It's literally a once in a lifetime experience. The blotting out of the sun. A total solar eclipse. Maybe that's why books and movies like to use eclipses for plot and metaphor...
With all the swirl around Beauty and the Beast lately, I thought it might be fun to talk about fairy tales. Disney has done a laudable job of Disney-ifying classics with positive messages and happy endings. And while I remember obsessing over Disney's Aladdin well into my teens, I also remember going to Blockbuster and renting videos (yes I predate even DVDs) called Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. And Shelley showed the truth about those fairy tales - they were dark.