Are you a royal or a rebel? Is Apple White's destiny at risk? Will Raven Queen flip the script? Let the page turning tale begin...
Fantasy writer Seanan McGuire (no stranger to fairy tales) summarized the premise for the new toys this way:
"Ever After High, where the children of famous fairy tale figures go to school as they prepare to take the Legacy Pledge and relive the stories of their parents. Hundreds of generations of Wicked Queens and whiteout girls* passing poison apples back and forth between them like Valentines..."The story, er, collection begins with two characters**, er, dolls: Apple White (Snow White's daughter) and Raven Queen (the Evil Queen's Daughter), playing out their dueling destinies while attending the same classes. (Dum dum daaaaah!)
They even have "Mirror Blogs" we can follow them on as they comment on events, rumors and more from their (opposite) POVs.
(From the official Ever After High website:)
Raven Queen: "Just found out I'm not rooming with Maddie. My new roomie is Apple White???"Apple White: "Spellbinding morning - the perfect day for starting a charmed new school year. Consulted my magic mirror, and I'm..." (to be revealed)
OK I'll admit it. I've been rolling my eyes for much of this blog post but the "twisted teens fighting crappy destinies"/"stereotypical fairy tale characters get giant doses of reality" concept is actually beginning to make a bizarre sort of sense to me, especially if the characters are referencing the grimmer details of their parents tales and follow basic logic through. If any of those aspects are allowed to play out I can actually see this being quite "high concept" (*wince* sorry) and catching on... In fact it took me all of two minutes to find other people (mainly teens and therefore the target purchase group) thinking along the same lines and already quite excited about the whole idea.
Take a look at an excerpt from one of the (many) comments in a dedicated Tumblr blog:
"...like how is this premise somehow creepier than the one with monsters
I’m getting over my initial aversion but this is giving me some serious NO REALLY THIS IS F***ING DISTURBING feelings regarding fate and free will and the fact that some of these kids are expected to have no choice beyond ultimately dying in unbelievably gruesome ways (go look up what originally happened to Snow White’s stepmom*. Or Cinderella’s stepsisters. I’ll wait here) is a lot scarier than the franchise is admitting so far.
_____
*You know, on reflection, a woman who’d make her former tormentor dance to death in red-hot iron shoes as wedding entertainment probably is a woman who’d name her daughter after that which almost killed her herself and will eventually almost do the same to said daughter."
And then this appears on the Ever After High Facebook page:
So... yeah. We'll see. The seeds are there but will they bloom into the greatness of their true destiny or will they wither and die like so many forgotten...?
Ack. Never mind.
The line was officially announced at the end of May and is releasing in July this year.
*aka Snow Whites.
** Characters so far are: THE ROYALS - Apple White (daughter of Snow White), Briar Beauty (daughter of Sleeping Beauty), Ashlynn Ella (daughter of Cinderella), Blondielocks (daughter of Goldilocks, also a royal, kind of - not too 'this' and not too 'that'). THE REBELS - Raven Queen (daughter of the Evil Queen), Cedar Wood (daughter of Pinocchio), Cerise Hood (daughter of Little Red Riding Hood, who's hiding a big bad secret), Madeline Hatter (daughter of the Mad Hatter, roommate Kitty Cheshire, she can also hear the narrators) And there are Prince Charmings everywhere, there's a giant named Tiny and the headmaster (Mr. Grimm) has a brother who is locked in a secret library underneath the school... and arguing male and female narrators.