One thing the Grimm fairy tales do very well is create empathy for the underdog.
The discharged soldier is not just out of work, but he is also extremely poor, starving, without prospects, and lying by the side of the road.
The picked-on brother is always the youngest and a simpleton, the butt of everyone’s jokes.
The stepchild is left without the protection of her biological family and either forced to be a servant or to perform reckless feats that could lead to her death, all while wearing rags or even a paper dress.
This week in our reading, we come across several underdogs:
164: Lazy Henry – the underdog in this story is not the main character, but rather fat Trina. Lazy Henry marries her with the hopes that she’ll do all the work for him…but she turns the tables on him; she’s just as lazy as he is!
165: The Griffin – a simpleton youngest brother has to wait for his older two brothers to fail at bringing apples to heal the princess before he’s allowed to try. But before he can have his happily ever after and marry the princess, her father, the king, changes the goal posts on him and he has to perform a variety of impossible tasks. But our intrepid underdog has help and is too simple to see the impossible, so he turns the tables on the king after he’s accomplished every impossible task.
166: Strong Hans – Hans is kidnapped along with his mother when he was a child of two years old. He grows up in the robber’s den hearing stories of brave knights. As he grows older, he starts asking questions, and then tries to free himself. At first he is not strong enough and gets a beating, but eventually he is able to overcome his captors, giving them a beating and escaping.
167: The Peasant in Heaven – a poor man and a rich man die a the same time. The poor man watches the rich man go in first, to much singing and celebration. But, when he enters, all is quiet; no singing for him. He thinks Heaven is as classist as Earth until Saint Peter explains to him that a rich man in heaven is a rare event, and that’s why they were celebrating.
So, when you create your hero, if you are going for an underdog story, brainstorm all the ways you can make his life sad, miserable, and oppressed, all the while maintaining a strong moral character. Think in the categories of:
- Circumstances
- Family
- Relationships
- Trials
- Wealth
- Class
