Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-23825768-20131014200333/@comment-23825768-20131014203235

Okay I will start: one poem which has come to mind for me recently while viewing and reviewing Spice and Wolf is "The Lady of Shallot"  [text] by Alfred Lord Tennyson  Probobly not the first choice for many. But in Tennyson's victorian vision of an Arthurian romance contains elements that also turn up in the Wolf and Spice narrative. In the poem a young magical lady, a fey, is trapped, just as Holo is trapped within the wheat of  Pasloe. She has a purpose where she is, the lady spins on a tapastry a record of all she sees. Holo helps the harvest. But both are utterly isolated--Holo's misery comes from being forgotten: "Loneliness is a poison" she says. When the lady sees within her magic mirror the image of two young lovers lately wed she murmers "I am half sick of shadows." Into both their worlds comes a young man. Lawrence for Holo, Sir Lancelot for the Lady. The tragic aspect of the Lady is that show knows that if she tries to escape, she will bring down a mortal curse upon herself. However she makes the desperate choice anyway and looking out of the tower window begins a journey which ends with her dying before she even reaches Camelot. Lancelot gives her God's blessing while the rest use their religion to hide from her. Holo does not know what will happen (and neither do we) but there is no doubt that she takes a terrible risk when she hides herself in Lawrence's wagon. They may mock at being Princess and knight, but the potential for grief fills the story lines of both seasons.