#i think albert and greta are interesting characters but as sally's parents..? hm.

[tnbc-thoughtsandheadcanons]

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen: Dr. Finkelstein & Sally

There's a lot of heavy criticism circulating Dr. Finkelstein’s character in the novel. It’s completely understandable as to *why* - he and Sally are the only two major characters to have their stories/pasts completely rewritten, for Long Live the Pumpkin Queen. And if you’ve grown up with these characters & their tales, you’d be taken by surprise with the spin the novel took regarding their relationship.

Spoilers to Long Live the Pumpkin Queen below.

It’s revealed in LLTPQ that Sally is a ragdoll who was born, and her parents are Albert and Greta, the governors of Dream Town. She is part of a Rag Doll species who serve as dream weavers – in the human world lulling children and adults to sleep. The Rag Dolls we meet are the Governors, who tell Sally she was kidnapped as a child, taken through her bedroom window, by a man with a ‘large head and small eyes’. They show Sally her childhood bedroom, toys, and belongings - which she finds vaguely familiar. 

We later get a confession from Dr. Finkelstein, who claims that he kidnapped Sally from Dream Town and brought her back to Halloween Town, where he gave her a ‘forgetting potion’ so she couldn’t remember her prior family/home. He even replaced her original cotton stuffing with leaves. He did this because he had a book about the Holiday realms, and read about ‘Dream Sand’, wishing to experiment with it. So he went into the woods and found Dream Town. Apparently, he had also been failing to create a Rag Doll daughter of his own at the time, and once he saw Sally, made the decision to take her for himself. 

Greta tells us that they searched for her after she was taken. But Dr. Finklestein was the one to completely block Dream Town’s door, effectively making it a forgotten realm. Jack Skellington is furious with this news and sentences him to 100 years of community service for Dream Town.

…As you can see, it’s a pretty big…rewrite for his character. And Sally. 

In the original Nightmare Before Christmas, I always believed Dr. Finkelstein and Sally were a parody of the classic Frankenstein-and-his-creation tale, where she was brought to life by electricity and assembled by the Doctor himself. But the novel tells us that it was simply a trick - that he was lying to her all along, making her believe he created her. That she is actually a living Rag doll who came from her own species.

In a way, I can understand this from a narrative point of view - it brings a complexity into Dr. Finkelstein and Sally’s relationship, having him be her *literal* captor, someone so swept up in his pride and inventing abilities that he claimed to create something that he didn’t. And it would explain Sally’s feelings of being an outcast in Halloween Town, who couldn’t relate to anyone. It works as a storytelling tool – however, there are also…problems with these concepts. 

First off - the Rag doll species. I'm both fascinated and confused by Albert and Greta. The way the novel words it, Sally was ‘born’, and was once a child who grew to the age of 12 before being taken by Doctor Finkelstein. It’s mentioned Albert has graying hair, so we can assume Rag dolls age. But how can it be that they’re born with stitches, assembled and can tear apart? Or, in their world, does ‘born’ mean stitching a baby? Do they periodically build Sally, or does she age naturally? And how do Rag dolls reproduce? Is there any genetic code to them, or do they simply build each other? 

–The novel doesn’t answer these, so I can’t say. 

Another thing to mention – the book heavily villainizes Dr. Finklestein, despite the Sandman being the antagonist until he gets a redemption(a discussion for another post). We’re simply *told* that Sally was taken, and the Doctor was struggling, desperate to keep her – but we don’t get to see the build leading to that. We don’t read about Finklestein struggling to assemble a daughter, failing with his inventions and creations, where it would drive him to do something as extreme as **kidnapping**. This backstory lacks depth because it doesn’t care to spend more time on the Doctor and his intentions, his past, etc. It paints him in the light of ‘man who kidnapped beloved main character from her family, and kept her captive for the rest of her life while lying to her’ — even though it could’ve held so much more emotional complexity if more time were simply spent on him. We’re only ‘told’, not so much ‘explained’, it feels to me.

Dr. Finkelstein isn’t the hero regarding Sally’s story - he has always been her captor, locking her in her room and discouraging her curiosity with the outside world. He’s overprotective. But he deserved more than being heavily demonized for the sake of shock value.

I am divided, personally - I love Albert and Greta’s characters, the concept of Dream Town and Rag Dolls - but Doctor Finkelstein isn’t a one-dimensional character. I can understand the depth to the story Shea Ernshaw gave him - it’s not a bad one on its own, in my opinion - but it lacks genuity in its writing when treated like an afterthought.