07 April

Unacknowledged Virtue of The Last Unicorn: New Movement of Reevaluation of The Last Unicorn concluded

Descriptions that exhibit self-referential reflexive tendencies often exert the effect of nonsense that destroys the construction of meaning, and the depicted matter loses a specific referent, so the description becomes a context that speaks of “nonexistence.” To the unicorn who laments that she has been transformed into a human form, Schmendrick says the following words that are actually quite dubious.

“It would make no difference to you if I had changed you into a rhinoceros, which is where the whole silly myth got started. But in this guise you have some chance of reaching King Haggard and finding out what has become of your people. As a unicorn, you would only suffer their fate —- unless you think you could defeat the Bull if you met him a second time.”


These are the words of the wizard Schmendrick, who has become the mediator of the change, in excuse of his enforcement of magic, in which the unicorn was brutally turned into a human girl. Although this magician is inexperienced in the art of exercising magic, he has outstanding judgment when it comes to the deep implication of magic and its comprehensive interpretation of the principles concerning the creation and transformation of events. What he calls “silly myth” is nothing but the unicorn legend. Schmendrick knows that unicorns are imaginary beings derived from the hearsay related to rhinoceros. A sober viewpoint outside the work that perceives the existence of unicorns as fiction is implied here.

In the animated film The Last Unicorn, as a visual expression that suggests the non-existence of unicorns, they have devised a way to juxtapose the shadow of the false unicorn with the narwhals in the sea, which caused another origin of the unicorn legend. (note)

note:
As for the risky fictional traits exhibited in The Last Unicorn’s self-destructive tendencies, there is a detailed discussion on the manifestation of self-reflective irony in the author’s study, “The ‘Manga’ in The Last Unicorn: Postmodern Strategy of Antifantasy”, included in Fantasy as Antifantasy (2005).


And this twisted intellectual inclination disguised as infantilism is a speculative act of a new trend that originated in Peter and Wendy, and is now flourishing in many Japanese manga, game and anime works.

In the animated film The Last Unicorn, against the backdrop of tapestries depicting false unicorns that people have accepted through legends, a reflective description of a true unicorn disguised in a human shape is presented.

note:
cited images from the animated film The Last Unicorn are not available on this blog. Please refer to the "X" posts for them.
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