“ I am a hero. It is a trade, no more, like weaving or brewing, and like them it has its own tricks and knacks and small arts. There are ways of perceiving witches… there are certain weak spots that all dragons tend to have, and certain riddles that hooded strangers tend to send you but the true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation.”
Prince Lír delivers this matter-of-fact, detailed analysis of the tried and tested formula that fairytales tend to follow. This pronouncement is proof positive of the novel’s deconstructionist approach to fairytale tropes and gives the reader a glimpse of the world-weariness that has also begun to grip the young prince’s soul.
"Cruel?" she asked. "How can I be cruel? That is for mortals." But then she did raise her eyes, and they were great with sorrow, and with something very near to mockery. She said, "So is kindness."
The unicorn is an enchanted, immortal being whose needs, motivations, and even thought processes are very different from mortal men. This soliloquy she delivers crystalizes how different she and her species are when it comes to reckoning certain realities of the human condition that she must reckon with on her quest to find the rest of her race such as emotions and involvements with other beings. It is interesting to note the condescension in her tone, as her alien-ness doesn’t just stem from her being a member of an entirely different species but rather from her belief that she--and by extension the rest of her kind--is superior to men.
The prince said, "Who is she Molly? What kind of woman is it who believes---who knows, for I saw her face---that she can cure wounds with a touch, and who weeps without tears?" Molly went on about her work, still humming to herself. "Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with her hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough."
Molly educates the young prince on the walking paradox that is woman-dom. The conversation is an interesting insight into the two characters. The prince is familiar with battle, statesmanship, and economics. Molly is a simple homemaker and wife of a disreputable man who has not travelled beyond the forest realm that her husband terrorized. Despite the prince’s vast education and experience in dealing with important matters of state he is hopelessly ignorant in dealing with The Unicorn/Lady Amalthea, so much so that he is will to ask the simple and earthy Molly. Molly in turn dishes out sage advice concerning women as she is, in a manner of speaking, an expert on the matter.
