4/11

4/11 Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn is one of the major works in this conversation, and it needs to be kept separate from the Zenescope issue with the same title. Beagle's novel was published in 1968. The 1982 animated film adapts his story, with Beagle also writing the screenplay. Here, the unicorn leaves the safety of her forest to search for others of her kind. Schmendrick and Molly Grue become her companions, and the search brings her toward King Haggard and the Red Bull. The unicorn gets to be the person whose need drives the journey. Other characters have their own wants, but she is the one asking what happened to her kind. The film's transformation into Lady Amalthea adds another difficulty. Protecting her by giving her a human body also exposes her to human emotions and attachments. Prince Lir becomes part of that complication. Surviving the immediate threat can pull her away from the purpose that brought her there. That opens up much more than a rescue plot. There is a question of identity running through the adventure: how much can an experience change someone, and what happens when the life available to them conflicts with who they were before? The novel and film belong in a unicorn discussion because they give the creature that much room. She has a search to undertake, relationships to navigate, and something at stake beyond the humans' opinions of her.