Esmerelda: The Princess Who Tried to Choose Her Own Future

Esmerelda: The Princess Who Tried to Choose Her Own Future Esmerelda is easy to remember as the woman Morrigan lost before he became Death. That explains where she fits into the larger story, but it leaves out quite a bit of what she actually does in Grimm Fairy Tales #53. She tries to leave a life her father is controlling, goes after the man she loves when she learns he's being held prisoner, and fights her way toward him. There is more to her than the ending Morrigan carries with him. Spoilers for #53, “The Fairy and the Dwarf.” The history comes from Bolder, who tells Sela how Morrigan went from a human captain to the figure she knows as Death. Esmerelda is a princess, and her father doesn't consider the captain suitable for a future queen. The two are already meeting in secret. She knows her father could have Morrigan hanged if he caught them, which tells you how little room there is for a normal conversation about their relationship. When Morrigan asks what they can do about it, Esmerelda proposes leaving. She's the one who suggests they run away together. He agrees, and they plan to leave the following night. It's a small detail, but I think it's worth keeping in the picture. She's prepared to walk away from the position everyone else is so concerned with because she wants a life with someone her father refuses to accept. Her father learns about the plan and hires Blagg to make Morrigan disappear. He specifically wants it to look as though Morrigan left of his own free will. Esmerelda is supposed to believe she's been abandoned, while the person responsible gets to remain her father instead of becoming the person she knows she needs to escape. A fairy takes Morrigan, and a false letter claims he's chosen the fairy over Esmerelda. She's heartbroken. Blagg then approaches her with an explanation that gives her a reason to hope again: Morrigan is being held against his will, and her father arranged it. He leaves out his own involvement, of course. She knows him as her father's new adviser, and he makes himself useful by telling her something she badly needs to hear. Esmerelda goes into the forest with him. When they encounter the creatures guarding the fairy's fortress, she's right there with a sword, fighting. The scene doesn't give her a grand speech or spend pages establishing her training, but we can see her taking the risk herself. She's trying to reach Morrigan rather than waiting at the castle for someone to bring him home. Eventually she reaches her limit and says she doesn't think she can go on. Blagg offers to save Morrigan if she gives him something in return. Her answer is that she'll give anything. The narration describes her as having no choice but to make the deal. By the time we learn the price is marriage, we've already seen the desperation he used to get that agreement. What follows is particularly ugly because Esmerelda never gets the same information the reader does. Blagg kills the fairy, frees Morrigan and then burns his face with magic. He tells Morrigan that Esmerelda will only look at him with disgust. When the injured Morrigan reaches her, she screams and runs. Blagg follows and claims he arrived too late to stop the torture. I wouldn't take Blagg's claim that Morrigan has lost her love forever as the final word on what she feels. He's just caused the injuries and is actively lying about them. We see her frightened reaction, but we don't get a later conversation where she explains it to Morrigan. The story moves them apart before they can work through what happened. Calling her shallow and moving on would leave the man arranging all of this comfortably out of the discussion. Back at the castle, her father objects to her marrying Blagg. Esmerelda insists on keeping her word. She tells her father that, unlike him, she is honorable, and that Blagg fulfilled his part of the agreement. We know she's wrong about what Blagg did. She doesn't. Her decision comes from believing he saved someone she loved, combined with knowing her father betrayed her. That makes the wedding painful to read. Earlier, she was ready to leave so she could choose whom to be with. Now she believes honoring her promise means marrying the man who sabotaged that future. Blagg becomes successor to the throne through their marriage. He understands the political value of her position perfectly well, even while pretending his part in her life was an act of rescue. Her father falls ill and eventually dies. Once Blagg has the crown, he says Esmerelda has no further value to him and leaves her to his men. Morrigan returns to fight him, is captured, and accepts the Dark One's bargain to become Death. He kills Blagg and his followers, but Esmerelda is already dead when he reaches her. She doesn't get a reunion or the chance to learn the full truth and answer for herself. That's the part that keeps her story from feeling settled just because Blagg is killed. Esmerelda had been making plans, taking risks and trying to hold herself to a standard she thought mattered. Those choices are all there on the page, even though the people around her keep deciding what she should be allowed to know. Remembering her only as the loss that created Death misses the woman who was trying to build a life before any of that happened.