Arjuna, the King of the Haihayas, and his favorite wife Queen Valiria sat in the river while they drank red wine. Valiria asked the King if he had heard the rumors of the great conqueror visiting the neighboring kingdoms.
“They say he has conquered even more kings than you,” said Valiria.
King Arjuna laughed loudly. “Maybe he has conquered more, but he will never best me!” he shouted. “Who has been telling you these lies?” King Arjuna questioned.
“I heard it from the servants,” said Queen Valiria. “They were whispering in the halls this morning.”
“Tell me, my Queen, do you really think he is any match for me?” bellowed Arjuna. He began to block the wide river with his thousand arms and the water began to pool around them. “Look, even the river is no match for me. It bends to my will.”
Queen Valiria smiled and agreed with her husband. “You are right, Arjuna,” she said. “He would be a fool to come to our lands and challenge you.”
Just as those very words rolled off her tongue, Queen Valira caught sight of a hideous man with ten heads. He came strutting up toward the King like a cocky rooster. Valiria immediately knew the rumors were true and prayed the King would crush his swollen ego and destroy this man’s very soul.
Two of King Arjuna’s royal guards approached Ravana and asked him to wait until morning before trying to fight their King. “He is drunk from wine and if you have any honor you will wait,” they said.
Ravana replied, “I care not for the excuses of your pitiful King.”
King Arjuna overheard Ravana mutter this insult. He quickly turned and found the nearest tree. He swiftly lifted the tree with all his might and uprooted it from the ground. He held the tree with five hundred of his arms. As he charged Ravana he yelled, “I will defeat you with half of my hands behind my back.”
Ravana was in shock and awe of King Arjuna’s strength. Ravana stumbled to grab his war mace and attempt to deflect the King’s mighty swing. He got his mace up to protect himself in time but the King and his tree vastly overpowered Ravana. The King landed an overhead swing right on the top of all ten of Ravana's heads! This attack knocked Ravana down to his knees. The King then picked Ravana up by his torso with a fifty-arm grip.
"I will rip off your heads and shove them onto spikes!" Arjuna roared.
"I will rip off your heads and shove them onto spikes!" Arjuna roared.
The King was so loud that Pulastya, Ravana’s grandfather, overheard him all the way from the Himalayas. Pulastya rushed to save his grandson and pleaded with King Arjuna to release him. Queen Valiria asked her king to show mercy on Ravana so that he might tell the rest of the world about the strength of King Arjuna. Eventually the King released Ravana from his powerful grip and he was free to walk the Earth again.
Ravana never again visited the Haihayas for fear of King Arjuna’s wrath.
Author's note:
I chose to rewrite the fight between King Arjuna and Ravana because I liked how easily Ravana was beaten in the story. Ravana is very arrogant and I wanted to make his defeat more humiliating.
I added more details about what King Arjuna was doing before Ravana found him. I liked the idea of King Arjuna having one favorite wife with whom he could have a more in-depth conversation. I thought it would be very difficult to have multiple wives in a short story without confusing the characters. I decided on the name Valiria which fit in nicely with the time frame and scenery. If there is another opportunity to write about King Arjuna I would like to use Queen Valiria again.
I changed the story by adding more dialogue and fleshing out some of the details. I wanted to keep the major plot points the same and not distort the ending. Since the original story had some vagueness, it was easy to accomplish this while still being creative.
I chose this particular image because it perfectly depicts the defeat of Ravana at the end. I like how his heads seem to be moving so quickly. It seems that Ravana cannot comprehend how he has been beaten.
Bibliography- Buck, William (1976). "The Thorn in the World's side" Ramayana: King Rama's Way 35-38
I love this story! I can tell you are really creative. I loved the first sentence about King Arjuna and his queen drinking red wine in the river. Who doesn't love wine? I like how you made up the queen's name. It actually fit in with the time frame and I didn't even notice she wasn't in The Ramayana originally. I actually found one minor spelling mistake in row 5. You said, "but he will never best me!" I think you meant "beat" me. No big deal! I really enjoyed reading this story because I like how Ravana is made to look like a little sissy unlike most of The Ramayana. It made me love King Arjuna! You did a great job splitting up the texts so it made it easy to read. I like the picture you used too. It really illustrated Ravana losing, which I actually like! You did a really great job on this story! I can't wait to read more of your writings!
ReplyDeleteScott, I really enjoyed reading about the fight between King Arjuna and Ravana because it was interesting how easily King Arjuna beat Ravana. You could tell in your story that King Arjuna was a little bit bitter that Ravana had conquered more than him but he knew that he would be able to beat him. One of my favorite parts of the story was when King Arjuna explained, “I will defeat you with half of my hands behind my back.” Ravana had no clue what was coming. I also thought it was creative that Ravana was using war mace as if he didn’t have any other weapons or anything else that he could use during times of war. Who would have thought that Ravana was going to be beaten with a tree trunk with a simple overhead swing? I definitely did not see that coming. Ravana definitely won’t want to have a fight with King Arjuna ever again! Great story Scott I really enjoyed the detail!
ReplyDeleteHi Scott!
ReplyDeleteI first chose to read this story because of it’s name, “The Legend of King Arjuna.” I really liked that is has “the legend” in it because it drew me in, so great job there! I then went on to read your Author’s Note. I also despise Ravana so to have you want to make his defeat more humiliating I was totally on board! I like that you made Arjuna have a favorite wife. I like to think that all men who practice polygamy have a favorite woman. In the beginning of the story you said “Maybe he has conquered more, but he will never best me!” – I want to say you maybe meant *beat me? This story was really great in how it humiliated Ravana! It was funny that you had Arjuna put half of his hands behind his back. I can’t help but wish that you killed off Ravana in the ending though.. Overall, you did a really great job!
Glad I got to visit again!
ReplyDeleteI read The Legend of King Arjuna:
Immediately I noticed that your story flows very nicely. The dialogue definitely helps that. You developed Ravana’s character well when he doesn’t wait to fight King Arjuna despite his slightly inebriated state. King Arjuna is certainly benevolent by letting Ravana go! I like how Queen Valiria encourages him to do so. Sometimes I think we need the people who love us to help us with decisions we face. Queen Valiria certainly helped bring out the better side of King Arujma. Your author’s note is also well done. It helped me understand your thoughts. I really enjoy seeing other people’s interpretation on Indian artwork. I wouldn’t have seen Ravana’s heads moving quickly to show how maybe he is confused.
Again, I am not perfect when it comes to grammer, but I noticed a couple missing commas:
First sentence: ‘…and his favorite wife, Queen Valiria, sat…’
Hi Scott! I really liked the way you retold this story. It has a good flow to it and though it is not very long it has good detail. I really like that you start the story off with just the king and queen having a nice sit down with a glass of wine and good conversation about what is going on in the land. I would have liked to see a little more detail here about the havoc that Ravana has been creating all over the countryside, maybe mention some specific places he has taken over and some specific misdeeds he has done to show his strength and mightiness. When the king is defending himself you might also have him give examples of his own mightiness by telling a story or two of his accomplishments. I liked your description of the battle scene and thought it had good detail. Overall, good job!
ReplyDeleteHello Scott,
ReplyDeleteI think this may be my first time visiting your portfolio page before, but I decided to choose your readings as my free choice for today. I think that this story interested me the most and I just had to write about it.
I enjoyed how you decided to retell the story. You did really well for the story in such a short amount of time. The dialogue was great and it helps the story flow nicely. Ravana was developed well too. You added some nice things in your story and I was curios to get a change to read your Author’s Note so see what you were really thinking about while writing this story. You explained everything so clear in it with the addition of Queen Valiria. Again, great story and I can’t wait to read more of them from you.
P.S Which book did you like better? Buck’s or Nayanan’s version of the Ramayana.
Hey Scott!
ReplyDeleteI really liked that you had a introduction page for your portfolio that described each of the stories in your portfolio. This allows the reader to have a little bit of an idea of exactly what they are about to read.
I really enjoyed your retelling of this story. You did a great job with the dialogue that you added. It really makes the story flow well. I liked that you just had one wife in this story because I agree with you that having more wives it would have made the story much more difficult to follow. I also like that you explained that the King would have one wife that he could have a much more intimate conversation with is one reason you just had one wife.
You did a great job with the first story! I am looking forward to reading more of your stories! Great job!
Hello Scott! I enjoyed reading your story! I like how you kept the original story, but also used your creativity to spice things up. You did an awesome job retelling the story of Ravana and Arjuna. I like the picture you used. Ravana is one of the worst character in the original story and its nice to see that Arjuna was able to defeat him!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the best thing you did for this story was to have just one wife for King Arjuna. When I am reading the original stories, I get mixed up on the characters because there are so many of them and their names are difficult to memorize. I like how you simplified the characters, but at the same time added more details to the story.
I enjoyed the dialogues and I was able to follow along the story. You had a great flow throughout the story and I wish to read more of your stories. Good job!
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