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What A Beauty!’ Theo van den Boogaard, 1984
i recently saw a tiktok where a woman asked "girlies: what are some things you do to be more whimsical? I love knowing cute little habbits"
and i've never loved a comment section more. some of my faves:
(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)
I talk to basically everything as if it's a person. I greet passing crows as my "cousins." I respond conversationally to my cats. I yell "same to you!" when inanimate objects make loud noises. I say good morning to plants. I thank my phone when an alarm goes off. When objects don't act the way I want them to I explain what I need them to do, or tell them they're being rude. I tell my car when we're stopping for gas.
I reassure credit card readers who are struggling that I know they are doing their best. Bless you, you funky lil machine, I'm sorry my dad is part of the reason people hate you. :(
If an object looks like it's about to roll away or fall over I'll put it in its place and then raise my index finger and one eyebrow at it like it's a naughty child or a cat about to push a glass of water over, like "Ah ah ah! Stay where you are!" I did this to my groceries last week and the checkout lady saw me and said "That was adorable."
Why Mulan is the Most Misunderstood Disney Movie of All Time
Mulan is the 36th animated feature film by Walt Disney Pictures. Released on June 19, 1998, it was the studio’s very first movie that starred Asian characters (voiced largely by Asian-Americans). It was directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft, and it was written by a team led by the Asian-American writer Rita Hsiao.
The story is based on The Ballad of Mulan, a folk song from the Northern Wei dynasty. It tells the tale of a young woman named Mulan, who goes to war in her father’s place, fights on a campaign for ten years, is honored by the Khan for her heroism, and surprises her comrades when they visit her at her home and discover she was actually a woman all along.
It is also the most misunderstood, most misinterpreted Disney film of all time. It is so misunderstood that it is misinterpreted by the very studio that made it.
In this post, I will delve extensively into why Mulan is such a misunderstood movie. I also want to state, for the record, that I worked hard on this post, so I'd appreciate no negative comments. If you want to argue with my points, if you want to disagree with me…
Please do exactly the same thing I did. Please make a very long Tumblr post with the exact same word count as mine, the same number of sources, the same number of images. I'm sorry to say it, but that is the only way I will entertain your opinion.
Now that's out of the way, I hope my post is educational and helpful to you if you are not Asian. I am Korean-American, and the whole point of this post is to help non-Asian Americans understand why Mulan is Disney's most confusing franchise. I truly do hope that by the end of this post, you will see Mulan in a new light and understand why Disney's treatment of it is so strange.
There is one reason that Mulan is so misunderstood, and that one reason is simple: Mulan was a flop in China.
Mulan was a success in the United States and abroad, grossing $304 million on a $90 million budget. But in China, it bombed. It only made $30,000. There are many reasons as to why Mulan underperformed in China. The Wikipedia page for Mulan has a section devoted to China’s reception of the film:
Due to a combination of outside factors (the Chinese government’s dispute with Disney, a year’s delay in releasing the film, a bad release date with competition from local films, and rampant piracy) and cultural reasons (Chinese people hated the movie for being a “Westernized” version of their legendary Hua Mulan), Mulan flopped in China. Chinese people hated Fa Mulan. They criticized her for being too individualistic and too American. They called her “Yang Mulan”, or “Foreign Mulan”, and complained that she looked Korean or Western. (Sources here and here.)
I cannot stress enough how much China hates Disney’s Mulan. Chinese people hold contempt for Fa Mulan. Jingle Ma, the director of Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (a wuxia film adaptation of Mulan released in 2009), cited Disney’s Mulan as a portrayal of the character he did not care for (source here).
This is for one very simple reason: Chinese audiences simply can’t have the same values as Disney’s Mulan. They don’t relate to her. They don’t see her as a person, a teenager, or a child. They just see her as weird and creepy. They see her as Chinese-American food. They see her as Panda Express.
I will explain this point more later on, and explain why Chinese people hate Fa Mulan so much. It is truly strange when you notice it.
But bear in mind one simple fact: the filmmakers had no way of knowing Chinese people would hate Fa Mulan. Disney wanted Mulan to be their Kung Fu Panda before Kung Fu Panda even existed: a film set in China that Chinese people loved just as much as Americans.
And that leads me to my next big point about a certain character, and why I believe Captain Li Shang is the most misunderstood, most misinterpreted Disney character ever made.
Li Shang was made the way he was to pander to Chinese audiences. He was very clearly supposed to attract China’s attention, to be the reason that country would make this movie a box office hit. Shang is the fictional character equivalent to all of Hollywood’s desperate ploys to attract money from one of the biggest countries in the world. He is the character equivalent to the films that have been called out for pandering to Chinese people: Transformers: Age of Extinction, Doctor Strange, The Great Wall, 2012, and Pacific Rim: Uprising.
I think the point was this, in the context of the film’s original release in 1998: Fa Mulan is the relatable American everygirl protagonist, the one you want to see succeed and be a hero.
Li Shang, however, is the inscrutable Chinese male lead, the one that China is supposed to sit up and take notice of. He is supposed to justify why Disney bothered to make a movie about Chinese people at all.
The clues for this theory are all there if you pay attention to the film’s production. Shang was voiced by Jackie Chan in all of the film’s Chinese dubs: mainland Chinese Mandarin, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Cantonese. His model sheet states that he was based on Bruce Lee, China’s favorite action hero (which is deeply ironic, because Bruce Lee was a Chinese-American who grew up in Hong Kong and was partially white on his mother’s side).
He is stoic, serious, and dignified at all times, and never meets Mushu or Cri-Kee. He is handsome, authoritative, and powerful. He gets extra scenes with his father, he's the leader of Mulan's platoon, and Chi Fu gets emphasis as his personal antagonist just as much as he is Mulan's. He wears a red cape, just like China's flag. And moreover, he is hard for non-Asian viewers to understand.
This is why there are so many debates about his sexual orientation and whether or not he was attracted to Mulan when she was Ping: because he shows subtle signs of affection towards Ping (smiling at Ping after being kicked in the face during training, looking back at the "For what it's worth, I think you're a great captain" comment, touching Ping's shoulder in response to "his" condolences over his father's death, and smiling at "him" and telling "him" he has his trust), like an Asian person would.
The reason this is not obvious to the viewer is because China did not like Disney's Mulan. The movie failed in China, and Chinese audiences simply weren't there to respond to Shang's character. They were indeed alienated by Mulan being too American, and completely ignored her boyfriend. The one they were supposed to relate to.
And that is why Shang is so confusing to the non-Asian American viewer. That is why fan discussion about Shang is so repetitive and circular, and always focuses on only two topics: how hot he is, and the question of whether or not he loved Mulan when he thought she was a boy. Non-Asian American fans, particularly white Americans, fetishize and sexualize Shang because to them, he is the male version of the “exotic Asian lady” racial stereotype.
This is also why it is deeply ironic that Mulan (2020) removed Shang’s character. The live-action remake tried to pander to China, to succeed where the original animated film failed, and not only failed again, but also removed the character who was designed for Chinese audiences. The remake made Mulan a China-pandering hero who wore red, and ignored the actual character who was already the China-pandering hero wearing red in the original film.
And most importantly of all, this is why Shang is a bisexual icon. He is both the inscrutable Asian love interest and the boyfriend in a girl power fantasy film. These two factors combined make him extremely desirable to the American viewer, but they also make him extremely confusing.
And I’m sorry, but I’m going to be blunt: as a Korean-American woman who watched this movie over and over as a kid, I truly believe I have the correct interpretation of Shang’s feelings for Mulan.
The interpretation is this: Shang was in love with Mulan when she was Ping, but he is not bisexual. He is straight with an exception, that exception being Mulan.
Confusing? Yes, I know it is. But please keep in mind that Mulan went into production in 1994 and was released in 1998, in a time where LGBTQ+ rights were very different. The filmmakers are all cisgender and heterosexual except for Dean DeBlois (the co-head of story), and they aimed the movie at a cisgender and heterosexual audience. It’s okay to headcanon Shang as bisexual, but to treat him as canonically bisexual is not only giving the filmmakers more credit than they deserve…
…it also misses the point of Mulan and Shang’s relationship. (For a very good reason, please read further before you call me biphobic.)
I will get more into that later. For now, I will cover another important point about another character who has also been misinterpreted, though absolutely nowhere near as much as Shang. That character is our main character, Mulan.
Now, I want to stress, first of all, that I support trans rights and I do not condone transphobia in any way.
But with that out of the way, I want to say this: interpreting Mulan as a trans man misses the point of her character.
There is an obvious rift between (usually white and American) trans people who see Mulan as a transgender icon because of her song, “Reflection”, and her story about disguising herself as a man, and Asian women, Chinese feminists especially, who see Mulan as a female icon and vehemently disagree with the trans interpretation because they believe it goes against the whole reason Mulan is legendary in China.
Chinese feminists argue that the entire point of Mulan’s character arc is lost if you interpret her as a trans man, because the point is that she proves women can be just as good as men. She stands up and defies the sexist traditions of her society to save the day by being a courageous, intelligent woman. The power of this message is undermined if she was “actually” a man all along.
I agree with this argument, but I want to take a different tack by taking Mulan’s love interest, Shang, into account.
Mulan cannot be canonically transgender for the same reason Shang cannot be canonically bisexual: she was made by cisgender, heterosexual filmmakers in 1998 for cisgender, heterosexual audiences. She was made to appeal to American girls in the same way Shang was made to appeal to Chinese boys. And most importantly, Mulan and Shang’s character arcs are defined by being gendered contrasts.
Mulan is the feminine counterpart to Shang. Her entire arc hinges on her lack of femininity not making her less valid as a woman. She is a woman who learns it's okay to not be feminine, and she is also specifically an Asian woman who overcomes the sexism of her society to be a hero. Most transgender people who interpret Mulan as a trans man are not Asian and are often white, and are missing the point because Mulan being a man undermines the point of her defying sexism.
Mulan and Shang's character arcs are yin and yang. Mulan is a woman who starts off insecure about her failure to be feminine, but grows stronger and finds happiness in being a woman in the end when she saves China. Shang is a man who starts off confident about his success at being masculine, but breaks down and grows vulnerable after losing his father.
All of that is lost if you interpret Mulan as "actually" being a man. It makes absolutely no sense if Mulan is a trans guy. Even if you leave out the important cultural context that Mulan is a Chinese female icon defined by being a woman, and the problem with trans people interpreting her as trans is that they're mostly white and thus don't get her cultural context as an Asian woman, the point is that Mulan is Shang's narrative foil by being a woman. And Shang's character arc is about unlearning his sexism against women because of Mulan, who is his feminine counterpart.
This is also why fanfiction that gender bends Mulan to be a cis male named Ping makes me so uncomfortable. It misses the point of Mulan and Shang’s powerful bond to make it a standard gay male relationship, usually to fetishize Shang and Ping. It plays into my larger point about Shang being an incredibly misinterpreted and misunderstood character, who is fetishized constantly by non-Asian fans because of his good looks.
Now, that also leads me to my point about Mulan and Shang’s relationship. I believe their relationship is unique and sends a very deep, important message that has often been lost and misinterpreted not just by fans, but by Disney itself. I have written an entire manifesto called “You Fight Good” that analyzes Mulan and Shang’s relationship from Shang’s perspective. It is very long, and divided into seven parts. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, and Part 5 here.
The short version, however, is this. I believe this is the intended moral of Mulan and Shang’s relationship:
True love knows no gender. True love knows no sexuality. Shang loved Mulan for what was in her heart, not what was between her legs. That was why he loved Ping, the soldier who defied his expectations, proved him wrong, comforted him, and saved his life twice. Whether or not he's bisexual is completely besides the point, because the only thing that matters is that Shang loves Mulan, and only Mulan. The filmmakers did not intend for Shang to be read as bisexual. They meant for him to be straight with an exception, and that exception is Mulan because Mulan is special to Shang.
I believe there are two main reasons why Mulan and Shang’s relationship is so misinterpreted by fans. They are as follows:
Mulan and Shang’s relationship is often misinterpreted because they did not kiss at the end of their film. Their relationship is mistaken for merely being implied, and Mulan II, which was written by three white American men and not Rita Hsiao and her team, is wrongly given credit for “validating” their relationship by having them kiss and get married.
I believe that is wrong. I believe that the only way Mulan and Shang’s relationship makes any sense at all is if Shang fell in love with Ping. That is their love story. That is their entire romance subplot. Mulan and Shang already had a love story in the original film. They did not need the sequel to make them a “real” couple, because Shang loved Ping.
Please remember that in traditional Chinese adaptations of Mulan, Mulan’s love interest and commanding officer were separate characters. The filmmakers could have made Mulan’s trainer General Li, and had Shang only show up at the end to be Mulan’s love interest after she stopped pretending to be a boy. He would have been no different from Princes Florian and Charming, who fulfill similar roles in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, who barely make appearances and only show up to whisk away the heroine to fairy tale wedded bliss in the end.
If Shang really did only fall in love with Mulan after she turned out to be a girl, then he would’ve only shown up at the very end in the last thirty minutes because that’s when the romantic arc would have begun.
But he does not. He shows up at the beginning, at the same thirty-minute time mark as Megara from Hercules and Jane from Tarzan. He is in the movie from beginning to end, because he is the love interest from beginning to end.
The second reason I believe Mulan and Shang’s relationship is misinterpreted is because of homophobia. Unfortunately, the mere implication that Shang fell in love with Mulan when she was Ping brings up the tiring, circular, never-ending debate over what his sexual orientation is. People will debate, over and over and over, whether or not Shang is gay, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, or whatever else.
People who argue that Shang is straight and are usually homophobic about it will argue that Shang didn't love Ping at all and only saw "him" as a brother (which is misinterpreting the movie). People who argue that Shang is bisexual or gay (and claim to appreciate him, and hold him up as a bisexual icon, but usually just fetishize him because he’s a handsome Asian man who goes shirtless) will argue that Shang loved Ping more than Mulan and was angry when Mulan turned out to be a girl because that made her less attractive to him.
And, again, I’m sorry, but I believe all of these people are wrong. Shang’s sexuality is not the point. All that matters is that he loves Mulan and Ping equally. He felt brotherly affection for Ping at first, but fell in love with Ping when “he” saved his life in the avalanche. The reason he is angry when Mulan’s secret is exposed is because he is hurt that his best friend and true love lied to him.
I should also note that BD Wong, Shang’s voice actor, stated in an interview that he would like to think Shang was indeed attracted to Ping. (Source here.)
I will come back to this point later. I will explain later why Shang cannot be gay or bisexual, and I cannot stress enough that while I support LGBTQ+ rights and LGBTQ+ headcanons, I truly believe that Shang cannot be a sexual minority because that misses the point of his character arc.
Now, I mentioned Hercules and Tarzan earlier. Let’s go back to that.
Mulan was released back-to-back with a specific set of movies: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), and Tarzan (1999). Mulan cannot be a Disney Princess movie because it follows the same story beats as those films. It is a war movie, it is an adventure movie. Those movies, like Mulan, are not fairy tales. They are not marketed in the Disney Princess line. The only reason Mulan is marketed as a Disney Princess movie is because Disney sees Mulan as their token Asian girl. Mulan was made as Disney’s first Asian lead to appeal to China. Because China did not like Mulan, Disney did not bother to make another movie set in an Asian country, and thus a movie about an actual Asian princess.
That is why, despite Mulan’s success in the United States, Disney did not make another movie with an Asian lead until Big Hero 6 in 2014, sixteen years later. The reason we did not get another Asian Disney movie for over a decade is because Disney prioritized the native Asian people who hated Mulan over the Asian-American people who loved Mulan. That is because Disney does not actually care about Asian representation. They care about money.
Mulan is a farmer girl whose father is a soldier. She goes on a hero’s journey to save the Emperor from Shan Yu. She cannot be a princess because she was designed to be as relatable as possible to American girls, which is why female Disney fans hold Mulan in higher regard on average than male ones do. That is why she has a mother, unlike so many of the Disney Princesses. That is why the fancy, iconic dress she wears is an outfit she is uncomfortable in. That is why she does not have a “love at first sight” moment with her love interest, that is why she does not sing a duet with him about how much she loves him, and that is why she does not kiss him at the end. Her romance with Shang is a subplot for her character arc about becoming a hero. She is the female equivalent to Quasimodo, Hercules, and Tarzan.
Please look at this poster below. Please pay attention to how this movie was marketed.
This is how Mulan was advertised at the time. Mulan was marketed as a hero, a warrior who saved the day. The moviegoers in 1998 would have seen Mulan as an American underdog hero to root for, in the same way they rooted for Hercules in 1997. They would not have seen her as a Chinese princess.
That leads into my greater point: Mulan is a Chinese-American movie, and this is why Disney misinterprets their own film. Disney sees Mulan as a Chinese movie, an “exotic” movie, their token Asian movie. Disney does not understand the themes and story of Mulan, which is why Mulan II and Mulan (2020) turned out the way they did (read: very poorly).
Remember the point I made earlier about how Chinese people hate Disney’s Mulan? I will revisit it here.
The reason China hates Fa Mulan is because Mulan is too relatable to American girls. She’s kind, she’s funny, she’s expressive. She starts off as a bumbling, insecure dork who’s sad and miserable about not fitting in, but she eventually blooms into a confident and courageous young woman who saves China with the power of her wits and friendship. And most importantly, Mulan is Asian-American.
Mulan looks Asian, but she is sympathetic to Americans, especially Asian-Americans. She has American hero cues, American expressions, and American behavior. She can’t relate to her family, they’re too different from her, they mean well but constantly try to crush her spirit out of the mistaken, well-meaning belief this will make her exactly like them…
That is why Asian-Americans love Mulan. And that is why Chinese people hate Mulan. Remember what I said earlier about them complaining that she’s too individualistic? Yeah.
Most importantly, this is why you hate Mulan (2020). Not just because it removed Shang and Mushu, not just because it removed the songs, not just because it was overall a bad movie all around. You hate it because it made Mulan a bland, boring Chinese “girlboss” who was completely unrelatable to you, the American. You hate it because it ruined everything you liked about Fa Mulan in a desperate, pathetic effort to pander to Chinese audiences, who didn’t even like the movie anyway.
That’s why it does not make sense for Disney to market Mulan as their token Asian Disney Princess, as an “exotic” Chinese princess in a pretty dress. That is not why American girls of all races loved Mulan when they saw her for the first time on the big screen on June 19, 1998. Mulan is an all-American girl. She cannot ever be a native Chinese girl, because that ruins her audience appeal.
Or, to put it another way: you love Mulan because she is a brave and heroic farm girl. Disney loves Mulan because she is a Chinese girl they can use to court cash from Asian customers.
Remember what I said earlier, about how Mulan was made to appeal to American girls and Shang was made to appeal to Chinese boys? That is key here to understanding why Shang is so fundamentally misinterpreted and misunderstood by American viewers in a way that Mulan is not.
Shang’s character arc is based on him being a Toxic Asian Alpha Male™. He is the Chinese equivalent of a privileged, cisgender heterosexual white man. He is not a sexual minority in any way. He is mean to Mulan when they first meet, and although he has understandable and sympathetic reasons for why he’s so hard on her at first (he was being promoted by his father, fantasizing about being the leader of China’s greatest troops, and being hassled by Chi Fu before he saw her being blamed by the other soldiers for starting a food-fight that destroyed his camp), the fact remains that he humiliated and scared her in front of the entire platoon and made her an outcast.
This is because, as I said before, Mulan and Shang’s character arcs are yin and yang. Mulan starts off as a tomboy, a loser, a weakling who can’t fit into her society’s ideal of womanhood. Shang starts off as a hero, a winner, a powerhouse who perfectly lives up to his society’s ideal of manhood. And for this to work, for him to be a privileged man, he has to be heterosexual. He has to be straight.
This is why Shang does not ever act on his attraction to Ping. It is not just because he is a consummate professional who would never abuse his power over a low-ranking soldier. It is because he questioned his heterosexuality because of Mulan.
I’m going to be very blunt: I believe the only reason the theories that Shang is gay or male-leaning bisexual exist at all is because most of the people who push those theories are not Asian. They are white. They are projecting their LGBTQ+ headcanons onto the very Asian, very inscrutable man because of their fetishization of Shang and nostalgia from not watching the movie in decades. Or, to put it another way: you, the non-Asian American, do not understand Shang because he is the only Disney character who is defined by his race and cultural context.
Shang’s character arc is completely nonsensical if he is gay or male-leaning bisexual. He does not like men before he meets Mulan. He is secure with himself, he is indoctrinated by his society into being the Ultimate Chinese Manly Man™. The point of that arc is lost if he is a sexual minority, in the same way that Mulan being a trans man misses the point of her character arc.
Because, just like how Mulan’s Chinese-American coding is important to her character, Shang’s Chinese identity is important to his character. Without his being Chinese, Shang’s character makes no sense at all. He is incomprehensible. Without it, he’s just a weirdly stoic guy who acts vaguely affectionate toward the heroine a few times, nearly executes her, and then randomly falls in love with her at the end.
This is why Shang is so confusing. This is why Mulan fans, time and time and time again for all time, argue over Shang’s sexuality, even though his character is not confusing at all to Chinese audiences. To them, he would have been clear-cut. To them, Shang's feelings for Ping would have been very obvious.
Because most importantly of all, I want to keep reminding you that Shang is China-pandering. He is stoic, he is reserved, he is dignified. His model sheet explicitly notes that he has understated acting like Clint Eastwood. The reason he is not more overt about his affection for Ping, and not more overt about his emotions in general, is because the Chinese viewer would not have respected him if he was.
Shang shows his affection for Ping subtly. He acknowledges Ping by looking back at “him”, by touching “his” shoulder, by smiling at “him” and saying “he” has his trust. Chinese viewers would have understood that Shang cares deeply for Ping, because he shows his affection through actions. Asian people do not primarily show affection through hugs, kisses, and declarations of love, they show it through gestures.
This is why Mulan and Shang should not be the token Asian Disney Princess and Prince. Their love for each other is realistic. They don’t kiss or declare their love for each other, they don’t sing or dance together, they do not have a “love at first sight” moment (Mulan has a crush on Shang when they meet, but that is a human reaction, and it is not played as a magical fairy tale moment). Mulan and Shang do not have a fairy tale romance, and the only reason you think they are a Disney Princess couple is because Disney has falsely marketed them as such. Shang’s love for Ping is subtle, because the Chinese viewer, not the American one, was expected to understand that Ping is special to him.
Shang loved the bumbling, dorky recruit who became such a brave and exceptional soldier, a brave and exceptional hero. His love for her was pure, it was real because he is the only animated movie male lead who loved his heroine before he even knew she was a beautiful girl who could bear his children. And the Chinese viewers would have understood that, and would have been moved by that, if only they had understood that Shang was made for them.
The reason this has not been picked up on for twenty-seven years and counting is because, due to China’s hatred of Disney’s Mulan, Chinese viewers completely ignored Shang’s character. They simply were not there to explain Shang to American viewers.
Again… I can’t stress this enough. I need to stress this to you, over and over, because it is really important:
The reason Mulan is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted Disney movie of all time is because China hated Mulan. Because China hated Mulan, Disney did not bother to make another Asian movie. Because China hated Mulan, Disney made Mulan and Shang their token Asian Disney Princess and Prince to make money off of them instead of making an actual Asian Disney Princess and Prince who fulfilled the royal fairy tale tropes of other Disney Princess movies.
This is why you, the American, only think of Mulan as Disney’s Chinese princess movie, when in reality, Mulan is Disney’s Chinese-American adventure movie. That is how audiences on June 19, 1998 saw it. That is how it was made. (Here is a Twitter thread by Joshua Luna that goes into more detail about why Mulan is a fundamentally Asian-American movie.)
This is why, quite frankly, I cringe when I see people cite a certain individual when talking about Mulan. I believe this person, along with one other individual, has actively contributed to misinformation about Mulan.
I believe Xiran Jay Zhao, a native Chinese person who made YouTube videos about Chinese culture in Mulan, and Scott Mendelson, a white male film critic who made a tweet about Mulan, are wrong about Mulan. I believe they have actively contributed to misinformation about Shang’s character because of the constant cultural misunderstanding of Mulan.
I want to be polite, yet firm. I want to stress that you should not send hate or harassment to these people. But I truly believe both of these people are wrong about Mulan and Shang.
I believe Xiran Jay Zhao is just as bad as Disney because, just like Disney, they only see Mulan for its Chineseness. They are a native Chinese businessperson, who actively markets themself on their Chineseness for hollow “diversity” points. They made these YouTube videos to make money off of white Americans. They only see Mulan as a Chinese movie, and they do not understand its Asian-American themes because they are not Asian-American. They have made the same tired jokes about Shang being bisexual. They have done the same thing as Disney. That is why I, an Asian-American person, dislike them.
For Scott Mendelson, I believe he is not good at his job. He failed his job as a movie critic. If he truly believes Shang did not care about Ping at all, then I’m sorry, but he was simply not paying attention to the film. As a cisgender, heterosexual white man, he is the American equivalent to Shang (a cisgender, heterosexual Asian man), and yet he failed to understand Shang’s character at all.
That is why I dislike those two. That is why I believe you should not take their opinions seriously. They are both wrong about Mulan.
Now, then. I’ve already gone over why Mulan is not the Chinese Disney Princess movie Disney markets it as, and that Mulan and Shang should not be Disney’s token Asian Disney Princess and Prince. That leads me to a thought experiment, one that I guarantee you have never thought of at all:
What would have happened if Mulan had succeeded in China?
If Mulan had indeed been Disney’s Kung Fu Panda, and had been a hit with Chinese viewers just as much as it was with American ones, I truly believe everything would have been different. I believe Disney would have seen movies with Asian protagonists as a worthwhile investment. I believe we would have had another Disney movie with an Asian lead before Big Hero 6.
I believe Mulan would have been marketed differently. Mulan would have been marketed as its own movie, just like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Tarzan. Mulan and Shang would have been marketed like Phoebus and Esmeralda, Hercules and Megara, and Tarzan and Jane. Mulan would be marketed as a Disney heroine, not a Disney Princess, and her iconic outfits in merchandise would be her Ping armor and her blue dress, not her green and pink dresses.
Because, remember… Mulan’s iconic outfit is her Ping armor. It is the outfit she is in on all of the movie posters. It is the outfit she wears for most of the movie. The only reason she is not marketed in it is because Disney wrongly merchandises her as their token Asian Disney Princess, and because of that, she is wrongly marketed in a feminine outfit she only wore for two scenes at the beginning of the movie. It is strange of Disney to market her in the green dress. It’d be like if Disney marketed Hercules in his plain white tunic instead of his hero outfit.
You need to understand that the only reason Mulan is not marketed this way is because China didn’t like Disney’s Mulan. And if China had liked Disney’s Mulan, Disney would likely have made at least one more movie set in an Asian country. Moreover, Disney would likely have made an authentic Asian Disney Princess movie.
This will be where I get very, very strange. I will sound like a conspiracy theorist. But please bear with me. I believe that if Mulan had been a box office hit in China, Disney would have invested in a movie set in Japan next.
Japan is the other major East Asian country besides China. Japan has an active animation industry. Japan is the most obvious choice for another Asian Disney movie. Disney’s next Asian lead after Mulan was Hiro Hamada, a Japanese-American boy.
And in this hypothetical Disney movie set in Japan, the next Asian Disney movie after Mulan, the star would have been Princess Kaguya.
Kaguya is a famous Japanese fairy tale heroine. She is the protagonist of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. I won’t go too much into the actual story, because the story itself is not the point. The point is that Kaguya’s story, unlike Mulan’s, fulfills Disney fairy tale romance tropes.
It has all the fairy tale tropes. It has a beautiful princess from the moon with adoptive human parents, an Asian fantasy setting, suitors who fight for her hand in marriage, a lovely palace that the Emperor of Japan wants to whisk her away to forever, to be his bride, to be his empress, to be his princess. It is the most obvious choice for a Disney movie. It likely would have been the next Asian Disney movie. If Mulan had succeeded in China, Disney would have expected Kaguya to succeed in Japan.
Moreover, Disney is aware that Kaguya exists. Disney has no excuse for ignoring Kaguya the way they do, because Walt Disney Japan helped produce the Ghibli movie, The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Now, this is where I’m going to get really strange and conspiracy theory-sounding. But… can I show you this image? Real quick?
Be honest with me. Do you know who this is? This girl is from a popular video game. She looks pretty, she looks princess-y, she looks Asian. I truly do bet that you do not know who this girl is. She is a stranger to you. All you know about her is that she looks like an Asian Disney Princess.
This turnaround is for the girl’s boyfriend. Her love interest. I guarantee that you do not know who this handsome man in white is. He is the hero of a popular video game, but he does not live in your consciousness at all.
Now, I want to ask you something else: do these characters look familiar to you?
They do, don’t they? Please do not lie to yourself. Please be honest.
You think these characters look similar to Mulan and Shang. You think the girl looks like a girly, feminine version of Fa Mulan. You think the guy looks like a vaguely rougher version of Li Shang.
I’m not saying Chinese and Japanese people look exactly the same, not at all. Obviously, they are very, very different ethnic people (in the same way English and French people, despite both being white and European, are very different).
But there’s no denying it. These characters look weirdly, completely and utterly coincidentally similar. I cannot stress that enough. It is weird to me that there is an actual Japanese story, made by white Americans, that somehow…
Looks exactly like the ideal Asian Disney Princess story.
Do you want to know who these characters are? Where they’re from?
They are from the video game, Karateka. They are the romantic leads of a video game that was produced in 1984 by Jordan Mechner, and received a remake in 2012. It has no relation to Disney at all and has no artists in common as far as I know, yet somehow, this video game is the perfect Asian Disney Princess story.
The game itself is simple: the player must fight a bunch of guys with karate to rescue a fair princess from the evil Lord Akuma’s castle. The 2012 remake has the same premise, but with the twist of three playable characters instead of one. You start off playing as this guy who looks like Shang, and if he loses, you play as two other men (a monk and a big, hulking brute). You are encouraged to retry to get the “correct” ending where this girl wins her handsome prince.
And here’s the kicker: this girl’s name is Princess Mariko. Her boyfriend does not have a name, he is called the “True Love”. This girl who looks like Mulan has a name that also starts with an M. Isn’t that just… a really strange coincidence?
The basic point of why I am bringing up this unrelated video game in a post about Mulan is this:
Mariko looks like what Disney’s Kaguya would have looked like in the alternate universe where Mulan succeeded in China and Disney invested in a movie set in Japan, which would have received all the marketing as the actual “Asian Disney Princess” story. The True Love looks like what the Emperor, Kaguya’s love interest, would have looked like. Mariko and her True Love look coincidentally similar to Mulan and Shang because they are designed to be the standard attractive Asian woman and man, just like Mulan and Shang are.
In this alternate universe, Mulan and Kaguya would co-exist as Disney’s two Asian heroines. Mulan would be recognized for what she really is: the hero of an adventure movie, a war movie. She would not be a Disney Princess at all, because Kaguya would fill that role. Kaguya would get all the sparkly, girly, princess-y merchandising and extra fancy dresses she never actually wore in the film, while Mulan would be marketed correctly in her armor and blue dress. Mulan would never be called a “Disney Princess” movie at all.
The point is that an Asian Disney Princess movie was right there, and Disney did not take it. At all. It was tailor-made for them, and they just did not care. China did not like Mulan, so they did not even bother to make Kaguya for Japan. Kaguya and the Emperor should have been the token Asian Disney Princess and Prince, not Mulan and Shang.
That is the world we would be living in if Mulan had succeeded in China. Do you understand now, truly, why Mulan is the most misinterpreted, most misunderstood Disney movie of all time? It is because if it had succeeded in its protagonist’s homeland, we would have had more Asian representation on American screens. Mulan would not have been Disney’s token Asian franchise, it would have been one of two Asian franchises. It would have been recognized as Disney’s Asian-American movie, while Kaguya would have taken the role of Disney’s “exotic” Asian Disney Princess movie. Mulan would have been Disney’s Asian tomboy heroine, and Kaguya would have been Disney’s Asian girly girl heroine. They would have been compared and contrasted with each other by fans.
Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, and established that Mulan would have been marketed very differently if it had succeeded in China and it would likely have caused the existence of another Asian Disney movie, I want to ask you one thing.
What do you think Mulan II would have been like if Mulan had succeeded in China?
I want to state, first of all, that I do not like Mulan II at all and do not consider it canon. That being said, I do not hate people who like it, and this is not a personal attack on them.
With that out of the way, I will not talk that much about Mulan II because it’s really not the point. The reasons for why it’s bad (Mushu’s radical 180 in characterization to make him the villain for stupid reasons, the lack of a proper villain besides Mushu, Mulan and Shang’s mischaracterization and dumb domestic drama, the boring princesses, the horrible implications of the ending) have already been delved into. But I want to bring up a thought experiment that no one has ever brought up before, and establish one thing before I get into it:
The reason Mulan II is bad is because it is a concentrated effort to bring Mulan in line with her soulless, tokenized Asian Disney Princess merchandise. That is why Mulan wears her hair long again and wears dresses all the time, why Mulan and Shang kiss and get married and act like an extremely heteronormative couple, why three never before mentioned daughters of the Emperor are introduced, and why it is a musical even though Mulan stopped being a musical halfway through for very plot-relevant reasons. That is why it feels so out of step with its predecessor movie: it completely changed genres. Mulan is an adventure movie. Mulan II is a hollow effort at a Disney Princess movie.
Now, for the thought experiment: what do you think Mulan II would have been like if Mulan had been marketed correctly?
If we look at certain other story beats in the Disneytoon Studios direct-to-DVD sequels, we know exactly what Mulan II would have been like. Or at least, I believe I know. And what I believe is this:
I believe if Mulan had succeeded in China, Mulan II would have also been a war movie. Mulan II would have also been an adventure movie.
Now, I’m not saying that would have improved the movie at all. I’m not saying that would have made it good. It was Disneytoon Studios, it would still have been cheap. It would still have been washed out and ugly to look at, and still have silly, contrived plot beats and bad characterization written by new writers for a quick and easy cash-in.
But I believe that in this scenario where Mulan was a success in China and received non-Disney Princess merchandise, Mulan II would have been about a renewed war with the Huns. The Huns would have attacked again, and Mulan would have dressed up as Ping again. Ting-Ting, Su, and Mei would not exist at all. The main villain would have been Shan Yu’s never before mentioned younger brother (just like how The Little Mermaid II had Morgana and The Lion King II had Zira and the Outlanders). Mulan and Shang would probably still not have kissed, or if they had, it would have been in completely different circumstances. They likely would not have gotten married. Their romance would have remained a subplot.
Mulan is such a misunderstood movie that Disney itself doesn’t understand it. Its lack of success in China has turned it into the most confusing Disney franchise ever made, because everything Disney did with Mulan after the original film was to try to “correct” it.
That is why Mulan II is a failed effort at an Asian Disney Princess movie, rather than an adventure movie like Mulan. That is why Mulan (2020) is such a colossal China-pandering mess that turned out to be for completely nothing, because Chinese people still hated it.
Finally, I want to make one very big, important point about Mulan (2020).
Mulan (2020) is not just bad for the reasons many people have already covered. It’s not just that it was an absolute mess from the start, with how in 2016, it was leaked that Disney bought a spec script called The Legend of Mulan by Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin that featured a white male savior love interest (source here), and this news caused so much rightful outrage among Asian-Americans that Disney had to issue a public statement that the live-action remake would have a 100% Chinese cast (source here).
(I feel that again, the fact that this disgustingly racist and misogynistic script existed at all is proof that Disney has lied to and gaslit people into falsely thinking Mulan is an “exotic” Chinese girl. These white American women wrongly thought Mulan was a native Chinese character and turned her into an exotic Asian love interest stereotype, and completely ignored that Shang was the “exotic” Asian love interest in the original film.)
It’s not just that. No.
The reason Mulan (2020) is bad is because it had native Chinese consultants who misinterpreted Mulan’s character. Bill Kong, a Hong Kong movie producer, was the executive producer for the film and constantly claimed that it would be more accurate to Chinese values. It is not just that it had a white director (Niki Caro) and white producers and writers, it is also that it had native Chinese producers, and that is strange because, as we’ve already established, native Chinese people do not like Fa Mulan. They do not share her values at all. They do not understand her in the way Asian-Americans do, and they frankly never will.
Because… this is very important. This is why Chinese people do not like Fa Mulan at all.
Most native Asian people, by and large, value conformity. They value the status quo. They value family, they value filial piety, they value the greater good. Mulan’s story is all about breaking out of the status quo. It is an Asian-American story. She is not inauthentic, she is not whitewashed, she is merely Asian-American.
And remember this, and keep remembering this the next time you buy Mulan merchandise: Disney only sees Mulan as a Chinese girl. They do not appreciate her for her actual character or themes, and they do not understand why her character resonated with so many people. They do not understand why her movie was a success.
Because, once again, I will remind you… Disney wrongly sees Mulan as an exotic Chinese film. It is not. It is a Chinese-American film, and the reason Disney does not understand Mulan is because it did not hire more Asian-American writers after Rita Hsiao.
Rita Hsiao is the key to Mulan’s success. She was the head writer of the film. It is her name on the screenplay, which you can read here. She wrote an Asian-American story, a story that was intended to be relatable to both American and Chinese audiences.
The thesis, after all of that, is this:
Mulan is a great film because it is an Asian-American movie. Mulan’s character arc about her struggle to both please her family and be true to herself is a particularly poignant one, as many Asian-Americans must live with conflicting values between the Asian emphasis on family and the Western emphasis on individuality.
It was never supposed to be the token Asian movie. At its core, Mulan is a beautiful story about overcoming society’s expectations, about following your heart, about finding the courage to conquer your insecurities and forge your own path.
That’s why, even though Disney will always misinterpret it over and over for decades to come, I find peace in the fact that on June 19, 1998, American audiences everywhere saw Fa Mulan save the day, win Li Shang’s heart, and defeat Shan Yu. American audiences rooted for an Asian woman, they rooted for a Chinese-American coded woman. And they were right to root for her. Because she won.
And nothing can ever change that.
Thank you for reading.
“Never let your enemy tell you how many of you there are. Never let the man that you’re against form your opinions. This is the trick that’s played on everyone who’s oppressed: when you have a revolution in a country, the first thing you take over is the radio. Then, you start telling the people that the war is over, so all of them surrender. They believe that thing right there. And once they take that over, they start telling you where you are and where they are, and you fall right in line — it’s plain thought control. The majority of the American people aren’t segregationists. The majority of the American people aren’t imperialists. But the government is. The structure is; the power faction is. So, how, then, do all the majority go along with it? Because those who sit in power over the television, over the radio, and over the press are constantly telling those who are the masses how free they are, how this they are, and how that they are.”
¡Sí, se puede!
Yes, we can! ✊
I mean, we knew, but it's nice to hear so succinctly
Highlighting the line that hit me hardest: "The Greatest Generation did their best to psychologically prepare their kids for a world that could fall apart at any second and then they built a world that wouldn't."
If anyone tells you voting for Greens is a waste of time remember:
Children have dental in Medicare because of the Greens. The right to disconnect is because of the Greens. Labor's housing future fund only guarantees money towards housing because of the Greens. Our corporate tax laws are more transparent and improved thanks to the Greens. Labor continues to approve expansions for coal and gas projects but Greens managed to secure a ban on using the national reconstruction fund for investment in coal and gas projects and native logging. The list of Greens achievements goes on and on.
Your healthcare, your ability to ever afford a house, the regulation of corporations, the environmental protections we have and more are BETTER because of the Greens.
While it's very sad that they've lost their seats in the House of Representatives, they still solidly have the balance of power in the Senate. Labor needs to either get Greens approval or Coalition approval in the Senate to pass ANY bill and THAT is incredibly valuable.
Labor may want you to think it can take credit for anything good that happens this term - but I assure you it's the Greens negotiating with them that will secure the important amendments that improve Labor policy and actually get the outcomes we need.
You owe a lot to the Greens.
I'm so grateful that so many of you support them and helped make sure they got a strong presence in Parliament. Thank you.
Amazing vintage festive hairdos for Christmas from the 1950s and 1960s. See more photos here…
Chapter 22 - The World
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
… the sleigh gently landed on the grubby street in front of the Kangula Youth Shelter where George lived.
Keya exhaled. George let go of her shoulder. They gazed around and could not quite believe that they were back in Sydney. Keya took out her phone and showed it to George. Through the cracked screen, they saw the time flick to 5:01am and looked at each other in amazement. It all happened magically in a blink of an eye. In between being at the mansion and shelter, they had seen the whole world.
They had flown through the sky as the reindeer gracefully weaved the sleigh around clouds and skyscrapers. They had seen incredible sites up close and afar – the Sahara Desert, Tokyo City, the Amazon, the Alps and the Taj Mahal, to name only a few. They had landed on the rooftops of millions of homes in countries across the globe to deliver toys. They had slid down chimneys, climbed through windows and, with the help of fairy dust on occasion, magically slipped through keyholes, pipes and air vents. They had often found delicious sweets waiting for them as they entered – cinnamon-spiced mbatata in Malawi, sugar-dusted kourabiedes in Greece, caramel-filled alfajores in Chile – all laid out for Santa’s arrival.
It all felt like a dream. The adventure of a lifetime had been compressed into a fraction of a second and, miraculously, George and Keya remembered all of it in vivid detail. Their heads were swirling with wonderful memories. Yet, as they sat in the sleigh outside of the shelter, trying to process everything that they had just experienced, less pleasant memories bobbed to the surface.
A lot of the children that they had visited did not have homes. They slept on the streets, under bridges, in dilapidated tents on the outskirts of towns. Along with toys, Santa had left them clothes and other care items to help them and their loved ones. Ana had laid blankets over kids shivering in the cold. Lolly had hung stockings filled with food for families going hungry. One girl in Serbia slept beside her mum in a beat-up car. She had decorated the cardboard pine tree air-freshener, dangling from the rear-view mirror, with gold star stickers and crayon scribbles. Santa had placed gifts and care packages across the dashboard, under this makeshift Christmas tree swaying on a string.
Keya was confronted by what she saw. She had no idea so many kids around the world lived like this and felt a bit ashamed that, before tonight, she had never given it much thought. Visiting every single one of them, all in one go, was overwhelming. It opened her eyes and broke her heart.
George, however, was not so shocked. Near the end of their journey, they were soaring above the clouds, over a stretch of land that was completely dark, unlike the lands surrounding it littered with dots of city lights.
“Can we stop here?” he asked.
“Why?” Lolly replied confused, Ana signing her words. The elf scanned the long, unfurled scroll with every child needing a delivery listed upon it. “There’s no one down there?”
“I know”, George replied.
Santa realised where they were and why George had asked. He interjected before Lolly could query it further.
“Of course we can”, he signed. “Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes”, George answered.
Santa tugged on the reins and the reindeer guided the sleigh below the clouds. A storm was raging. Since time had essentially stopped, however, the rain did not cause any trouble. Each drop hung in mid-air, perfectly still, appearing like a billion tiny chandelier crystals floating around them.
The sleigh landed on rubble. All of the buildings, as far as they could see, had been demolished.
George exited the sleigh first and the others followed. He surveyed the barren, lifeless surroundings with an intense, mournful look that Keya did not understand.
“Where are we?” Keya asked Ana, under her breath.
Ana answered her gently. “Palestine, dear. George’s home.”
Keya’s eyes widened. She went to George.
“Is … is … this where you’re from?” Keya stammered.
George nodded. He pointed to a husk of a building to their right. “That was a bakery.”
Keya did not know what to say, so just said, “Oh.”
George pointed again. “Me and other kids played soccer there.” He then pointed into the distance. “Down that street, that was my house. I mean, Amir’s house.”
“Amir?”
“He was my friend, but more like a brother. We were bombed when I was little. It killed my parents and left me deaf. Amir was another deaf kid. We learned to sign together. We did everything together. His parents took me in like I was their own. I …”
A lump formed in George’s throat, making it hard to talk. All night, Keya had barely heard George string two sentences together and now really did not feel like the time to push it.
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to”, Keya offered.
Santa signed her words.
“No”, George replied firmly. “I want to. I don’t want them forgotten. I …” George trailed off, trying to find his words. “Do you see that church?”
George pointed to a church that looked centuries-old amid the debris. It was disfigured on the outside, but still standing.
“Amir’s dad took me there every Christmas. They were Muslim, I was Christian, but it didn’t matter. They wanted me to keep connected to my parents’ church. We went there every Christmas. They were really good people.”
“How did you end up in Australia?” Keya asked.
George’s eyes lowered. The lump in his throat was now too big to speak over, so he signed instead. Santa translated for him.
“We were bombed again. Amir and his family didn’t make it. I did. I don’t know why. I survived, got given a refugee visa to Australia, and left.”
Keya held back tears. Lolly had them flowing freely.
George just looked around. A little phrase that Palestinian Christians often said came to mind: “Jesus ate breakfast here.”
That is what you would say to describe how old and historic everything is in Palestine. You would point to a building and say, “Jesus ate breakfast here.” But he looked around. On this night, in the birthplace of Jesus where Christmas began, he couldn’t see Jesus in any of it.
Ana looked to her left. Santa did not know what to say. She looked to her right. Keya and Lolly were also silent. Ana stepped forward.
She walked through the rain drops hanging in the air and went to George’s side, placing her hand on his shoulder.
“Do you want to light a candle for Amir?”
George thought about it, then nodded in agreement. He took Ana’s hand and they walked down the debris-covered road to the battered church.
Santa, Keya and Lolly walked behind them. The girl felt like she was about to burst if she did not ask the question pounding in her head, so turned to Santa accusingly and asked it.
“A candle?!”
“Excuse me?” Santa said, not exactly sure of the question.
“Can’t you do more?”
“More?”
“For George. For all of these kids we saw tonight without food and homes. You help then on Christmas but … what about the rest of the year?”
Santa could see the concern in Keya’s eyes.
“There’s a lot I can do, especially when not trapped in a globe. I can make toys, fly, fiddle a bit with time to satisfy tight delivery deadlines”, Santa glanced at the raindrops, glistening around him. “But, what you’re talking about – giving children new homes, new lives – these needs stem from complicated problems that magic can’t fix. Only humans can do that.”
Keya hated that answer. In the distance, a lightning bolt had been very slowly unfurling across the sky. Keya watched it spread as she contemplated Santa’s words.
“I was hoping that you’d say …”
“What?”
“The complete opposite”, she admitted. “That you’re free now, full-sized, and stuffed with Christmas magic, so can snap your fingers and fix everything, for everyone, forever.”
Santa put his hand on her shoulder. “If I could resolve things so easily, I would have done so a very long time ago. All I can do is give what I can, using what I have, and hope that others take the suggestion.”
At the church, George entered with Ana, while Santa, Keya and Lolly ushered in quietly behind them. George dipped his hand into his pocket, picked out a coin and placed it in the collection plate by the door. It seemed a bit silly – the coin was an Australian dollar with kangaroos on it and there was no one there to collect it. Nevertheless, he did it because that is what you do before taking a candle. He picked one from the pile that sat next to the collection plate, wiping off dust that had accumulated on it.
George moved through the church, sidestepping the bits of ceiling that had fallen to the floor. He stopped at a brass box of sand. Other candles were sitting in the sand, most of them lopsided and burned out long ago. Two, however, were still flickering with light. George lit his candle with one of them, and then gently dug the candle into the sand, trying to get it as straight as possible. George stood there, thinking of Amir and everyone he missed so much that normally would be outside those church doors, living their lives.
It was so quiet. The rain was falling through a hole in the roof but, stuck in time, did not pitter-patter. George began to cry. Since time was acting funny, he did not know if he had stood in that spot and cried for a few minutes or a hundred hours. Lolly’s impulse as an elf was to fix anything she saw that needed fixing. Elves are fixers. She no longer had her hat filled with magical solutions and golden thermoses of comforting hot chocolate. Lolly knew, though, that nothing in her hat would do much good. Instead, she put her tiny hand in George’s and did not let go.
Chapter 21 - The Return
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
“My baby girl, you’re hurt!”
Keya was laying on the floor in the large foyer at the mansion entranceway, still in pain from Sable hurling her to the ground. The magical dust that had allowed Keya to fly from the Winter Forest to the mansion seemed to have worn off. She was barely conscious and lacking the energy to even open her eyes, but could hear the distinct, concerned voice of her father.
“Sweetheart, speak to me!”
“D… dad?”
“Yes, honey, come on!”
Keya slowly flickered her eyelids open, but did not see her father. She saw Sable, standing in front of her. A jolt of fear shook Keya from her stupor but as she tried to get back on her feet, golden handcuffs manifested from nowhere, cuffing her wrist to the leg of the grand piano nearby.
“Finally, you’re up!” Sable said in Mayor Paul’s voice, before reverting to her own. “Where is the necklace?”
Keya was aghast, wondering if she was hallucinating as she saw her father’s voice leave Sable’s lips. Before she could respond, Keya saw George swoop down from the ceiling as fast as he could. It was a desperate attempt to try and stop Sable, but the siphon easily swatted him away. George crashed into the mahogany wardrobe on the other side of the foyer that contained the auction guests’ coats.
“Give me the necklace”, Sable commanded, dangling the key to the handcuffs from her perfectly manicured fingers.
“I don’t have it”, Keya replied, weak and exhausted.
Sable exhaled with disdain and moved to punish the girl. She raised her arms, summoning her magic, but was surprised when nothing came. Sable felt no power coursing through her body. She could no longer sense a connection to the energy that she had locked in the red jewel. Sable stared at her hands, confused.
At the same time, she felt a sudden drop in temperature. The mansion was now ice cold. Sable noticed that the fairies, who had been scurrying along the floor, were now glowing again in bright colours and had regained their powers of flight. The yetis in her vicinity seemed once again able to turn invisible at whim.
Then, a rumbling could be felt under Sable’s feet. Cracks began forming in the marble floor. Sable followed the cracks with her eyes to determine their source. They led to a spot just outside of the door to her second dungeon where she was keeping … oh no!
Sable realised what was happening just as the cracks burst open and, with a spectacular flash of red light, a gigantic figure appeared from below. It was Frosty, many times larger than the other yetis, with an extravagant crown of glowing red antlers from which the light was emanating. On his back was Santa, free from the globe and full-sized, clinging tenuously to the giant beast’s thick white fur.
A horde of other extraordinary beings sprung forth from the opening that Frosty had created. Centaurs leaped out, carrying mermaids in their arms. Howling ghosts filled the air. Witches on broomsticks flew straight through these spectres, while gremlins and leprechauns clung to their brooms, hitching a ride. They had all been prisoners of Sable; finally freed from their globes on the shelves of the dungeon and eager to run, crawl, hop, swim and fly home.
Frosty raised a leg to lift himself out of the mammoth hole that he had created and slammed his foot onto the foyer floor. It landed near George, who looked in astonishment at the mark left. It matched the footprint from the Winter Forest.
Amid the sprites, gnomes and other creatures, Puddles rushed out of the hole in the ground towards his master, yapping at a hectic pace. Sable ignored the dog. Her eyes were fixed on the great yeti. Frosty was no longer the small deer that Sable had transformed him into and imprisoned. She had done this, not out of mercy, but because Frosty was only useful to her alive - his antlers could not store her powers otherwise. Now, he had returned to his original form. So too had the jewel she had worn on her necklace, as was evident from the antlers sprouting again from the yeti’s head.
Sable stood there in defiance, trying to conjure a spell to use against the beast. Her efforts were in vain. Without the gem, her stolen powers had returned to their numerous rightful owners, many of whom were now stampeding through the mansion. Frosty stopped and met Sable’s gaze. After a few long seconds of contemplation, he crouched down and put one finger to her head. She froze in place, now still and lifeless like the piano, wardrobe and other objects surrounding her.
George watched Frosty lumber away from the ice-cold statue that had become of Sable. He knew he had no time to waste. George rushed over to her, stared briefly into her expressionless eyes, then unceremoniously snatched the handcuff key from her hand that could free his friend.
He did his best to avoid the unicorns galloping by him and serpents slithering around his feet as he tried to reach Keya. One of the witches accidentally smacked George on the head with her basket of sweets as she flew by, apologising in Italian over her shoulder. Not so accidentally, a gang of goblins pushed George to the ground. The cheeky little devils did so for the fun of it, happy to add to the surrounding chaos.
The cracks in the floor spread and widened, destabilising the foundations of the entire mansion. Debris began falling from the ceiling. Frosty continued to cause damage as he tried to find his way out of the mansion, smashing whatever lay in his path.
Everyone in the building did what they could to escape. They jumped out of windows and rushed through exits. The auction guests and Sable’s staff crammed into the limousines and sports cars parked outside of the mansion entrance, speeding off as fast as they could. The trolls, no longer under Sable’s spell, assisted the other magical creatures to flee the imploding building.
Atop the giant yeti, Santa spotted George at Keya’s side. He had finally reached her and unlocked the cuffs. The boy then attempted to help Keya up so that they could escape the collapsing building, but was not having much success. Santa climbed down from the back of the beast and raced towards them. Before Keya and George could comprehend what was happening, he tucked a child under each arm and hurried out of the way of a marble pillar smashing down onto the ground.
Santa called out to the fairies. They lit a path that directed him through the thick dust to the showroom. In the centre of the room sat the sleigh. Elves were pushing the giant sack of presents into it. Ana was strapping in the frazzled reindeer. Yetis were howling in unison at Frosty. They got his attention. The giant yeti paused his reign of destruction and turned his attention to a giant window to his left. With no effort at all, Frosty elbowed out the glass – SMASH! – creating a hole big enough for Santa’s sleigh to fly through. Frosty was a massive, lumbering, frenzied beast but, still, he was happy to help a buddy.
Santa quickly placed the kids in the back of the sleigh.
“Are you alright?” he said and signed at once.
“You’re big”, is all George could say in response.
The boy could not quite believe what he was seeing. Santa was free from the globe and, as George could now see, a mountain of a man. But he was not exactly a man. Santa had an otherworldly glow, as if joyful energy was emanating from him like the sun emits heat. He also smelled like cookies.
A chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling and smashed the grandfather clock that, up until Sable’s recent plunder, had sat in the Workshop atrium for untold centuries.
“We have to go. I’m taking you home”, Santa signed, before glancing at the big sack of toys yet to be delivered. “We’ll just make some stop-offs everywhere around the world first.”
Keya glanced at her phone. It read 5:00am. Was Santa honestly thinking that they could still deliver presents before the sun came up?
Lolly jumped in the sleigh between Ana and Santa, who had hurriedly taken their places in the front seat.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ the elf shouted.
Keya held her breath, wracked with nerves. George grabbed her shoulder, excited about what was to come. Santa pulled on the reigns and they took off through the window that Frosty had “opened” for them. And then …
Chapter 20 - The Cage
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
Santa pushed the globe with every bit of energy that he had, racing towards the piece of jewellery lying on the floor. Puddles started racing towards the necklace as well.
Santa reached it first and pushed the priceless item through the doorway, past the remnants of the metal door that the yetis had torn away, and down a flight of stairs.
Santa tumbled after the necklace, bashing around the sides of the globe as it bounced from one step to another. His descent finally ended when he landed, with the necklace, on a hard stone floor in strange new surroundings.
He found himself in a small austere chamber. The yetis were sombrely standing along its shelved walls. These shelves were filled with rows of globes, just like his, each emitting a faint white light. Their content was impossible to make out. The glass exterior was too cloudy.
The yetis had no interest in these globes. Their focus was on a steel cage at the centre of the room, holding a young deer with a long, jagged scar across the top of his head. The animal looked fragile and weary, as if the scar, or what had caused it, remained an ongoing source of pain.
He did not look how Santa expected, but Santa knew who this creature was. Santa pushed on the sides of the globe to nudge the necklace closer to the deer. The animal bowed its head, sniffing at the gem and desperately pressing his scar against it.
Nothing happened.
Then, a yeti walked forward. She dug her hand underneath her fur. For a moment, Santa thought that the creature was simply scratching herself. She was, in fact, reaching for a stowaway. The yeti kneeled by the cage and gently placed her clenched fist on the ground nearby, opening it to reveal a small green fairy sitting on her palm.
The tiny creature hopped off the yeti’s hand, and pitter-pattered over to the space between the deer’s head and the necklace. She looked in awe at the deer, as if she could not believe what she was seeing, and burst into tears. She sombrely hummed what could roughly be translated as, “We thought you were dead”.
The fairy placed one small hand on the scar. Her other hand went to the jewel. The necklace began glowing a magnificent red. The fairy then turned from green to red herself, matching the crimson shade of the necklace. She was acting as a conduit for the gem’s energy. Its powers transferred through the fairy, to the deer. The animal closed his eyes, appearing to gain strength from the tiny healing hand that the fairy had placed upon him. Soon, the deer was glowing red too and the whole room was awash with bright red light.
At this moment, Puddles came bounding down the stairs. The sight of the herd of yetis bathed in the light emanating from the caged deer sent his tail straight between his legs. Puddles yelped, turned and raced back up the stairwell in fright.
Chapter 19 - The Necklace
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
Sable looked around the showroom, outraged that the auction that she had planned so meticulously had descended into such chaos. She could not let this continue. Sable stood on a table, above the fray, and began to conjure a hex with the help of her necklace to freeze everyone in the vicinity. Only then, could she deal with the troublemakers in her midst.
The siphon was interrupted, however, when a figure suddenly appeared in front of her face. It was a small boy, hovering in the air, smiling at her. Sable recognised him as the unimportant child who had the globe in Sydney and who she thought she had left in the Winter Forest. She was surprised to see him flying.
“Hello”, George said cheerily, bobbing up and down in the air a few inches from Sable’s nose.
She was taken aback. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a distraction”, he answered.
Sable did not understand what George meant until he flew out of the door and down the corridor. He was followed by Keya, also flying, with something sparkling in her hands. Sable put her fingers to her collarbone. The necklace! It was gone! Keya had unclasped it from behind her, Sable realised, while George had her attention in front.
Sable’s stolen powers still worked while the red jewel on the necklace was nearby. It was imperative that she not let those children get far. Sable propelled herself into the air with the power of flight that she had drained from the fairies. Sable flew after the children, pivoting around her guards still bouncing about the ceiling.
Amid the chaos on the ground, Sister Roula looked up to see George and Keya flying overhead. She gasped and grabbed Mayor Paul’s arm, pointing vigorously in the air.
“KEYA!” Mayor Paul tried to scream, though no sound came out.
George and Keya did not see the two adults among the crowd below, waving their arms furiously in their direction. The children’s attention was solely on Sable flying after them with a murderous look in her eye.
Sister Roula and Mayor Paul saw Sable swooping past. They could not speak but both knew with a shared frightened look that they were thinking the same thing. Sable looks intent to hurt their children. Somehow, they needed to stop her.
The nun and mayor bolted through the crowd in the direction that Keya and George had flown, making their way desperately through the hoard of auction bidders, yetis, elves and fairies in their path.
Keya and George weaved through the rooms of the mansion, staying close to its high ceilings removed from the fray below. The building felt like a maze and they did not know their way out. George glanced behind him and, strangely, could no longer see Sable trailing them. Had they outpaced her, George thought?
“No!” Keya shrieked.
In the corner of his eye, George spotted Keya, no longer flying beside him but being dragged backwards by some invisible force. It seemed that something had grabbed hold of her leg. As Keya screamed and kicked at the unseen menace, flailing erratically in the air, the girl knew that it must be Sable. She was using the power of invisibility that she had extracted from the yetis.
Suddenly, Keya received help from below. Sable was being pelted by auction paddles, mince pies and cutlery. It was Mayor Paul and Sister Roula, hurling whatever they could lay their hands on to help the frightened child escape Sable’s grip.
The siphon would not have it. She flung Keya to the ground, where she crashed by the mansion entranceway. The necklace flew out of her hand and slid across the floor. It landed between Santa and Puddles, near the doorway that the yetis had just forced their way through.
“KEYA!! KEYA!!” the mayor tried to yell with tears in his eyes, as he and Sister Roula ran to help her. Sable, hovering overhead, opened a portal underneath the feet of the nun and mayor. Before they could reach Keya, and before Keya or George even knew that they were there, Mayor Paul and Sister Roula plummeted down through the chasm beneath them, screaming in terror while no sound left their mouths. The portal promptly closed as if gobbling them up, leaving no trace of the two adults in the spot that they had just been occupying.
Santa was unaware of what had happened to Keya, Sister Roula or Mayor Paul. All of his attention was on the necklace. He knew what he had to do.
Chapter 18 - The Raid
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
In the showroom, Sable was delighted with how the auction was faring. Those in attendance were in a frenzy to snap up the extraordinary items on display. The auctioneer could barely keep up as bidders shouted figures at him and flung their numbered paddles in the air with competitive gusto. When it was time to announce the last auction lot, Sable guzzled down her champagne and took to the stage.
“Friends”, she pronounced. “We come to the climax of a gratifying night. I know that we have some elite collectors among us, seeking the most exclusive trophies from the magical realms. In the past, we’ve auctioned the heads of dragons, the pelts of kirins, the fins of mermaids. The final item tonight might very well surpass them all. I present to you the very heart of Christmas itself; the larger-than-life figure that embodies the magic and wonder of the festive season - resized, ossified and placed behind glass for your private pleasure and displaying convenience. I give you, Santa Claus!”
The lights went down as the red velvet curtain pulled back. What it revealed, however, was a pillow on a pedestal with nothing sitting on top of it. The globe was missing.
Sable stared at the empty pillow in shock. She could hear her guests’ bewildered murmurs behind her. She desperately looked around the pedestal and under the pillow but saw no sign of the globe. Sable then scanned the ground. There, behind the feet of a prominent businessman who had bought elaborate elf-designed cupcake ovens, she saw Santa. He was not frozen in position but slowly pushing on the sides of the globe to roll himself across the floor, trying not to attract attention.
Sable and Santa locked eyes. She raced towards him and Santa jumped into action. With no hope of remaining inconspicuous now, he began rolling the globe across the marble floor as fast as he could, careening towards the slightly ajar door at the back of the room, dovetailing through people’s feet. Several guests screamed, some waiters dropped glasswear and one CEO of a chain of toy stores attempted to swat at Santa with his auction paddle.
Santa was rolling the globe at a fantastic speed before the orb was abruptly halted in place. It began sliding backwards, scraping across the marble underneath it, no matter how hard Santa pushed in the opposite direction. Sable had thrown a hex on the globe and was summoning it to her.
When it settled at her feet, Sable picked up the orb and grimaced at Santa. She, then, moved to address the crowd of agitated billionaires with a clenched smile on her face.
“I’m sorry for the small interruption”, she said, trying to regain her composure. “Please take your seats, I assure you that …”
Sable did not get to complete her sentence before being rammed by reindeer bursting through the door behind her. They were followed by Ana, Mayor Paul, Sister Roula, a pack of elves and a mob of yetis, twinkling with fairies in their hair. Guests fumbled out of the way as Sable was gored repeatedly and fell onto a table of canapés.
CRASH!
Salmon puffs, brie and charcuterie flew into the air, as did the globe containing Santa. The orb landed on the floor before being kicked by a rich older woman struggling in her tight satin gown to run away from the hoard of people, animals and mystical creatures charging in her direction.
The showroom was now chaotic. The attendees were fleeing in all directions. Santa did his best to shift the globe out of the way of their feet but ended up essentially becoming a soccer ball being volleyed about. This made it difficult for Ana to find her husband as she scoured the room, even with the help of Mayor Paul and Sister Roula.
Meanwhile, the reindeer were eating canapés off the floor. The fairies were climbing up on pedestals to repossess vials of their magical dust that Sable had put up for sale. The yetis were smashing at the auctioneer’s podium, while elves wrestled items from the hands of successful bidders.
“I have the certificate of authenticity!” one tuxedoed guest shrieked, waving a piece of paper in the air, as he attempted to bat Lolly and three other elves away from the giant Workshop grandfather clock that he was clutching. A yeti nearby grabbed the paper and ate it.
A dozen guards burst into the showroom. They were led by the muscle-bound guard who had finally freed himself from the dungeon below. He was looking particularly enraged, wanting to settle the score with the miscreants who had trapped him in that prison cell.
These guards intended to regain order. They had little luck. Almost as soon as they entered, the guards began sporadically flying up into the air involuntarily one by one. Each ended up stuck on the ceiling like a helium balloon let go at a shopping mall.
“What’s happening?!” the burly guard from the dungeon yelled, furious to find himself once again hovering mid-air out of reach of those he wanted to pummel.
The guard looked down and saw the answer. The fairies had been running across the floor, sprinkling a vial of highly concentrated “floating” dust onto the guard’s feet. The officers could do little else now but try and grab hold of a chandelier so as to stop bouncing about the ceiling.
At the feet of the billionaires, yetis, elves and reindeer moving erratically in every direction, Santa managed to navigate his globe out of harm’s way. He found himself in the hall outside of the showroom.
It was there that he noticed something odd.
Down this hallway, four trolls were stationed in front of a large metal door. Despite all of the mayhem nearby, they remained stalwartly in position. Why were these trolls not helping the security guards try and regain order? Whatever was behind that door, Santa figured, must be something Sable was very serious about keeping hidden.
Perhaps more curious was the fact that several yetis seemed to have noticed this door as well. They were pushing people in the crowd out of their way as, one by one, they approached the door with great interest and, even, reverence. The yetis appeared to be instinctively drawn to the door or, more accurately, what they sensed was behind it. Seeing the yetis’ reaction, Santa was beginning to get an inkling of what “it” was.
The trolls bashed their stony hands against the marble floor, their way of warning the yetis to stay back. This warning was not heeded. The yetis continued to lurch forward defiantly, intent on getting to the other side of the door, until one troll broke rank and threw a punch at the yeti nearest. This particular creature, with the squat body and long arms of an orangutang, hit the ground hard. He barely had a chance to shriek in pain before another troll grabbed two fistfuls of fur and hurled him across the room, crashing him into Sable’s version of a Christmas tree (a triangular steel sculpture with stolen Workshop Christmas ornaments hanging from it, price tags attached).
This set the yetis into a frenzy. They launched at the trolls with full force, kicking, scratching and doing whatever they could to overpower them. The four trolls were intimidating opponents but clearly outnumbered. The yetis with horns prodded them. The taller yetis attacked from above, while the shorter ones aimed for the ankles to trip the trolls up. The crowd of yetis only dispersed temporarily when their orangutang-like buddy returned with the steel Christmas tree in hand. He swung it like a baseball bat and knocked the trolls out of the way in one fell swoop.
While several yetis kept the trolls at bay, the rest began beating at the door. The pounding of their fists and bodies on the metal reverberated through the hallway, shaking the ground under Santa’s globe.
Among the roars of the yetis tearing down the door, Santa noticed the sound of a distinct growl nearby. It was Puddles, who had heard the commotion from his three-story palatial doghouse in the garden outside, and was now standing mere metres away from Santa, ready and eager to pounce.
Chapter 17 - The Escape
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
From behind the curtain, Santa heard the doors to the showroom open. The previously silent room was now filled with Sable’s guests, murmuring excitedly about prices and slipping into their seats.
Sable took to the podium and banged the auctioneer’s gavel. The crowd immediately went quiet.
“My esteemed friends”, she said grandly. “You’ve had a chance to inspect the items up for sale. This silver sleigh with hand-crafted details. This burlap bag that provides endless storage. The deeds to the North Pole Workshop that could be easily transformed into an exclusive luxury ski resort for high-end clients”, Sable pointed to each item as she described them. “They’re all impeccable. This is a once in a lifetime auction and everything must go tonight.”
A round of applause from the delighted crowd followed.
“Now, I will hand matters over to our auctioneer.”
The applause continued as a tall, thin man in a suit and tie standing behind Sable moved towards the podium.
“Alright bidders, get your paddles ready”, the auctioneer exclaimed with the speed and zeal of a racehorse announcer. “We’ll start small with Lot 1, the giant ornaments that hung on the humungous Workshop Christmas tree, encrusted with emeralds, rubies and sapphires. They can be kept as is, or melted down and sold for parts, up to the lucky bidder!”
_________
As the auction proceeded, the dungeon underneath Sable’s mansion was still silent. No one dared speak as the intimidating guard roamed up and down the corridor between the prison cells.
The detainees were all trying to deal with their nerves. Lolly, the mayor and Ana paced their cell. The yetis fidgeted in their constraints. The reindeer restlessly stomped their hooves. Sister Roula, however, was perfectly still. The nun was watching the guard intently, observing his every movement. She knew that the guard had been drinking a lot of coffee every time he went back to his office desk near the dungeon doorway. Soon, he would need to pee.
When the guard finally exited to use the restroom, Sister Roula sprang into action. The nun jumped up and plunged her hand into one of the many pockets of her habit. She pulled out Knuckles’ chunky set of keys. Buried among the dozens of keys, Sister Roula fished out a small boxcutter keychain. The blade was relatively dull, due to constant use by Knuckles to open up boxes of grocery deliveries, but she hoped it would suffice.
“What are you doing!?” Lolly asked in an anxious whisper.
Sister Roula still could not use her voice, and did not have time to explain herself with a game of charades. She rushed over to the bars dividing her cell from that containing the yetis, thrusting the boxcutter through the bars and hacking away at the bindings tying the arms and legs of the long-limbed yeti that had stolen the globe back at the Winter Forest.
Once her arms were free, the yeti reached through the bars and began yanking on the chain connecting the fairies’ cage to the ceiling.
“Wait!” Ana whispered.
The yeti stopped tugging on the chain. Ana took off her thick red cloak and, retaining her grasp on one end, threw the other end between the bars across the corridor towards the cell containing the elves. She and Mayor Paul held their side of the garment. The elves held the other.
“OK go”, Ana instructed.
The yeti put all of his might into the final few yanks at the chain until the heavy cage came tumbling down to the ground, landing gently on the safety net created by Ana’s cloak with a small bounce. The elves grabbed the cage and CLONK! – Marshmallow ripped the tiny metal door off its delicate hinges. The fairies were now free!
Unable to fly, the fairies scurried across the concrete floor of the dungeon towards the guard’s office space. They climbed his chair, walked across his table and retrieved the keys to the dungeon cells.
“Stop!” the guard yelled while standing at the dungeon doorway, gobsmacked. He did not expect to see the fairies free and crawling all over his desk after his loo break.
The furious guard raced towards the fairies but did not get far. The long-limbed yeti grabbed his foot from between the bars and dangled him high above the dungeon floor.
The guard was not able to right himself from this strange position, but attempted to muster up whatever authority he had while flapping about bottoms up.
“Put me down! Put me down!”
The fairies made their way to each cell to deliver the keys. Soon, everyone was free - the elves, reindeer, fairies, yetis, nun, mayor and Mrs Claus.
The long-limbed yeti threw the guard into a cell and Lolly locked the door behind him.
“Big mistake”, the guard seethed as he rose to his feet. He began brutally punching and rattling the metal bars with extraordinary force, bending the metal slightly with each assault.
The now-liberated captives knew that it was only a matter of time before the guard had let himself loose. The fairies climbed up into the yetis’ fur to hitch a ride, several elves jumped on the backs of reindeer and everyone else, on foot, raced out of the dungeon and up the stairs towards ground-level. Behind them, they could hear the clanging noise of the furious guard bashing away at the bars that imprisoned him.
Chapter 16 - The Hunt
This is a Christmas story told in 25 parts – with one chapter released each day of December ‘til Christmas. Enjoy!
The spell Sable cast on George and Keya, paralysing them in position, had finally worn off. As soon as they could move again, they ran to the spot in the Winter Forest where they had left the horse-drawn carriage. It was not there.
“The horse must have run away”, George said crestfallen, “or flown away or something.”
Keya tried calling for help on her phone again, but it could barely turn on. George then saw her frantically start checking her pockets. He asked her what she was looking for, but could not understand the answer - it was too dark to read her lips and the girl was too distracted to keep her head still. Keya did not find what she wanted but gestured for George to follow her, heading in the direction of where they had just been; the crater where they had first met the fairies. They barely made it ten steps before Keya gripped George’s shoulder, pulling him backwards.
DONG! DONG! DONG!
Keya heard a bell ringing once again and the sound was moving closer. She pointed to the trees behind them. Something was lurking there, out of sight. When Keya realised what it was, her grip on George’s shoulder grew tighter and, with a haunted expression on her face, she turned to the boy and mouthed a single word.
“Cat.”
George did not need the heads up. Right then, an extraordinary black feline, the size of a truck, slinked into the clearing. She was, at once, beautiful and terrifying. Killer eyes that glittered with a kaleidoscope of red and green flecks. Sharp gold teeth that matched her sharp gold claws. A sturdy rope around her neck held in place a rusty church bell, making her appear like an oversized house cat. George and Keya had no idea who had collared the formidable creature but could definitely understand anyone’s desire to be on constant alert if she was nearby.
This was the Yule Cat, which fed at Christmas, that Lolly had warned them about. The elf, however, did not mention anything about kittens. From the bushes behind her swishing tail, four giant kittens, with black fur and white patches, trotted out. They were almost adorable, despite sharing their mother’s intimidating size, eyes, claws and teeth.
The five cats stared intensely at George and Keya. Their reason was clear - they were starving. Their ribs were protruding from under their skin. The destruction of their forest had left little to eat and the children knew that the Yule Cat was not going to let this rare opportunity to feed her young slip away.
The cat dug her claws into the earth then pounced, crossing a massive stretch of land in a single leap. Keya was so flushed with fear that she could not move. George grabbed her hand and dragged her with him into the thicket behind them. They zigzagged around the trees in their path as quickly as possible, barely able to see the ground ahead. Without the fairies, the only light in the forest came from the moon and stars peeking through the craggy branches of the canopy above.
The cats could not fit as easily though the narrow gaps left between the trees, but they compensated for this with brute force. They bashed their bodies into the brittle husks of the dead pines, bulldozing them out of their way. Torn apart wood, bark and splinters calamitously rained down on Keya and George as a result. One branch knocked George to the earth. Another tripped Keya after it crashed in front of her. Both children were petrified but found their feet and continued running. They would worry about any wounds later.
George’s mind was consumed with raw thoughts of survival - keep going, do not look back, just keep going. Another thought, however, fell into his head. Keya had wanted to leave the Winter Forest. He had delayed her. She might be safely at home right now if it were not for him. George might be out of harm’s way, himself, if he had gone with her. The guilt seized him tightly. If anything happened to Keya, George knew he would forever blame himself.
As bad as the situation was, it soon got worse. George glanced over and could no longer see Keya running beside him. In the darkness, he realised, they had gone in separate directions. George looked around desperately. There was no sign of the frightened girl. Why had he let go of her hand? He was now running for his life, alone, not knowing if his friend was somewhere screaming for help.
The ground began to slope downwards underneath George’s feet. The trees around him were becoming sparser, which was good news for the cats and bad news for him.
Soon, he was totally exposed. The downward slope had led him to another clearing, one with an enormous river cutting through it. George galloped down the hill, unable to slow himself down in time to avoid falling into the mud at the water’s edge.
SPLAT!
Covered in filth, he frantically looked left, then right. The river appeared to extend forever in both directions. The water was relatively calm, but George still panicked. He had never learned to swim. George turned to see the cats speeding towards him, mowing down the last few trees in their path. His only chance for escape was through the river.
George ran in, petrified, hoping it was not too deep. At first, the water stayed around his ankles but before long, it splashed at his knees. Once the water reached his neck, George had no choice. The child attempted to swim, furiously kicking his legs and stroking his arms. He did his best to propel himself through the water, but could barely stay afloat, let alone place much distance between him and his predators. While the kittens stopped on the riverbank, their mother charged into the water. At that point, terror overwhelmed him. George was drowning, the Yule Cat was encroaching and it was all happening in almost total darkness.
This was until a strange light filled the sky. It illuminated his surroundings and George could suddenly see with incredible clarity every ripple on the surface of the water engulfing him; every knarly tooth of the Yule Cat nearby. The light confused the beast. She paused to gaze up and determine its source. When he managed to temporarily steady himself, George did the same. What was creating this strange light?
George gasped. Up in the heavens, he saw a star. It was spectacularly bright, outshining every other. For a moment, the forest was still - George, the water, the mother and her kittens. The star had seemingly transfixed everything and everyone. Staring directly at the star hurt George’s eyes but he could not look away. He peered closer. Could it be? The star was moving. It was getting bigger … no … nearer … first slowly, then with speed. Soon, it was hurtling towards the Earth … hurtling towards him.
The Yule Cat tore out of the water to escape what appeared to be the incoming fireball rushing their way. George had no chance of escape - he could barely keep himself from sinking - and screamed as the star approached before it abruptly stopped a meter away and kicked him hard in his terrified face. He bobbed back up and saw a terrified face staring back at him.
“KEYA!?”
The girl was glowing brightly, hovering just above him, awkwardly trying to right herself mid-air. The star was not a star at all, George realised, but his friend. He held out his hand. She did not take it. Keya dumped a vial of fairy dust over him, instead. The boy began to glow, then slowly rose from the river, as did three fish who happened to have been sprinkled with the dust as well. The spooked fish flittered away, swimming through the air, before diving back into the river with a PLOP!
George grabbed Keya’s hands to steady himself. He stared in awe at the girl, thoroughly baffled as they drifted upwards.
“You’re … you’re flying?” he stammered.
Keya was very aware that she was flying. She did not look happy about it one bit and clung just as tightly to George as he clung to her. George felt the now empty vial in one hand and something small and crumpled in the other. He looked closer. The crumpled item was Lolly’s hat. Keya wanted to explain everything - she had been using the hat to fan Lolly when the elf had fainted. That is why Keya had wanted to return to the crater where she knew she must have dropped it. She split from George to race there, found the hat, and used the vial marked “FLIGHT” within it to escape one of the ravenous Christmas kittens that trailed her.
Before Keya could even attempt to explain any of this, a giant paw swiped at them both. The two children were knocked into the water by the Yule Cat who had re-entered the river, furious to see her prey fast floating out of reach. The kittens join her, slashing and pouncing at the glowing spot in the river where George and Keya had landed. Luckily for George, flying was easier than swimming. The children shot out of the water. With a small kick of their legs, they propelled themselves high into the air at an incredible speed.
One final swipe from the Yule Cat did not stop their escape but momentarily connected with Keya, scratching her leg. She shrieked in pain and dropped Lolly’s hat, as well as the empty vial that she was holding. The kittens ripped the hat apart as soon as it hit the riverbank and a wealth of items spilled out, including dumplings, tarts, tacos, pies and a range of other edible treats. The cats would have their feast after all.
While the animals gorged themselves, Keya and George slowly drifted up into the night sky. They clutched hands once again and stared at each other, so deeply relieved that neither of them had been eaten.
This lovely moment was interrupted by an electronic version of “Jingle Bells”. Keya looked around confounded and was shocked to realise that the muffled Christmas tune was playing from her pocket. This could only be one thing - her phone! The reception was better this high off the ground and the device was finally showing some mild signs of life. Keya yanked it out and scrolled vigorously through all of the features. She could not call, text, play Words with Friends, google, write notes or tweet. But she could use the Maps app. It was a Christmas miracle.
She showed the app on her screen to George.
“Where do you want to go?” Keya asked.
“It’s totally up to you”, George replied.