The Taking Tree – The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Taking_Tree_(Standard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree
Thank you to Ashley D. for her help with this one.
Quentin Quail is a researcher and scribe for the Spiral Geographic Expedition. He is in Selenopolis to study the fabled Garden of Khonsu. Clearly the garden has seen better times. Quentin tasks your Wizard with helping him restore the garden, allowing the river to flow once more. To restore the Font of Blossoms, you’ll need an olive branch from the Taking Tree.
Taking Tree: “I am the rot you do not see, the weakness your Wizard fosters, the resentment of the fallen. I am that which spurns and spits and spites.”
Istar: “Uhh… neat. I was just asking if this is still Krokotopia though? Not the citadel with the mean purple ladies?”
Taking Tree: “All worlds cower under the shade of the Scion, shrouded eternally in the darkness of indolence.”
Istar: “Fine, I’ll just wing it. Boppity-bippity-Boop!”
Taking Tree: “You see the effect you have, little blossom? You think you are doing good, saving us all. But I am your true face, not the story you tell yourself. You are not an apple tree, Wizard, you are a weed. And it is time you were uprooted.”
Monstrology Tome Description:
This guy just desperately needs to know someone cares. This is why tree huggers are so important.
The Giving Tree is an American children’s picture book written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein. First published in 1964 by Harper & Row, it has become one of Silverstein’s best-known titles, and has been translated into numerous languages.
This book has been described as “one of the most divisive books in children’s literature” by librarian Elizabeth Bird; the controversy stems from whether the relationship between the main characters (a boy and the eponymous tree) should be interpreted as positive (i.e., the tree gives the boy selfless love) or negative (i.e., the boy and the tree have an abusive relationship).
The book follows the lives of an apple tree and a boy, who develop a relationship with each other. The tree is very “giving” and the boy ages into a “taking” teenager, a young man, a middle-aged man, and finally an elderly man. Despite the fact that the boy ages in the story, the tree addresses him as “Boy” throughout his entire life.
In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, carving “Me + T (Tree)” into the bark, and eating her apples. However, as the boy grows older, he spends less time with the tree and tends to visit her only when he wants material items at various stages of his life, or not coming to the tree alone [such as bringing his girlfriend to the tree and carving “Me +Y.L.” (her initials, often assumed to be an initialism for “young love”)] into the tree. In an effort to make the boy happy at each of these stages, the tree gives him parts of herself, which he can transform into material items, such as money from her apples when the boy is a teenager, a house from her branches when the boy is a young man, and a boat from her trunk when the boy is a middle-aged man. With every stage of giving, “the Tree was happy”.
In the final pages, both the tree and the boy feel the consequences of their respective “giving” and “taking” nature. When only a stump remains for the tree, the boy returns as a tired elderly man to meet the tree once more. She mentions she cannot provide him shade, apples, or any materials like in the past. The man tells her that all he wants is “a quiet place to sit and rest”, which the tree, who is weak being just a stump, could provide. With this final stage of giving, “the Tree was happy”.
The current list of all the (known) Krokotopia references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
The Taking Tree image is Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
The Giving Tree images are all copyright Shel Silverstein and Harper & Row
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Vulcan Stev's Database 