and small spoilers for alexithymia/dysthmia, but won't be spoilers related to the plot
ANALYSIS
[All Princess and The Frog References]
Based on the story of PRINCESS AND THE FROG
actually, not entirely
deaths wish is based on the story that princess and the frog is based on: The Frog Princess, along side the story of The Princess and the Frog
The Frog Prince is a story about acceptance, and people shouldn't be judged by how they act or how they look
In the tale, a spoiled princess reluctantly befriends the Frog Prince, whom she met after dropping a gold ball into a pond, and he retrieves it for her in exchange for her friendship.
I went on a bit of a different turn of this one.
Jisung reflects the spoiled princess
Aeri reflects the Frog Prince
Jisung was hesitant on befriending or even caring about Aeri at the beginning of the book, fear getting to the better of him and titling her 'psychopath' no matter how he looked at her.
Jisung was spoiled with happiness, and the joy of freedom. He had a life worth living, and he not only brought smiles to himself, but to others around him. But he was spoiled with it. Jisung tried to balance the perfection of his life with street racing, breaking against the plain and too perfect version of his life with something that could be considered a crime.
Aeri is the Frog Prince. Ugly on the outside, soft on the inside. Prince is also royalty, and so was she. She had riches and money, but was stripped of her childhood and the bright blue skies and joy. She was deemed a monster and someone who kills for pleasure.
The golden ball is the monsters living inside Aeri and Jisung. In the Frog Prince Tale, it is said that the golden ball is retrieved in exchange for friendship. I bent the meaning a bit, and thought of it a bit like retrieving your monsters from the cage within your soul (the cage = the river that the golden ball fell into) in exchange for relief, happiness and even freedom.
Monsters are described as a bad thing in most peoples eyes, but in this case, it wasn't. Jisung began to show his monsters and its capability of it, Aeri began to let them loose when she felt as if everything was closing in on them.
Like the golden ball, monsters are golden, rare and worth a lot. So protect them, even if they don't seem as noble as gold does.
the story also goes onto how the princess then kisses the frog, but it's pretty self explanatory, just things like acceptance and shit
the frog references come up a lot throughout the book eg:
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