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A novel by Creator/OrsonScottCard, re-staging the "Literature/SleepingBeauty" myth in a new setting.

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A 1999 fantasy novel by Creator/OrsonScottCard, re-staging the "Literature/SleepingBeauty" myth in a new setting.
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They Do is now a disambig page; also this was a mega ZCE


* TheyDo
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Kill Em All was renamed Everybody Dies Ending due to misuse. Dewicking


First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch Literature/BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the UsefulNotes/CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.

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First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]].be. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch Literature/BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the UsefulNotes/CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.
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Not to be confused with the Creator/{{Disney}} film ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'', though both are affectionate {{Deconstruction}}s in which fairy tales collide head-first with modern-day New York citizens. OSC's novel, however, lacks {{Crowd Song}}s.

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Not No relations to be confused with the Creator/{{Disney}} film ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'', though both are affectionate {{Deconstruction}}s in which fairy tales collide head-first with modern-day New York citizens. OSC's novel, however, lacks {{Crowd Song}}s.
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"...And then they lived HappilyEverAfter?" Nope: RealityEnsues.

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"...And then they lived HappilyEverAfter?" Nope: RealityEnsues.
Nope.
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* BearsAreBadNews: Depending on how you look at it, this is either played straight or averted. Ensorcled by Baba Yaga's magic, Bear can now talk, and serves as her [[TheDragon Dragon]], but his dialogue and attitude make it clear that he's not the malicious sort.

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* BearsAreBadNews: Depending on how you look at it, this is either played straight or averted. Ensorcled Ensorcelled by Baba Yaga's magic, Bear can now talk, and serves as her [[TheDragon Dragon]], but his dialogue and attitude make it clear that he's not the malicious sort.
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* PunnyName: Coupled with BilingualBonus. Taina is a kingdom located in a magical world, unknown to the real world's history - and indeed, its very name literally means "secret" ("тайна") in Russian.
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* FishOutOfTemporalWater
* FirstGirlWins



* GenreSavvy: Ivan, by way of being a historian who has studied old fairy tales.



* LoadBearingBoss



* TheLowMiddleAges



* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted



* PhysicalGod
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A Man Is Not A Virgin is no longer a trope.


* AManIsNotAVirgin: Averted. Ivan wants to wait until marriage. (Ruth thought it was cute.)
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* TheLowMiddleAges
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* {{Expy}}: Father Lukas, the Christian priest of Taina, is basically a reskinned Bishop Peregrino from [[EndersGame Lusitania]].

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* {{Expy}}: Father Lukas, the Christian priest of Taina, is basically a reskinned [[Literature/SpeakerForTheDead Bishop Peregrino from [[EndersGame Lusitania]].
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First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch Literature/BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.

to:

First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch Literature/BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet UsefulNotes/CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.
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Ivan Smetski is a Russian Jew who isn't going to be Russian anymore: as soon as possible, his parents are emigrating to America, specifically a suburb in New York State, where Ivan will eventually grow up. Before they leave, though, his family sojourns at Cousin Marek's house, where Ivan, exploring in the woods, comes across an incredible tableau: a beautiful woman, sleeping on a bier, amidst a lake of leaves in which lives a giant bear. He doesn't get a chance to explore this until 1991, more than a decade later, when he returns to what was [[PleaseSelectNewCityName once the USSR but is now Ukraine]] to do a dissertation on RussianMythologyAndTales and whether they conform to ProppsFunctionsOfFolktales. While there, he visits Cousin Marek's farm and re-discovers the beautiful woman, who—after the bear has been subdued—needs to be awoken with a kiss...

to:

Ivan Smetski is a Russian Jew who isn't going to be Russian anymore: as soon as possible, his parents are emigrating to America, specifically a suburb in New York State, where Ivan will eventually grow up. Before they leave, though, his family sojourns at Cousin Marek's house, where Ivan, exploring in the woods, comes across an incredible tableau: a beautiful woman, sleeping on a bier, amidst a lake of leaves in which lives a giant bear. He doesn't get a chance to explore this until 1991, more than a decade later, when he returns to what was [[PleaseSelectNewCityName once the USSR but is now Ukraine]] to do a dissertation on RussianMythologyAndTales Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales and whether they conform to ProppsFunctionsOfFolktales. While there, he visits Cousin Marek's farm and re-discovers the beautiful woman, who—after the bear has been subdued—needs to be awoken with a kiss...
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


Not to be confused with the {{Disney}} film ''{{Enchanted}}'', though both are affectionate {{Deconstruction}}s in which fairy tales collide head-first with modern-day New York citizens. OSC's novel, however, lacks {{Crowd Song}}s.

to:

Not to be confused with the {{Disney}} Creator/{{Disney}} film ''{{Enchanted}}'', ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'', though both are affectionate {{Deconstruction}}s in which fairy tales collide head-first with modern-day New York citizens. OSC's novel, however, lacks {{Crowd Song}}s.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.

to:

First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch BabaYaga Literature/BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.



* BabaYaga: The BigBad.

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* BabaYaga: Literature/BabaYaga: The BigBad.



* BigBad: BabaYaga

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* BigBad: BabaYagaLiterature/BabaYaga
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First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.

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First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-KievanRus proto-UsefulNotes/KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.
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* ChekhovsGun: The message on Baba Tila's windowsill.
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* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Lying in the woods for either several months or a thousand years doesn't so much as leave Katerina a little rumpled.


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* CrossoverCosmology: There is mention of Greek and Norse deities in this world as well, as Mikola Mozhaiski remembers squaring off with Zeus and that Loki ran off with one of his wives.


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* MeaningfulName: Ivan has the name of the everyman of Russian folklore. [[spoiler: Turns out, he might BE that everyman.]]


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* PlaceOfPower: The clearing where Katerina lay enchanted is so powerful that even gods can't see what happens there.
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* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Katerina gets a well-meaning one from Sophia regarding her views and her treatment of Ivan, because while Ivan has history and a multicultural background to help him sort out their relationship, Katerina has only what she learned in the one very small community where she has lived her whole life.
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* BigGood: Implied only, but the suggestion remains that Esther's teacher Baba Tila was one of Katerina's aunts, and that she set everything in motion.
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Everyone is happy, all the main characters are alive, but Ivan and Katerina are still the only people who can use the bridges, so one day their children will have to decide which world they want to stay in, or have that decision made for them when one of their parents dies.]]

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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Everyone is happy, all the main characters are alive, but Ivan and Katerina are still the only people who can use the bridges, so one day their children will have to decide which world they want to stay in, or have that decision made for them when one of their parents dies. Also magic is fading from the world.]]

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* BabiesEverAfter

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* BabiesEverAfterBabiesEverAfter: In the DistantFinale.


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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Everyone is happy, all the main characters are alive, but Ivan and Katerina are still the only people who can use the bridges, so one day their children will have to decide which world they want to stay in, or have that decision made for them when one of their parents dies.]]

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* CultureClash: Ivan and Katerina constantly misunderstand each other because of their cultural differences. Ivan had studied Katerina's culture, allowing him to anticipate things, but Katerina had never so much as imagined Ivan's culture, so for a long time she had no means of understanding him.



* FunnyForeigner: In Taina, Ivan and his skills are widely considered a joke.
* GenreSavvy: Ivan, by way of being a historian who has studied old fairy tales.



* GodsNeedPrayerBadly

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* GodsNeedPrayerBadlyGodsNeedPrayerBadly: The pagan gods of the world depend on prayer from people in order to maintain power. As Christianity spreads and they become irrelevant, they fade into obscurity.


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* VainSorceress: Baba Yaga is an old woman, but almost never wears the appearance of one unless she is deliberately trying to manipulate someone.
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* PsychoExGirlfriend

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* PsychoExGirlfriendPsychoExGirlfriend: [[spoiler: Ruth. Although she didn't intend to kill him, and isn't entirely unsympathetic.]]



* StrawFeminist

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* StrawFeministStrawFeminist: Ruth's feminist beliefs are mocked and described as hypocritical by multiple characters.
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[[quoteright:304:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/enchantment_3952.jpg]]
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** In an interesting twist, Ivan doesn't believe in sex before marriage (mirroring Card's own beliefs), however, the two main characters are forced to marry early in the story, but it wasn't consummated. This has the rare effect of dangling the open question of sex, without violating any chastity taboos.

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* AffablyEvil: The book is interspersed with short(er) chapters from Baba Yaga's point of view. She does horrific things, but she's very friendly (and funny) about it.


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* FauxAffablyEvil: The book is interspersed with short(er) chapters from Baba Yaga's point of view. She does horrific things, but she's very friendly (and funny) about it.

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\"Everything\'s Worse With Bears\" clean-up


* BearsAreBadNews: Depending on how you look at it, this is either played straight or averted. Ensorcled by Baba Yaga's magic, Bear can now talk, and serves as her [[TheDragon Dragon]], but his dialogue and attitude make it clear that he's not the malicious sort.



* EverythingsWorseWithBears: Depending on how you look at it, this is either played straight or averted. Ensorcled by Baba Yaga's magic, Bear can now talk, and serves as her [[TheDragon Dragon]], but his dialogue and attitude make it clear that he's not the malicious sort.
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moved to namespace

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A novel by Creator/OrsonScottCard, re-staging the "Literature/SleepingBeauty" myth in a new setting.

Ivan Smetski is a Russian Jew who isn't going to be Russian anymore: as soon as possible, his parents are emigrating to America, specifically a suburb in New York State, where Ivan will eventually grow up. Before they leave, though, his family sojourns at Cousin Marek's house, where Ivan, exploring in the woods, comes across an incredible tableau: a beautiful woman, sleeping on a bier, amidst a lake of leaves in which lives a giant bear. He doesn't get a chance to explore this until 1991, more than a decade later, when he returns to what was [[PleaseSelectNewCityName once the USSR but is now Ukraine]] to do a dissertation on RussianMythologyAndTales and whether they conform to ProppsFunctionsOfFolktales. While there, he visits Cousin Marek's farm and re-discovers the beautiful woman, who—after the bear has been subdued—needs to be awoken with a kiss...

"...And then they lived HappilyEverAfter?" Nope: RealityEnsues.

First off: Our maiden? Princess Katerina of Taina, a 9th-century Slavic kingdom growing in the shadow of proto-KievanRus and unremembered by history, which tells you [[KillEmAll what its long-term fate will be]]. Ivan has promised to marry Katerina, and that marriage promise is all that is keeping the evil witch BabaYaga from using LoopholeAbuse to claim rulership of Taina. She's already enslaved Bear—''The'' Bear, the god of winter—to be her [[TheDragon Dragon]] and do her bidding, so keeping her at bay is not an idle concern for the citizens of Taina. Especially since their most-loved deity, Mikola Mozhaiski (a version of [[SantaClaus Saint Nikolaus]]), hasn't been seen in years. Second: Ivan? Not a KnightInShiningArmor. A man of good heart, yes, and a decathlete, fit by the standards of TheNineties... But this is TheLowMiddleAges, Russia in 890 AD, and manhood involves being able to sling around five pounds of sword for hours at a stretch. Oh, and he's engaged to a girl named Ruth, back home in 20th-century America—''and'' he's a Jew. And Taina? An outpost of [[{{UsefulNotes/Christianity}} Christianity]], many years before (20th-century) scholars believed it had gotten that far east. Even better, the local priest was an apprentice to Kirill—''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saint]]'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Cyril]], after whom the CyrillicAlphabet is named—and has some of Kirill's manuscripts. Ivan, a linguist, came to (modern-day) Russia in part to answer how the Russian tongue evolved from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language Old Church Slavonic]]. In 9th-century Taina, he literally holds the answers in his hand.

So now Ivan is stuck in Taina, and has has to figure out what to do with Katerina (as opposed to Ruth), figure out how to win the respect of the townsfolk, avoid Baba Yaga as much as possible... and, preferably, get back to his own time and his own life and his actual fiancée so that he can go on with all that, instead of being trapped in a 9th-century backwater where magic, rather obviously, exists. And, uncomfortably, he is in fact attracted to Katerina, and she to him. Oh, and, Baba Yaga's out to get both of them. And so we have our adventure: a fun fairy tale, a workable RomanceNovel, and speculations on just how Baba Yaga got her reputation for having a house on chicken legs.

Not to be confused with the {{Disney}} film ''{{Enchanted}}'', though both are affectionate {{Deconstruction}}s in which fairy tales collide head-first with modern-day New York citizens. OSC's novel, however, lacks {{Crowd Song}}s.

----
!!This novel provides examples of:

* AffablyEvil: The book is interspersed with short(er) chapters from Baba Yaga's point of view. She does horrific things, but she's very friendly (and funny) about it.
* ArrangedMarriage: While the two were put together by fate instead of parents, and consented from their own lips, there is still a lot of the traditional (Western) angst associated with this trope.
* BabaYaga: The BigBad.
* BabiesEverAfter
* BelligerentSexualTension
* BigBad: BabaYaga
* BreakTheHaughty
* ChekhovsSkill: Ivan's ability to speak Old Church Slavonic is the reason the "SummonEverymanHero" spell targets him.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: To the point that good ol' ValuesDissonance is a DiscussedTrope.
* TheDungAges
* EverythingsWorseWithBears: Depending on how you look at it, this is either played straight or averted. Ensorcled by Baba Yaga's magic, Bear can now talk, and serves as her [[TheDragon Dragon]], but his dialogue and attitude make it clear that he's not the malicious sort.
* {{Expy}}: Father Lukas, the Christian priest of Taina, is basically a reskinned Bishop Peregrino from [[EndersGame Lusitania]].
* EyeScream: Ivan subdues Bear by throwing a rock at his eye.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater
* FirstGirlWins
* FunctionalMagic: Very much so. Some of the witches protecting Katerina cast protective spells on her. Yaga cursed her to eternal sleep and specified that only someone from a time extremely removed from hers, who could not speak her language and thus could not break the curse by asking her to marry him, could possibly stumble upon her. These clashing spells create the sleeping-beauty scenario Ivan stumbles upon.
* GivingRadioToTheRomans: Part of Ivan's (eventual) plot to defeat Baba Yaga.
* GodsNeedPrayerBadly
* LoadBearingBoss
* LoveTriangle: Both Ivan and Katerina had people they had been matched with already. Katerina's is Dmitri, her father's head knight.
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Averted. Ivan wants to wait until marriage. (Ruth thought it was cute.)
* MassTeleportation: Baba Yaga takes [[spoiler: an entire 747 back with her]].
* MurderTheHypotenuse: Ivan is the frequent target of these attempts, since he is the linchpin of Taina's defense against Yaga.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted
* NothingPersonal: Bear wants to kill Ivan because "it's not right for a mortal to put out the eye of a god and live," but for no other reason. And indeed, when Ivan is later able to do him a favor, all is forgiven.
* [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Ordinary Grad Student]]
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: One of the rules of the magic "bridge" linking Ivan's and Katerina's times is that you emerge wearing only what you had [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble the last time you were then]]. First-time visitors, in other words... (Gains extra momentum when you learn that Taina [[InnocentFanserviceGirl doesn't have a nudity taboo]], but ''does'' obey the Biblical stricture against wearing clothes belonging to members the other gender. Which is all you're going to have available, the first time you cross.)
* PhysicalGod
* PsychoExGirlfriend
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Katerina, and her father Matfei as well. (Primogeniture is a new idea in Taina; previously, they elected their kings to serve as war leaders whenever one was needed. Matfei adheres to it largely because [[RulesLawyer it's the rule that keeps Baba Yaga out]].)
* ShownTheirWork: Part of the fun of the story is just how neatly OSC fits it into RealLife and extant scholarship.
* StrawFeminist
* TheyDo
* TrainingThePeacefulVillagers: Deconstructed when Ivan tries to learn European swordwork. [[spoiler:Played straight later when he brings back the secret of {{Molotov Cocktail}}s.]]
* VillainsBlendInBetter
* WhatYearIsThis
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Dragged out a fair deal. First there's the question of whether Ivan will duck out of the betrothal. ''Then'' there's the question of whether he and Katerina have consummated. And, of course, one can always wonder whether they actually love each other...
* YouCantFightFate
* YourNormalIsOurTaboo
-->'''Ivan:''' "[H]ere, it's no sin for a woman to wear men's clothing. In fact, it's done all the time, and it means nothing. ... A woman puts on her husband's shirt and [[SexyShirtSwitch we think it's charming]]. That it shows love and intimacy between them."\\
'''Katerina:''' "And does the husband put on his wife's dress?"\\
'''Ivan:''' "Well, actually, no. I mean, some do, but we think of that as... [[CreepyCrossdresser strange]]."
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