Post 131: Sympathetic Bad Guys and Evil-doers pt. 2

I was thinking about my last post about bad guys and evil-doers who didn't deserve what they got, and it made me think of Into the Woods, the musical. It is a great musical, though the original is better than the movie in some ways (mostly relating to Rapunzel and the second prince who barely make an appearance in this movie as well as the ending song that in the original is funny but in the movie is more sentimental).

Anyway, this movie is such a great example of this kind of thing because the whole movie is about what happens outside the basic fairy tale. After ever after, is it really always happy? And are the stock Prince characters more than what they seem?

In the movie there are two giants, who are probably the main antagonists, along with the witch. The witch uses the baker and his wife to get what she wants, but at the same time, she really cares for Rapunzel. Meanwhile, the giants are almost never fully shown, because everyone knows the story.

But even in the original story, the giants didn't really deserve to die. A complete stranger came to their home and stole from them. In the musical, Jack went up and stole from the giants three times. And when the giant came to get his stuff back, they caused his death. Then when his wife came down, they killed her too.

I think what is so interesting about this musical is that it really exposes some of the problems with fairy tales: from the Princes' lack of personality to the illogical 'happily ever after's.