ConverseSneaker
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Thoughts about Children Will ListenI just had a very random, but interesting thought.
At the end of the show, the Witch is the one to sing Children Will Listen, even though earlier in the show she says children won't listen during her lament after Rapunzel dies. Why do you think Sondheim choose her to contradict herself?
My thoughts: During Last Midnight, the Witch chooses to throw away the beans and become ugly, but powerful and to banish herself and rejoin her mother despite act one where she wanted to be beautiful again. I think maybe that when her mother had told her what would happen when she threw away the beans, she disregarded her like Rapunzel, thinking that she would never need to know that. She had listened but not obeyed. Rapunzel does the same, but before she could possibly come back to her mother, she obviously dies.
Now, after banishing herself, I think the Witch might have seen the wisdom in those words after all.
What are your thoughts?
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Not Dead Yet
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | ConverseSneaker wrote: |
At the end of the show, the Witch is the one to sing Children Will Listen, even though earlier in the show she says children won't listen during her lament after Rapunzel dies. Why do you think Sondheim choose her to contradict herself? |
Because the witch learns something at the end of the piece. She was a bad mother and instead of smothering Rapunzel and ruining her life, she should have made the girl wiser and given her some space. Among other things.
There's a specific reason why both themes are similar.
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Baker
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | ConverseSneaker wrote: | | At the end of the show, the Witch is the one to sing Children Will Listen, even though earlier in the show she says children won't listen during her lament after Rapunzel dies. Why do you think Sondheim choose her to contradict herself? |
Well, first of all, it's not a contradiction. It's a realization. If it was contradictory, then the Witch would be hypocritical by saying one thing and thinking another. The difference is that the Witch has realized that children do listen, and thus her thoughts have changed.
| ConverseSneaker wrote: | My thoughts: During Last Midnight, the Witch chooses to throw away the beans and become ugly, but powerful and to banish herself and rejoin her mother despite act one where she wanted to be beautiful again. I think maybe that when her mother had told her what would happen when she threw away the beans, she disregarded her like Rapunzel, thinking that she would never need to know that. She had listened but not obeyed. Rapunzel does the same, but before she could possibly come back to her mother, she obviously dies.
Now, after banishing herself, I think the Witch might have seen the wisdom in those words after all.
What are your thoughts? |
Interesting idea, however, I think I disagree. The Witch tells the Baker and the Baker's Wife, "My mother had warned me if I ever were to lose any of the benas! [Beans?] The special beans! I let him go, I didn't know he'd stolen my beans!"
It's not that she was just ignoring what would happen. She simply didn't know that the Baker's father had stolen the beans.
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ConverseSneaker
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | Baker wrote: | | ConverseSneaker wrote: | | At the end of the show, the Witch is the one to sing Children Will Listen, even though earlier in the show she says children won't listen during her lament after Rapunzel dies. Why do you think Sondheim choose her to contradict herself? |
Well, first of all, it's not a contradiction. It's a realization. If it was contradictory, then the Witch would be hypocritical by saying one thing and thinking another. The difference is that the Witch has realized that children do listen, and thus her thoughts have changed. |
Alright you've got me there.
| ConverseSneaker wrote: | My thoughts: During Last Midnight, the Witch chooses to throw away the beans and become ugly, but powerful and to banish herself and rejoin her mother despite act one where she wanted to be beautiful again. I think maybe that when her mother had told her what would happen when she threw away the beans, she disregarded her like Rapunzel, thinking that she would never need to know that. She had listened but not obeyed. Rapunzel does the same, but before she could possibly come back to her mother, she obviously dies.
Now, after banishing herself, I think the Witch might have seen the wisdom in those words after all.
What are your thoughts? |
| Baker wrote: | Interesting idea, however, I think I disagree. The Witch tells the Baker and the Baker's Wife, "My mother had warned me if I ever were to lose any of the benas! [Beans?] The special beans! I let him go, I didn't know he'd stolen my beans!"
It's not that she was just ignoring what would happen. She simply didn't know that the Baker's father had stolen the beans. |
I wasn't refering to when the beans were stolen, but to when she throws them away during Last Midnight. What I meant was, in her youth and innocence(if the Witch ever was...) I don't think she ever imagined a time where she would willingly give up the beans knowing she would be ugly like Rapunzel never imagined the horrors that waited outside the tower and that she might actually run from it(and straight under the Giant's foot).
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Baker
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Oh, well, of course not. But no one ever thinks of those things - surely the Baker never thought his wife would die, Cinderella never thought her mother's grave would be destroyed, Jack never thought his giantess friend would turn on him, etc.
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Apples2for10
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| Baker wrote: | | Cinderella never thought her mother's grave would be destroyed |
Out of all the things that happen to Cinderella in the show, you think *that* is her biggest worry? Not that her husband cheated on her?
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Apples2for10
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | ConverseSneaker wrote: | | Why do you think Sondheim choose her to contradict herself? |
Probably because contradiction is a composer/playwright's greatest tool. Nowhere is this more evident than in "DEATH OF A SALESMAN" (especially the production my college recently did). Towards the end of Act I, Willy has a line where he's giving advice to Biff ("And if anything falls off the desk while you're talking to him... don't you pick it up. They have office boys for that") that Marc, who played Willy, contradicted by accident. The director had an action figure that he fits into all his plays, and during the scene where Willy has a meeting with his boss the action figure was on the boss' desk. Well, it fell off right in the middle of the scene, and Marc picked it up and set it back on the desk. In doing so, he contradicted the aforementioned line to Biff. But it turned out to be not such a big deal, as Willy contradicts himslef all through the play.
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Dvarg
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | Baker wrote: | | Well, first of all, it's not a contradiction. It's a realization. If it was contradictory, then the Witch would be hypocritical by saying one thing and thinking another. The difference is that the Witch has realized that children do listen, and thus her thoughts have changed. |
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That, and I also think the Witch means two different things with the phrase. First she's complaining Rapunzel won't do as she has been told, hence "children won't listen". Later she puts emphasis on how children learn from what their parents say and do, even though what they say isn't necessarily intended for the children's ears - hence "children will listen".
Does that make sense?
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Baker
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Re: Thoughts about Children Will Listen | Dvarg wrote: | | Baker wrote: | | Well, first of all, it's not a contradiction. It's a realization. If it was contradictory, then the Witch would be hypocritical by saying one thing and thinking another. The difference is that the Witch has realized that children do listen, and thus her thoughts have changed. |
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That, and I also think the Witch means two different things with the phrase. First she's complaining Rapunzel won't do as she has been told, hence "children won't listen". Later she puts emphasis on how children learn from what their parents say and do, even though what they say isn't necessarily intended for the children's ears - hence "children will listen".
Does that make sense? |
Ah, yes, that makes sense. I think the Witch was just stubborn when she was younger, though, I personally don't interpret it as specifically relating to the garden. But I can see how the connections would be made.
| Apples2for10 wrote: | | Baker wrote: | | Cinderella never thought her mother's grave would be destroyed |
Out of all the things that happen to Cinderella in the show, you think *that* is her biggest worry? Not that her husband cheated on her? |
No, of course not. But it's something that was constant at the beginning of the story that was messed up by the end, just like Rapunzel for the Witch, the Baker's life with his wife, etc. Jack's giantess, on the other hand, probably wasn't a very good example for what I was trying to show. More like the death of his mother.
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Not Dead Yet
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| Apples2for10 wrote: | | Baker wrote: | | Cinderella never thought her mother's grave would be destroyed |
Out of all the things that happen to Cinderella in the show, you think *that* is her biggest worry? Not that her husband cheated on her? |
Her husband cheating on her is the crumbling of her one dream. Her mother's grave being destroyed leaves her no potential wishes ever.. She is the "wish" girl, so I guess that's important to her.
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