The Last Unicorn: Death and the Legacy of Fantasy

2020 really got me making an hour-long video essay about mortality in a 1980s children's movie about unicorns, huh?

00:00 - Intro
05:16 - Making the Unicorn
14:54 - Story Breakdown
24:20 - Memento Mori
37:09 - Deaths and Legacies
47:52 - Outro

i did a super bad job of explaining the whole "on 2s" thing so uhhh no worries if you're confused by how i explained it. anyway, here is a list of the sources i used for this video; next time i think i'll try to add in-video footnotes or something:

- "The Unicorn" by Nancy Hathaway
- "The Anti-Consolation: Boethius and 'The Last Unicorn'" by Alexandra Hennessey Olsen
- "'Two Sides of the Same Magic': The Dialect of Mortality and Immortality in Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn by Geoffrey Reiter
- "Humankind and Reality: Illusion and Self-Deception in Peter S. Beagle's Fiction" by Richard C. West
- "Innocence and Experience and the Imagination in the World of Peter Beagle" by John Pennington
- "Fantasy and Medieval Iconography in The Last Unicorn" by Noelle Taberham
- "Virgin Whore" by Emma Maggie Solberg
- "The Unicorn Tapestries" by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

-The Last Unicorn Book vs Movie

[chromalore]

hi everyone! so this video kind of picked up steam this weekend, and i just wanted to say i'm so incredibly grateful for all of you who watched it! all the likes and feedback are so awesome, and i am so glad this movie resonated with so many people in the way it did with me :) i am working on a second video essay that will hopefully be out in the next few weeks. (and thank you to all of you who subscribed to my tiny baby channel! i hope to add several more videos in the coming months.)

[jasperlucas]

"Don't run from eternal things.
It only attracts their attention."

- the Last Unicorn

[PureMagic]

The part where she talks about how she can feel her body dying around her, especially in the book, where the concept of a human form is so foreign to her that she ends up clawing at her skin to the point of it bleeding because she doesn’t know how to cope, that stuck with me.

[Jacecam]

I find it highly ironic that Unicorns are seen as exclusively feminine these days. Because prior to that first line written in the cabin back in the 60's. Unicorns were almost exclusively considered to be masculine. Or at least referred to as such. They were noble defenders of maidens, saviours and healers. Beagle in part has left his stamp on the world in helping shift that understanding to something beautiful and gentle.

[laffyraffy]

Honestly the scene that stuck with me as a kid wasn't any of the "terrifying" stuff, but the scene where the unicorn wakes up and realizes what Schmendrick did to her to save her. When she cried, "I can feel this body dying all around me!" it struck me to my core. I realized that, as a creature with an immortal body, she could literally *feel* the process of her human body slowly aging aka dying. It struck me as horrifying, that she would have to endure that feeling.

Another thing that stuck with me was when she told Schmendrick at the end of the film, "I am no longer like the others, for no unicorn was born that could regret. But I do. I regret, " and she later thanked him for that. It made me realize that even painful experiences can be valuable.

Honestly this movie, and later the book, has shaped much of how I see the world. It's become such a comfort read that I have entire pages memorized. This may sound hyperbolic, but I honestly think I would be a different person had I never seen this movie and read the book.

[Roxax]

I always liked the irony behind this movie. The unicorn searches for the other unicornes because she doesn't want to be the last one, but in the end she will still be alone for she was a woman and now knows emotions and mortality. So she started alone and in the end is still alone. I love this movie.

[PokemonkaDub]

Shmendrick wasn't cursed with immortality because he was bad at magic, he was cursed because he was so incredibly powerfull that one lifespan would not be enought to gain controll over all the magic he had. That's also why he seemed bad at it.

[TuberoseKisser]

Unicorns in mythology are really agressive, like... they're wild horses with a horn and were thought to be something that should be conquered so I'm not surprised that The Last Unicorn was dark.

[funkyfiss]

The last Unicorn is a masterpiece and so is the last unicorn song that goes with it.

[darthlazurus]

King Haggard's motives are terrifyingly realistic.

He is desperate to feel happiness to the point that he acts in an utterly selfish and childlike way.

[craftcat]

Out of all the characters I think the unicorn has the worst fate. She will never die, forced to remember her friends forever despite the fact they forgot her the moment they passed.

[thesisypheanjournal]

The scene where Molly Grue confronts the Unicorn is one of the most underrated moments in cinema.

[definitelynotapervert]

I adore the design of the unicorn in this movie. She's just so ridiculously beautiful, elegant and graceful, with a strong sense of strength, dignity and power emanating from her. Her body is well-defined and muscular, without losing her curvaceousness or breadth.

[lydiablasko]

As a child whose childhood started with this fucking movie, I can confirm, I love it. People think its just weird but they don't understand. The magic in the animation, the beauty of the unicorn, each character unique, the scenery that feels so peaceful, the calm in the unicorns eyes, the iconic moments such as the skeleton i like to call "sassy skeleton", and the deep meaning in it. To me, looking back at it, although I didn't think this as a kid, this movie had a message, especially at the end, that things change, and so you have to move on, and things that once were important, have to be acknowledged and grateful for, but move on. Even in the weird animal zoo boobie bird old hag scene(idk what to call it), even the hag herself talks about how people believe what they want to believe and see what they want to believe, and even draws parallels to zoos and how the animals aren't as happy there. And another thing, I'm not gonna say that all the women in the film weren't sexualized cuz that's just not true, but what I am saying is that many of the women in the film weren't picture perfect, like the old hag, and the supporting woman character(i forgot her name) has the same scraggly hairstyle the whole time. And when the unicorn is in human form, the sexualization and general sexism is less than other, the only main sexualization scene is when she's just been turned into a human and she's fricken naked, but shmendrik is respectful THE ENTIRE FILM, and than there's the old fuck corpse guy who gives off rlly creepy vibes but still treats her as the unicorn creature she is, not an object. So food for thought, or should I say BUFFET for thought, I like to write a lot.

[raelaash]

As a German growing up with Das Letzte Einhorn in the 90s, I will be eternally grateful Christopher Lee voiced King Haggard in German aswell. His voice and pronunciation/accent in the role always enchanted me as a child, and keeps doing so as an adult. It's the perfect fit.

[PolarisGrace]

The most traumatic part for me was when she was talking about her flesh rotting when she became mortal.

[graphitepants]

For some reason mommy fortuna’s death and the Red Bull weren’t scary to me, but damn if I wasn’t terrified of that skull screaming UNICORN UUUNICORN

[A_ghost_milkshake]

Fun fact about Molly. Back in the day sometimes there was a ceremony before a wedding where the bride had to sing a song and if a unicorn apeared it'd mean she was pure of heart and a virgin and was therefore allowed to marry. I dont quite remember if that was a "princess only" sorta thing, it might have been, but that might've been what Molly was talking about when she asked the unicorn where she had been.

[MaryArts]

So in the end it states: One mortal life fully lived in love and regret is more worth than thousand immortal lives filled with no friends, no sorrow, regret, love and less.

[Choshako]

The Last Unicorn imo is in the same category as Coraline, both are scary and nightmare fuel, but that's part of why they're so good. Movies like these teach valuable lessons, the characters are in really terrifying circumstances, but they survive them nonetheless. I think that's a great example to show kids, especially kids who may be in terrifying circumstances themselves.