Tales of Grimm

For the first half of 2017, I am going to inject something new into my blog series for some variation - one Guest post each month! The first essay is by one of my sisters who is halfway through the first season of Grimm. Enjoy!

Grimm Season 1 – a different interpretation of fairy tales

The TV series Grimm asks the question—what if the fairy tales we know are in fact a distillation of a larger (fantastic) reality? And what if the protagonist is more feared than loved?

Set in the Pacific Northwest, already famous as the home of vampires and werewolves, Grimm has a surprisingly light touch when it comes to both its source material as well as any expectations of ‘grimness’ or darkness in the series.

Each episode starts with a quote from a fairy tale—familiar-sounding yet oblique enough that it may take you awhile to place it, at least until confirmed by other events. The series is conceived as a police procedural—crime drama, with Portland detective Burkhardt as the titular Grimm. While there is the usual murder, partner, lieutenant, and all the trappings of a police investigation, the conceit of the series is that each murder is committed by or connected to some fantasy creature who is somehow connected to a Grimm fairy tale. The creature looks human to other people, but not to a Grimm, who can “see them for what they are”.

Unlike other attempts to bring fairy tales to life, like Once Upon A Time or other reimaginations or modernizations, in Grimm, fairy tale characters are archetypes or representations of whole species of creatures. It’s difficult to illustrate this without giving spoilers, but let’s say, for example, that the Big Bad Wolf is not just a particular wolf, but he represents a whole race of wolves. Or the Bluebeard story grew from a race of creatures that likes to capture women and lock them up.

The idea, then, is similar to some fairy tale scholarship, which seeks to discover the function that traditional tales played in olden societies, passing down social mores and cultural values in the form of folk tales and children’s stories. Teaching children not to take sweets from strangers (you may find yourself in a witch’s oven!), for example, or what to do when you encounter a wolf—there are theories that Red Riding Hood had something to do with young girls reaching puberty.

Each storybook character in the Grimm TV series is thus not a ‘real’ historical person or creature, in a sense, but a distillation of a type. According to this series, the original Grimm’s fairy tales is not a collection of folk tales but a bestiary. The fairy tales are true, but not in the way you imagined. Talk about Fantastic Beasts.

In this world, Burkhardt finds out he is a Grimm—“you guys have been profiling us for centuries”, says one creature. Most creatures are afraid of Grimms—“you must hunt down and kill the bad ones”, says Aunt Marie, the librarian (that was her day job). Unlike in many coming-of-age stories, Burkhardt is an adult by the time he finds out about his special ancestry. It turns out his parents didn’t die in a car crash… oops, wrong story. (Though he does find out they didn’t die in an accident, and he gets his very own ‘Ron Weasley’, a creature who serves as a sidekick and guide through this strange new world).

What the Grimm series does well, particularly in contrast to the Harry Potter books, is that it does not take genetics as destiny. Instead of the quasi-genetic determinism which is a flaw in the otherwise excellent Potter series—notice how all Slytherins are bad, or at least nasty?—Grimm demonstrates the idea that people are not bound by their genes: there are creatures who do not necessarily act according to their traits. Not all individuals from predatory species continue to hunt, in this day and age. A genius emerges from a traditional underclass. Even the titular Grimm himself—Burkhardt—is not living up to his name and killing every creature he meets, although many clearly expect him to.

This is quite admirable, I find. After only the first few episodes of Season 1, there hasn’t been just a token ‘good guy’ out of all the evil/dark creatures. There are quite often people/creatures who transcend their ancestry. The lesson is also reinforced every time a new creature meets this strange new Grimm.

Finally, the Grimm series also brings up another interesting idea, quite prevalent in the fantasy realm but not so much in the modern world—that people are not what they seem. If some of these creatures, who look like normal people to you and me, are living among us, who’s to know? How can you tell if your barista is actually a blut-bad or your lawyer a jaeger-bar? (The series, appropriately enough, likes Germanic names).

As C.S. Lewis said, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare…” (from The Weight of Glory). 

So, as with all good fairy tales, you can read a lesson into this series. Appearances can be deceiving. Don’t take things at face value. And don’t assume you know what someone will do just based on their heritage—things may not be what they seem.

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But if you ARE in a fantasy world, do stay vigilant for those who are out to get you! There is, it turns out, a race of Reapers whose job is to go after Grimms…

P.S. If the series has one weakness, it is the lack of female leads (thus far in Season 1). Unlike other police procedurals of our time, like Bones, Mentalist, Castle, CSI, or even Criminal Minds, Portland PD seems strangely male-dominated. There are no female investigators featured, aside from the medical examiner. Even though Grimm is premised on archaic stories, it seems odd to not have a more significant female presence, in this day and age. However, girlfriend Juliet does start to play more of a role as the series goes on, and ‘Hermione’ may turn up in a later episode. So it does improve in this respect… In the meantime, the budding bromance between Burkhardt and ‘Ron’ provides the traditional banter and odd couple dynamic usually found between the male and female leads.