5 Reasons to Watch Ever After High
If you have even a passing interest in fairy tales and fables, I recommend watching “Ever After High”.
Yes, it is primarily a fashion doll line and yes the clothes in the cartoon range from slightly ridiculous to full on redonkulous, but don’t dismiss it just yet. Here are 5 reasons to give it a chance:
1. It deconstructs fables & fairy tales without a body count
Often it seems that when someone wants to “re-imagine” a story, it means to kill off lots of people in a crap-sack world, but who wants that?
In Ever After High, the children of fairy tale characters study to take their parents place in the tales in order to keep the stories alive. But what is someone doesn’t want the destiny that has been chosen for them? What is the future evil queen wants a happy ending or her own?
That question sets off the story that forces everyone to question if they want to follow destiny (aka, the Royals) or follow their heart (aka, the Rebels) and where it goes is a lot of fun.
2. It’s not as simple as it seems.
At a glance, it looks like the Royals vs Rebels conflict is going to be a full on “our side, their side” affair but it’s not.
While they may disagree with each other, the characters actually *try* to understand each other side. Even Apple White, daughter of Snow White, who clings the hardest to her destined story, tries to understand Raven Queen, daughter of the Evil Queen, and why she might not want her bad future.
Even the theme song shows its more than just us vs them:
“Cause you’re Royal, you’re Rebel, you’re more than one together…”
3. It has some surprisingly heartfelt moments.
For a cartoon that could just be a simple brand exercise for a toy line, there is some actual depth to some of the stories.
We see what these characters will go through to help their friends and families (and when you live in a fairy tale world, things can go wrong in very bad ways.)
For cartoons that on average are less than 5 minutes long (other than the specials), they pack in some pretty good humor. While the animation is sometimes a bit stiff, the face work really sells some of the jokes, and the voice cast is top notch.
It helps that there are a lot of character, so there are a lot of opportunities to have some screwball characters. (I’m looking at you, daughter of the Mad Hatter.)
5. Where Princesses are Powerful.
OK, that brand tagline is a little…eh, but it’s true that there are almost no damsels in distress in this show.
Pretty much every character is able and willing to get out there and do what needs to be done, no matter who they are.
Well, except maybe Sparrow Hood…that guy seems kind of lazy…