She's alive! Alive!
The Bride of Frankenstein: Pandora's Bride is a 2006 novel by Elizabeth Hand. It is part of Dark Horse's mid-2000s line of tie-in novels to the popular Universal Horror franchise and is a direct sequel to Bride of Frankenstein, but it exists in its own continuity. In fact, it exists in a very different kind of Monster Mash continuity than the Universal films themselves...The created woman we now know as the Bride of Frankenstein never asked to be anybody's wife. When she (quite understandably, in her view) rejects the brutish male monster for whom she was built, the monster proceeds to burn down the laboratory where she was just brought to life. The Bride, armed with a confused but quick-thinking brain she inherited from one of her unknown donors, rescues her other creator, Dr. Septimus Pretorius, from the blaze, and together they make it out. Dr. Pretorius takes the Bride — who soon names herself Pandora — into his care, along with his sensitive narcoleptic Goth valet Cesare, his failed but adored and adorable previous experiments (called the Children of Cain), and Cesare's showgirl sister Thea. But with more and more young woman disappearing around the Überwald countryside and turning up butchered a few days later, Pretorius is suspected of the crimes, forcing this motley bunch to go on the run to Weimar-era Berlin. It soon becomes clear that none other than Henry Frankenstein, incensed at his own failure to create the perfect bride for his monster, is behind the slayings, with the oddly passive support of his previously horrified wife Elizabeth — but once Pandora arrives in Berlin, she realizes even that's just scraping the surface of a much vaster conspiracy, and if she wants to protect her new family and friends, she'll have to get to the bottom of it before time runs out.
This novel provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: Most prominently, Dr. Septimus Pretorius, though unusually for this trope it's done simply by framing his canonical personality from the film differently. He's still a Mad Scientist par excellence with no respect for the laws of nature or religious injunctions, but he truly loves and nurtures his creations, no matter how grotesque, and his aspirations to a kind of godhood come from wanting to be a kinder, less judgmental sort of god.
- The Cesare of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a murderer working for Dr. Caligari. Here, he's Dr. Pretorius's kindly valet and assistant (and possibly his lover) — though to be fair, his much less creepy personality here probably comes from Pretorius trying to help him with his sleeping sickness, rather than using it to hypnotize and exploit him like Caligari.
- This continuity's Dr. Rotwang truly only wanted to create an artificial woman as a mediator between classes, while in Metropolis his main goal was revenge on Joh Fredersen, and if the Maschinenmensch also deluded and misled the poor, so much the better.
- On a meta-level, Pandora is unflinchingly on the side of the angels in this book, while much of the Bride's presence in Universal Monsters media presents her as a force of malevolence and horror (despite her only screentime showing her as a frail, terrified victim).
- Adaptational Villainy: Henry Frankenstein, whose biggest flaw in Universal's first two Frankenstein movies was simply being too naive and weak-willed to know where to stop when it came to making monsters, takes a turn for the vicious here after Pandora rejects his creature, and becomes obsessed with the creation of the "perfect wife" for any man who wants one, without any of Pretorius's high-falutin' ideas about feminine intelligence. His own wife, Elizabeth, is too passive to object and already serves this purpose for him.
- Or so he thinks. Elizabeth ultimately turns the tables on Henry with Elfi's help and turns him into her lobotomized slave, a prototype for the entire armies she could create for herself, becoming the Final Boss in the process.
- Aerith and Bob: The names of Frankenstein's creations by the end. The Bride names herself Pandora, and the original male creature is eventually named, of all things, Smith.
- Alternate Continuity: The novel sets itself firmly in the late 1920s, versus whatever vague era the original film was set in, and the events of the climax mean it cannot possibly exist in continuity with Son of Frankenstein. Particularly because Henry and Elizabeth both die, and Pandora and Smith find a new life together with their new friends and Pandora's adoptive family.
- Dr. Rotwang from Metropolis (set in the far future) and Lulu from Pandora's Box (which ended with the character being killed by Jack the Ripper, who was active in the 1880s in London) both live in late-1920s Berlin.
- Artificial Family Member: Pretorius and Pandora view each other as father and daughter from the moment of her "birth", which sets them up as an immediate contrast to Henry Frankenstein's terror and disgust with his own creation.
- Artificial Human: Go on, guess. But also Dr. Rotwang's robot girl, Elfi.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Elizabeth Frankenstein.
- Boyish Short Hair: Pandora, thanks to her electrified hair being singed in the destruction of Frankenstein's lab to the point of needing a haircut. It's implied to grow out into more of a bob throughout the story.
- Brutal Honesty:
- Pandora herself, to some extent because she hasn't learned tact yet.
- Thea as well, particularly when she gives Pandora her first reality check about who and what she is.
- Cast Full of Gay: Many of the people Pandora allies with on her journey are queer in some way:
- Dr. Pretorius is implied to be gay, as he was in the original film, though he no longer comes off as a Depraved Homosexual. (And as a bonus, his complete sexual disinterest in women means he's highly respected as an abortionist and obstetrician — it makes his female patients feel safe.)
- Cesare mentions that his narcolepsy lead him to regularly be mistaken for a rentboy by the Berlin police, and that he was also working with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (a pioneering Real Life activist who argued that there was nothing unnatural about being gay or trans). Doubles as a shout-out to Different from the Others, which starred Conrad Veidt (who also played the original Cesare) and was written by Hirschfeld as a plea for tolerance.
- The cigarette girl at the Mondkellar club flirts with Pandora.
- Wendigo and the other Wild-boys are runaway outcasts with no interest in women.
- Pandora fully thinks of herself as a woman, but she has little to no interest in dressing or acting in conventionally feminine ways, and she might be asexual to boot. She seems to want to be attractive to men to some degree, and gently turns down women who flirt with her as well as possibly starting a true relationship with Smith in the end, but romance and sex are never at the forefront of her mind, and she deeply resents the idea of wifehood.
- In a period-pun sort of way, the rampantly heterosexual Thea still fits — because before "gay" came to mean "homosexual", it meant "promiscuous", and Thea is a very promiscuous woman.
- Continuity Nod: Pandora hisses to express displeasure even after she's learned to speak.
- Everyone Has Standards: Dr. Pretorius is a grave-robber, a maker of monstrosities, an alchemist who regularly defies all laws of nature, and in general a deeply amoral Mad Scientist — but he's absolutely not the type to go around murdering living women for parts. Even if he did hold Elizabeth hostage to ensure Pandora's creation. note
- A God Am I: Dr. Pretorius, despite his Adaptational Heroism. Cesare clarifies that while Pretorius does want to essentially be a new god, he doesn't want worship or to push his creations around.
- Hiding in Plain Sight: Dr. Pretorius takes his "family" on the road by posing as a traveling sideshow. They almost never actually perform, but it provides them the cover they need to set up anywhere overnight (and grants a shout-out to Cesare's original job as a circus freak in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Henry Frankenstein is turned into a reanimated, mindless experiment himself by Elizabeth.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
- Pandora, of course, is the Bride of Frankenstein.
- Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is Dr. Pretorius's assistant and valet instead — and it turns out he's a pretty nice young man when he's not being brainwashed into committing murders while sleepwalking.
- Henry Frankenstein presses Hans Beckert, the whistling child-killer from M, into his service.
- Dr. Rotwang builds his robot girl on the outskirts of Berlin in the 1920s rather than in the fantastical future of Metropolis.
- And Lulu from Pandora's Box performs at a club with his robotic creation.
- Christopher Isherwood (himself a Historical Domain Character) offers to introduce Pandora to a friend of his who performs at another club, an American singer. note
- A non-character example: Pandora overhears a man demanding another tell him "what are the 39 Steps?"
- Henry Frankenstein's ultimate plan for his new created women is something of an even more gruesome take on The Stepford Wives. Elizabeth turning the tables on him and planning to continue his work by making him into an easily controlled creation too and using the "perfect wives" as a way of carrying out the same project on their husbands reflects the plot twist at the end of the 2004 film version, but it's not played for laughs here.
- Looks Like Cesare: That's because he actually is Cesare. That said, Pandora's description suggests he looks more like his appearance in the framing device
from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, rather than his more gruesome appearance in the main story.note - Lover and Beloved: Hinted, but never confirmed, to be the case between Dr. Pretorius (an aging mad scientist) and Cesare (his handsome valet and assistant).
- Maybe Ever After: In the end, Pandora still doesn't want Smith to call her "wife", but she takes his hand and describes herself as "Something better. A helpmate, and a true friend."
- Meaningful Name:
- Pretorius suggests the Bride be named Lilith, after Adam's disobedient first wife before Eve. She rejects it, not wanting to be associated with anyone else designed to be a wife, and chooses Pandora at Cesare's suggestion after they discuss the myth of Pandora's Box and the Bride says she'd rather have thrown the box at someone's head.
- Auden and Isherwood name Frankenstein's monster Smith as an indirect reference to Hephaistos, the blacksmith god.
- Mirror Character: Elizabeth and Pandora, it turns out. Both of them are "brides of Frankenstein", with Elizabeth actually marrying the doctor and Pandora being made as a gift for the monster. Both of them resent their lot in life as women who are expected to exist solely for the sake of their male counterparts. Both of them even start wearing more masculine clothing as soon as they're liberated from the role of just being someone's bride.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: Cesare says it's happened to him. Later on, Pandora is herself mistaken for a Gravelstone — a disfigured sex worker who services fetishists — due to her still-healing scars.
- Monster Mash: A variation — while the Bride and Frankenstein's monster are certainly present, the other "monsters" are all taken from German Expressionist horror and drama films rather than the other classic Universal Monsters movies.
- Named by the Adaptation: The Bride of Frankenstein names herself Pandora. And none other than Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden name Frankenstein's monster... Smith.
- Not So Similar: See Mirror Character on this page. But while Pandora simply wants freedom and safety for not only herself, but everyone who is "different", Elizabeth wants revenge, and it doesn't matter how many men or other women she hurts in the process.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Pandora, of course.
- Reluctant Psycho: Hans Beckert, der Pfeifer ("the whistler") is, as in M, a very sick man who feels compelled to prey on children but doesn't actually enjoy it at all. Henry Frankenstein exploits this.
- Shout-Out: The delivery man Dr. Pretorius hires to drive himself and the Bride back home is named Veidtzen. Moments later, we meet Cesare, who was played by Conrad Veidt.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The Bride/Pandora and Dr. Pretorius, but also a few of the other characters they meet relative to their original stories.
- Pandora talks to Professor Rath — here called Professor Unrat — from The Blue Angel, who has been reduced to working as a clown in a nightclub after his divorce from Lola-Lola. Despite his fall from grace, he seems more or less resigned to his new role in life and provides her with helpful exposition — a stark change from the tragic ending of the movie.
- In Pandora's Box, Lulu is killed by Jack the Ripper. Here, Pandora saves her from being Stepfordized by the Frankensteins.
- Suddenly Speaking: The male creature had a very limited vocabulary in the film this book immediately follows. By the time he reappears in this book, he's gained a vocabulary that rivals his prototype in the original Mary Shelley book (courtesy of being tutored by W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood). It allows him to express himself much more sensitively toward Pandora than just grabbing at her and calling her his wife, which leads to her reassessing her disgust toward him.
- Suddenly Voiced: The Bride never speaks in her short screentime. Pandora, it turns out, has a lot to say.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Pandora, for a little bit. With her hair cut short and nothing to wear but some of Cesare's spare clothes, they agree to have her pose as Cesare and Thea's brother at the start of their escape. This ends when Pandora starts dressing herself in combinations of whatever catches her fancy.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Pandora and Thea, respectively.
- Traumatic Haircut: Pandora's famous electrified hair is burned as she drags Dr. Pretorius out of the burning lab at the start of the book, and Cesare has to help her out by cutting the scorched bits off, leaving her with Boyish Short Hair. Pandora's not heartbroken about it, and she's grateful that its upswept shape meant the fire couldn't burn her face and scalp, but she can't help but be a little glum.
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Ugly Cute: The Children of Cain, Dr. Pretorius's failed experiments that came before his tiny people from the film. Unlike Frankenstein, he loves them anyway and keeps them safe. - Uncanny Valley: Pandora is beautiful (she's still visually based on a young Elsa Lanchester, after all), but a little too perfect (as Thea points out, she looks like she was designed by a committee — and in a way, she was), as well as unusually tall and extraordinarily pale. And that's before either Pandora or Thea learn that there are parts of Pandora's body that will simply split and roll open like waxed paper if cut instead of bleeding.
