Binders in Grimm Fairy Tales

I wanted to get into how the Binders work in Grimm Fairy Tales, because there’s quite a bit going on with them beyond carrying around a magical book. Each realm has one, and when one dies, another takes their place. Their job is to find and preserve their realm’s most important stories so those stories can keep being told. Spoilers here for the 2015 Snow White and Cinderella 10th Anniversary specials. Druanna explains that they collect the stories that influence and shape a realm’s collective consciousness. That makes the job bigger than just collecting fairy tales. The history shown alongside her explanation includes someone telling stories around a fire, a musician and a filmmaker. It isn’t presented as something limited to people writing novels. She says every generation has a Binder. Earth is still young compared with Myst and the other realms, which have had thousands of them. Shakespeare is specifically identified as one of Earth’s Binders. Druanna even calls him history’s greatest, which explains why there’s a memorial to him in Myst. It doesn’t mean he was Myst’s Binder. He was from Earth, but what he did mattered to the other realms, too. There’s also an exception to the one-Binder rule. Druanna says there was once a generation with two Binders, and they were brothers. Those brothers created Sela’s original book. The explanation doesn’t actually name them on that page, so I’m keeping that separate from assigning them names. What it does establish is that the normal arrangement has had an exception, and that exception is connected to the book at the center of this storyline. When Sela destroys that book, the stories inside it are released. These are characters walking around and living their lives, even if they don’t understand what they really are. Earth’s Binder can sense them. Druanna says he knows their true nature and can feel them, which lets him hunt them down and rebuild the collection. And binding is literal. He pulls the Huntsman into his book, then does the same thing to Hansel and Gretel. He can also call characters out and use them against people. The seven dwarves do his hunting for him, and he summons other creatures when he fights Sela. So collecting a story can give him something he can physically bring into a fight. It isn’t just knowledge sitting on a shelf. The part that changes everything is the portal. Sela’s original book was unusual because it was both a collection of stories and a way into the other realms. Recreating it offers the Binder access to stories much older than Earth’s, some of which are far more powerful. Sela explains that the possibility of getting that power is what corrupted him. He starts out with a role meant to preserve stories and ends up wanting to possess everything he can reach. But that doesn’t mean every Binder automatically knows how to open portals. This one repeatedly fails to make the book do it. He eventually kidnaps Skye and forces her to try. She opens a portal, but sends him to Arcane Acre instead of Myst. Her connection to the book is important, but it doesn’t make her the Binder. Using the book, being a Guardian and being a Binder aren’t interchangeable things. Most of that explanation comes from the Snow White anniversary special, particularly Sela’s conversation with Druanna. The succession is where the Binders become an ongoing problem for Sela. She can stop the person abusing the role, but she can’t end the role by killing him. After she kills the Earth Binder in Snow White, she says another will take his place. The story then cuts to a prison in Florence, Colorado, where a man called Faulkner discovers that he can pull the Three Blind Mice into his notebook. He’s surprised by what’s happening. Another person has the power now, and Sela doesn’t get to decide whether she’s ready for that. The comic gives him the surname Faulkner. It doesn’t establish that he’s the historical novelist William Faulkner, so I wouldn’t make that leap just because Shakespeare was also a Binder. Cinderella makes the rule explicit. Sela says each realm has a Binder, and when one dies, another takes his place. According to her, it has worked that way since the realms were created, so no story is ever lost. That confirms the succession, but it doesn’t give us a complete explanation of everything that transfers. We see the binding power continue in a new person. These specials don’t say he automatically receives his predecessor’s memories, entire collection or every individual trick. The new Earth Binder in Cinderella is already doing quite a lot. He senses Cindy’s aura, captures her fairy godmother and Sam, and uses a glowing whip to restrain his targets while holding the book. He sends a flock of birds out of it to attack Cindy. He also has a huge pumpkin creature fighting for him and rides a dragon called Slander. Those are the things shown on the page, although the story doesn’t stop to explain exactly how he acquired or created every creature he uses. He’s physically dangerous, too. The fairy godmother’s spell fails to stop him, and he keeps fighting after Cindy wounds him with a sword. I’d still separate those feats from saying all Binders are immune to magic or can survive anything. We’ve already watched another Binder die. There’s a difference between what this particular one survives and a rule that applies to every person who gets the role. He also presents Cindy with what looks like Malec alive again. That’s a pretty important distinction when talking about his powers, because it would be easy to describe it as resurrection. But when Cindy attacks, the figure is revealed as someone else. The scene shows him using Malec’s appearance to try to get her to lower her guard. It doesn’t establish that he brought the actual Malec back from the dead. There’s some uncertainty inside the story itself. Sela connects the new Binder’s appearance with the Convergence, but she says they think that’s the explanation. She isn’t presenting a complete answer. We also don’t get much about who chooses the next Binder, why that particular person is chosen or how much they understand when the power arrives. Faulkner’s reaction in the prison certainly doesn’t look like someone who already knows exactly what he’s doing. As for the realms, this part of Grimm Fairy Tales is dealing with Earth alongside Myst, Wonderland, Neverland and Oz. Zenescope’s Arcane Acre descriptions lay out that setting. The general Binder rule covers those realms, but these two specials don’t give us a named holder and a separate set of powers for each one. What they give us is Shakespeare, the two brothers who made Sela’s original book, the unnamed Earth Binder she kills and the replacement introduced as Faulkner. I wouldn’t fill the other positions with Guardians or famous writers without another story actually making that connection. Read Snow White first, then Cinderella, which explicitly takes place after Grimm Fairy Tales #112. Together they explain what Binders are supposed to do, show how their power can be abused and establish why killing one dangerous Binder doesn’t mean Sela is finished dealing with them.