The BFG
 | |
| Original Title: | The Big Friendly Giant |
|---|---|
| Written by: | Roald Dahl |
| Central Theme: | |
| Synopsis: | A little girl befriends a friendly giant, and helps him stop his more dangerous brethren from hurting children. |
| First published: | January 14, 1982 |
 |
"I is not like the others, I is a nice Giant, I is a freaky Giant. I is the Big Friendly Giant. The BFG, that's me." |
 |
The BFG is a book by Roald Dahl and later an animated film by Cosgrove Hall (of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula fame). "BFG" in this case stands for Big Friendly Giant, and is the name of one of the protagonists. He is a Giant, the magic mythological kind who lives in Giant Country and is the only member of his race who doesn't eat humans. The other protagonist is Sophie, a little orphan girl who the BFG kidnaps (and later regrets) because she catches a glimpse of him—she's terrified at first but, once she learns he's nice, she's actually quite glad to be out of the horrible orphanage she lived in.
The other Giants are child killers, and downright terrifying. Sophie is very nearly eaten by one (the Bloodbottler) but survives when he spits out the disgusting vegetable she's hiding in. The BFG lets Sophie in on his secret job—catching dreams from Dream Country, then mixing them up and distributing them to children (blowing them through a big trumpet). He also locks away any nightmares he finds, to make sure they don't find a way to kids by themselves.
Sophie comes up with a plan to capture the other giants, she makes The Queen of England dream about the Giants and also that they can be stopped by a little girl called Sophie and a friendly Giant. Thus, when she appears on the Queen's windowsill, Sophie is instantly believed (with the additional backup of a recent ring of child massacres that the Queen also dreams about on the same night that they happen). The Queen calls on the Army and the RAF to capture the Giants, which they do with the help of the BFG and Sophie.
In the end:
- Book: The BFG and Sophie move to England, the BFG gets to live in a large castle and Sophie in a lovely cottage next door. He is given the title of the "Royal Dream Blower".
- Animated Film: He and Sophie go back to the now peril-free Giant Country.
A live-action film directed by Steven Spielberg was released in 2016.
Not to be confused with any other BFG.
Tropes used in The BFG include:
- Always a Bigger Fish: Compared to other giants, the BFG is a runt.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: According to the BFG, "giants is never killing their own kind; only humans is." He claims that humans are the only species on the planet that kill their own kind (which is not true), likely because he did read just one book (and presumably got a great deal of his knowledge from there).
- Award Bait Song: "Sometimes, Secretly" from the movie.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The BFG at first attempts to persuade Bloodbottler into eating a Snozzcumber by comparing it to fruits, which he rejects with disgust, but when he suggests it tastes like bones, he's quick to accept.
- Bathtub Scene: But not for fanservice.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Malaproper BFG repeatedly mispronounces Charles Dickens as Dahl's Chickens. This is given a Shout-Out in the film version of Matilda.
- Big Damn Heroes: The BFG bursting in to save Sophie from Fleshlumpeater during the climax.
- Big No: Sophie yells "Nooo!", when Fleshlumpeater is implied to eat a young boy. The volume of her voice almost catches his attention too, so the BFG hightails it out of there.
- Broken Aesop: Although the BFG likens the Giants' eating of humans to the humans' eating of animals, it doesn't stop him tucking into ham and eggs. Even though he brings up pigs as a specific example. Although, as he only read one book, it's likely that he didn't know what ham actually was. Either that, or he figured eating animals was better than eating humans.
- The Butcher: One of the giants is named "Butcher Boy".
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Good dreams are green, stable ovoids. Nightmares are thrashing red storms.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- A nightmare caught early on is used to save the day during the climax.
- The Queen gives Sophie a sapphire brooch to wear. Later, she stabs the Fleshlumpeater with it to distract him from eating a soldier.
- Cultural Translation:
- In the Hebrew version the giants fear David (from David and Goliath) rather than Jack.
- In the Dutch version the BFG owns a copy of Oliver Twist, rather than Nicholas Nickleby.
- David Versus Goliath: The BFG and the humans against the evil and much larger giants.
- Dream Weaver: The BFG is a benign example, mixing up good dreams for the children of the world from the bottled small dreams he captures, and locking away nightmares. He's reluctant to mix up the dream for the Queen in Sophie's plan because, as it's about the horror of the giants, it's naturally a nightmare.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The BFG is first mentioned as one of Danny's father's stories in Danny, the Champion of the World, written six years earlier.
- Eats Babies: The evil Giants.
- Eldritch Location: Giant Country is a mild example, being quite reachable by helicopter. In the movie, it looks like a barren wasteland full of weirdly-shaped rocks. The Land of Dreams is an even weirder place, but appears to be less dangerous.
- Evil Is Bigger: Subverted by the BFG himself, but played straight in that his murderous brothers are much taller than he is.
- Expy/Canon Immigrant: The design of the bad giants are from the Badfort Gang of Uncle, another book illustrated by Quentin.
- Femme Fatalons: Male example: Fleshlumpeater has a single long, sharp nail on each index finger.
- Foreign Queasine / It Tastes Like Feet: Snozzcumber, which tastes absolutely repulsive. As he refuses to eat humans, it's the only thing that the BFG can eat, as it is the only thing that grows in Giant Country.
- Gentle Giant: The BFG himself, though he does have some Deadpan Snarker-ish moments. Actually, so do most of the characters.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Ahem, "whizzpopping".
- Ha Ha Ha No: In the movie, the BFG does this when discussing the different flavours of humans from around the world with Sophie.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: In the movie, the BFG is voiced by David Jason.
- Hollywood Atlas: Lets see...the Queen of England runs everything and can overturn any decisions that her military commanders tries to make...Sweden is such a small community that everyone notices if three of them suddenly disappear...and Baghdad is run by a Caliph.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The BFG is disdainful of humankind in general, but realizes by the end that not all humans are bad.
- I Has No Brother: The other giants essentially disown the BFG for not eating humans, though neither party does anything to patch the ties. The climax of the film makes it clear that they don't even consider him a giant.
|
|
- Impossibly Graceful Giant: The BFG gets a life-time achievement award, and all of the other Giants are very good at not being seen.
- Infant Immortality: The plot is built around averting this trope. Children do die in this book and film, though never on-screen. In the movie, we are invited to identify with one young lad into whose dream we see, only to have him very strongly be implied to become a victim of the Fleshlumpeater minutes later.
- Insane Troll Logic: Used by one of the British pilots to understand where Giant Land is located; he turns to the blank page at the back of the atlas and explains it must be there. Of course in this world The Cuckoolander Was Right.
- Invisible President: Averted; the Queen is not only seen, but is a major character and plays an important role in the story, and a fairly worshipfully-written one, too. Though admittedly she's only called The Queen of England, not Queen Elizabeth II. However, she looks exactly like Elizabeth II in the animated version, and rather like her in Quentin Blake's extremely-stylized illustrations for the book.
- Its Pronounced Tropay: Due to their severe lack of education, the giants frequently mispronounce words in the English language; even the BFG refers to human beings as "human beans". During the climax of the film, when Fleshlumpeater refers to Sophie as a "human bean", the BFG defiantly corrects him, turning a lampshade hanging into a CMOA.
- Jump Scare: In the movie, the moment when Bloodbottler first enters the BFG's home is extremely jarring.
- Karma Houdini: Averted somewhat in the movie: Mrs. Clonkers, who is thoroughly unpleasant and cruel, not only has her Orphanage of Fear shut down, but it is also decided that she will become the evil Giants' keeper. She can't have been too happy about that.
- Kid Hero: Sophie, of course.
- Magical Land: Giant Country and Dream Country. The book indicates these are unexplored territories on Earth, while the visuals in the animated movie seem to imply they are more akin to other dimensions.
- Meaningful Name: Not Sophie (who was named after Dahl's granddaughter [yes, that Sophie Dahl] NSFW) but all the giants have very obvious names relating to their characters (e.g. Bloodbottler, Bonecruncher, Childchewer, Fleshlumpeater, Maidmasher... and the BFG himself).
- Meganekko: Sophie.
- Mind Rape: In the movie, the last evil Giant standing (Fleshlumpeater) is defeated when the BFG blows a nightmare into him, causing him to hallucinate that he is face-to-face with Jack the Giant Killer. In the book, Fleshlumpeater is given that dream much earlier, but only as a humorous aside.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: The BFG himself.
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The villainous giants: The Childchewer, the Butcher Boy, the Fleshlumpeater, etc.
- No Indoor Voice: Fleshlumpeater and Bloodbottler, in the movie.
- Oh Crap: In the movie, after the Army captures eight evil Giants:
|
Head of the Army: Funny. He (the BFG) said there were nine! |
|
- Odd Name Out: Bloodbottler, Bonecruncher, Childchewer, Fleshlumpeater, Maidmasher... and The Butcher Boy.
- One-Gender Race: The Giants are exclusively male; this is a trope Dahl plays with at least twice, as in The Witches the villainous race of that piece is all female (and a few all-male races are mentioned in it too). Giants simply come into being. The Giant race is pretty small, actually—there's only 10 of them.
- Orphanage of Fear: Mrs. Clonker's Home for Girls.
- Our Giants Are Bigger
- Phlegmings: Several of the Giants.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: Someone getting into the Queen's bedroom past the security? Happened the same year the book was published.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Queen. For all his faults, Roald Dahl loves his Queen.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The evil Giants all have red eyes.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The red and green mouse-type-creature that lives in the BFG's house.
- Scenery Porn: In the movie, the shots of Dream Country and the exterior shots of the volcano in Giant Country are beautiful.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: At the end, the evil giants are trapped in a deep pit and given only disgusting vegetables for food... save the one occasion three drunk men scaled the fence and fell in.
- She Knows Too Much: Not quite. Sophie is snatched from her bed so she can't reveal the giants' existence to the human world.
- Shout-Out: In the animated movie, a young boy has a Danger Mouse poster in his bedroom.
- Speech Tropes: The BFG makes use of a couple of speech tropes...
- Hulk Speak / You No Take Candle: All the Giants speak in broken and mangled English, including the BFG (though he has a better grasp than the others). Also, only the bad Giants have the violent element.
- Malaproper: The BFG is a constant malaproper ("Right as snow!" {Right as rain}, "Two rights is not making a left" {Two wrongs don't make a right}). Both these cases aren't examples of the BFG being stupid, but are because (as he has no parents) he is self-taught. Quite an impressive feat all in all, given that in the original book he managed to teach himself to read and write from a single book—Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. In the book, he eventually gets tuition and doesn't do either anymore. The evil Giants, however, aren't interested in such pursuits and play the tropes pretty much straight ("I is now going to search the primroses!").
- Spin-Off: The BFG first appeared in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier book by Dahl, in a bedtime story told by Danny's father.
- This Is Sparta: At the climax of the movie, when the enraged Fleshlumpeater is hunting down the titular character: "B! F! G!"
- Toilet Humor: There is an entire chapter (and in the movie, an entire song) dedicated to a drink that makes one fart (or rather, "make a Whizzpopper")... in pretty epic proportions. The BFG even does one in front of the Queen, who takes it quite amusingly well under the circumstances ("All in all, I prefer the bagpipes.") However, since the book WAS published in 1982, before most examples of the trope were abundant in college movies, and since it really is quite funny, it's not TOO offputting.
- To Serve Man: All the giants eat humans except for the BFG.
- The Voice: Mrs. Clonkers.
- Unusual Euphemism is "whizzpoppers."
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
- All the Giants are terrified of only one human—the legendary Jack. In the Hebrew translation, it's David.
- It seems that Fleshlumpeater is literally scared of snakes: the title character at once point scares him with "the Venomsome Vindscreen Viper". This moment was also a Crowning Moment of Funny.