Sublime

The part played in a Western fairy tale by the wicked stepmother is, in much of India, played by the powerful and evil mother-in-law. From traditional folk song to Bollywood film, she is an archetypal character: the bitch-power, the devil woman, the old hag whose tests must be overcome for our heroine to advance into her own power. Whole soap-opera

Snow Queen. I imagine you’ve heard of her. I imagine you think you know her. A bad sort, evil through and through. I thought it too. Believed the men who wrote down our stories, for didn’t they always know best? Didn’t they always know true? The men knew – or so they said. The men had always plenty of things to say.