Three Fingers

I initially thought Wolfe had a cool idea here, pointing out the irony of Disney vigorously protecting the rights to characters that they've swiped from better sources and humanity's common story-telling tradition. But then I'm led to ask that if Captain Hook is just a watered-down version of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd and Barbarosa, then shouldn't the hero of this story be someone who is a dealer in Blackbeard stories and Captain Kidd paraphernalia? Or conversely, if Mickey Mouse and Snow White are sufficiently distinguished from their literary ancestors to be worth stealing, it's a little less ironic when Disney objects to the theft. I enjoy the ending more if I read it as Wolfe wanting us to imagine that the "it's all just an insane hallucination" bit was tacked on by the editor to avoid trouble from Disney's lawyers. -Rostrum