The Monster is a version of The Green Man, and his relationship with Connor is arguably the most important of the film as, without the Monster, Connor would be unable to transition to a place of relative stability and acceptance. The three tales the Monster tells Connor are bricolaged fairy tales (a postmodern technique of taking classic fairy tales from the European and near-Eastern tradition and putting elements of them together in a patchwork). The specific character types of prince, king, witch, poor girl, stepmother and so on are reworked by Ness to enable Connor to work through his fears of loss and acceptance. The film shows that in every human there is both darkness and light, hero and villain: life is both messy and contingent, illnesses are unfair and can and do afflict the innocent. Connor comes not only to accept his mother’s death, and his working through of his nightmare, but also the qualities of both his departed father, and his distant grandmother. Fairy tales then provide not only solace and comfort, but a means to accept the present and move forward to an uncertain future.