What the writer might have been driving at:
CPR as a wake-up kiss. No brainer there, but in the days of the Ambu bag and facial guards for those times that you do mouth-to-mouth, few people would do it in a hospital setting. You'd have to be really sure of who you're dealing with. So the rescue breaths in this case are significant.
The slighted fairy takes revenge. Yep. Another obvious thing. When we slight others especially in a showy way it is not unreasonable that they will take it out on us when the chance presents itself. This applies to all sorts of people. Plenty of those we overlook muster the strength to become powerful in little ways that we may eventually need. Don't be mean to people. You never know.
A totally sheltered child refuses to mature. In this case she stays sleeping for 900 years, but how many middle aged babies do you know who have never had to deal with the spindles and thorns of life (in this adaptation, the daddy-king pays people to remove the thorns from the roses).The Maximalist knows many. Sometimes they just stay immature and others do terribly destructive things to either "break free" or push the limits of their protection, for if there are no consequences nothing is truly forbidden. Our sleeping beauty was spared from all decisions and dangers, she decided not to participate. Eventually she teamed up with a man who was weaker and sicker than herself. I suppose this falls within the "destructive" category. Beauty makes the Sebastian Flyte choice and falls for someone she must care for.
Protecting a child from responsibility will cost you. In this case it took 900 years, but daddy-king ended up with a condo instead of a kingdom as he kept his child safe from responsibility and danger.
No one can live 900 years, 900 days or 900 hours sleeping without food or water. Apart from a fairy tale princess it can't be done, so let's not accept it as more than a metaphor for sheltered life away from "the real world", shall we? Good. As this is the stuff of fairy tales anyway. The Beast in "Beauty and the Beast" was merely a nasty self-centered fellow who people avoided.He acted like a wild animal, he wasn't one. The "real princess" in the "Princess and the Pea" was outrageously spoiled. Why a mom would want someone that "sensitive" for her son is another matter and "happily ever after" is open to interpretation. In that case, the Queen and the new Princess probably whined to their hearts' content over every intolerable trifle. Sad. But I think in the pea story the author was aiming for satire, don't you?
SPOILER: Daddy-king dies as the child grows up. Or does the child grow up when the protection passes into history? I am not convinced that the author really believes that dad's job/life is done when Beauty awakens. Seems the opposite is the more likely case. Her life was asleep, on hold, until daddy's care was gone and she had to wake up or die. No, I take that back...in the story "the handsome prince" was a planned successor protector. This princess said "no way". Had she been allowed life's little deprivations perhaps a handsome prince would have been more appealing as it was for Cinderella. This one just wanted to be "free". In Sleeping Beauty Wakes it is clear that the consequences of freedom were never considered. This is pretty realistic, actually. A protected child is free of protection and makes a crazy decision to team up with a young man with poor prospects and issues of his own. This one collapses when faced with strong emotion. Love, hate, frustration and responsibility all elicit strong emotions. A nice boy but not a strong one.
Anyway, the whole point is that we must allow our children to experience, loss, pain and failures along the road to maturity and adulthood. Frustrations are what makes people capable of handling frustrations and the crises which pepper our lives. They are also what makes us choose wisely and not impulsively as we begin to see the consequences of our actions.
It was a nice story even if you don't think about it too much. Good music and strong voices and a touch of humor. But if you look, there is more to this Beauty than meets the eye.
The refusal to wake up is the mother of all sleep disorders.Or is the Maximalist delusional?
Addendum: and please, dear author, no orderly or nursing assistant would ever have keys to the narc closet or legal access to that oversized syringe!
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