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Saint Nicolas and Pere Fouettard ROTG style 2

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Saint Nicolas and Père Fouettard ROTG style 2

A new version of this previous drawing: Saint Nicolas and Pere Fouettard ROTG style

I change St Nicolas's design, Fouettard remained the same.

Here's the text from the old version explaining who these characters are:

There's a joke I particularly liked in the movie, like the rest of the theater by the way, the brief meeting with the “European division”, aka the Little Mouse, the equivalent of the Toothfairy for most European countries including France.

The allusions to other legendary or holiday-associated figures (the leprechaun is mentioned at some point), gave me the idea to draw two legendary holiday-associated figures from Europe as they could appear in ROTG' universe.

So, meet two other members of the European division: Saint Nicolas and Père Fouettard (also known as Hans Trapp, Knecht Ruprecht, Krampus and many other names), who are linked to the holiday of Saint-Nicolas, that takes place on 5 and 6 December and is still celebrated today. Here, I gave them the names they have in Lorraine, my native region, and Alsace, the holiday is also celebrated in some other regions of northern-eastern France, in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria and Eastern Europe in general from what I've heard. The first is an ancestor of Santa Claus, and they acknowledge that fact in the movie since they named him Nicholas St North, and has the same function while Père Fouettard is a boogieman.

For those who don't know about this legend, I've based the characters mainly on the version from Lorraine. In this version, three little children get lost and ask a butcher for shelter, the butcher kill them and transform them into meat he stocks into the salting tub. Seven years later, Saint Nicolas shows up and asks for something to eat, the butcher proposes different kind of meats that the saint refuses, he asks instead specifically the meat the butcher stocked in his salting tub seven years ago. The butcher runs away hearing that and Saint Nicolas resurrects the children. And that's why he's considered as the protector of children among other things.

As for Père Fouettard, in Lorraine he is the butcher who killed the kids and was condemned by the saint to follow him during his visits to the children as a punishment. Saint Nicolas distributes candies to good kids and Père Fouettard has a small whip (the closest translation I can do for his French name would be “Father Whip”) or coal for naughty children, or threatens to take them away in his sack. So... the punishment for killing children is punishing them ? That seems odd now that I think about it, but if you keep in mind that no one has been harmed by this boogieman even in old times, all the naughty kids get at worse is a stern lecture from Saint Nicolas and candies anyway, so it might be seen as a fitting punishment indeed: he can scare the children (and boy, does it work: it's incredibly funny to look at the kids when they see the impersonator of Père Fouettard, I can assure you) but cannot do them any harm. But I guess that the other reason that would explain that is that the saints seem to be insanely forgiving in the legends about them.

Now concerning the picture, I have decided to give Père Fouettard a medieval-like outfit that is supposed to come in dark tones, since he is most of the time represented dressed in black or dark brown and has a hood, his skin would be grey, not only as an allusion to Pitch but also because he is often represented with a black skin. You can also see his whip at his side, well, the black thing hanging from his belt is supposed to be one anyway. As for his eyes, I haven't decided if I'll make them entirely yellow or red, or if I'll simply give him a normal eye color.

As for Saint Nicolas, he is rather close to his traditional appearance as a wise old man. I replaced the mitre from the first version by a hood but kept the star-pattern on the outfit to replace the cross he usually has, I think the costume would be purple if colored. This choice was made not only to differentiate this version from his usual interpretation but also because Saint Nicolas has become a secularized holiday in Europe (well at least in Western Europe, for Eastern Europe I don't know but if any of you come from these countries or know about it, please let me know) and so it's not celebrated as a christian holiday anymore, the same goes for Christmas and Easter. And since the guardians in the movie seem to adapt to their time, I'm thinking of Jack Frost's hoodie for example, then I guess a Saint could choose to adapt to a new perception of his holiday. Anyway, the star-pattern as I've represented it still looks like a cross and stars can be still considered a christian symbol.


I may put a colored version eventually, any suggestion concerning the colors are welcome.


Disclaimer

ROTG belongs to Dreamworks, Saint Nicolas and Père Fouettard, and all their declinations are public domain however.
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© 2014 - 2024 zoccu
Comments5
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Pikku-Piru's avatar
Je ne connais pas du tout ce film, mais le Père Fouettard correspond pas mal à l'idée que j'en avais ^^ il fait peur :s