A while after the hour that this post goes up, one year ago, I published the Saga of the Crocus, Prologue + Book I + Interlude, as a fanfiction online. Find out more about it here: Saga of the Crocus. But one year is deceptive. I had been working on it for at least nine months.
But of course, it’s the publication that counts as the first breath of life into a work.
The Saga was always meant to be the centrepiece of this blog. And thus, once it was published, and the links to the chapters were in place on the page linked to above, there wasn’t much more to do.
Of course, Book II lies incomplete, but since Book I is now so obscure that Google can’t find it even if I were to write an exact quote into the search bar, I will excuse myself for having delayed the publication of Book II.
To all those who have read my poem, in full, or in part: I may know you, or I may not. I thank you for sitting through possibly some of the most convoluted text in half-English you would have read in a while. I sincerely hope you found it worth your time.
Reflections on Book I
Book I is the culmination of my very sombre take on Frozen. This is certainly an influence from the Musical, which takes a darker plunge into the psyche of Elsa in Frozen (2013), and from Frozen II (2019), which overall was more sombre.
The tone I’ve used to write the Saga is not good for writing the sort of innocent, quirky humour that Olaf provides to the movies (more so in Frozen (2013)). Kristoff’s role in Frozen II is also difficult to translate into the Saga. As a result, I tend to focus on Elsa and Anna, and, with the influence of Frozen II, on their journey from innocent princesses to troubled queens and negotiators with spirits. Also, the Frozen-based alt-hist fanfiction I’ve been following at The Arendelle Guardian gives me plenty of reason to refine the seriousness of my own story.
But writing Book I itself has been an inspiring effort. I developed narrative elements of my own: for example, Elsa is the Queen of Snow (from the original Danish Snedronningen), and also the Queen of Light (from Heimr Arnadalr), so I reimagined Anna as the Queen of Gold. Later, I reinvented Queen Iduna as the ‘true’ Queen of Light, being one of the People of the Sun and all.
Also, I call Anna Elsa’s Sentinel (always watching out for her), and describe Elsa’s powers as originating from a Guardian within her – much like how the Hulk protects the MCU’s Bruce Banner (‘I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out’, or something like that). At the same time, she is a Guardian in her own right – she is Anna’s Guardian, and they are both the Sentinel/Guardian of the people they watch over.
These ideas were developed slowly over quite some time. But these images are also all present in She Is Trapped Who Fears Her Guardian. If I had never written Book I, I doubt I would ever have found the words for that poem, which I consider one of the better ones I’ve written so far (and not just among those which are Frozen-related!)
Book I was my first epic poem, and I knew from the get go that ‘not every line would be a golden line’. There would be lines which were awkward, or confusing, or strangely worded – but I told myself that on the whole, the good lines should outweigh the bad lines.
With the experience I have gained from writing Book I, I have changed my linguistic style for the next epic poems I have planned. It’s probably too late to change style for Book II – there’d be a risk of stylistic clash anyway – but for future projects, I hope that the balance of good lines to bad lines will tip further in the good lines’ favour.
Well, I’ve just been rambling, but I want to thank everyone who knows about this blog for your attention and support. Let us see what the next September will bring.
Follow northwinds cold; forge though seas resist.
Queendom of the Crocus 