the last unicorn

quotes from the book & gifs from the movie

[thelastarchive]

[thelastarchive]

actually wait I can word that better

[thelastarchive]

the lady amathela... feeling like there's something old inside of you, but being unable to name it. there's things others tell you that you should be able to see, but you can't see it at all. for some reason your tears affect others in strange ways. you feel so lonely without knowing why. others see your beauty, but it makes them sad because they know you are mortal and that it will someday be gone. you have something trying to remind you of a goal that doesn't feel like your own, and the most romantic thing in the world is being distracted from it until you forget it. you want to die with your love, to live with them and follow a natural life. for some reason, you're being held to the standard of something you don't even remember. all you know is this haunted place, and the hardworking care of a hero who has wanted to serve you since he first saw you. this is all ripped away against your will.

[thelastarchive]

"It was long that the unicorn stood by Prince Lír before she touched him with her horn. For all that her quest had ended joyously, there was weariness in the way she held herself, and a sadness in her beauty that Molly had never seen. It suddenly seemed to her that the unicorn’s sorrow was not for Lír but for the lost girl who could not be brought back; for the Lady Amalthea, who might have lived happily ever after with the prince."

- The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

my plan right now is to write commentary (as I reread) on the unicorn's personality, prince lir's prophecy and journey, forgotten characters from the book that didn't make it into the movie, and the differences between the lady amalthea and the unicorn - if I think of more I will write about that too

[thelastarchive]

time to reread the last unicorn for the dozenth time

[amaltheas-anguish]

isn't the last unicorn falling in love with lir like a stockholm syndome? falling in love with her captor? according to the book? correct me if I’m wrong

lir wasn't her captor, her human body is, so no not exactly - her falling in love with him was actually because humans follow universal storybook/classic fairytale rules (referenced by schmendrick in the book) and as she was transforming into a true mortal, she chose that life to avoid the trauma of losing what she had

unicorns, being immortal monsters, don't follow that same tales that humans are forced by the world to align with - which includes roles such as love interest, hero, mentor, supporter, etc and things such as the hero's journey. as she was losing herself and becoming the lady amalthea in soul, the world started seeing her as the mortal she was turning into and shaping her into the role of hero's love interest in lir's fairytale - lir himself became a hero across the land to try to please her, by the time she was nearly fully human he was already an established character of his role.

as she became more mortal, she lost the memories she had as a unicorn. she intentionally forgot them, embracing her new life as the lady amalthea, who loved lir, and losing herself in it

so the lady amalthea became human, and as such became part of the hero's tale as his princess and nothing more

but eventually, she herself realized that her human life in lir's fairytale was temporary - when she was going to be transformed back, she was terrified of it

once she becomes a unicorn again, as the lady amalthea had said, she loses those feelings because she's no longer part of the mortal narrative - but it also directly says in the story that the unicorn mourns the lady amalthea's loss of the life she could've lived out as part of that storybook role

so no it's not stockholm syndrome relating to the prince, it's actually being doomed by the narrative because of what the universe of the world forces upon the mortals :] it's one of my favorite overlooked details of the story

[amaltheas-anguish]

so in the last unicorn the fail-magician schmendrick is shown as someone who doesn't understand true magic but reaches it in the end of the movie when it matters most - in the book though there's an extra detail. his mentor knew that schmendrick wouldn't be able to figure out magic in one lifetime but that he'd be really powerful when he did, so the fail-magician schmendrick was made immortal until he figured it out, then made mortal again to live a fulfilled life of successful magic casting. he's kinda the merkstave of the unicorn - the unicorn being an immortal monster who was forced into human mortality before being turned back and thus becoming separate from all of her kind because her experiences set her too far apart from them vs the mortal fail-magician schmendrick being made immortal before becoming mortal again and finally being able to join his peers / relate to them through common ground. the movie was great and it's genuinely one of my favorites but the fact that they left out that detail forever haunts me

[amaltheas-anguish]

saying all this to you like this while we're in the middle of watching the movie btw

[thelastarchive]

ive read the last unicorn nearly a dozen times and ill read it dozens more. it doesn't matter, the theme and the writing and the story will always get to me. it's so beautiful

[thelastarchive]

'I am no king, and I am no lord, And I am no soldier at arms, said he. I'm none but a harper, and a very poor harper, That am come hither to wed with ye.'

'If you were a lord, you should be my lord, And the same if you were a thief,' said she. 'And if you are a harper, you shall be my harper, For it makes no matter to me, to me, For it makes no matter to me.'

'But what if it prove that I am no harper? That I lied for your love most monstrously?' 'Why, then I'll teach you to play and sing, For I dearly love a good harp,' said she.

- The last page of The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

By and by, he put her as far from him as his fingers' ends and asked her, "Now will you tell me what it was she said to you?" But Molly Grue only laughed and shook her head till her hair came down, and she was more beautiful than the Lady Amalthea. The magician said, "Very well. Then I'll find the unicorn again, and perhaps she will tell me." And he turned calmly to whistle up their steeds.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

King Lir said hoarsely, "By our friendship, I beg you-tell me what she said to you." His hands gripped one hand of each of theirs, and his clutch was cold and painful.

Schmendrick gave him a weak smile. "My lord, I so rarely remember my dreams. It seems to me that we spoke solemnly of silly things, as one does--grave nonsense, empty and evanescent." The king let go of his hand and turned his half-mad gaze on Molly Grue.

"I'll never tell," she said, a little frightened, hened but but flushing flushing oddly. "I remember, but I'll never tell anyone, if I die for it-not even you, my lord." She was not looking at him as she spoke, but at Schmendrick.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

She made no sound when she left him, but he was awake, and the crook-eared cat was miaowing lonesomely. Turning his head, he saw the moonlight trembling in the open eyes of King Lir and Molly Grue. The three of them lay awake till morning, and nobody said a word.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

"The others have gone,'' she said. "They are scattered to the woods they came from, no two together, and men will not catch sight of them much more easily than if they were still in the sea. I will go back to my forest too, but I do not know if I will live contentedly there, or anywhere. I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, though I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret."

Schmendrick hid his face like a child, though he was a great magician. "I am sorry, I am sorry," he mumbled into his wrist. "I have done you evil, as Nikos did to the other unicorn, with the same good will, and I can no more undo it than he could. Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard and the Red Bull together were kinder to you than I."

But she answered him gently, saying, "My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in me as long as that joy-save one, and I thank you for that, too. Farewell, good magician. I will try to go home."

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

She turned a little away from him, and the sudden starlight of her shoulders made all his talk of magic taste like sand in his throat. Moths and midges and other night insects too small to be anything in particular came and danced slowly around her bright horn, and this did not make her appear foolish, but them most wise and lovely as they celebrated her. Molly's cat rubbed in and out between her forefeet.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

The unicorn said, "That is true. You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference." But her voice was strangely slow and burdened.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[thelastarchive]

"How beautiful you are," he said. "I never really told you." He would have roused the others, but her eyes sang him a warning as clearly as two frightened birds, and he knew that if he moved to call Molly and Lir he would wake himself, and she would vanish. So he said only, "They love you more, I think, though I do the best I can."

"That is why," she said, and he could not tell what she was answering. He lay very still, hoping that he would remember the exact shape of her ears when he did wake in the morning.

- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle