My Adjective-Heavy, Overlong Version Of The Emperor's New Clothes.

One of my favorite stories of all time is The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a popular one, and technically it's a fable I think, but it's been in the back of my head for years and years. I think about it so much because it works on so many levels and also it’s another piece in the puzzle of human nature. For a short Fable, it explains so much about human behavior that it feels like an epic. I don’t remember how old I was when it clicked in my head what that story was really about, but ever since then it’s behaved rather fractal-like in my head (Although most things are behaving that way to me right now, because I’m an official Frack addict) as I’ve consistently seen more complicated patterns of human behavior within it every time I think about it.

An Emperor, who is very vain about his fashion sense, spends a lot of his country's money on his vanity, yet he feels that most of the people around him are too stupid to appreciate what is in reality his extremely gaudy taste. So he searches for a Tailor who will make him something so "beautiful" that only those with the "highest" fashion sense can appreciate it. It doesn't take him long to find his Karl Rove, his Ahmed Chalabi, his St. Paul. A clever Tailor has heard about his quest and responds with a devious plan.

He takes the measure of the Emperor, and declares that he will make him the finest suit imaginable, with the caveat that it will be so unimaginably fine that only those who are truly capable of sensing the greatest beauty will be able to see it, so ineffable will this creation be. The Emperor, of course, is very pleased by this and is looking forward to the day when he can prove to the world that he is not a vain idiot, but that he has the very keenest of aesthetic appreciation.

The Tailor takes his down payment and goes off to the pub and has a merry time. He plays some golf, takes a long weekend off in the hills with an easy lass from down the street, and sleeps off the hangover. He meanwhile sends messages to the Emperor that he's been hard at work, along with descriptions of the suit and how lovely it will be, relating his progress on how difficult and rewarding the work is. How the color is beyond the glamour of gold. How he searched far and wide to find the mythical thread of the gods in ancient and little traveled lands. How he imported the finest lace from ancient Babylon. How he is using only adamantine needles gathered from the secret merchants of Atlantis to do the thread work painstakingly by hand, being so careful that a well turned stitch may take him an hour per knot. The Emperor is beside himself with impatience, and daily his imaginings of the suit grow greater until the blinding beauty of what this suit will be has formed an unshakable picture in his mind.

At long last, the clever Tailor wakes one morning and decides that it is time. He opens up a closet door and grabs a dusty old clothing box from the back of it, cleans it up and proceeds to turn it into the finest dressed box in all the land using old ribbons and bits of cast off cloth from his cutting room floor, causing an absurd amount of envy in all of the other clothing boxes' tiny black hearts.

He then cleans himself up, and dresses himself in what are actually very fine and tasteful clothes, because he really is a fantastic Tailor and truly knows what a nicely cut suit is all about. In fact, looking at the Tailor that morning, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he was the lord of a wealthy fief with an old family and refined sensibilities. Further, he might have been happy to cut the Emperor as fine a suit as this one, but the Tailor knew that his tastes did not run in that direction and would demand something far showier than was truly tasteful.

Getting himself into his role, he grabs some air and arranges it fussily inside the handsomest box ever created. He then sends word to the Emperor that the suit is finished at last. Beside himself with joy, the Emperor sends an escort of his personal guard to bring the Tailor and his suit to the palace.

When the Tailor arrives at the palace, Box of Adonis tucked safely under his arm, the Emperor greedily demands to see the suit, so eager is he to present himself to his subjects as a man of the greatest sensibilities. The Tailor first admonishes the Emperor to remember his caveat, and before taking out the suit, begins to remind him of how sacred and beautiful this suit is, and that he must prepare his eyes to see it lest he be blinded by the beauty etc etc etc...

So after much ado about nothing, they retire to the Emperor’s chambers along with several choice Imperial Attendants and there, apart from prying eyes the Tailor opens the box and... Well what happens here is a matter of much debate. Some people believe that the Emperor, so fixated on the ideas carefully planted by the Tailor of the amazing technicolor suit, in fact actually saw the suit exactly as he imagined it, his fantasies becoming a mirage before his eyes. Others believe that, seeing nothing there he was loath to admit to himself (but even more importantly, would be loath to admit to his courtiers and advisers) that he could not see it, especially in front of his attendants and more so after talking it up for so long that only those with fine aesthetic discernment would be able to look at it, and so proceeded to convince himself that it was there, lest he be laughed at by those with more acumen for not apprehending it. Still others believe that the Emperor knew very well that there was in fact nothing there, but again for the same reasons as stated above and further chose to go along with the Tailor's clever ruse so that he could proclaim himself the only one in the world with the ability to see it; God's chosen fashion sensor.

In any case, whatever was going through the Emperor's mind at the time, the outcome was the same. It will be up to him to face the reality he hid himself from, or the reality he created, on judgment day. For the rest of us, it is what comes next that is important.

The Tailor made a great show of lifting the invisible clothes out of the box and draping them ‘round the foolish ruler. His Attendants, after an initial moment of confusion, began to help the Tailor and made various sounds of approval, exclaiming that the Tailor had done a wonderful job and that the Emperor looked simply incomparable. One of the Attendants quietly slipped out of the room to warn… I mean, to announce of course! To announce to the Lords and Ladies of the court that the Emperor was now dressed in his eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and would be attending them shortly.

The Emperor presented himself to his court, beaming happily in his amazing new outfit which everyone saw to be his bright pink polka-dotted underwear, yet none of them would be the first to say other than that his robes were splendorous (lick spittle cowards that people of such station invariably are). There was a tense moment for the Tailor when a poor ignorant chambermaid came in to tend the fire and gasped upon seeing him holding court before hundreds of his courtiers, wearing nothing but his Imperial Knickers! She turned a truly amazing shade of white which possibly had never been specified on the royal color charts before that day, and began to stammer an apology for walking in on the Emperor in such a state. Having gone over every eventuality in his head many times over, the Tailor smoothly explained to the Emperor and his Attendants in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, but especially by the poor white-faced chambermaid that it only proved his point that those without class or fashion sense would not be able to comprehend the world’s finest fabric creation.

Chambermaids, poor creatures that they are with little in their lives other than the drudgery of cleaning up after other folk’s dirty messes, are resultantly prone to gossip. So naturally word of this exchange spread quickly, although the story which the chambermaid told changed from her simply having seen the Emperor in his knickers to having been temporarily blinded by the Emperor’s au courant hauteur, and was now in fact one of the lucky first to have seen the new wonder which could only be seen, according to the greatest Tailor of the land, (For he was the Emperor’s personal Tailor, was he not?) by people of taste and education! An article of clothing which only those of a complete doltish nature would fail to behold, and of course all of the Lords, Ladies and residents of the palace, who with their position, wealth, and refinement were the envy of those of the working class, had perceived it and therefore proven that the rumors of the Members-of-Refinement only suit were in fact true.

And so of course it was not long before everyone in town determined that they would not be one of the unfortunates to expose their ignorance by failing to see the new outfit, having a great desire to prove themselves every bit as refined as their social superiors.

As it so happened, the Imperial Scheduler had on his calendar for this day an Imperial inspection of the Empire’s Cavalry. As the bent, near-blind old Scheduler informed the Emperor of this duty, the Tailor listened closely, and worried a little. He asked the Imperial Scheduler what he thought of the Emperor’s attire, and whether it was appropriate garb for an official public inspection. The Scheduler, having heard the talk of the eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and near blind though he was, exclaimed how fine the Emperor looked and declared that the Cavalry would likely be honored by his well-dressed inspection.

And so the Tailor, deeming the public ready as evinced by the fact of word having spread to the servants, was sure that by the time the Emperor’s retinue arrived outside word would have spread even further, and felt confident that he was safe. He then approached the Emperor and asked for the remainder of his fee, having delivered the new clothes as promised, before taking his leave. The Emperor, being always in the public eye, paid the Tailor his due with a healthy bonus thrown in for having far surpassed his greatest expectations. The Tailor then bowed his way out of the palace, thanking the Emperor for his magnanimity, and telling him that should he have any problems or need any further work done not to hesitate to summon him. The Tailor left in a very jubilant mood indeed, having more gold in his pockets now than ever another tailor may receive in a lifetime, and all for such toil free deception!

The Emperor ordered his retinue be made ready, and, dressed impeccably in naught but his undergarments, proceeded out onto the streets for a much anticipated inspection of his cavalry, for now all of the people would see and understand how wonderful their Emperor’s taste in clothing really was!

Strutting down the avenue outside of his palace, surrounded by his slavering suck-ups, The Emperor began to preen. Never before did such a preening take place as this one. In fact, were the Emperor even a small touch more smug and self-loving, this story may have come down to us through the ages known as The Emperor’s New Preen.

But of course, we all know what it’s really all about. It’s about a grown man publicly walking about in his skivvy, pretending that he looks simply fabulous. And as he walked down the main street of his city in this manner, the people were trying not to snigger, because while they all saw him, um, very clearly shall we say, none of them wished to be the first to admit it and invite possible ridicule in case there was any truth to the idea that he was actually very finely dressed, and so laughing would only expose their own lowness.

People are generally pretty stupid and have overlarge egos, and the Emperor was, well, their Emperor.

A young child, too young and intelligent to have paid any mind to the nonsense talk of the adults but not so young that he didn’t know what was truly important, was therefore looking around the street for interesting things to pick up from the ground and chasing pigeons. As he was running after a particularly energetic pigeon, he found himself quite inadvertently out in the middle of the street… directly in front of the nearly naked Emperor.

As the child’s clear eyes scanned up from the Emperor’s feet to meet his royally clouded eyes, widening in surprise along the way, I like to imagine that a chill of doom shivered up the Emperor’s regally ambivalent spine. I think that deep down, everyone knows you can’t fool children, not about the important things anyway, even when you’ve managed to fool yourself.

The child, not understanding the silly adult complexities of the situation, shouted up to the Emperor (who, leaning back with one leg crooked and arms going bent as he was, looked as if he was ready to flee from this harmless little urchin):

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

Those nearest the unfolding drama gasped, and the silence thundered like a wave. The complete ridiculousness of the situation had been apparent to all, but after being too cowardly to state their convictions on the matter, the child’s innocent question was as a needle to a balloon for the people on the street. And then: laughter. Unable to hold on to their imagined dignity any longer, the throng bellowed until the tears came.

Now, in the old telling of this story, the Emperor, looking quite like a scared little monkey, became ashamed as he realized that the jig was up and high-tailed it back to his palace in order to become decent and to find that louse of a tailor and hang him by his fingers. However, times being what they are, our story does not end nearly as tidily. Instead, our Emperor, looking more like a smug, semi-intelligent nose-picking little monkey, chose to ignore the laughter, loudly pronounce that all of those who were full of mirth were in fact scoundrels, and that he very well was wearing very fine cloth which they obviously were too uneducated and unpatriotic to see, until some of the people came around again to believing in the ruse and began to accuse each other of being on the wrong side of things until no one knew anymore what was naked and what was not. And rather than hanging the insipidly deceitful Tailor, the Emperor made him his top fashion adviser and gave him a big raise.

And that is The End of all things, children.

Comments

[Miss Luongo]

Awesome storytime! I'd always hear the version that the king made the kid his personal advisor because he realized he couldn't trust anyone. Also in my version, when the king couldn't see the garment he went along with it, as everyone did, so as not to seem unrefined. I never considered that he'd so fooled himself that he actually saw something. Or that he went along with the tailor's ruse on purpose. Interesting twists.

[messiestobjects]

Well you know, there's 10 sides to every story.

[Miss Luongo]

There are 10 sides for INTJs.

[messiestobjects]

You mean height, length, width, in, out, veight, vength, vidth, vin, and vout? Yes, we INTJs ARE very tesseracty.

[Miss Luongo]

Or how about front, back, top, bottom, right, left, in, out, under, over...

[messiestobjects]

Top and over are the same, bottom and under also, spatially speaking. No, you need to go 4th dimension when dealing with us.

[Miss Luongo]

Well, height, length, and width aren't sides. I don't know about that other stuff.

I'll argue that top and over are different. Consider: My hat is on top of my head and the concept of veight and vength are over it.

[messiestobjects]

Silly 3Der, you don't wear a hat!

Height, length, and width are dimensions. Actually, in our plane of existence, they're the only sides. In and out I just threw in there so I could have five, in order to double them to ten using meta-equivalent 4th dimensional directions. So, yeah, I may be jar-jarring 4D lingo, but mostly I'm full of Vhit.

[Miss Luongo]

Carl Jung just blogged about Snow White.

[messiestobjects]

Ummm... I know this is late but, I hate to break it to you really, but, Jung is dead, dude.

[messiestobjects]

And he hated blogs.

[Miss Luongo]

But he's still alive in the collective consciousness. And I'm pretty sure he's fascinated by blogs. It's the collective consciousness incarnate.

[messiestobjects]

Are jou talking about the Jungian overmind? Jes! If jou're the MBTI Kraken, then he is the psjchoanaljtical jeti of Gaia! I mean, Gaja.

[Miss Luongo]

I meant to say the collective unconscious.