Disenchantment belongs to Matt Groening and Netflix.


In a way, nostalgia was like alcohol: it could make you feel good, and make things and people seem better than what they truly were, but when it wore off, reality returned like a painful punch to the face.

This was a feeling Bean knew all too well, as she thrashed around on the little bed in her cave room. She was too tall to sleep on this stupid thing anymore, so why did her mother think she would like it? Was Dagmar trying to trigger some more nostalgia? Did she still see Bean as the innocent, wide-eyed little girl who had adored her mother above all people? Did Dagmar think she could use nostalgia to manipulate Bean to her will?

Bean sat up and hugged her knees, wishing there was some booze in here to numb her feelings (Bean had already searched the room, and there was no alcohol to be found). The exiled princess was left alone with her anger, and she punched her thigh in frustration a few times.

Bean's head and chest ached as she thought about how much she hated her mother, the hatred being twice the amount of love Bean had once felt for Dagmar. That narcissistic, condescending, manipulative, evil witch.

Now that all of Bean's nostalgia had worn off, she could see that Dagmar had never been a great parent...


Four-year-old Bean rode into her parents' room astride one of her favourite toys, a little hobbyhorse. Zog was not in bed, surprisingly enough (sometimes he would sleep until noon or even later), but Dagmar still lay in bed. Her beautiful white hair was not in its usual bouffant, but was spread loose and messy over her pillow (and over her face).

"Mommy, Mommy, look at me!" Bean squealed, bouncing up and down. "Mommy, I'm riding a horsey!"

Dagmar sat up and looked at Bean blearily.

"Not so loud, darling. Mummy has a hang-I mean, a headache."

Bean stopped bouncing.

"But Mommy, look at my horsey! His name is-"

"I don't care what his name is," Dagmar said, more sharply. "It's just a stupid little toy. Go bother Bunty; she's impressed by anything."

Dagmar flopped back onto her pillows and returned to sleep, while Bean sadly left. She just wanted to play, and her hobbyhorse was not stupid. Why did Mommy have to get so mad?

A few days later, Bean woke up to find that her hobbyhorse had been broken. She opened her eyes and found the hobbyhorse's head on her pillow. Some hapless servant got the blame for breaking the toy, a maid who had gotten upset when Bean accidentally knocked her down while riding the hobbyhorse in the halls. Zog had that maid executed for making his little girl cry.


In hindsight, Bean had the feeling that perhaps her mother had spitefully destroyed that toy in an angry, drunken stupor and let the maid take the blame.

Tears streamed down Bean's face. How did she end up getting stuck with a mother like Dagmar? It was so unfair. Zog was far from being the father of the year, but at least he had never destroyed Bean's toys. Zog had never tried to use Bean in any creepy rituals that would have more than likely killed her. That was something. He showed his love infrequently, and in ways that could be awful or too extreme, but Bean knew that her father's love was real.

Daddy, Bean thought with a shaky sob. She felt like a four-year-old again. Daddy, where are you?