Fantasy as Antifantasy: 11 Postmodernist Strategy of Antifantasy -- The Ridiculous in The Last Unicorn concluded

Both the incorporation of familiar sense of base reality and the out-of-tune anachronism can be regarded as instances of phase transition shown in the gradual hierarchical structure of this “manga” element. Therefore, I will focus on the dynamics of this “manga” element and further examine the actual examples of the manifestation of the antifantasy mechanism in The Last Unicorn.
As Schmendrick is able to perform only tricky magics, he tries to threaten his enemy with his clever words, even hinting at the use of mystical judo holds, instead of demonstrating arts of terrifying magic.

The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds.


The list of threatening words presented here, is also a classic example of an “anticlimactic catalogue.” After various magical arts are mentioned, it is the secret technique of judo relying only on a completely different dimension of phony menace that is referred to, where most powerful spell should be brought up, as if abandoning the lofty superiority of magic. In addition, “The secret Judo hold” serves to evoke the everyday nature of vulgar contemporary America, as an example of anachronism. Karate and Judo, which are commonly used as synonyms for Eastern mysteries, must have been forbidden words in the lofty fantasy world developed on magical perspective, even in the flirtatious modern American culture. It is easy to see that this use of anachronism in The Last Unicorn is an effective cover for the close construction of the “manga” element of the work.
Following part is also a very “manga” like description. This is a depiction of the soldiers guarding the castle of King Haggard, the symbolic villain in this story.

Both men were clad in homemade mail -- rings, bottlecaps, and links of chain sewn onto half cured hides --


What we have here is an insipid descriptive attitude, as if revealing the inside of a handmade costume at a school show in a close-up. If we understand the mechanism of accepting fictional works as an act of promoting make-believe on the part of the reader, what is being developed here is nothing but the blatant exposure of the “making-of” part that hinders the “believe” procedure. Without doubt, the author deliberately employs these manga depiction methods. Attebery attributed Beagle’s lack of confidence as a creator to the world he was describing, that led to this behavior of disruptive writing. However, this flimsy sense of reality that permeates the work is actually considered to reflect the characteristic temperament of the postmodernist fantasy, manifested in the act of narrative depiction which is deeply related to the fundamental theme of The Last Unicorn, and seems to illuminate 70’ s American culture and its philosophical situation. (note)

note:
The characteristics of Peter S. Beagle’s peculiar sense of reality are manifested in his short story “Lila the Werewolf”. This werewolf story set in contemporary New York, depicts everyday life occurrences through the eye of the protagonist Farrell, who is a lover of a werewolf girl, and whose talent is acceptance, the ability of ever-detached bystander. Through its surreal and unrealizable chase scenes set in the city at night, this work seems to disclose that reality is nothing more than a volatile additive, studded in the surface of dream, wonder and fantasy.


The unicorn in Beagle’s fantasy is said to have several other unique attributes not found in the legends of unicorns we have been used to. The symbolic traits drawn as the embodiment of the unicorn in this work is that its very existence is said to have a transcendent significance equivalent to the power of magic as an absolute principal mechanism, and the fact that the figure of the unicorn itself functions as the standard of extreme judgment criteria and is considered the measure of the most beautiful thing in the world. But above all, the crucial part of a unicorn is that she is one of the few “real” things in the world full of deceptive falsehoods. The idea of calling imitations of “authentic” things “fake” only exposes a poor cognitive ability that can only see “fakes.” The existence of “real” as an absolute attribute that each of beings a priori holds on its own or never, is one of the axial components that construct the world of The Last Unicorn. In this story, any original existing thing that does not have the innate and principal attributes of “real” is nothing more than a pitiful being determined to belong to the shabby category of “fake.”
It can be pointed out that one of the implicit aspirations of fantasy literature is to depict as a background a world, where the manifestation of sublime that underpins the existence of the absolute principle, is possible. As an aspect, The Last Unicorn needs to follow the orthodox fantasy criterion and depict the “real” as the embodiment of the universal principle that forms the axis of world composition, and for this reason, everything other than these absolutes, including our real world in which this work is contained, must be described with the stigma of being “fake.” In The Last Unicorn, only a few others can claim to be “real” on behalf of her presence. One of the keywords chosen as a special adjective to describe such “real” beings in this work, is the word “old.” In this story, in which those who focus on attaining true existence and are tasked with awakening and aspiration to the sole raison d’etre of existence, claim to be “old” following the standard represented by unicorns, and anything that fail to be “old” or abandon the target of becoming “old” reveal their existence as shallow fakes. Manga factor in antifantasy was a ruthless stamp that was assumed to be indispensable, and marked as an indicator for describing the contrasting attribute located in the hyperbole of this “old” nature.
In such a consciousness plane, it was rather natural that those things rooted in the real-world America, an empire of industrial capitalism dominated by technology and democracy, had to be portrayed as flimsy imitations, not only the things outside the work but also the fictional works within the real world. What the author is telling is no more than a story, and the act of telling the lie of a fiction as if it were a plausible truth must be outrageous for a sincere liar. Only a sincere attitude of talking about a fiction as a lie should be qualified to tell the improbable truths that lurk behind fictionality. An honest liar who does not have the audacity to preach high opinions on the art of restoring lost truths, will paint idyllic false dreams on the canvas of non-existence, having disclaimer of fiction stand out.
By detecting the manga factor this way, it is possible to determine that The Last Unicorn is correctly positioned on the extension of the non-existent narrative that connects Neverland and Utopia. Along with a sober passion for rejecting subordination to any authority, a naive self-awareness that excludes deception and falsehood, prevails in this work, even taking the form of a confession of faith of sincere devotion to nihilism.
Precarious perception of reality that emerges as if to underpin both tense nihilism and aspiration for the otherworldly regions, combined with serene attitude as if trying to listen to the tunes of the heavenly music in the quietude of inner space behind sound and fury, pervades throughout The Last Unicorn. It is a good indication of the return to the irony that dominated the German Romantics in the mid-19th century, that took place in the late 20th century America. Antifantasy was nothing but a form of contemporary manifestation of Romantic irony. Both Peter and Wendy and The Last Unicorn are furnished with all the grammar of fantasy, especially the caricature element of consciously developed logical contradiction that is manifested in its particular way of including everything in the individual part, and of clearly recognizing fantasy as an object and objectively describing it as external entity. It goes without saying that the awareness of recursive structure verified above was nothing but the particular nature of Romantic irony.
The awareness that always makes a sharp distinction between truth and falsehood is dominant in The Last Unicorn. The author reconstructed the legendary unicorn into a revolutionary mythical being that stands for universal truth. Unicorns are the most beautiful in the world, so they are the only ultimate true beings, and therefore should be forever good. The legend of the unicorn will be retold anew as an entity that plays the role of axis of the world where everything makes sense, as a core original being that should guarantee the meaning of all existences, as a manifested entity that reflects the universal principal mechanism, and as one of the phases of heavenly music that has descended on the earth. The unicorn is an indicator of the concept of “universal”, linked with alliteration, the magic of analogy. In response to the curse represented in the relationship between Peter and Hook, that scientific positivism has unsealed, a deadly consequence of the fundamental barren that accompanies the act of pursuing meaning and has led to the entire annihilation of the meaning of it, unicorns and other mythical creatures are functioning in The Last Unicorn, as a graceful manifestation of the counter spell that vanquishes the vicious spell that brings about the terrible disintegration of the entire universe. As a background contrast prepared to highlight its existence, the strategy has been narrated in the context of antifantasy rhetoric, orchestrated by the corps entrenched in the guise of “manga” nonsense, where stupidity and absurdity of all those who are not “old” are exposed. Ironically, legitimate pretenders who should have won the royal throne of fantasy, had to appear under the mask of antifantasy in the vanity empire in the late 20th century America, after the nightmares of Disney Land and Las Vegas are materialized.