What does Briar Rose teach us?
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A princess who has all the potential to win…
a) Materialistic advantage
Briar Rose is born into a wealthy kingdom, her parents are not in need of anything. She has had access to everything she ever needed in life, and most probably has been given a comprehensive education with the teaching of numerous skills useful for royals and court.
Furthermore, one of the gift from the fairies was referred to as the gift of “riches”, it is however unclear if this gift was immediate with various riches appearing in the room or if it was mean to say that no matter what, riches would always come the princess’s way throughout her life.
Either way, should she had ever need any type of weapon or object for her tale, she could have easily gotten it.
b) Flawless Personality
She has received numerous gifts from the fairies to assure she would be a perfect human being. There were 11 gifts, however only wisdom, beauty, and kindness were mentioned. Despite the mystery of the other gifts, the one we do know about made the princess a girl loved by all. Love quite often being needed to win a fairytale.
Besides, the gift of kindness is also a must-have role-model quality, although one could argue that it is a little strange that it needed to be brought magically by the fairies, would Briar Rose not have been kind if that gift was not given?
Beauty is a debatable requirement as a princess, after all, it is said the Evil Queen used to be the fairest of them all before Snow White grew up. The Tale of the Ugly Duckling also emphasise on the fact we should not judge someone’s goodness by their appearance. Yet, we still give beauty a considerable importance in today’s society so I will say being Beautiful helped Briar Rose in finding her prince (a hero I will tackle later).
And last but not least, wisdom. Wisdom is not necessarily intelligence, but being wise will definitely help avoiding stupid mistakes that can get you killed. And being alive is necessary if you want a happy ending.
…but somehow wins without it…
a) Luck has its favourites
Briar Rose’s family has a history with luck. Her whole birth comes from the fact the Queen met a frog who told her she would be with child, which is incredibly lucky. Her birth could be considered a miracle, considering the King and Queen had tried for years without success.
It is without all the quality attributed to her that Briar Rose ends up being saved. She follows the spells and falls into a deep slumber. However, she was lucky enough for the legend of her asleep kingdom to still be mentioned and talked about for the centuries to come, allowing princes to come and try rescuing her. Many of them died which is unfortunate. The Prince who does succeed, only happened to be lucky enough to learn about her existence and come the day the spell was coming to an end.
You could argue that the beauty she was given by the fairies was the reason people kept talking about her for the following years, which honestly makes it kind of sad that it was the only thing she was remembered for when the fairytale clearly mentioned she was loved by all for her kindness and wisdom.
b) Patience is key
In the end, Briar Rose story was all a game of patience. Despite the King and Queen trying to destroy all the spindle as fast as possible, the princess still fell asleep after 15 years. And once she fell into slumber, no matter how many people tried she only woke up once the spell came to an end. There was never a mention of True Love’s kiss breaking the spell, besides, how could she have known True Love if she had been asleep for 100 years? The only love she could have met was either asleep with her in the kingdom or long dead.
Morale of the story, listen to the formulation of your curses properly and act accordingly. If there is nothing else to do other than wait, just wait.
…despite the unhelpfulness of everyone around her.
a) Surprisingly irresponsible parents
After wishing for a child for so long, one would expect her parents to be more responsible and smart when it came to dealing with her. There are 13 fairies, and they have only 12 golden dishes, the tale said they were very wealthy, why not buy a 13th set of golden dishes? Why risk angering a fairy? Why not send her the invite and explaining you only have 12 golden plates but that you would be happy to lend her another type of plate if she wished to come? Why not send the invite to all the fairies explaining the problem to all of them so that the kindest one could choose to not have a golden plate? Let them argue together and save your daughter. There were numerous ways that could have avoided Briar Rose getting cursed in the first place.
Destroying all the spindles could have been considered intelligent, although one could argue that since magic was involved, a spindle could have still appeared out of nowhere, but let us assume it did not. Why keep all the remains of the spindles in the castle where the princess is living? Why did they not tell her about the curse? Of course young Briar Rose would not be suspicious when that old lady was spindling in the castle on her 15th birthday, she did not know and everyone loved her. How could she expect harm to come her way?
Furthermore, why were the King and Queen absent on her birthday? They knew about the curse, I cannot imagine how any duty outside the kingdom could have been more important than protecting their daughter on that fateful day, especially since they had not warned her about the danger. The King and Queen may have been good parents when it came to affection and education, but they were terrible when it came to protection and basic survival skills, even in court! Why would you not invite a fairy but all the others? Where is the Etiquette in all this?
b) A prince who actually does not do anything
I have to say I was rather confused about the prince. I do not mean any offence but he ended up being rather useless. He went through the barrier of thorns with no troubles since the spell ended that day and so there was no barrier of thorns anymore. Then he walked up to Briar Rose, sleeping, he kissed her and she woke up. It never says it is the Prince’s kiss that woke her up, the spell was ending that day, she was going to wake up either way. And right after that they apparently get married?
I like to believe some parts of the story got lost in between the awakening and the wedding. Maybe after the kingdom woke up, the Prince offered to help Briar Rose adapting to the 100 years advancement she had missed in her slumber, and during that time they gradually fell in love. I am hoping that is how it went, because if it is not, the Prince is just an entitled royal who kissed a defenceless girl in her sleep and married her right after because reasons.
Overall, I would say Briar Rose teaches us to be true to ourselves, and have confidence that everything will work out the way it is intended to. Be patient, and that’s it. Probably do not count too much on the people around you since they all seem to be wildly incompetent.
I will say though, it was a fun read. Reading the Grimm version of fairytales with the eyes of an adult in the current society can lead to some funny The-Office facial expressions.
Here it is if you want to have a read : Briar Rose - Grimm Brothers
I also feel it is important to note that the Grimm Brothers did not invent the stories they tell. They collected fairy tales and recorded them— probably including a few personal changes.
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