thinking about how meggie and brianna are both the spitting image of their respective missing parents and how painful it must have been for mo and roxane to look at them all those years and see the faces of their lost loves looking back. the comfort they may have found in still having pieces of resa and dustfinger in their lives through their children. and then! and then. when they’ve finally been reunited, all resa and dustfinger can think about when they see their daughters is how much they remind them of the partners they lost, because mo and roxane were the ones who actually got to raise them.
why are people so against negative character development? characters don’t need to improve and become better people they can get worse and make mistakes and end up in a worse state than when they began and it’s just as interesting and entertaining as characters developing positively
I translated this interview for the discord server last night, so I figured I'd post it here, too. Cornelia talks about the importance of good stories, the meaning of life, politics and once again reaffirms that she doesn't want anything to do with her own villains. Enjoy! :)
Ms Funke, you call yourself a spy for children. What do you mean by that?
The older I get, the more absurd I find the adult world: how much value is placed on what other people think and what society accepts. The way work, money and success have become a religion in itself. Many adults have forgotten what life is really about.
What is life really about?
You're happiest once you find out which tools you have in your toolkit. When you recognize your own talents. When you understand what you're good at and live your life accordingly.
First you were a social worker, then illustrator, started writing in your late twenties. Does your own story show how difficult it is to know one's own talents?
Yes, it's not easy. We're taught early to stop searching for our talents. Instead we are told to accept that life isn't the way we imagined it as children. I think that's absolutely wrong. It's important to protect this childish delight and curiosity about the world.
Is that why you tell fantastical stories instead of realistic ones? Because you reject the adult world?
What does realistic mean? Is it reality that we're sitting on a globe that's racing through space and illuminated by a fireball? When you tell stories in a fantastical way, it's possible to hint at how layered and complex the world really is.You can say: Someone's growing fur, growing wings. Or you can personify evil - the way fairytales and myths have always done. Fantastical storytelling is closer to reality in many ways.
Imagination can be an escape as well.
The great writer J R R Tolkien once said: "The only one who opposes escape is the prison guard."
For a long time your books were not considered for the "Spiegel"-bestseller-list. You already lived in the USA and had been included in the "Time"-magazine list of the 100 most influential people in the world when that changed in 2007. Why are people in Anglo-Saxon areas so much more open to your fantastical stories?
Fantastical literature in England and America follows a different tradition. The borders between literature for children and adults aren't as strict as in Germany. Which is a shame, because fantastical narratives have a rich tradition, from E. T. A. Hoffmann to the brothers Grimm.
Why did we lose that tradition?
Fascism probably plays a central role in that. It claimed myths and fairytales for itself and left brown fingerprints on all things fantastical. It left us with a deep-seated scepticism towards anything irrational - a German fear of myths and fairytales. Part of that fear is justified, surely, because stories can be used to manipulate. Many of the old fairytales are reactionary and glorify violence. Which is why we need new fantastical stories. There is an incredible power within them. Children who read good fantasy often end up more politically active, because they learned to imagine a different world.
What makes fantastical story for children good?
Good stories are about all parts of life: empathy, friendship, optimism, but also about dangers and evil. They help prepare for life - prepare for the fact that goodness is not promised and that you have to advocate for it. As children, nobody tells us how hard life can be. A lot is kept from us. That's a weakness of our civilization.
In "Inkheart", one of your most successful novels, we meet the villain Capricorn. He feeds birds to cats for fun and enjoys the suffering of others. Is Capricorn a personification of evil?
Capricorn thrives on pain and destroying lives. Yes, he's evil.
Who are the Capricorns of our world?
Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and many others. We could fill a hall with them. They sow fear, they sow hatred. Thanks to Trump, things that used to be unspeakable can now be declared openly in the USA. Unfortunately the USA isn't the only place where it's become acceptable to openly share far-right and racist thoughts without shame and to attack anything that's different.
You lived in the USA yourself for 17 years. Four of them under Trump. What's your prognosis for Trump's America?
Luckily, the world will never again be the way Trump's propaganda wants it to be - dominated by a western culture that spread unimaginable suffering through colonialism and a falsified Christian ideal. Anyone living in California quickly realizes how diverse the USA are. I loved that 128 different languages are spoken there, that so many people with different stories meet there. The current reactionary situation is a struggle by an old monster facing a changing society. But Trump won't get away with it. Immigration countries like the USA, Canada or Australia are based on a deep-rooted idea: We just keep reinventing the world together.
And in Europe?
The same problem, and national identities are much more rigidly defined here because they have deep historical roots. The image of the USA that Trump is selling was imported from Europe and has nothing to do with the history of the country.
Many see Trump as a strong man. Your books feature strong, sometimes even immortal characters, too. Aren't you concerned that your readers can't resist the fascination with that power?
I try not to romanticize my villains. I'm annoyed by claims that villains are the more interesting characters. It's an absurd cliché. I don't want to celebrate the violence in my stories in the same way so many other books and movies do. Only a few directors, like Guillermo del Toro, show violence as it is: something horrific. Nobody would love evil in his movies.
What does evil look like, then?
Bertold Brecht had a mask of a Japanese demon hanging above his work desk. It showed a contorted, angry face and was supposed to remind him every day how exhausting it is to be evil. To me, evil is something broken, fueled by fear and a lack of empathy, the inability to see and feel others, coupled with the rush of strength that aggression and anger allow us to feel.
Something ugly, too?
Brecht's ugly mask symbolises the inner world of such a character. From the outside, evil can look very beautiful, of course. Plenty of people, animals and plants that are perceived as ugly are only persecuted because people think ugliness equals evil. What an awful and stupid association! I love "Lord of the Rings" and have read the books countless times. But with Tolkien, the evil characters are ugly and the beautiful ones are good. If only the world were that easy!
While writing, you start a dialogue with your characters. How do you talk to a villain you created yourself?
I don't talk to the worst of them. I don't like my villains. I despise them. I watch them from a distance and try to describe them, but I stand on the other side. When I talk to them then only about other characters from their world.
Were you ever in danger of identifying with your own villains?
No, they always seem so empty and haunted to me, it's really not tempting to wear their skin. I've supported Amnesty International since I was 14. The reports of torture I've read made me believe that it's impossible to convince all people of your own ideals or understand them.
Can we all become evil?
Let's be real. We are a deeply aggressive species - full of racist and sexist reflexes. What's important is fighting those every day. There is a beautiful scene in a British show. One protagonist explains to another that there are two wolves in everybody: one symbolizes hatred, anger and impatience, the other light, empathy and love. "And who will win?" one asks. "The one you feed," is the answer.
Many of your characters seem to be torn between the two wolves.
Yes, in "Reckless", for example, I tell the story of Nerron, a Goyl who carries much darkness. There are plenty of reasons for that that I get into. I like him a lot, because he has a caring heart despite it. I can ask endless questions and stay curious with him. I want to understand even a murderer who had an awful childhood and eventually kills, himself. But I have limits. At some point I cannot forgive someone who brings too much suffering anymore.
What responsibility does a storyteller have?
I keep meeting readers who tell me that my books helped them in difficult times - a soldier who read "Inkdeath" during war; parents who had to read "Dragon Rider" to their dying son over and over again; so many people who made it through sickness, depression or other pain with my stories. It always moves me deeply. The older I get, the more I think: stories should always offer shelter and comfort, too.
Currently rereading the Inkheart trilogy and the relationship between Dustfinger and Orpheus is so fucking funny tbh. What if blorbo from your favourite book is real and absolutely hates your guts
rereading the inkheart series for like the tenth time and going feral over the resa/dustfinger parallels:
- the most obvious is that they were the ones trapped in each other's worlds, ripped away from all they knew and dropped in a land so alien to them, desperate to go home
- mo and meggie knew what happened to resa; she told them about her time away and it caused problems in their family. roxane and brianna didn't know what happened to dustfinger; he didn't tell them about his time away and it caused problems in their family. whatever they did, they couldn't have the same connection with their loved ones as they had before
- their spouses both have dark hair and beautiful voices
- they both have complicated relationships with their willful, fair haired daughters
- their shared love for the beauty and magic of the inkworld, which they both miss in the real world
- their muteness when brought to the real world...resa of course couldn't speak at all, and dustfinger lost his ability to speak to fire
- dying for their children: resa chose to stay with meggie and face her execution in capricorn's village, and dustfinger chose to trade his life for farid's
- they both have a book-loving older relative whom they missed dearly while away (elinor and the barn owl)
- they both acquire powers by consuming magic foods (fire magic from the fire elves' honey and shapeshifting from the bird seeds)
i'm only halfway through inkspell right now but i may add more as i remember/encounter them...god they make me insane
The boy looked along the rows of the dead as if counting them. "Is it easy?"
Yes, thought Mo. Yes, it's easy...if you have a second heart beating in your breast, cold and sharp-edged as the sword you carry. A certain amount of hatred and anger, a few weeks of fear and helpless rage, and you'll have a heart like that. It beats time for you when you come to kill, a wild, fast rhythm. And only later do you feel your other heart again, soft and warm. It shudders in time with the other one at the thought of what you did. It trembles and feels pain...but that's only afterward.
The boy was still looking at him.
"Killing is too easy," said Mo. "Dying is harder."
