Disney Princess 101: The Classic Films

I can say with the utmost confidence that there is nothing special about me for having grown up on Disney movies. And growing up loving them certainly doesn't place me in an elitist cult either when you look at the way so many families worldwide will save up their funds for years to make that holy secular journey to the theme parks on both coasts. But I am quite proud to say that when Mulan first hit theaters I was in my mid-twenties, and a buddy of mine who I'd known since elementary school told me that I was the only guy friend he had with whom he could go see a Disney movie. So while my perspective on the nearly eighty year legacy of Heigh-Ho's and Hellfire's isn't a unique one, I at least feel it comes from the outfield.

Since I've already explicated my Weird Al library and pitted the Muppet movies against each other it only makes sense that I take a retrospective look at the Disney classics, and movies that will predictably become classics as well.

I'm not going to be going through these film by film because there's frankly more titles in the catalog than thoughts in my head. (Remember Bolt? I sure as hell don't.) But I'm going to try to at least analyze the iconic titles and give nods to the lesser entries.

So let's start with the old school princess trilogy Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, which are arguably the same movie. When someone says "Disney" it's conceivable one's conscious mind will go to the word "princess" even before the mouse shows up. There's that castle. And that music. And all the freaking merchandise. If Disney was a college major then Disney Princess would be a series of core classes with an option of specialization. Countless girls grow up wanting to be Disney princesses, some even going so far as to get nose jobs and breast implants just for the chance to tell little children that they're perfect the way they are.

Snow Obviously White and the Seven Doormats

If you haven't seen this movie then you at least know the story. Princess Snow White is pretty and her step mother (the Queen) hates her for it. The Queen orders a Huntsman to murder Snow White, but he doesn't because she's pretty. Snow drifts through Tim Burton's backyard until she arrives at the dwarf cottage and moves in, essentially taking over by rite of prettiness. The Queen finds out Snow is alive and goes to kill her in a method more complicated than need be (stabbing her in the face was not one of the suggestions in the Queen's Murder Manual). Snow dies sort of and stays pretty. A prince known to his friends as The Prince arrives and revives Snow because she's pretty. Snow abandons her posse at the first sign of a better deal. The political aftermath of the former king(queen)dom is unresolved. And there's a song about soap.

To be fair, the importance of Snow White in the history of film animation cannot be overstated. Walt and his crew set out to make a full length version of a seven minute cartoon and they succeeded. But so often Snow White is referred to as Disney's masterpiece. It isn't. It was a really good 'first' with a LOT of overlookable shortcomings by virtue of being the first, but if Snow had followed Pinocchio the film would have felt like a step backwards.

Let's break it up a little bit. First there's Snow. She's pure and innocent, with a Shirley Temple vibe. You almost sense that she's Betty Boop a few years before puberty. She has a childish voice, sings to animals, and basically just exists. She's iconic, because there is nothing to her character besides this basic metaphor. You can refer to a real woman today as a Snow White and instantly convey one of two extreme opinions about her; either you think she has managed to preserve something innocent about herself in an unnurturing world, or you believe she lacks the experience necessary to handle her current situation (probably more often than not it's the latter). But as a character, Snow is flat out boring and unrelatable.

I had a theater teacher who once asserted (quite assertively) that the strength of a character is dictated by how well they convey to an audience what they want and how badly they want it. I'm sure there are cases where this isn't a complete definition, but it certainly applies to the weakness of Snow's character. What does she want? I don't know. She wants a prince? Maybe? He practically shows up as a jump scare and it doesn't seem to register with her as "Hey! That's my childish goal." I haven't seen the movie in years but I don't think Snow even mentions him again the whole movie until he shows up at the end to deflower her.

Speaking of the prince, what does he look like? I cannot keep an image of him in my head. It's like he's so dull and unremarkable that my brain won't process him.

Then there's the dwarfs. There's Dopey. Every kid loves Dopey. If Snow is childish innocence then Dopey is a flipping newborn. You know what? I outgrew Dopey. He's the comedic sidekick character in all Disney films that the adults are willing to tolerate because he keeps the kiddies in the theater focused on the screen. Then there's a bunch of other dwarfs who never develop characters past the traits of their own names.

And then there's Grumpy.

I find it significant that Grumpy is the only dwarf character on Once Upon a Time to have been listed as a regular cast member. Grumpy is the REAL prince of this story. Pessimistic, workaholic, and yet somehow not the boss, this whole movie could have been brilliant if Snow had fallen in love with him instead of the pretty boy on the horse (Maybe that's why the ending of the movie bothers me so much. As soon as Royal Blank Slate meanders onto the scene Snow dumps her loyal friends like the Heigh-Ho she is).

What does Grumpy want? I'm not really sure, but he does have moments where a passion for living breaks through his outer shell. And MAN when he finds Snow dead-ish on the floor he's at the head of the charge against the witch. I don't know what Sneezy and company thought they were going to do when they caught her, but Grumpy? You can tell from the look on his face that he's going to plant that pickaxe right in her damned forehead.

Now the real test of a fairy tale lies in the strength of its villain, and this is where Disney typically excels. I'm going to come back to the Queen at the end of the blog when I bring out all three villains together, but for now I'll say that the bulk of what makes this movie memorable is on the shoulders of the Queen. She carries half the movie, and she really is terrifying.

The music is classic, which doesn't necessarily mean it's great. I've never voluntarily popped in the soundtrack to this movie. Of course the songs get in your head and stay there, but none of them are all that interesting or particularly complex. Heigh-Ho, Someday My Prince Will Come, the one about soap; these are commercial jingles.

In the school of Disney, Snow White is a required course. If it weren't required, I wouldn't take the course. I don't get much out of it. You can watch the highlights reel and get the important stuff. Then go to youtube and check out one of the many traumatizing ride-throughs of Snow White's Scary Adventure (I've literally looked into the eyes of that animatronic witch one solitary time in my life and now I go through all dark rides with my eyes mostly closed like French Stewart). I'm not going to have kids and I'm not planning to babysit anything under the age of eight, so I'll probably never watch this movie from start to finish again in my life. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to.

Cinderblock

How come nobody's ever made the Stanley Kubrick version of Cinderella?

A young girl named Cinderella is psychologically unstable after the death of both her parents, acting out and bursting into song at inappropriate moments. Her stepmother and stepsisters try very hard to prepare her for integration into society, giving her routines and structure, but she continues displacing her personality onto the vermin infestation. One day the family is invited to a ball, and Cinderella expects to join them wearing the most God-awful rags she has pieced together, insisting it is a beautiful dress. They have to confront her with the truth that she is in fact out of touch with reality. Left behind now, Cinderella hallucinates visions of a woman who claims to help her achieve all of her dreams. When she shows up at the ball, wearing the same horrible rags, her stepmother informs the prince of Cinderella's mental state. He intercepts her and takes her far away from the rest of the attendees in case she suddenly becomes unstable. They finally get her home without incident, but Cinderella has become obsessed now with living in the castle. As her outbursts become more frequent, her stepmother has to lock Cinderella in her room until the royal guard can arrive to take her away where she spends the remainder of her days under constant supervision from the doctors of the time who could do very little for her. And she thought she lived happily ever after.

Walt Disney originally didn't want to make Cinderella because he felt it would be too much of a rehash of Snow White. But the Disney company was hurting financially, and Cindy bailed them out, and her movie was too much of a rehash of Snow White. Although in her defense she managed to be equally iconic and get a castle named after her. Snow is boring because there's just not a lot to her. Cindy is boring because she's being held back by an oppressive controlling force, and yes, I'm talking about Walt. With love.

I've noticed when people talk about Walt Disney, they usually either praise him to the point of deification, or demonize him. Neither extreme is fair. Walt Disney was a man, an artist, a producer, a businessman and he knew nothing about women. He probably understood the mindset of girls, which is why his fairy tales resonated so strongly, but I don't believe he ever saw grown women as anything more than taller girls.

Now there is a common belief that no man will ever truly understand a woman. Maybe there's some truth behind that, but not only do I not subscribe to the belief but as a man I find it kind of lazy. I write a lot of female characters because I find them really fun to write. I've been working on Caris and Zel for six years now, and if I ever get a book together I expect the female demographic will be my primary audience. And while I'm not so bold as to claim that I understand women, I do believe I really try to. And this is my frustration with Walt Disney. I don't believe he ever tried.

The shallowness of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was permissible because it was the first movie, and they were lucky it held together at all. Cinderella's shallowness was an unforgivable missed opportunity. Unlike most Disney fairy tales, Cinderella is never in any physical danger. All of the tension is psychological. Meaning, Cinderella's psychological journey is the heart of the story. But instead of letting us experience the entire plane of emotions she should be feeling, we only get to see the one dimensional spectrum of elated---cheerful---crying. The more 'unladylike' emotions like frustration and anger get handed off to the mice, along with the lion's share of screen time.

So what works about the movie? Well, as distracting as the mice are they have solid character designs. You'd almost think that Disney would rather have just done the movie about them. The soundtrack is much better than that of its predecessor, although Disney music took a leap forward with Pinocchio. And the human cast looks really solid, finding that balance between realism and cartoon. Cinderella is pretty; it's her defining trait. She moves like a princess from the get-go and has all of the traditional feminine qualities of grace and elegance and all that jazz. In other words, she's essentially a trope. If you ever manage to endure either of the direct to video sequels, the production team actually managed to find a select few character beats for both Barbirella and Prince Ken. In fact I would go so far as to say that the third segment in Cinderella II surpassed the original movie in terms of story content; Cinderella reaches out to Anastasia (performed by voice acting royals Jennifer Hale and Tress MacNeille) to help her find her true love.

The ultimate problem with Cinderella isn't how superficial it is, but the fact that the seeds for so much more were right there and ignored in favor of superficiality. The message conveyed in Cinderella is, if you're pretty you don't need to be anything else, in fact anything else is actively discouraged. That's one of the most terrible lessons you can teach children.

So would I recommend the movie? Yeah-ish, it's worth a look. Mostly because of the conversation that should be happening between caregivers and children about the content. It's entertaining more than it isn't, but when it isn't, God it's dull. Children should be encouraged to love certain things about it and criticize other things. And you should be doing a family counter-sing-along to the ballroom dance. "So this is love", "Oh no it's not", "Hm hm hm hmm", "He likes the dress".

Sleeping Audience

If these films had accurate titles, they would read "Dopey and the Dwarfs (with Snow White)", "Jaq, Gus and Her", and "Fairies and the Prince". If it weren't for the title character's one song she may as well not be in the movie.

Okay, let's talk Aurora. From her look and voice, which is all I have to go on, I'm guessing she's about 36? All of her human contact has been with non-humans. She meets a guy and falls for him, because Tchaikovsky. She finds out she can't be with him because she's betrothed to another (also him, because plot). She follows Navi to her execution, wakes up to a kiss and assumes everything worked out while she was indisposed.

I once asked a cast member who played Aurora at Disney World how she was able to adapt the character to a meet and greet setting with so little to pull from. She told me that, compared to Cinderella, Aurora was much more withdrawn but more motivated to find out who people were because she'd missed out on so much of her life. Cinderella was the hostess with her name on the castle. Aurora was the socially awkward girl subtly asking the children to help her come out of her shell.

The film Sleeping Beauty doesn't have the offensiveness Cinderella has but it's as much a missed opportunity. As live action remake happy as Disney seems to be getting I wonder if they'd ever REALLY stick their necks out and redo their classics as animated films again.

This should be an animated horror movie. Despite Mary Costa's trained opera voice, Aurora is sixteen. She's lived among fairies and inoffensive woodland creatures, essentially the way a child would live. On her sixteenth birthday she meets a guy and gets the pubescent hormones, at which point her world becomes shadows, Gothic architecture and thorns. This is the perfect symbolic representation of "Welcome to the adult world, bitch. Now bleed."

The pivotal scene in a remake would have to be the moment Aurora's finger is hovering over the spindle and Maleficent is commanding her to touch it. She should ask the one question nobody in this whole movie ever thought to ask. "Why?"

The sequence that follows could be a dream or a single moment in the fairy world, but Aurora and Maleficent need to spend some time together. That never happened in the 1959 film and I've always felt robbed by that.

I love this film. It is incredibly flawed and I'm more than happy to fast forward through the scenes with the spotlight hogging fairies (although Fauna had some potential). I love the ideas that never came to fruition, a princess who didn't want to be a princess, the political pressure, the nature of a dark fairy. Sleeping Beauty was in development for nine years, and while the movie was technically brilliant I feel Disney seriously dropped the ball on this one.

Would I recommend it? With all the powers of hell yes. But it's honestly because of Maleficent, whose presence alone saves this movie from obscurity. Prince Phillip is a step in the right direction but we're still not at the heroes of the nineties. Aurora as the introverted princess is more of a tease than an exploration of her character. And I honestly want to slap Merryweather (she murdered that raven). It's Maleficent who brings the charisma to a beautiful but flat film.

In fact, let's sit down with those cold hearted tyrants and see what it is about them with which we connect so strongly.

The Cool Kids' Table, Audley Enough

Well the first thing you'll notice is they're all women. During Walt Disney's life the male villains just didn't have the gusto his dark ladies had, which is a psychological discussion beyond the scope of this blog. While Walt's male characters in general had a pretty decent spectrum of personalities, the women were pigeonholed into two templates; good=passive, evil=proactive. As problematic as this is, we are at least treated to some truly iconic villains ruled by some base emotions.

The Evil Queen (Grimhilde, allegedly) may be the scariest human ever animated. According to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Walt felt that the animators had actually gone too far with her in terms of menace. You looked at her face and could SEE what she was willing to do for the most petty of reasons. She was a true sociopath. Walt actually held the animators back in creating frightening villains after that.

The intriguing thing about the Queen is that she's already winning at the beginning of the movie. She's on the throne. She's beautiful, sort of (the mirror says so anyway). And not only is she not happy, but it's like she can barely withstand living. And when she discovers that something is going to upset the status quo she goes full Elizabeth Bathory. It's funny how much happier she seems when she turns herself into the hag.

I love the Kingdom Hearts series, and the Queen's long time absence from it always felt like a massive gap in the Disney legacy. She finally showed up in Birth by Sleep, and when she did I suddenly understood why she wasn't a good fit for the games. She actually has little to no ambition. No reason to collect heartless or team up with Frollo or go out and DO anything. She just wants her world to stay the same. The Queen represents narcissism at its absolute darkest.

Moving down the table is Lady Tremaine, older and sophisticated yet harboring a bitter hatred of her step daughter. Did you ever wonder what her damn problem is? Obviously Sycophella will never be able to please this woman and yet she still keeps trying. Does Tremaine see her as a threat to her daughters' happiness?

Other versions of this story have tried to provide some insight into this question, but as the Disney version stands, Lady Tremaine just seems to be a bully who delights in Cinderella's unhappiness. Perhaps this woman was broken at some point in her past and the only thing that ultimately matters to her is to be able to break someone else. If improving her station in life was her goal it would make more sense to try riding Cindy's newfound bandwagon. But that's not her ultimate goal. Lady Tremaine simply wants Cinderella to be unhappy.

This is one of those few movies where the protagonist and primary antagonist spend time with each other on a daily basis, a concept I don't think gets revisited until Hunchback. I sometimes wonder if Tremaine ever considered having Cinderella killed, like so many other Disney villains would have. I doubt it, but it's a question worth exploring. Maybe Tremaine would dismiss the notion as being beneath her. More likely, there's no pleasure to be taken over someone's grave since their suffering is over.

Lady Tremaine represents the kind of villain we're most likely to encounter in reality, someone who hates you through no fault of yours, just because. Tremaine also has the distinction of being one of Disney's undefeated villains. Cinderella may have escaped her, but she's still out there with a cloud of seething venom surrounding her. We can thank Eleanor Audley for giving a voice to that raw contempt.

And speaking of which, there's Maleficent. Man, she's awesome! I'm not entirely sure what it is about this character.  Maleficent is an imposing figure, yet surprisingly not in an immediate threat kind of way. She likes to talk and show off. She also has a range of emotions, from a sweetness towards her raven to an unhinged meltdown over her minions.

What the hell was all this death of Aurora about anyway? Apparently she held a grudge over not receiving an invitation to Aurora's...um...birthday? Really? That was it? We're supposed to believe that the villain who tops ninety percent of 'The Greatest Disney Villain' lists enacted a decade and a half curse over something so trivial? Nah, I'm not convinced.

Probably Disney and company meant it to be that basic, that's how it played out in the original fairy tale (convoluted though it was). But then they created Maleficent. And she's just too badass to accept such a ridiculous motivator. As a result, we're left with a gap in the premise.

The Kingdom Hearts series uses her as a major player in the overarching story, the only Disney villain to have that much focus. I'm going to be mad if she's not a playable character in Kingdom Hearts III. She gets to be the big bad in Fantasmic, even though the Orlando version should totally have gone with Chernabog. Hades invariably outranks her in terms of power, and yet we fully belief she would take the dominant role.

So why does she resonate so strongly with her fan base? It doesn't hurt that she transforms into the sleekest looking dragon in the history of fantasy. Her curse comes across as just mean, but her conviction to follow it all the way through seems a little puzzling. Does she actually have something at stake in Aurora's demise? She confides to Diablo that she hadn't slept well in sixteen years. Perhaps she does what she does because she truly believes it should be done.

Maybe that's the defining trait of Maleficent. The Evil Queen had to have been a really small person inside to have reacted so life or death to Snow White's first training bra. Likewise, Lady Tremaine had to have very little confidence in herself to be that positively affected by the abuse she inflicted on Cinderella. As far as we can tell, Maleficent stands to gain nothing through her curse, and yet she is willing to risk her life for its completion, almost like she sees a side of the world that the rest of the characters don't.

I have some modest thoughts on this issue. I think that Mistress of all Evil isn't just a title that she gave herself. I think it's her role. What if there are forces of darkness ready to spill into the world like the Firebird, and they are only being held back by the fairy's floodgate. Maleficent is the one who controls the release of pressure behind that gate. And when she promises the forces of darkness the life of Aurora, who got doubly (almost triply) blessed by the stupid fairies, it appeases the darkness back into sedation.

There's your premise for Sleeping Beauty II.

Scooby Doo's Unsolved Mystery ~Part Five: Daphne's Treasure

Click here for the Table of Contents for Scooby Doo's Unsolved Mystery.

Part Five

It had been a few months. Between a massive computer crash and having to track down the infamous Daniel to get confirmation of Mystery Inc.'s accounting of events, the steps leading up to my article's first draft had been tedious at best.

I'd been overzealous when I blurted out that I knew who the Soothsayer was in front of Fred. There would be consequences if I was wrong (which I was prepared for) but I wasn't entirely comfortable with the thought of being right. The moment I published my article someone's life was probably going to change, and the weight of that realization had caused me to procrastinate beyond professionalism. And to top it off, my editor was demanding I speak with Daphne.

The Blake family owned an isolated beachfront property, two stories with wooden railings and a swing on the porch; a former bed and breakfast named the Stefanianna House, which I found myself parked in front of. Repainted with an orange roof, violet paneling and a light green trim convinced me that I had arrived at the correct address without having to conform it with the GPS. Late afternoon sunlight draped gently over the sand, creating the image of a perfect seascape. I felt like I didn't belong here.

I'd been sitting in my car for half an hour, not working up the nerve to smudge this oil painting with my fingertips. When I started this whole journey I had never expected to meet Daphne. Granted I hadn't expected to meet any of them. Shaggy had been a chance encounter. I'd gone looking for Velma, but I didn't think I'd find her on the first try. At that point I really thought that would have been it for me; Velma would have answered all the important questions, the trail would have dead ended, I could not have anticipated hugging Scooby, riding in the Mystery Machine or getting caught in one of Fred's traps. But the one thing I would have bet my life on was that I'd never meet Daphne.

If meeting Scooby Doo had caused me to regress to the innocence of my childhood, then the looming introduction to Daphne was taking me into my misfit adolescence. She was the popular girl, the homecoming queen, the cheerleader; she was THAT girl. I expect every teenager, male or female, had some kind of a crush on THAT girl when they were in high school, and had experienced the unconscious effect THAT girl's smile or frown could have on one's sense of self worth. Even though I'd long since left high school behind me, I was apprehensive about the prospect of meeting Miss Blake.Maybe it was because Daphne was always a bit of a mystery herself. I was never entirely clear on why she’d joined Mystery Inc. in the first place. For Fred I'd always assumed. But then she stayed through that whole Flim Flam period while Fred and Velma were…doing whatever they were...come to think of it, maybe I'd been focused on the wrong unsolved mystery.

I finally worked up the nerve and meandered up to the front door of the house, reaching for the intrusive metal handle. A middle-aged gentleman with a receding grey hairline in a coat and tails beat me to the knock. “Ah the journalist,” he smiled. “Miss Blake is expecting you.”

“Thank you, Mr?”

“Jeeves,” he answered.

I blinked. Seriously? People are actually named that? On purpose?

I'm quite sure my perplexity showed on my face, but Jeeves (again, seriously?) maintained more professional composure than I did and politely ushered me into a drawing room. At least I'd call it a drawing room. I don't actually know what a drawing room is; a room where you draw, I presume. It was spacious, with three huge windows on two walls showing a beautiful view of the beach and a single desk with two chairs in the corner. If I was going to draw in a room this would be my first choice.

Adorning the wall next to the doorway I had just entered was a series of bookshelves containing leather bound books, stacks of papers and the occasional globe or unicorn shaped statuette. This must have been one of the Blake's personal libraries. The ceiling was at least a story and a half high and a roller ladder was attached to a track about two-thirds of the way up. The bottom of an ornate wooden staircase began where the shelves ended. I secretly wondered if I might be able to take a sabbatical in this house for when I'd have to write Scooby's memoirs.

"The mistress will be down shortly," said Jeeves (I know this is an unimportant detail to obsess over but I can't even type his name with a straight face).

"Thank you," I said.

"Would you care for a spot of tea?"

"Please," I said even though I really don't really drink or like tea. Something told me he would be bringing out a whole tray of sugar, milk and honey which I could use enough of to make it taste like not-tea.

And then I heard a voice from the top of the staircase, the only voice that could make the word 'jeepers' not sound completely ridiculous. "Mind if I join you?"

There was a moment where the world stopped. What's-his-name said something but my brain didn't process it. Daphne sparkled, and in that moment it was the only thing that registered. For whatever reason: diet and exercise, good genetics, a trip to ILM, she hadn't aged a day since delivering that suit of armor to County Museum.

"Daphne." She cheerfully introduced herself with a feminine handshake. "So, you've solved our unsolved mystery?"

"I'm almost positive," I said, trying to keep a sense of humility about myself. "I was hoping you could fill in a few details."

"I'm always happy to help." She scurried up the roller ladder and retrieved a purple three ringed binder. She began flipping through it from the top of the ladder as she reminisced. "Did you know we technically had eleven unsolved mysteries?"

"Eleven?"

"Most of them happened during the last two years of Mystery Inc. Once people started recognizing us. We were being told made up legends by business owners looking for local publicity. It made it difficult to separate the real fake ghosts from the fake fake ones."

"I can't believe people would do that."

Daphne giggled as she turned another page. "It's actually funny how many thieves thought dressing up like zombies would scare people away from a heist instead of drawing more attention to it. We may have had a couple of cases that we abandoned too soon for lack of turning up any clues or ever encountering the thing we were there to unmask; the Manacled Mamba, the Grey Griffin -a personal favorite, and of course there's Weerd and Bogel but that's probably never going to be resolved. And then there was the Soothsayer."

She paused on the page she'd been searching for, and I wasn't sure what was going through her mind. Three primary suspects, one unrecovered treasure, and an accident which destroyed the costume and anything inside it.

"Miss Blake?"

"Daphne."

"Daphne," I said, "I have to ask this. Was the person in the costume killed that day?"

"No." She smiled, shutting the binder and returning it to its home on the shelf.

"But at the time you thought so?"

Daphne pushed off the shelf causing her to ride the ladder down the wall where she snatched up a wooden treasure box along the way. By the time the ladder had come to a rest she'd slid down the rails, landing with a gymnast's grace on the floor. "This," she said, "is the missing piece to the mystery."

I followed her over to the desk where she set the treasure box down and opened it for me. I was kind of surprised to find a series of postcards showcasing various world landmarks; the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Hollywood sign. And on the backs of every postcard were the same words. "Wish you were here -D.B."

"We started getting those mailed to us one month after the whole soothsayer fiasco. For two years straight we kept getting them, once a month. Twenty-four in all." She flashed a knowing grin. "Now what do you make of that?"

I drew in a deep breath. "If I didn't know any better I'd say someone is gloating."

"What else?" Daphne prodded me.

"Whatever it was inside C.S. Barley's coffin was obviously worth quite a bit of money. Lindsey Channing would have had no reason to ever dress up like a spook to scare anyone away from the house since she already owned it at the time. Which suggests that she didn't actually know about the...can I call it the Macguffin Jewel?"

"Macguffin?" Daphne laughed. "I like that."

"But Sheriff Braxton, whose first name was Sam-"

"So no D.B. there."

"Right. He'd been eyeing a political career and needed money to finance a campaign. I think he knew about the Macguffin Jewel and wanted to casually slip it out from under Lindsey's nose once she turned over the deed to the museum. But obviously he didn't succeed because he's only just now running for Governor."

"Velma came to that same conclusion."

"Did she ever do a follow up on Daniel?"

Daphne nodded. "Once the postcards started coming in we all realized we'd never gotten Daniel's last name. A quick search revealed he was part of the law firm William & Joseph. He was the Joseph."

"But Velma didn't stop there did she?"

"Of course not. Like I say, nothing slips past her. A little more digging and we found out Daniel had legally changed his name to Joseph when he was eight. His mother remarried."

"And at the time his mother's name was Heather Barley."

I noticed Daphne's smile was fading a little. "Daniel was C.S. Barley's son. Who would have guessed?"

"So based on all the evidence, Velma was convinced that Daniel Barley had swiped the Macguffin Jewel away from both Lindsey and Sheriff Braxton and escaped with it during the commotion of a fake wax figure in the Soothsayer costume apparently falling to its death in a vat of chemicals."

Daphne sighed. "And he'd gotten away with it because of us meddling kids."

We sat in silence for a moment, as if we were waiting for some cop to show up out of nowhere say something like, "Well that just about wraps up this case." While sitting across a desk from Daphne Blake I suddenly had a thought which would never have come to me in the time I'd spent waffling in the car outside her beach house. What was it like to be Daphne? The word 'perfect' came to mind. Not that she was perfect because nobody is, but how many times in her life had she been called perfect? I could look at her and see her meeting the expectation like a virtuoso. Her hair was perfect. Her dress was perfect. Her nails and makeup and manners.

You don't meet the challenge of perfection without becoming a perfectionist.

I looked at 'perfect' danger prone Daphne in her perfect oil painting beach house that I'd been so afraid to smudge and gave her the most genuine smile I could. She received it the way she'd trained herself to, with only the slightest glimmer of distress in her eyes.

I spoke. "But that's not what happened, is it?"

Our conversation was cut short by the return of Jeeves with the tea I didn't want. He set the tray between us and fixed each of our cups. I began stirring way too many sugar lumps into mine as he prepared to leave us again. "Is everything all right miss?" he asked Daphne.

"Everything is fine," she assured him. "Thank you."

Jeeves nodded and left us to our tea. Daphne held up her teacup in a toast. "To the truth then." I mirrored her and took a sip. And for the record, it wasn't as horrible as I thought it was going to be.

"Velma pointed out there was no legend of the Soothsayer to accompany its appearance," I said. "In fact she even commented on how odd that was for a Mystery Inc. case. You'd think if anyone inside the museum had wanted to scare somebody away with their costume, they'd want to put some kind of a context around it. Daniel had every chance to effectively tell the backstory. In fact, the only reason you guys even knew there was going to be a ghost to begin with was because of the old man at the general store."

Daphne still held her teacup to her lips even though she was no longer drinking from it.

"Fred and I stopped by that general store. I happened to notice a collection of things like glow in the dark paint, raincoats, small light bulbs which could pose as a specter's eyes. And on top of that, there were Scooby Doo coffee mugs."

Daphne set her teacup down and nodded slightly.

"Here's what I think happened. When the mystery machine showed up unexpectedly at the store, the manager (being a Scooby Doo fan) put it together where you all were going. So he threw together a costume and went through all the usual tropes; warning you all to leave, chasing Shaggy and Scooby in the kitchen, kidnapping you."

The look on Daphne's face was stoic at this point, and I felt bad about the direction I knew I was going but I had to see it through to the conclusion.

"All of this was leading up to Fred's trap. But when it failed and everyone was convinced the Soothsayer had been killed, the manager only had to collect his jewel and calmly disappear back into the general store."

I hesitated, waiting for some kind of response from Daphne, but she only whispered "Go on."

Here it was. "I've been wondering how Velma could have missed a few things and it occurred to me that there might be an avenue she'd refused to explore, namely the Soothsayer needed help to pull off a heist like that at a moment's notice. You're the only one who spent any time with him. When he kidnapped you. You were the one who found the PhantomCon ticket stub which threw suspicion onto Daniel. No one would have guessed that you'd planted your own ticket as a clue. And you were the one who caused the trap to malfunction. Did I miss anything?"

"Just, why would I do that?"

I pointed to the treasure box with the postcards. "D.B." I said. "I think it stands for Doctor Bell."

Daphne blinked. "Who?"

"He hypnotized your aunt several years ago. I imagine susceptibility runs in your family. I think Doctor Bell got out of jail-"

Daphne interrupted me. "Do you really think that? Seriously?"

I turned my eyes downward. "No. I just can't-"

"Yes you can," she told me. "Solve the mystery."

I couldn't look at her as I accused her of being an accomplice, so I rubbed my forehead to block my line of sight. "D.B. isn't who the postcards are from. It's who they're to. The old man was thanking you for helping him escape."

"And why?"

"I don't know."

"I betrayed my friends, -my family, Fred, Velma, to help a crook. Why would I do that?"

I really had no idea. "You knew him?"

"I'd never met him before."

"He threatened you?"

"I'm not helpless."

"He threatened Scooby?"

Daphne shook her head. "He was dying."

I stared at her, not quite able to wrap my head around what she'd just said. "He told you that?"

She leaned in towards me with a melancholic sincerity. "Do you know how many times I've been kidnapped? No one has ever asked me what I do when that happens."

I...never would have thought about that. "What did you do?" I mumbled.

"What I always do. I try to talk the person in the mask down. I tell them how likely they'll be caught. I ask if prison is worth it to them. I tell them exactly what their costume is made out of and make my best guess as to who they are. With the Soothsayer, I turned out to be right."

"And he took his own mask off?"

Daphne nodded again. "His name was Vance. He'd worked his whole life at that store. He seemed to be a good man. But then he found out he had a terminal illness with about a month, two at most to live. He suddenly felt like he'd done nothing with his life that he'd be remembered by."

She trailed off. I briefly fumbled for words before she reclaimed the memory.

"Then we came into his store. I guess he thought if he could just be a part of a Mystery Inc. mystery one time, it would be worth something. Even if he spent the rest of his short life in jail for it."

I suddenly understood. "And so then you got the idea, what if he became the one that got away?"

Daphne gave me a half grin. He would be legendary. I'd keep the secret for a while until people got tired of the story and then I'd reveal who he really was, and Vance would be immortalized in Mystery Inc. lore. And all I had to do was lie."

"And the Macguffin?"

"I didn't know about that. I don't think Vance did either, not until he was running around the museum in a painted raincoat. He must have seen an opportunity and taken it."

"That was...a tad underhanded."

Daphne shrugged. "Whatever it was he stole, it granted him two more years of life. Isn't that worth it?"

"Worth what?" I asked.

Daphne pinched her lips together uncomfortably. "The guilt."

"You know," I tried to assure her, "I get it. You did something very kind for an old man who was in desperate need of kindness. It was certainly not your fault he wound up attaching a theft to it. And if you had admitted to helping him escape, I've no doubt Sheriff Braxton would have blamed it all on you because that's the kind of person he is. But what I don't understand is, why didn't you ever tell Fred or Velma?"

Daphne glanced out the window. "The sun is about to set. There is a perfect view of it from the swing on the porch if you'd like to sit out there with me."

Of course I said yes. We sat on the swing together gently rocking as the sun made its way to another part of the world much more effectively than I'd made my way from my car to the front door earlier. The whole time she didn't speak and I didn't ask her to. It wasn't until the blanket of the night sky draped over us that she answered my question.

"Have you ever lied to someone who trusts you?"

"I don't have kids." I was grateful she cracked a smile for me. "Probably."

"You know, when I planted that ticket stub as evidence I really thought Velma was going to pick up on it right then. And when she didn't...I don't know. In a way if felt...almost satisfying. I felt smarter than her. Just for that moment. I knew when we were away from the museum I'd tell everyone the truth, and also let Velma know the one other thing that she overlooked, which was that Daniel kind of liked her.

"But then I had to sabotage Fred's trap and dump the wax figure in the vat and pretend I thought I'd gotten someone killed. My performance was perfect, because the tears wound up being real. I wasn't expecting how it would feel to deceive. It's funny, in a way. We've dealt with so many creeps in masks who make it look so easy. Every time I remember that moment all I can think is, who was that girl? Not me. It must have been someone else.

"And all of them were so NICE to me about it. Although I don't think anybody ever told Shaggy exactly what had happened, but they knew I was upset and they...did everything they could to make it better. And then we found out about the empty coffin, and I swore I would keep my mouth shut until we were well out of the state. And then Velma did a background search on Daniel and I didn't know how to tell her that he was innocent. And then the postcards started showing up, and by then it had seemed like so long ago that I was afraid to even say anything.

"So I never did."

"You put on a mask," I said, and Daphne smiled tenderly at me.

"And I would have gotten away with it-"

I touched her hand. "I don't have to write this article."

"Yes you do," she told me. "It's the truth."

"To hell with the truth!" I said without thinking. "The truth isn't always the right thing. If I'd been in your situation I would have done exactly what you did. In fact, I AM in that situation."

Daphne looked at me with a puzzled expression. "How so?"

"Vance took off his own mask for you, and you chose to be kind."

She turned away from me. "That hasn't exactly left me feeling like it was a good thing."

"That's because Vance took advantage of your kindness."

I could see that she was mulling it over. "The gang deserves to know what really happened."

"Maybe so. But not from me." I gave her shoulder a friendly nudge. "You've been carrying this around with you because it just wasn't the right time. And then it was never the right time. What if this is the right time now?"

She drew in a deep breath and exhaled. For a moment there was only the sound of the ocean waves lapping at the shore. And then she smiled.

Epilogue

I promised Daphne I wouldn't print my article until she was ready. My editor was none too pleased, but I held my ground. I suspect it may have cost me at least one promotion, but some things really are more important.

It was about a month later when my news feed mentioned that Mystery Inc. was getting back together. I gave the screen a nod, as if it was a personal message to me, and published my article. I guess I was half-expecting instant responses from around the world, but the truth is the article ran and vanished with very little fanfare. But a few months later I started receiving some feedback (mostly criticism, but at least people were reading it). To my absolute delight I was briefly a trending topic; well, Scooby was, but my article appeared in the hyperlinks.

I heard through indirect sources that Braxton was furious over what I had printed. Good. Of course it was long past the point where he could retaliate against Daphne, so all he could do was be furious. He also lost the election. Something about people finding him unrelatable. I'm sure I had no influence on that, but I sometimes like to stroke my own ego and imagine I took him down single-handedly.

With Mystery Inc. back together, Scooby's book deal was put on hold. I was equally relieved and disappointed. No, I'm lying. I was mostly relieved. I really didn't have the time to write a whole biography. Although down the road I'd love to do a retrospective piece on the whole team. But in the foreseeable future I have bills to pay, so that's going to stay on the backburner for now.

I'd like to say I'm now an award winning journalist because of my article. I'd like to say that, but I'm not. Yet somehow as I look at my cubicle's bulletin board I can't help but feel that I am. Taped to the board, just above the spot where I keep my coffee mug and my now stale (possibly petrified) Scooby Snack, is a recent photograph of the whole gang: Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Velma, and Daphne all gathered in front of the Mystery Machine. And down at the bottom, in flowery handwriting, is a personalized inscription that reads "Wish you were here! -D.B."

No idea where they are in the world, but it makes me happy knowing that Mystery Inc. is out there. I pick up my coffee mug and toast the greatest mystery solving team ever. "Here's looking at you, Scooby-Doo."

Editorial: Why does it matter if Han shot first?

Full disclosure: I'm not going to be leading up to the conclusion that this one single second in cinematic history doesn't matter. People have been talking about it for almost twenty years now. You can walk into the lobby of DragonCon and announce at the top of your lungs "Benjamin Sisko was the best Captain!" and be threatened by nothing more than the gentle fervor of "I see your point. Kind of disagree, but, you know, he had his strengths." (progress has been made) But the passion for Solo's alignment change has not died down. Walk into the same lobby with the mere intention of putting that topic on the table...Lord help you. Nerds just know. You'll get as far as "Geor-" before hearing a chorus of "That rat bastard!" Even Greedo has been wearing 'Han Shot First' t-shirts. OBVIOUSLY it matters.

But why?

Let's eliminate the 'there are things that actually affect our real lives that we should be concerned with' dismissal and look at what's really at stake. Clearly it's an emotional issue, and probably nothing more. That in itself may sound like a dismissal as well, but remember how powerful emotional issues really are. It broke my heart when Bambi's mother was killed, but billions of people's mother have died throughout history for various reasons that I feel nothing over. That doesn't mean my priorities are askew (at least about that) it just means I'm only capable of feeling so much about the world. If I couldn't be cold to the bulk of sad things in the world I'd never be able to function. Subsequently my reactions to 'perceived' experiences in movies and other media may actually serve a purpose of keeping me from becoming TOO cold and distant.

So let's instead say that the debate of Han's self preservation is an emotional issue, nothing more, but nothing less. Fans care about Star Wars. We're invested in the franchise. What if in 1977 George Lucas had actually directed the scene as to show Greedo firing seventeen times before turning the blaster on himself in disgrace and Han taking a moment to honor the sad circumstances leading up to his competitor's demise. "He had so much to offer. Have you ever read his poetry?" Would we have invested any less time and energy loving Han and Star Wars for all the things they did well?

It comes down to when, as an audience, we feel disrespected. I love the show Once Upon a Time. There was an episode (probably last season, so spoilers glossed over) where Pinocchio was reverting to his wooden state and wound up being electrocuted. Wood doesn't conduct electricity. The fans know that. The fans made their knowledge of that quite clear to the creators. We weren't being disrespected, just a little stunned by how that basic science lesson slipped past the production team. The response? That basic science lesson slipped past the production team. They were sorry. Could you give us that one? All was forgiven.

As an audience member, I felt respected by Kitsis & Horowitz's response to the message boards (and as quick as we are to acknowledge when we're feeling disrespected, I think it's healthy to point out those times when the opposite happens). The same could be said for George Lucas. It probably won't be. But it could be. If at any point he steps forward and says, "You know guys, I hear you. The thing is, that moment always bothered me about Han. I went and changed it when I had the opportunity because it meant that much to me. While I stand by my choice, I certainly don't blame anyone for feeling cheated, and as always I'm deeply grateful that you care enough to feel this strongly about it" I believe the majority of fans could accept the fact that Lucas is right, it's his baby, his opinion matters more than ours collectively does. I think we would feel respected.

Instead a year or so ago Lucas went on record telling us that we were confused, and Greedo had always shot first. When he changed the order of the blaster discharges we felt disrespected. When he told us we were the ones who were wrong, we were being disrespected. To our brains there is no difference between the two, and in Lucas's defense I'm sure that may have been a reaction to the probable millions of disrespectful opinions that he's received since the Special Edition first hit theaters. As the fan base, we DO owe George Lucas an apology for a LOT of things we've said to and about him.

In fact, I'll do that now.

Speaking only for myself: Mr. Lucas, I sincerely apologize for the snide remarks and sarcastic comments that you probably will never be aware of but I've made at your expense over the years. But underneath it, I feel like I do have a valid point which is trying to come to the surface. Namely, this single second of film is a moment with which I've defined something unconscious about myself through your character, and I want to know that you know that it matters to me.