Neil Gaiman has been telling us who he was from the start. His fans just weren't paying attention. While one cannot always judge the artist by his art, the art is reliably relevatory about the artist's nature.

https://www.essentialmalady.com/2024/08/07/gaimans-secret-king/

Gaiman’s Secret King

Neil Gaiman has been in the news a lot recently been the subject of a number recent accusations by women which have been covered extensively by Fandom Pulse and some smaller online outlets. As a result of this, his dedicated subreddit has gone into protection mode along with most mainstream media which necessitated the creation of another subreddit for discussing these revelations. But even this online outpost has carefully curated its content and won’t abide having nasty, evil, racists like Jon Del Arroz and Vox Day anywhere near them. Naturally, these revelations have also led many to take another look at his work and the perverted fantasies that have more basis in reality than previously realised.

I’ve never read anything by Neil Gaiman and though I didn’t feel deprived before, I am now rather glad that I haven’t. And this is whether or not the accusations are true as some of the material linked above is more than a little disturbing. The closest I’ve come to reading Neil Gaiman is watching the 2007 adaptation of his book Stardust. I vaguely remember enjoying it so I thought I would watch it again in light of the recent revelations. It should come as no surprise that I noticed a lot more wrong than right on a second viewing.

Stardust is about a young man who crosses into the magical land of Stormhold which is separated from an English town called Wall by a… wall. There he meets a woman who is enslaved to a witch and after a few minutes of flirting, follows her into a caravan and fornicates with her. As you do. He then leaves her and less than a year later, has the fruit of his sinful liason deposited at his door. This baby then grows into a young man named Tristan who is the protagonist of the film as well as a self-insert of Gaiman.

Tristan (played by Charlie Cox) is not really good at anything or special in any way. He works in a grocery store but gets sacked in the first and only scene we see him working there. He becomes unemployed by allowing the local beauty Victoria (Sienna Miller), to push in front of waiting customers simply because he is infatuated with her. He also likes to creep by her window at night even though she shows visible displeasure at the very sight of him. He does eventually manage to lure her from the safety of her home by offering champagne that I believe he steals from his former place of employment. During this implausible late night picnic, they witness a falling star which Tristan promises to get in exchange for her love. Due to the distance the star has fallen from the village, this seems like a great way to be rid of Tristan and Victoria encourages him to undertake this quest under the presumption she won’t have to make good on the promise.

This leads him to seek the land of Stormhold where (unknown to him), half his parentage resides. This quest initially ends at the wall as he is prevented by the surly guard who was previously unsuccessful at preventing his father from taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. After returning home, the truth about his mother is revealed and the gift of a magic “Babylon candle” that enables the holder to go anywhere they want. Having more interest in Victoria than his long lost mother, he is instantly transported to the site of the fallen star. The star is revealed to be a Yvaine (Claire Danes). Tristan (who I remind readers is the hero of the story), almost immediately uses a magical chain to enslave the fallen star so he can drag her back over the wall in the hopes of wining the hand of Victoria. I’m not sure how the Gaiman novel reads but the screenwriters seem to have at least some sense that this doesn’t exactly endear Tristan to the viewing audience. So they simply aren’t given much time to think about it as people far worse than Tristan are also after Yvaine which makes him the lesser evil.

One such is the witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her two rotting sisters looking to make foul of fair Yvaine to restore their lost youth as well as their fading diabolical powers. Consuming the heart of a fallen star will restore these powers and is all the more potent when the heart is cut out while she is glowing with joy. Also in pursuit is Prince Septimus (Mark Strong), and his quickly diminishing group of brothers who need a trinket possessed by Yvaine to claim the throne from his dying father. The king of Stormhold has a curious way of choosing a successor that involves simply encouraging the princes to murder one another until only one is left alive. The potential issues that would arise out of such arrangements are left as unconsidered as the morality of kidnapping young women. Though I do think there is some (much less comical), truth to this in the history of the Ottoman Empire. This king is also something of an innovator and decides instead to throw away his pendant (which is the very object that causes Yvaine to fall from the sky), and the princes need to go after it in order to claim the throne. So the only redeeming quality of young Tristan is he merely wants to temporarily kidnap Yvaine to impress the local tart and not cut out her heart or flog her newly acquired jewellery.

I haven’t read a synopsis like this anywhere else but this is not inaccurate on any of the particulars and should already raise red flags. The tone of the film is also all over the place. There is often the whimsical fun you would expect from the genre but the audience is also frequently shaken out of this with sudden violence, death or the grotesque. There is nothing particularly gratuitous but it is often far too unsettling to be the fun fantasy adventure it is presented as.

In light of Gaiman’s apparent proclivities for vulnerable young women in bathtubs, it was very hard not to pay close attention to the scene where Lamia presents herself as an innkeeper and attempts to cut out Yvaine’s heart shortly after lulling her with the warmth and comfort of a bath. One can’t help but see more subtext behind this scene than there was before. Lamia also dragoons a goat and a male peasant by turning the former into her husband and the male peasant into a serving girl. Although Yvaine manages to escape, Primus, the last of Setimus’ brothers, has his throat cut in the same bathtub shortly after.

From here, Tristan and Yvaine end up in the clouds with the last magic of the Babylon candle before shortly being rescued by sky pirates. I have previously shared my fascination with sky pirates but these ones are quite a let down. These pirates are led by Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Nero) who is soon revealed to be a flamboyant sodomite who only pretends at being a ruthless buccaneer. At the time the book was written in 1999, including a gay character was still considered somewhat transgressive but gay pirates weren’t unique even in the golden age of piracy  or even naval history in general. His crew is later revealed to be well-aware of what Shakespeare is hiding in his closet apart from women’s clothing; they are also very accepting which is so progressive and touching and all that. 

Shakespeare and his pirates only really exist so that Tristan and Yvaine can get a change of clothes and Tristan can learn an actual skill. This is fencing which after a short montage, he is able to do well enough to save the day in the end. Captain Shakespeare is also a simply fabulous hair stylist and gives Tristan a more heroic haircut to go with his new duds. This also gives Tristan and Yvaine the needed screentime for them to get to know each other and learn to dance.

From here everything converges. Tristan is reunited with his mother, he realises he truly loves Yvaine and she loves him despite the kidnapping and they have a romantic night of fornication. He also discovers that had he actually taken Yvaine over the wall that she would have been turned into stardust while on his way to tell Victoria that he really never loved her anyway. Victoria’s paramour Humphrey (played by a young Henry Cavill), is also revealed to be a total loser. Tristan is outwardly a lot more magnanimous than this but the true feelings of the gamma’s heart are not hidden.

Yvaine is captured by the witches during all of this and Tristan returns to save the day with Prince Septimus helping with more sinister motivations. Tristan overcomes the witch Lamia and her sisters and saves the damsel. Septimus is drowned which immediately flung my mind back to the bathtub. Things would all be well but the land of Stormhold has no heir to the throne. Luckily we learn that Tristan is in fact a SECRET KING and now the rightful heir to the kingdom on his mother’s side. Who would have thought that the kind of woman who would sleep with a stranger she had known for less than five minutes would be highborn? Tristan ascends to the throne with his beautiful sky woman that loves him because he exists and this is the end of the story.

Reading over the plot summary of the novel, it doesn’t seem all that different with particulars. This is not anywhere near as disturbing as much of Gaiman’s other work (nor it seems his personal life), but it is at best a very typical “Gamma’s Journey” type narrative. The only redeeming aspects of the film are the great visual effects, costumes and make-up. Michelle Pfeiffer also really seems to enjoy herself in her role as Lamia. Apart from that, this is mostly forgettable and desirably more so now considering who wrote the novel it is based on.