Happy April’s Fool, everyone!

The topic of this month’s Drollerie Press Blog Tour is focused on ‘the fool’.  This character, featured in so many myths, fairy tales, and even in a deck of Tarot cards, should, at a first glance, be – well, foolish, really.  Silly. Dumb?  Perhaps, on occasion.  But boring?  Never.

So, what makes the Fool such an irresistible character?

First, some dictionary definitions:

The Fool, according to answers.com  is:

1. One who is deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding.
2. One who acts unwisely on a given occasion: I was a fool to have quit my job.
3. One who has been tricked or made to appear ridiculous; a dupe: They made a fool of me by pretending I had won.
4. Informal. A person with a talent or enthusiasm for a certain activity: a dancing fool; a fool for skiing.
5. A member of a royal or noble household who provided entertainment, as with jokes or antics; a jester.
6. One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth: a holy fool.
7. A dessert made of stewed or puréed fruit mixed with cream or custard and served cold.
8. Archaic. A mentally deficient person; an idiot.

An emerging image is of someone who acts unwisely and can be easily tricked, but also is talented, enthusiastic, foregoes social conventions – one, in fact, who is perhaps naïve but does not play by the rules.   

For a reader, such a character is easy to identify with.  Making mistakes, after all, makes us human, and we would rarely frown upon a naïve idealist who got tricked by the world’s villains.  But also, more importantly, such a person is a natural leader – one who does not follow conventions, one who is not afraid to look foolish when he stands up for what is right.  In the end, we all want the Fool to succeed, and watching him do it is what constitutes the happily ever after in a good fairy tale.

In my upcoming novel Ivan-and-Marya – a dark fantasy based on Russian myth – the fool theme is central to the plot.  The main character, Ivan-the-Fool, faces the beautiful and cunning sorceress, Marya, on his quest to put a stop to her father’s cult of virgin sacrifice.   Ivan’s pure heart – a dangerous trait that has originally won him his much resented nickname – makes him an unexpected challenge to Marya, who has believed love to be forbidden to her until she met Ivan face-to-face.  Shaken to the roots, Marya throws all her deadly magic against Ivan.  But is she a match to the Fool?

Watch for the upcoming release of Ivan-and-Marya from Drollerie Press.

And, while you are at it, check out author Angela Korra’ti’s blog post on Foolery, as well as other great posts from the Drollerie Press Blog Tour.