David Tallerman Princess Questions

2018 is the year of the princess!

Although officially the Year of the Princess is over, my good friend David Tallerman asked if he could answer some princess questions, just for fun. So, given that 26 February 2019 is Tell A Fairytale Day, it seemed only apt that we release them today.

So here’s an extra serving of Princess Questions for you!

David is the author of the recently released crime thriller The Bad Neighbour, ongoing YA fantasy series The Black River Chronicles, the Tales of Easie Damasco trilogy, and the novella Patchwerk. His comics work includes the absurdist steampunk graphic novel Endangered Weapon B: Mechanimal Science with Bob Molesworth.

David’s short fiction has appeared in around eighty markets, including Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A number of his best dark fantasy and horror stories were gathered together in his debut collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories.

He can be found online at www.davidtallerman.co.uk.

1. What three attributes do you think a princess ought to have?

As someone firmly opposed to the notion of inherited authority, I’d argue that the most important quality in any princess is a readiness to look for another job. But okay, failing that: a sense of responsibility, empathy, and a desire to make the world a genuinely better place.

2. What characteristics do you think are so overused that they’ve become tropes?

If we’re talking about the most recent wave of Disney heroines and their ilk, I’m getting tired of characters who we’re told are plucky, sassy, tough or whatever, but aren’t allowed to actually accomplish very much.

I hope we get soon to the point where writers are able to dwell less on how plucky and sassy and tough their female protagonists are and focus instead on making them flawed, complex beings that get to meaningfully affect the world around them. I know Disney can do it - Frozen and Brave were both big steps in the right direction - but we’ve a way to go yet.

3. If I forced you to choose, which would be your favourite Disney princess?

It would be a trade-off between Mulan and Rapunzel.

In theory I prefer Mulan, but in practice she’s - dare I say it? - a teeny bit boring as a protagonist. Whereas, though it drives me nuts the way Rapunzel gets relegated to being the love interest in her own movie, she does at least go around brutalising people with a frying pan.

Of course, if Disney would have the decency to make Lilo an official princess, she’d win hands down. And if I was allowed to look beyond Disney, I’d go with Arete from Sunao Katabuchi’s little-seen and wonderful movie Princess Arete, which manages to be a lovely, warm-hearted kids movie and a scathing dissection of how toxic the whole princess concept is at one and the same time.

4. A lot of people look down on the older Disney princesses, such as Snow White and Aurora, as being too passive and subservient. Do you think there are good qualities in these outdated princesses that modern girls and boys can aspire to?

Perhaps their virtue now is more as a time capsule of attitudes we’ve rightly moved away from; I think there’s value in being able to sit down with kids and talk through the aspects of those films that seem problematic now.

Beyond that, Cinderella was nice to animals, I guess? Honestly, no, as much as I love those early Disney films for their outstanding animation, the first wave of princesses aren’t much more than clothes horses for the plots to happen around. Issues of representation aside, they’re basically awful protagonists.

5. What’s the ideal outfit for a princess, including a can’t-do-without accessory?

Heck, that’s difficult. What’s she doing? What’s the climate? Formal or social? I don’t think I can answer that.

Um, accessory-wise, I’m going to go with a nice, lightweight copy of Das Kapital.

6. Although it’s rarely written about, princesses eventually turn into queens. Which fictional (or real) queen do you consider to be a particularly inspiring character?

Having recently seen the film La Reine Margot, I’m opting for Margaret of Valois. I’m not sure she’s inspiring precisely - let’s face it, if you’re emulating a seventeen century French queen, you’re probably making some questionable life choices - but she certainly didn’t pull any punches.

David Tallerman Princess Questions

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