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ship_manifesto2004-12-07 05:42 pm
dotiscute.livejournal.com) wrote in ship_manifesto2004-12-07 05:42 pm
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Bigby Wolf/Snow White (Fables DC/Vertigo Comics)
Title Bitch. To a Wolf, it's a Good Thing.
Author Mucktron![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merichan
Fandom Fables
Pairing Bigby Wolf/Snow White
email mucktron@gmail.com
Spoilers Major Spoilers up to issue 31 of The Mean Seasons arc.
A Brief Introductioon
Fables is a DC/Vertigo comic, writing by Bill Willingham that was given it’s own little personal segment in Wizard about two years ago. Back then I still was reading Wizard so I read the section and was drawn to this book –because- of Bigby. Even when I was a kid, I always felt sorry for the Big Bad Wolf. I mean, it was a wolf. It was in its nature to eat cute furry things. It didn’t make the wolf evil. So of course the concept of book where the wolf was the leading protagonist was something I had to check out. As I read more of it, I also realized how much I enjoyed the times that Bigby interacted with Snow. By the end of the first story arc, I realized how found I was at the idea of the two of them getting together. I should note that this is rare for me. In the fandoms I enjoy, my shipping’s tend to be near-to-none of actually being played out. Usually they’re either the same gender, or the chances of romance in general are slim to none in the show/manga/anime/whatever.
Hence why I enjoy Bigby and Snow so much. Here’s a pairing that I love, adore, think is great and the best part is that it’s pretty much cannon. And not in an anime sort of “Well.. he hugged him once and told him that he met more then anything to him. Sooo..that must make it cannon!”.
The only major flaw of Fables is how unheard of it is outside of the comic book stream. Though this is usually the problem with most non-super hero comics that come out.
The concept of Fables is pretty simple and almost a little cliché. Fairy Tale characters living in modern times. The marvel of this story however, is that Bill Willingham skips the “fish out of water” jabs, and goes straight to intriguing plots and character development. The fairy tale characters (or Fables as they tend to address themselves) use to live in their own magical fairy tale-ish land, until it was over run by an evil force only know as the Adversary about six hundred or so years ago. The Fables fled their homelands and made their way to New Amsterdam, (IE. Old New York) where they currently reside to this day in their own little community that they’ve set up over the past three centuries.
So many of the characters we know and loved as children, live there now. Prince Charming, Boy Blue, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and of course, Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf.
The Princess
The highlight of Fables is how Bill Willingham manages to take well known and beloved characters and give them complete make overs, while keeping our love of them intact.
Snow White is a character we all know and love. The princess who was betrayed by her evil step mother, escaped into the woods, and lived with seven small little men. (But we don’t talk about that). She was rescued by Prince Charming, and while the tale usually ends there, we learn what happened next was far from Happily Ever After. (Snow caught Prince Charming in bed with her younger sister Rose Red and divorced him.) She now works as deputy mayor of Fabletown and pretty much does all the work.
Gone is the beautiful, innocent, good and kind archetype princess. Snow lives up to her name in being a major ice queen to everyone around her. She’s a hard worker and takes crap from no one. (In the same issue she manages to tell Beauty and the Best that she could give a rats ass if their relationship is working or not, just as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rules of the community, and tells Bigby that if he’s not going to include her on investigating the disappearance of her sister, he can clean out his office.)
However, it slowly becomes clear that Snow’s cold exterior is a shield to protect her from her own insecurities. The many betrayers in Snow’s life (Her husband, her step mother) have left her bitter and jaded when it comes to trusting other people. And Bigby even lets on that he knows how desperately lonely Snow must feel.
Yet, despite her own insecurities, Snow in a determined woman who manages to deal with the most dire of situations. She pretty much single handily manages to over-throw the Animal Farm rebellion, and lead the residents of Fabletown into a battle where the outcome looks rather bleak.
While Snow has isolated herself in order to prevent anymore hurt and heartbreak, Bigby seems to be a loner by instinct alone.
The Wolf
Bigby Wolf. (Big. B. Wolf. Get it?) Is the resident sheriff of the Fabletown community. Once the most feared creature in all fairytales, he now spends most of his days doing paper work and smoking like a chimney . Thanks to a cursed knife, Bigby now has a human form, but when needed he can change back into his original form: A gray wolf with glowing yellow eyes, the size of a truck. But for the most part, Bigby is the poster-child for reformed. Gone is the vicious wolf, and replaced is a rather cranky almost Bogart-ish character who confesses that he’s always secretly hoped that in all the centuries of his career, he’d be able to do the ‘Parlor Scene’.
Bigby despite his reformed personality however, still remains a wolf. He’s an alpha male who’s protective of those who follow him and downright vicious to those who’d question how he runs things. (Bigby’s ‘obey me’ confrontation with Bluebeard is one of my favorite scenes in the comic). The wolf might be employed, but it makes him far from tame.
So Why Ship Them?
Which of course, leads us back to Snow. Snow is technically Bigby’s boss. She’s the one who recognized his potential when he was still munching on innocent pedestrians, and she’s the one who invited him to join her in the new world. Bigby is drawn to the aggressive personality in Snow. She’s a strong female who’s never been afraid of him, and Bigby respects that. Alpha males after all, usually go for the Alpha females.
Yet despite their dominant personalities, they’re both loners. Snow by choice, Bigby by nature. They both know better then anyone what it’s like to spend so much time in solitude and yet they both are able to see the positive qualities in one and other.
They’re both leaders, and it becomes clear in both the Storybook Love and March of the Wooden Soldiers arc, that they’re counting on one and other for support in an almost subconscious level. Together, Snow would have someone who would love her unconditionally, and for Bigby, he has someone who he can view as his equal.
Once Upon a Time
I’m sure everyone who grew up hearing fairy tales knows how they’re suppose to end. The evil are punished for their crimes and the good are rewarded and destined to live “Happily Ever After”. Snow White will be married to her beloved Prince Charming and the Big Bad Wolf will be killed for his heinous crimes against cute little piggies and young girls clad in red. Though as Mr.Willingham shows us in his quirky spin on life as a fairy tale character, the world of fairy tales is just as harsh and cruel as our own.
The Wolf and Snow White’s meeting was nothing close to Once Upon a Time. The once happy lands of our beloved stories have been over run by an evil and benevolent force known only as The Adversary, and even Snow White’s personal life is in shambles. Leaving her Prince Charming after she catches him in bed with her sister, she finds herself now in a chain gang being escorted by the adversary’s soldiers to certain torture and death.
In times like these, one expects her to be saved by a valiant prince on a white steed. But of course, this story isn’t going the way a normal fairy tale does. Instead is saved not by a Prince or any form of do-gooder, but by a vicious wolf.
A wolf had come amongst them, and such a wolf it was! On all fours it stood as tall as a yearling colt. It’s fur was black, shading to brownish-gray on its flanks and belly, but at the moment most of it’s front end was painted red with the blood of the dozen guardsmen who’d so ruthlessly ruled their lives for the many days past.
The Wolf isn’t even acting out of any sort of good will. Like all wolves, he deeply values his territory, along with his prey and is infuriated at this unknown force that has charged in and taken over what he considers his prime hunting ground.
Had the wolf simply then decided to devourer the horrified prisoners as well, it would be the end of our story. But Snow White, for all her own insecurities, has a strong will and grabs a nearby sword, prepared to face down the gigantic wolf. Here we get what is the first of the sexual tension that will stir for centuries with wolf and the princess.
”Stay back, dire beast! … My husband taught me well how to use this!”
She held (The blade) in both hands, boldly brandishing it towards the wolf.
“I don’t believe you.” The wolf replied.
“You will if you come closer and I chop you down.”
“You misunderstand” the wolf replied, the grin of his long muzzle revealing rows of sharp fangs…
“I don’t believe you’ve a husband. Though you’re clearly no maiden, I can tell with a whiff and a sniff that it’s been long years since you’ve visited anyone’s marriage bed”
“My –former- husband!” the woman said. Under the caked grime, twin apples of ripening anger colored her alabaster checks
Though the wolf doubts that the woman could harm him with the sword, he makes her a deal and leads her, along with the other captives to safety.
As the wolf will explain to Snow White century’s later, one thing that’s always stuck out about her is the rather peculiar sent she has.
Centuries later, as more and more ‘Fables’ flee to the new world, the wolf himself eventually leaves as well and spends two centuries in the wilderness before he is found once again by the woman with the most intriguing smell.
This time though, Snow White comes to the wolf with an offer, (and a pair of guns for protection.) She and the other refugees are heading to the remote town of New Amsterdam to set up a community and she wants the wolf to join. The wolf, still somewhat infatuated by Snow, agrees.
Not Your Mother's Fairytale
Our first major huge piece of Bigby/Snow evidence is of course. The Dance.
During the Fables annual Remembrance Day Ball, Bigby invites Snow as his date, insisting that it’s all part of the plane to uncover the murderer of Snow's sister, Rose Red. After some banter and Snow angrily yelling “My God. Are you completely devoid of all social skills?” Bigby suggests that they dance. Sadly of course, he has no idea how to dance, and we get some of the comic’s funniest banter as Snow barks instructions at him and Bigby manages to step on the feet of almost everyone else in the ballroom.
After exposing the truth behind Rose Red’s killer, (Turns out that she faked her own death in order to avoid marriage to Bluebeard.) Snow confronts Bigby about how the making her his date would catch the killer.
“Well, I think the reason should be obvious.”
“Then I must just be a dim bulb tonight. I need the obvious interpreted for me.”
“I wanted you to go to the dance with me—as my date.”
“Seriously? You were too shy—or too afraid—to ask me to go to gala with you, so you pretended it was business related?"
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Really? I was hoping for something more along the lines of, oddly, disarmingly charming.”
Snow shoots him down after that, insisting that they’re no more then colleges. Bigby grudgingly respects her choice, yet in the aftermath of Animal Farm, Bigby is the person sitting at Snow’s beside when she wakes up from a bullet to the head.
The major turning point comes in Storybook Love. As Snow slowly recovers from her head shot wound, Bigby ends up spending more time in her company, and even starts to become more aggressive in dropping hints that she should date him. Snow continues to shoot him down and insists that she’s looking forward to the day when he goes back to his office.
An unexpected twist comes however, when thanks to the evil intentions of two rouge fables, Bigby and Snow find themselves in the Catskills mountains with no idea how they got there, being hunted by a shotgun toting’ Goldielocks. As the two of them make their escape through the woods. (Snow ridding on Bigby’s back like something out of a Miyazaki film), Snow finally asks about Bigby’s infatuation with her.
Bigby, in the way that only a gruff wolf can, confesses to her that despite centuries of living among humans and training himself to block out all the over whelming noises and smells from his hyped-up senses, he can’t block out her smell. Something that’s stuck with him sense their first meeting over three hundred years ago. This has allowed him a better understanding of Snow then anyone in Fabletown has.
“I know when you’re happy, which is rare; when you’re sad; and when you feel desperately lonely—which is all too often.”
“Please… stop it. This is—it’s too creepy—like you’ve been stalking me for all these years.”
“I’d stop it off I could.”
“Still…”
“You should learn not to ask questions you can’t stand to hear the answers too.”
After making it back to New York fully intact, Snow casually drops the hint that if Bigby were to ask her out for a casual date, she wouldn’t mind and it looks like the two of them might have a chance together.
Sadly, this chance is shattered as Snow realizes in horror that she’s pregnant. While in the woods for three days with no memories of what went on, Snow becomes enraged at Bigby for not telling her what happened, pointing out that with his senses, he obviously did know and didn’t tell her.
Bigby admits that he did know, but he didn’t want to tell Snow due to the dangerous situation they were in. Snow’s trust in Bigby is shattered and she pretty much marks him up as just another person who has betrayed her in one way or another.
The March of the Wooden Soldiers arc, while focussing on a new and highly dangerous force, has Bigby and Snow separate from each other, though Bigby does find time to confront her and point out that the ‘cub’ inside Snow is still his and he has a say in what will happen next.
Soon after, Fabletown is invaded by Wooden Soldiers and Snow finds herself in charge of fighting off the invaders.
Just as the situation starts to look glum, Bigby in full out wolf form shows up and defeats the remaining soldiers. Snow, overjoyed, runs to him and hugs him.
“You came”
“Snow?”
“I knew you’d come! I knew you’d save me. You always do”
This scene hits me on a heavier note because it says ALOT about Snow. Snow is a character with a sad childhood, a bad marriage and she's worked her ass off to be self sufficient and stopped believing in Happily Ever Afters and people saving her from things. And from what we see, she’s successfully managed to do all of this despite her own personal isolation. Her (And the rest of the towns) rescue is a shock to her ‘cause it’s hit her how much Bigby loves her and how much he's willing to give to her and how he WILL be her protector, her savior , and her figurative ‘prince on a white horse’, even if Snow doesn’t always realize or appreciate it.
Sadly, much like many good relationships in on going tv shows, comics, ect. Things don’t last. Snow goes into labor and gives birth to quite literally ‘a litter’. Out of the six children she has, only one of them looks human. The rest look like their papa and not in his human form mind you. This means that Snow must move up to the Farm where all the non-human fables live to raise them. However, because of his past crimes in the old world, the farm is the one place where Bigby is forbidden to go.
The day before Snow leaves, she and Bigby walk through the park, Snow clinging to Bigby’s arm. With Snow leaving her job as deputy mayor, he plans to quit his job as sheriff of Fabletown, and expresses his bitterness at how for all his centuries of serving Fabletown, he’ll never get to see his children.
We start to understand here that he's done ALOT for the community. Far more then he's ever been required to do. And we're reminded that he's done this all for Snow. Everything he's ever done as his time as Sheriff of Fabletown was because Snow knew he was capable of doing it. Even when she didn't know half the stuff he did. He was the protector of the community, and it was his pack. The closest thing he's ever had to a family, and Snow leaving, along with his very own children, has shattered this. He has no more reason to stay. He has no one left worth serving.
He asks Snow if she’ll throw away it all and run away with him where they can live with their children away from any fable or mundy. Snow with tears in her eyes, hugs him.
“Oh Bigby, I couldn’t possibly- I can’t betray Fabletown and I couldn’t live that way”
“Of course not. For all your griping about how ill-used and you were your still cling to your fantasies of castles and princes. Where dogs know their place—in the kennels.”
It’s the most honest we’ve ever seen Bigby. Even when he confesses how much Snow met to him back in Storybook Love, there’s still a sense that he holds back just slightly. But here, Snow brakes his heart and he coups with it the way most men would do, by leaving.
The newest issue of Fables has yet to come out, but the last few pages leave us with a slight glimmer of hope as Snow’s sister Rose Red says what most of us Shippers have always knew.
“If he’s gone off to sulk, it just shows how much he really cares. You two are joined by an invisible chain that no amount of anger or distance can break.”
“He accused me of still wanting palaces and a handsome prince.”
“Of course he did, because you still do. … Why not try on a mutt this time to see if your luck improves?”
“It’s too late. He’s gone”
“For now, but he’ll come back. The good ones always do.”
Refrences
Sadly, despite what a great read Fables is, the fandom is relatively small and fanfiction is hard to find, let alone fanfiction that would focus on Bigby and Snow.
Story Creator Bill Willingham has a small page where he gives us updates on what he has in plan next for his story, but the real highlight of the page is the comment thread where the other fans talk and discuss their own ideas, theories and thoughts on the current issues.
Into the Woods is a well designed Fables fanpage, complete with an FAQ of questions that our evasive author Bill sometimes answers for his fans.
Fans of beautiful imagery might also wish to check out Cover Artist James Jean’s WebPages for his absolutely gorgeous Fables Artwork complete with a few plenty of Bigby and Snow themed ones
Livejournal has the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fables_comic Fables community that’s rather small but a few good things pop up every now and then.
And The Fabletown Virtual Library is filled with good info, and images and even has Mr.Willingham’s infamous Snow vs. Bigby sketch
Author Mucktron
merichanFandom Fables
Pairing Bigby Wolf/Snow White
email mucktron@gmail.com
Spoilers Major Spoilers up to issue 31 of The Mean Seasons arc.
A Brief Introductioon
Fables is a DC/Vertigo comic, writing by Bill Willingham that was given it’s own little personal segment in Wizard about two years ago. Back then I still was reading Wizard so I read the section and was drawn to this book –because- of Bigby. Even when I was a kid, I always felt sorry for the Big Bad Wolf. I mean, it was a wolf. It was in its nature to eat cute furry things. It didn’t make the wolf evil. So of course the concept of book where the wolf was the leading protagonist was something I had to check out. As I read more of it, I also realized how much I enjoyed the times that Bigby interacted with Snow. By the end of the first story arc, I realized how found I was at the idea of the two of them getting together. I should note that this is rare for me. In the fandoms I enjoy, my shipping’s tend to be near-to-none of actually being played out. Usually they’re either the same gender, or the chances of romance in general are slim to none in the show/manga/anime/whatever.
Hence why I enjoy Bigby and Snow so much. Here’s a pairing that I love, adore, think is great and the best part is that it’s pretty much cannon. And not in an anime sort of “Well.. he hugged him once and told him that he met more then anything to him. Sooo..that must make it cannon!”.
The only major flaw of Fables is how unheard of it is outside of the comic book stream. Though this is usually the problem with most non-super hero comics that come out.
The concept of Fables is pretty simple and almost a little cliché. Fairy Tale characters living in modern times. The marvel of this story however, is that Bill Willingham skips the “fish out of water” jabs, and goes straight to intriguing plots and character development. The fairy tale characters (or Fables as they tend to address themselves) use to live in their own magical fairy tale-ish land, until it was over run by an evil force only know as the Adversary about six hundred or so years ago. The Fables fled their homelands and made their way to New Amsterdam, (IE. Old New York) where they currently reside to this day in their own little community that they’ve set up over the past three centuries.
So many of the characters we know and loved as children, live there now. Prince Charming, Boy Blue, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and of course, Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf.
The Princess
The highlight of Fables is how Bill Willingham manages to take well known and beloved characters and give them complete make overs, while keeping our love of them intact.
Snow White is a character we all know and love. The princess who was betrayed by her evil step mother, escaped into the woods, and lived with seven small little men. (But we don’t talk about that). She was rescued by Prince Charming, and while the tale usually ends there, we learn what happened next was far from Happily Ever After. (Snow caught Prince Charming in bed with her younger sister Rose Red and divorced him.) She now works as deputy mayor of Fabletown and pretty much does all the work.
Gone is the beautiful, innocent, good and kind archetype princess. Snow lives up to her name in being a major ice queen to everyone around her. She’s a hard worker and takes crap from no one. (In the same issue she manages to tell Beauty and the Best that she could give a rats ass if their relationship is working or not, just as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rules of the community, and tells Bigby that if he’s not going to include her on investigating the disappearance of her sister, he can clean out his office.)
However, it slowly becomes clear that Snow’s cold exterior is a shield to protect her from her own insecurities. The many betrayers in Snow’s life (Her husband, her step mother) have left her bitter and jaded when it comes to trusting other people. And Bigby even lets on that he knows how desperately lonely Snow must feel.
Yet, despite her own insecurities, Snow in a determined woman who manages to deal with the most dire of situations. She pretty much single handily manages to over-throw the Animal Farm rebellion, and lead the residents of Fabletown into a battle where the outcome looks rather bleak.
While Snow has isolated herself in order to prevent anymore hurt and heartbreak, Bigby seems to be a loner by instinct alone.
The Wolf
Bigby Wolf. (Big. B. Wolf. Get it?) Is the resident sheriff of the Fabletown community. Once the most feared creature in all fairytales, he now spends most of his days doing paper work and smoking like a chimney . Thanks to a cursed knife, Bigby now has a human form, but when needed he can change back into his original form: A gray wolf with glowing yellow eyes, the size of a truck. But for the most part, Bigby is the poster-child for reformed. Gone is the vicious wolf, and replaced is a rather cranky almost Bogart-ish character who confesses that he’s always secretly hoped that in all the centuries of his career, he’d be able to do the ‘Parlor Scene’.
Bigby despite his reformed personality however, still remains a wolf. He’s an alpha male who’s protective of those who follow him and downright vicious to those who’d question how he runs things. (Bigby’s ‘obey me’ confrontation with Bluebeard is one of my favorite scenes in the comic). The wolf might be employed, but it makes him far from tame.
So Why Ship Them?
Which of course, leads us back to Snow. Snow is technically Bigby’s boss. She’s the one who recognized his potential when he was still munching on innocent pedestrians, and she’s the one who invited him to join her in the new world. Bigby is drawn to the aggressive personality in Snow. She’s a strong female who’s never been afraid of him, and Bigby respects that. Alpha males after all, usually go for the Alpha females.
Yet despite their dominant personalities, they’re both loners. Snow by choice, Bigby by nature. They both know better then anyone what it’s like to spend so much time in solitude and yet they both are able to see the positive qualities in one and other.
They’re both leaders, and it becomes clear in both the Storybook Love and March of the Wooden Soldiers arc, that they’re counting on one and other for support in an almost subconscious level. Together, Snow would have someone who would love her unconditionally, and for Bigby, he has someone who he can view as his equal.
Once Upon a Time
I’m sure everyone who grew up hearing fairy tales knows how they’re suppose to end. The evil are punished for their crimes and the good are rewarded and destined to live “Happily Ever After”. Snow White will be married to her beloved Prince Charming and the Big Bad Wolf will be killed for his heinous crimes against cute little piggies and young girls clad in red. Though as Mr.Willingham shows us in his quirky spin on life as a fairy tale character, the world of fairy tales is just as harsh and cruel as our own.
The Wolf and Snow White’s meeting was nothing close to Once Upon a Time. The once happy lands of our beloved stories have been over run by an evil and benevolent force known only as The Adversary, and even Snow White’s personal life is in shambles. Leaving her Prince Charming after she catches him in bed with her sister, she finds herself now in a chain gang being escorted by the adversary’s soldiers to certain torture and death.
In times like these, one expects her to be saved by a valiant prince on a white steed. But of course, this story isn’t going the way a normal fairy tale does. Instead is saved not by a Prince or any form of do-gooder, but by a vicious wolf.
A wolf had come amongst them, and such a wolf it was! On all fours it stood as tall as a yearling colt. It’s fur was black, shading to brownish-gray on its flanks and belly, but at the moment most of it’s front end was painted red with the blood of the dozen guardsmen who’d so ruthlessly ruled their lives for the many days past.
The Wolf isn’t even acting out of any sort of good will. Like all wolves, he deeply values his territory, along with his prey and is infuriated at this unknown force that has charged in and taken over what he considers his prime hunting ground.
Had the wolf simply then decided to devourer the horrified prisoners as well, it would be the end of our story. But Snow White, for all her own insecurities, has a strong will and grabs a nearby sword, prepared to face down the gigantic wolf. Here we get what is the first of the sexual tension that will stir for centuries with wolf and the princess.
”Stay back, dire beast! … My husband taught me well how to use this!”
She held (The blade) in both hands, boldly brandishing it towards the wolf.
“I don’t believe you.” The wolf replied.
“You will if you come closer and I chop you down.”
“You misunderstand” the wolf replied, the grin of his long muzzle revealing rows of sharp fangs…
“I don’t believe you’ve a husband. Though you’re clearly no maiden, I can tell with a whiff and a sniff that it’s been long years since you’ve visited anyone’s marriage bed”
“My –former- husband!” the woman said. Under the caked grime, twin apples of ripening anger colored her alabaster checks
Though the wolf doubts that the woman could harm him with the sword, he makes her a deal and leads her, along with the other captives to safety.
As the wolf will explain to Snow White century’s later, one thing that’s always stuck out about her is the rather peculiar sent she has.
Centuries later, as more and more ‘Fables’ flee to the new world, the wolf himself eventually leaves as well and spends two centuries in the wilderness before he is found once again by the woman with the most intriguing smell.
This time though, Snow White comes to the wolf with an offer, (and a pair of guns for protection.) She and the other refugees are heading to the remote town of New Amsterdam to set up a community and she wants the wolf to join. The wolf, still somewhat infatuated by Snow, agrees.
Not Your Mother's Fairytale
Our first major huge piece of Bigby/Snow evidence is of course. The Dance.
During the Fables annual Remembrance Day Ball, Bigby invites Snow as his date, insisting that it’s all part of the plane to uncover the murderer of Snow's sister, Rose Red. After some banter and Snow angrily yelling “My God. Are you completely devoid of all social skills?” Bigby suggests that they dance. Sadly of course, he has no idea how to dance, and we get some of the comic’s funniest banter as Snow barks instructions at him and Bigby manages to step on the feet of almost everyone else in the ballroom.
After exposing the truth behind Rose Red’s killer, (Turns out that she faked her own death in order to avoid marriage to Bluebeard.) Snow confronts Bigby about how the making her his date would catch the killer.
“Well, I think the reason should be obvious.”
“Then I must just be a dim bulb tonight. I need the obvious interpreted for me.”
“I wanted you to go to the dance with me—as my date.”
“Seriously? You were too shy—or too afraid—to ask me to go to gala with you, so you pretended it was business related?"
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Really? I was hoping for something more along the lines of, oddly, disarmingly charming.”
Snow shoots him down after that, insisting that they’re no more then colleges. Bigby grudgingly respects her choice, yet in the aftermath of Animal Farm, Bigby is the person sitting at Snow’s beside when she wakes up from a bullet to the head.
The major turning point comes in Storybook Love. As Snow slowly recovers from her head shot wound, Bigby ends up spending more time in her company, and even starts to become more aggressive in dropping hints that she should date him. Snow continues to shoot him down and insists that she’s looking forward to the day when he goes back to his office.
An unexpected twist comes however, when thanks to the evil intentions of two rouge fables, Bigby and Snow find themselves in the Catskills mountains with no idea how they got there, being hunted by a shotgun toting’ Goldielocks. As the two of them make their escape through the woods. (Snow ridding on Bigby’s back like something out of a Miyazaki film), Snow finally asks about Bigby’s infatuation with her.
Bigby, in the way that only a gruff wolf can, confesses to her that despite centuries of living among humans and training himself to block out all the over whelming noises and smells from his hyped-up senses, he can’t block out her smell. Something that’s stuck with him sense their first meeting over three hundred years ago. This has allowed him a better understanding of Snow then anyone in Fabletown has.
“I know when you’re happy, which is rare; when you’re sad; and when you feel desperately lonely—which is all too often.”
“Please… stop it. This is—it’s too creepy—like you’ve been stalking me for all these years.”
“I’d stop it off I could.”
“Still…”
“You should learn not to ask questions you can’t stand to hear the answers too.”
After making it back to New York fully intact, Snow casually drops the hint that if Bigby were to ask her out for a casual date, she wouldn’t mind and it looks like the two of them might have a chance together.
Sadly, this chance is shattered as Snow realizes in horror that she’s pregnant. While in the woods for three days with no memories of what went on, Snow becomes enraged at Bigby for not telling her what happened, pointing out that with his senses, he obviously did know and didn’t tell her.
Bigby admits that he did know, but he didn’t want to tell Snow due to the dangerous situation they were in. Snow’s trust in Bigby is shattered and she pretty much marks him up as just another person who has betrayed her in one way or another.
The March of the Wooden Soldiers arc, while focussing on a new and highly dangerous force, has Bigby and Snow separate from each other, though Bigby does find time to confront her and point out that the ‘cub’ inside Snow is still his and he has a say in what will happen next.
Soon after, Fabletown is invaded by Wooden Soldiers and Snow finds herself in charge of fighting off the invaders.
Just as the situation starts to look glum, Bigby in full out wolf form shows up and defeats the remaining soldiers. Snow, overjoyed, runs to him and hugs him.
“You came”
“Snow?”
“I knew you’d come! I knew you’d save me. You always do”
This scene hits me on a heavier note because it says ALOT about Snow. Snow is a character with a sad childhood, a bad marriage and she's worked her ass off to be self sufficient and stopped believing in Happily Ever Afters and people saving her from things. And from what we see, she’s successfully managed to do all of this despite her own personal isolation. Her (And the rest of the towns) rescue is a shock to her ‘cause it’s hit her how much Bigby loves her and how much he's willing to give to her and how he WILL be her protector, her savior , and her figurative ‘prince on a white horse’, even if Snow doesn’t always realize or appreciate it.
Sadly, much like many good relationships in on going tv shows, comics, ect. Things don’t last. Snow goes into labor and gives birth to quite literally ‘a litter’. Out of the six children she has, only one of them looks human. The rest look like their papa and not in his human form mind you. This means that Snow must move up to the Farm where all the non-human fables live to raise them. However, because of his past crimes in the old world, the farm is the one place where Bigby is forbidden to go.
The day before Snow leaves, she and Bigby walk through the park, Snow clinging to Bigby’s arm. With Snow leaving her job as deputy mayor, he plans to quit his job as sheriff of Fabletown, and expresses his bitterness at how for all his centuries of serving Fabletown, he’ll never get to see his children.
We start to understand here that he's done ALOT for the community. Far more then he's ever been required to do. And we're reminded that he's done this all for Snow. Everything he's ever done as his time as Sheriff of Fabletown was because Snow knew he was capable of doing it. Even when she didn't know half the stuff he did. He was the protector of the community, and it was his pack. The closest thing he's ever had to a family, and Snow leaving, along with his very own children, has shattered this. He has no more reason to stay. He has no one left worth serving.
He asks Snow if she’ll throw away it all and run away with him where they can live with their children away from any fable or mundy. Snow with tears in her eyes, hugs him.
“Oh Bigby, I couldn’t possibly- I can’t betray Fabletown and I couldn’t live that way”
“Of course not. For all your griping about how ill-used and you were your still cling to your fantasies of castles and princes. Where dogs know their place—in the kennels.”
It’s the most honest we’ve ever seen Bigby. Even when he confesses how much Snow met to him back in Storybook Love, there’s still a sense that he holds back just slightly. But here, Snow brakes his heart and he coups with it the way most men would do, by leaving.
The newest issue of Fables has yet to come out, but the last few pages leave us with a slight glimmer of hope as Snow’s sister Rose Red says what most of us Shippers have always knew.
“If he’s gone off to sulk, it just shows how much he really cares. You two are joined by an invisible chain that no amount of anger or distance can break.”
“He accused me of still wanting palaces and a handsome prince.”
“Of course he did, because you still do. … Why not try on a mutt this time to see if your luck improves?”
“It’s too late. He’s gone”
“For now, but he’ll come back. The good ones always do.”
Refrences
Sadly, despite what a great read Fables is, the fandom is relatively small and fanfiction is hard to find, let alone fanfiction that would focus on Bigby and Snow.
Story Creator Bill Willingham has a small page where he gives us updates on what he has in plan next for his story, but the real highlight of the page is the comment thread where the other fans talk and discuss their own ideas, theories and thoughts on the current issues.
Into the Woods is a well designed Fables fanpage, complete with an FAQ of questions that our evasive author Bill sometimes answers for his fans.
Fans of beautiful imagery might also wish to check out Cover Artist James Jean’s WebPages for his absolutely gorgeous Fables Artwork complete with a few plenty of Bigby and Snow themed ones
Livejournal has the
fables_comic Fables community that’s rather small but a few good things pop up every now and then. And The Fabletown Virtual Library is filled with good info, and images and even has Mr.Willingham’s infamous Snow vs. Bigby sketch
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I feel compelled to use my Fables icon, despite the fact that it does not fit the mood of this comment. :)
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Off topic, you might be interested in a couple of Fables stories on Silverlake. They are nothing to do with Bigby or Snow though or indeed any established characters in Fables.
A sorta fairytale. (http://www.imjustsayin.net/silverlake/sascha-asortafairytale.html)
What is, what was. (http://www.imjustsayin.net/silverlake/sascha-whatiswhatwas.html)
*flails*
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*hugs* This is one awesome manifesto! XD
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