“The Princess Bride” by William Goldman (post 5): In “Buttercup’s Baby” epilogue, Piccoli goes into trance and Fezzik is taken over by alternate personalities.

In 1998, twenty-five years after publication of The Princess Bride, Goldman added an epilogue, “Buttercup’s Baby.” (Buttercup is the title character of The Princess Bride.)

Piccoli, “the acknowledged king of the mind,” is visited by Inigo, who wants Piccoli’s coaching on the mental aspects of swordsmanship. “Piccoli had spent his entire long life training his mind, so that he had the ability to sit for a day in the middle of a mad battle and know nothing of the screams and slaughter going on around him. When he was in his mind, he was as if dead. And every morning at dawn he would go into his mind and stay there ’til noon. No power could disturb him” (1, pp. 368-369).

Like Westley’s going inside himself to withstand torture (see past post), this is another example of a character who uses trance, which is a dissociative state of mind related to multiple personality and the fiction writing process. I suspect that the trances of Westley and Piccoli reflect an aspect of the author’s creative process.

Fezzik, the loyal, but simple-minded, giant—who, if there were a fork in the road, could be relied upon to make the wrong choice—was the last person who would have been expected to come to the rescue when Buttercup was having prolonged labor, and was in danger of losing her baby. There was no doctor, and nobody knew what to do.

But suddenly, “Fezzik…knew…he was…not alone anymore. He began to try to fight it, because something was invading him, invading his brain, and the Lord only knew his brain could use a little help, but Fezzik struggled on because when you were invaded, you never knew who was coming along for the ride, a helper or a damager…

“Fezzik could feel his power going as the invader took control. His last thought was really a prayer: that please, whoever you are, if you harm the child, kill me first…

[And then a voice, speaking from Fezzik’s mouth, said] “ ‘We have the body…We have [Fezzik’s] body,’ Fezzik said again” (1, pp. 406-408).

And then Fezzik, under the control of his invaders, performs a Caesarean section, and successfully delivers Buttercup’s baby.

Goldman, in his afterword, wonders “who did invade Fezzik?” (1, p. 413), suggesting the author did not realize that what he had described is multiple personality.

The climax of The Princess Bride’s epilogue, “Buttercup’s Baby,” involves Fezzik’s multiple personality.

When I read “Fezzik struggled on because when you were invaded, you never knew who was coming along for the ride, a helper or damager,” I interpret “Fezzik” as standing for “William Goldman” or “the fiction writer,” regarding the involvement of multiple personality in the fiction writing process.

1. William Goldman. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The “Good Parts” Version [1973], Abridged by William Goldman, including “Buttercup’s Baby” [1998]. New York, Harvest/Harcourt, 2007.