Being the Youngest -- The Perfect Underdog

In the fairy tales, the youngest of the three or of the six is always the secretly favored. This does not mean that he or she will not ever encounter any problem; rather, this means that our youngest will be tested in the harshest ever ways but we will always feel certain that he or she will sooner or later overcome the trouble, kill the bad guy, give his older brothers in the kingdom an eternal lesson of great ethical value and grab the wealth and the princess, or her equivalent.

I don’t know how things work in the Western family. In the East, in the family, the boys are always under the soft protective umbrella of affection of the mother and the father. (Tough it was not the case in our immigrant family. It would be interesting to know which side gets the dearest share of protectionism in the family in the West.) Doubtlessly, in the Western fairy tale (and in the Eastern, too, as far as I know) the youngest is always granted the ultimate golden share of support and affection, whether it be a girl or a boy even though he or she is mocked and ridiculed for a short while.

I cannot speak for my female specimen; however, personally, I don’t see why my youngest brother should be more clever and dexterous than me despite all his naïveté, scrubbiness and ineffectualness. I am telling this as a person who has two brothers and who is the oldest among the three. Alright, even though I do not take it personally (that those fairy tales, The Golden Bird, The Queen Bee or the Three Feathers –I will not add The Golden Goose as it seems irrational and absurd even in the context of our miraculously flexible and absorbent fairy tales- try to make me seem utterly stupid and ill-willed), I should know the roots of that very ‘wisdom’, which was supposed to be sacred and perennial and which places me in the lowest level in the human scale of capability, intellection and good will. Do I look stupid? More stupid than my younger brother? Or more sneaky and vulgar? Maybe I do. Nevertheless, it is a great shame that our beloved fairy tales could make such brutal generalizations. Same goes for the girls. If I had been living back in the middle ages, I would have done my part to invalidate these presumptions by winning the first place in the chariot-race in the great Greek Olympics and by killing all my rival gladiators in the Roman arena.

Now, my being the most stupid is somehow, in the fairy tales, rewarded with my also being the one who is favored seemingly, (to some extent). At least until my brilliant brother comes home with the golden bird and deserves to marry the beautiful maiden and snatches the kingdom out of my hands, which means that, as a matter of fact, it is my younger brother who is actually favored, if I am not stupid enough to content myself with a few days of spree in a place like Coco-Bongo. I am not taking this reconciliation prize! Of course, I am too idiot to know that my days of joy and happiness are limited and I should get going. In the meanwhile, my simpleton brother will emerge as the only triumphant and claim the wealth, the girl and the kingdom. Fair enough.

If someone asked me, “What would you prefer to be? A happy, favored dumb or a clever underdog,” I would pick the second choice as now, having read what happened to all those short-lived grandeur of the dumb older brothers, I know that that my younger one is finally going to prove himself to be a very clever and no-longer-the-underdog personality. I have that much brain.

Still, one should reconsider the assumption that the youngest (boy or girl) is the most clever among the three and he or she is going to end up being the king or queen. This is not proven scientifically. Don’t we all worship science?

I think with the stories that have the youngest triumph over the eldest it is not due to a tradition or belief that a youngest child is most talented precisely the opposite in fact. It is because the eldest was more valued as the heir, whether to a mansion or the fathers position as a carpenter, that the writer(s) wanted to subvert the social order and say these children have worth they can be the one to make good. In that sense it is also wish fulfillment for all the younger children who weren't really expected to do so good as the eldest who was supposed to be the one to succeed and give the family credit.

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Originally Posted by Fen

I think with the stories that have the youngest triumph over the eldest it is not due to a tradition or belief that a youngest child is most talented precisely the opposite in fact. It is because the eldest was more valued as the heir, whether to a mansion or the fathers position as a carpenter, that the writer(s) wanted to subvert the social order and say these children have worth they can be the one to make good. In that sense it is also wish fulfillment for all the younger children who weren't really expected to do so good as the eldest who was supposed to be the one to succeed and give the family credit.

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Still, I don't know why all the virtues have to be found in the youngest while the older ones are bad enough, like in one fairy tale where they thorw the youngest, Benjamin, into a well, to be finally embarassed, humiliated and slightly or harshly punished.

Well, I know that Freud is totally out of fashion, but there is a theory claiming that actually the two elder siblings as folks of authority symbolize the parents - and the child needs in some ways to overthrow the power of her/his parents to develop as a person. It would be awkward, though, and causing confusion and shame for the child to attack the parents directly - so you need some kind of substitute, for example, elder siblings. An evil stepmother/stepfather is also often used.

Oh, and, khm....

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If I had been living back in the middle ages, I would have done my part to invalidate these presumptions by winning the first place in the chariot-race in the great Greek Olympics and by killing all my rival gladiators in the Roman arena.

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