Dear  Lisa:

I read and watched the story line and photos from the movie Ever  After because you wrote about it, how you can relate to the character Danielle.

The story takes place in France in the 16th century. Auguste de  Barbarac, a widower and father  to 8 year old Danielle, marries a woman, Rodmilla de Ghent, a haughty baroness with two daughters, Marguerite (cruel) and  Jacqueline (kind). Later he dies of a heart  attack.  By the time Danielle is 18, the estate has fallen into decline and Danielle is forced to be a servant to  Rodmilla and her daughters.

One day Danielle stops a man from stealing her father’s horse, it was Prince  Henry…. Later, King Francis tells Henry that he is throwing a masquerade ball where he must  choose a bride… Meanwhile,  Rodmilla schemes to marry  Marguerite to Henry. Later… Danielle catches Rodmilla and Marguerite stealing her  mother’s dress and slippers. When Marguerite insults Danielle’s mother, Danielle punches her and  chases her  through the manor...  Later Danielle is whipped as punishment… Later she  is locked in the pantry by Rodmilla but Da Vinci helps free her, and makes her a  pair of wings to wear to the  ball with her  mother’s dress and slippers. In the ball, Rodmilla exposes Danielle’s identity (as her servant) and Henry angrily rejects Danielle. Danielle bursts into tears and runs away, leaving a slipper behind… Danielle is sold to a lecherous landowner who makes sexual advances towards  Danielle, but frees her after she threatens him with his own weapons. Henry finds  her, apologizes to her, calls her  by her true name, places the  slipper on her foot and proposes to  her. ..  Later, Rodmilla is stripped of her title by Queen Marie and she and Marguerite (Danielle is introduced to them at this point as Prince Henry’s wife) are sentenced to work as servants in the palace laundry. Jaqueline, because she was  kind to Danielle,  is spared of this punishment, marries Laurent, the  captain of the  guard who she  met at the  ball and moves into the palace with the royal family.

About  the movie, a critic said (Wikipedia): “This  novel variation is still set in the once-upon-a-time 16th century, but it features an active, 1990s-style heroine- she argues about  economic theory and  civil rights with her royal suitor- rather  than a  passive, exploited hearth sweeper…”

You wrote  about the scene at the  ball: “Imagine someone telling  that  character well t he  way you were treated is all your fault. Danielle is outspoken and  it does cause  her grief. That is certainly true.”

My thoughts: Danielle is made to be a servant and treated  poorly by her evil stepmother (and evil step sister) following bad luck, Danielle’s mother  dying, then her father remarrying an evil woman and  then, her father dying, leaving  Danielle to the mercy of her evil stepmother and stepsister. It  is similar to your story having  been born into bad luck, being sent  away as a baby, then growing  up with an older sister who actually was your  birth mother, unbeknownst to you, thinking your grandparents are your parents, and  that  their older  children are  your siblings, spending lots  of  time  in your room alone, escaping the drama in the  house by blocking your room door, staying  inside, daydreaming of  a  better  life, of  love.

And like Danielle, you have  strong opinions and you voiced them and you too are strong and  courageous, but  unlike Danielle you didn’t  meet a prince and didn’t  marry him.

You wrote “Ella” when you meant to  write Danielle at one  point. Ella was the character who played Cinderella in the 2015 movie Cinderella. In that movie Ella lost her mother at a young age, promises “to follow her mother’s dying wishes: to have courage and be  kind” (quote from Wikipedia, these are your values, Lisa: courage and  kindness, just like Ella’s!), Her father remarries Lady Tremaine who has two daughters. Ella welcomes her new stepfamily, despite the  stepsisters’ unpleasant attitudes. Lady Tremaine slowly reveals her cruel and jealous nature when  Ella’s father goes abroad  for business, as  she  pushes  Ella to  give up her bedroom to the stepsisters for the attic. Ella’s father unexpectedly dies during the trip and Lady Tremaine dismisses the  household to save money and forces all of the  chores on Ella..  she  and her daughters mock Ella and forbid her from eating with them… Later, on the night of the ball, Ella tries to join her stepfamily, but lady Tremaine and her daughters tear her dress to shreds and  leave without  her. Ella runs into the garden in tears (she didn’t punch or threaten with weapons, that  is, she didn’t  fight like  Danielle did) and meets an old beggar woman who reveals herself to be her Fairy Godmother. The Fairy Godmother magically transforms a pumpkin into a golden carriage.. and she transforms Ella’s ripped dress into a gorgeous blue gown, complete with a pair of magical glass slippers.

I wonder, Lisa, when you were a young girl in your grandparents’ house, older siblings around, lots  of drama, loud voices and you alone in your room, blocking the door so no one can get in, were you reading Cinderella (the story before Ella and Danielle), daydreaming about  being Cinderella, being discovered by a prince, rescued from that  house, delivered from being  invisible or unappreciated  into being  seen and valued  as the princess so to speak, the  princess that you really are…?

anita