrors, closes with recognition and fulfilment (these are Cinderella tales with a male protagonist). Sometimes the plot follows emotional or psychological logic, but not always; a great deal of the impact of these fairy tales depends on the stark absence of explanation, on the sheer mysteriousness of the premises and outcome: how did the Beast come to be a Beast?”


-- Marina Warner. “Fairy Tale.”

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