But our society does not grant nontraditional forms of intelligence equal recognition, no matter how much it would help us get along or truly enrich our lives.

Myth is, after all, the neverending story.

And so The Snow Queen also became a story about the need to seek equilibrium, in our own lives, with the natural world, even within the universe at large.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.

The mers were also designed to reproduce only at long intervals, in order to maintain the natural balance of the environment in which they were placed.

The futures and ultimate fates of the characters in The Snow Queen are profoundly changed by choices made in their own minds or hearts, as well as choices unexpectedly forced on them by things beyond their control.

Throughout the ages, stories with certain basic themes have recurred over and over, in widely disparate cultures; emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious.