Grimm Forum

I've been pondering this question and positing various ideas amongst other posts during discussions that touched on them. I have plumped finally for the Royals being mages, since the supernatural mojo has well and truly been let out of the bag, then why even try to stay pseudo realistic, when you can have mages battling across Portland, flashes of magical explosion with the St. Johns Bridge as a backdrop or a fireball taking out the Oregon Convention Center. I think it could even be done reasonably well on a TV budget given the state of the TV computer effects that I have seen over the last couple of years. Perhaps throw in a couple of magically created full scale dragons as weapons of mass destruction Imagine this scene,Sean Renard and Victor throwing streams of lighting at each other across the precinct floor, police officers firing at both, pointlessly as their bullets bounce off rippling shields made of magical energy, the Werratt and Nick along with the scoobie gang fighting each other as each side protects their mage from physical attack , I definitely read way too much Tolkien when I was young

It could still tenuously be argued that the kiss cure of the Royal's could have some genetic component and the kiss is a crude delivery mechanism. I really need to go back to the 3 episodes encapsulating this and check whether the kiss needed to specifically come from a Royal that was pure of heart or whether it needed to simply come from someone pure of heart, this would make a significant difference as to whether Royals are shown as magic or not but again even if a Royal was necessary it may be something within their makeup that coupled with the tincture that was taken created the requisite antidote within his system, that was then delivered through the exchange in saliva.

It was the stuff with Adalind's re-witching that switched the show form pseudo-realistic to the realms of pure fantasy for me. I myself really liked the original seeming ethos of a reality based look at the Grimm tales, but I can live with the shift to a more fantastic world. Perhaps I am forgiving because I have a love of fantasy fiction therefore can make allowances, but I do understand the pain some feel over the shift, I just hope most can get past it and continue to enjoy the show.

Very good folks. Interesting discussion.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the royals having some mage like abilities. But please, no "Gandalf vs Saruman" mage battles! That would ruin the show for me.

I think the show crossed over into pure fantasy back in season 1 when Nick's blood "exorcised" the hexenbeist from Adalind. Up till then, you could think of wesen as just having weird DNA. But that incident went well into the realm of the supernatural.

But as a fantasy fan since childhood, (I was corrupted by a nun. More on that in The Lounge.), I have no problem with the show being fantasy. As mentioned above, the episodes with La Llorona, Volcanalis and Adalind rewitching just reinforced what was already established.

One interesting fact from the panel discussion at Comic-Con was in answer to the question of a young girl. JK and the rest of the cast and crew were quite clear about the Royal's just being regular people. That they were not wesen and did not possess any kind of special power. Hmm.

I believe there must be something special about the Royals due to the fact that there blood is distinguishable from others and I think the reason that Adalind's baby is so strong is because of that Royal blood being some form of catalyst when it was introduced into the offsring of the more "magical" wesen pairing of a Zauberbiest and Hexenbiest.

(09-20-2014, 11:50 PM)Spook Wrote: [ -> ]I believe there must be something special about the Royals due to the fact that there blood is distinguishable from others and I think the reason that Adalind's baby is so strong is because of that Royal blood being some form of catalyst when it was introduced into the offsring of the more "magical" wesen pairing of a Zauberbiest and Hexenbiest.

I agree with you that it would appear to be the case, but we have yet to see any real corroborating evidence of this. Everything has been hearsay and circumstantial at best so until the writers/show runners decide to drop in something more definitive we're all just whistling in the wind. One could even argue that all wesen are offshoots of the Royal bloodlines (whether produced by manufacture, or magic or even accident). The Royal bloodline whilst being pure and unadulterated is simply human, however the wesen bloodlines are bastardised/impure versions of this and only when you combine a Royal bloodline with a wesen bloodline do you get a vastly more powerful version of the wesen, taking the dominant traits from both genetic parents. I know this is a rather large leap but still not outside the bounds of reason as we still have bugger all real data to make an kind of reasonable guesses from.

I've been thinking about this a lot (too much probably) and I don't think I want the Royals to have superpowers or magic that they control. I see it as more of a power of personality, part of who they are, the ability to influence and draw people to them.

Really, when you think about it, how did Royals become Royals in the first place? By convincing people around them that they were the ones to follow and building on that until they had many, many people convinced they were the ones to follow/obey. Eventually this builds it's own structure until it's self sustaining, but until then, power of personality is what holds it together.

I see this in the Captain. For starters, he's pretty young in his position in the Portland PD, he must have impressed people to gain that position so early. Then there are his co-conspirators, he's managed to gather a number of people around himself who are putting themselves in harms way by going against his family. Now they may have their own reasons for plotting against the Royals, but the Captain is calling the shots.

It's also interesting to look at his relationship with the Lauffer. While there may be some who are uneasy about linking themselves with the Captain, there are several who are perfectly happy taking orders from him. From what I've seen, the ones who are uneasy are those who have had little or no personal contact with the Captain, while the others seem to know him reasonably well. Perhaps the power only works in person?

I can see how if this is an inherited trait, it would be valuable. That power to influence/command people coupled with some other powers could be world changing.

And now I'm rambling. I promise this all makes sense in my head.

@Altered Reality. I don't think you're rambling. The 'cult of personality' has always been very real throughout human history, and almost impossible to understand to anyone who wasn't there personally. Even then it is very hard for those affected themselves to understand or explain.

History is filled with examples. Alexander, Napolean, Ceaser, and on and on. Individuals who have a force of personality so strong that they can make people believe in and follow them even when it violates the basic morality they were raised with.

I think the most telling example I know of from fairly modern history is that between Hitler and Albert Speer. Speer later admitted during the Nuremburg Trials and his autobiography that he knew what he was doing was wrong. It violated every core belief he was raised with and yet he still followed Hitler slavishly until almost the very end, when he began to show some signs of rebellion, only after he knew Hitler was leading Germany to destruction. Even then, when Hitler killed himself, Speer wept for him!

Speer didn't even have the excuse of following the mob. Although he and his mother became devout Nazis, his father and his wife openly despised them and urged him for years to disassociate himself from Hitler and the Nazis in no uncertain terms. In fact, in not for Speer's influence in the Nazi heirarchy, it's very likely the latter two individuals would have ended up in concentration camps. They were that outspoken.

William L. Shirer, who wrote "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich", and who despised Hitler from the very beginning, admitted that the man had the ability to move people in an uncanny way. Even if you knew what he was saying was bullshit, you still almost believed him. So, I suppose that kind of 'force of personality' could be considered a 'magical power', from a certain point of view.

If you're interested in this part of history I recommend Shirer's book, and "Inside The Third Reich", Speer's autobiography. The latter was also made into a TV mini-series back in the 70's. Excellent cast (Derek Jacobi played Hitler, Rutger Hauer as Speer and John Geilgud as Speer's father). I recommend it, if you can find a copy. The last I heard it was only available on VHS!

(Speer was the only high ranking Nazi who freely admitted to his crimes, and the only one spared the death penalty.)

Thanks @wfmyers1207 for the reassurance that what I was trying to get across wasn't lost in translation. Things always sound better in my head.

And that's a great example of what I was thinking, that sort of power to convince someone to believe in you/follow you against themselves even. If that was a trait the was inheritable? The potential for mayhem, well!

Mind, it would seem that if it is something that the Royals have and it's inherited, not all Royals get it in equal measure. Victor I'm looking at you