Guest Post: Kendare Blake {Author of Anna Dressed In Blood}

Today I have the honor of hosting the fantabulous Kendare Blake, in celebration of the release of her latest book, Anna Dressed in Blood. In case you missed my review of Anna, you can check it out here. P.S. Anna was awesome - so please read it ASAP! Anyways, without further ado, here is Kendare's take on Fairy Tales!

Fairy Tales are Sick.

And that’s awesome.

By Kendare Blake

Anyone who has opened a volume of Grimm’s fairy tales knows that they’re nothing to mess with. They’re dark, bloody tales to scare kids into line. Or they’re dark, bloody tales just because the times in which they were written were dark and bloody. Not their fault. Times were sick. Of course, since then, Disney has done a bang-up job of scrubbing all that out, so as not to make children run from the movie theaters wailing hysterically. (They take the fun out of everything.) But the horrific elements from classic fairy tales are still interesting. So here are a few of my favorites.

The Little Mermaid considers carving up the prince and rubbing him all over her legs.

Why would she do that?!! Why?!

Because I’m clearly very annoying, that’s why.

Well…yes, that’s probably true. But not quite the answer we were looking for. In the original story, Prince Eric is sort of a prince D-bag, and marries someone else. What? How dare he? Did he NOT hear the singing crab?

Anyway, this leaves the little mermaid with only two choices. Slice that dude up sushi style and sprinkle his blood on her toes, which will break the sea witch’s spell and allow her to return to the ocean in her true form and with her completely loving family, or disintegrate into foam and spend eternity trying to earn a soul (since mermaids don’t have one). Our heroine chooses love, and disintegrates. So the next time you’re at the beach, and sea foam is tickling your toes, have a serious discussion with it about how modifying your appearance drastically for a love interest is a bad idea.

Cinderella’s stepsisters carve up their feet in an effort to find Happily Ever After

Ew. Just ew. But true. In the original story, Cinderella’s misguided stepsisters were so desperate to get married to a rich guy that they cut off slices of their own feet, toes and heel mostly, (but have you seen those feet? That must’ve been a LOT of carving) in order to fit into the glass slipper. Which wasn’t originally glass, just a pretty embroidered shoe. The prince, having decided to base his choice of wife solely on foot size, rode off with the ugly stepsister and didn’t think anything was afoot until the blood soaked through the shoe. (And did you catch those shoe-related puns? Ah-thank you.)

This would’ve lost a lot of charm

Had they needed to dump the blood out of it first.

The Wicked Queen wants to have Snow White for dinner. No. Literally.

Have you seen the version of Snow White starring Sigourney Weaver? The subtitle isn’t A Tale of Terror for nothing. In the original version of Snow White, the wicked queen didn’t just want the huntsman to cut out Snow’s heart for proof of death…she wanted it for a hearty addition to the stew. Watch the expression on Sigourney Weaver’s face as she eats that stew, and try not to throw up a little in your mouth. Just try it.

But it gets even worse. In the original story, she didn’t just want the heart. She wanted the kidneys, the liver, the entrails. If Snow hadn’t been a girl of healthy weight, she probably would have asked the huntsman to bring the whole carcass back, so she could truss her up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

I considered not trying to find an image of this, but…

Why does this image even exist?

And don’t get me started on how Sleeping Beauty was impregnated while sleeping and didn’t wake up until one of her toddlers bit her finger and dislodged the thorn.

Yeah. You read that right.

Kendare Blake's Website | Anna Dressed in Blood Website | Anna on Amazon | Anna on Book Depository | Anna on Goodreads