P=Prince Charming=Bookish Confession#16

P=Prince Charming=Bookish Confession#16

For all those who grew up reading fairy tales, they know about Prince Charming. I recall watching a sponsored YouTube video on Facebook which told how wrong these stories were! Here is the link for it.

My confession about these stories is somewhat different. It is not that I did not grow on up on this story, I did grow up on them too. But I was given a healthy dose of reality too alongside by my mother who made me “fiercely independent”(I do recall comparing her to the evil stepmother sometimes).

These are the stories where there is a damsel in distress, and then there is a prince charming. I have a gripe against damsel in distress thing too, but that gripe is comparatively smaller the one I have against the way the Prince Charming is shown in the stories: handsome, polite, courteous, the best conversationalist, the understanding person, and of course, brave and persistent.

I don’t think the Prince who will come to the rescue is charming. Charming ones are too engrossed in themselves, eh? Either he is not a Prince, or even if he is, he is the one with obnoxious mood swings. Then there are the princes who have verbal diarrhea and can speak utter nonsense (One has to really wonder whether the distress was better than the prince). The rock princes are there too whose mouths have to be pried open to get a word out of them. There are princes who are control freaks. And these are just the people I have encountered. I am sure if you think hard enough you will find a non-charming prince of your life too.

Most of the time, either they are prince, or they are charming. And I don’t think there is anything wrong in this. We all have our faults. Princes have their own too. Rather than showing them as a perfect person, why not show them as a real person with their own faults and rewrite the qualities that make them a prince.  All the stories need not have a charming prince. The presentation of the children’s stories shall be a bit grounded in reality. Not everyone might have a mother like mine who believe in making the damsel independent.

As for me, I never had a chance to dream like all the girls about the Prince Charming . Like many of the girls who thought about being saved by the Prince Charming, I did think about them from time to time, and in the end I just ended up saving the princes rather than being saved by them. I never had to learn the lesson hard way like many of the other ladies.

O= One True Pairing= Bookish Confession#15

For O, I have selected OTP. I know these days OTP is more synonymous with one time password (at least in India it is), but for me, OTP will first be one true pairing and shipping wars. Have you ever been in shipping wars? When you are so into the story that you just want two characters to be together and rest of the characters(character, if it’s a triangle love story) to slink away from the pages of the book?

OTP is a little less heard word in the book world (at least in my limited book world), but it is quite common in the dramaland.  If you look at wikidpedia, there are types of shipping and OTPs defined too.  I have never put them in practice, but it’s an amusing thing to think about the king of OTP I am utilizing.

When I read the books, I tend to ship characters. Sometimes I get so engrossed in the story, that I would be murmuring on my own to be own. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I have to make dialogues in my mind to bring the OTP characters together, and I think the weirdest part is that the character might not be having any romantic association in the story. But then shipping and OTP is an integral part of the story, and giving the life to the characters is an integral part of reading experience (I have been known to give dialogues to villains too, but that’s for another post).

The only thing that I have not done is fight or argue with the people about who should be the OTP of the series. I have seen it happening, but never participated in it. Probably the urge has not been that strong or maybe, I am a tolerant person with the views (This really is a distant possibility).

Do you take part in shipping? Find OTPs in the dramas and books?