Falconer- Big Fish

Edward Bloom is a very amiable character. Almost everyone he encountered on his epic journeys loved him but what was interesting was that the people he took a particular liking to were the darker more grotesque characters. First as a child the rumored witch in their town fascinated him and his friends. She supposedly had one glass eye that if you looked into you could see your death. While his friends shook scared at her gate he said he wasn’t afraid. One of his friends doubts his bravery and asks him to prove it by going to get her eye. Ed knocks on the door and the witch opens it promptly. He barely hesitates in telling her his friends would like to see her eye. She complies with Ed and follows him to his friends outside. They are terrified as she lifts up the eye patch and they whiteness their death. Ed then walks the witch back to her door and tells her he would like to know his death because then he couldn’t have to be afraid of anything else. He looks into her eye and calmly remarks, “oh so that’s how I go.” He and the witch then form some sort of friendship she offers him advice as he leaves town and you can tell he really respects the advice even though he tells Karl it was nonsense. I think the reason dark characters really take a liking to Ed is because he talks to them like they are just like everyone else. While many people of the town live in fear of the witch and talk rumors of her Ed takes the initiative to really meet her.

Ed takes the same approach when meeting Karl the giant. At first he isn’t really sure how he is going to talk Karl into leaving town. But when the giant admits to just being to big Ed relates and begins to speak to him on a different level. He says he is also too big for this town and they should move on to somewhere bigger together. I think just as the witch was, Karl the giant was pleasantly surprised for someone to really get to know the real him behind the stereotypes and rumors and that’s how Ed gains his trust. The two then leave the town together looking for somewhere the giant won’t be too big in size and Ed won’t be too big in ambition. I think Ed Bloom possesses the rare quality of genuineness that makes him liked by almost anyone he encounters. He talks to everyone to get to know without the pretext of what he may have heard about them before. The reason I think Ed identifies with the dark characters the most is because of his ambition he has always felt different from others just like the dark grotesque characters in the film do.