a girl wishes that a traveling salesman would “put down roots,” which ends up turning him into a tree, when what she really wants is for him to fall in love with her - why wouldn’t she just wish for that?
She was sufficiently dim and naive that she thought he was in love with her, just ever-so-slightly more in love with the road.
Also, I think it's a key of the wish-giving genre that people in these stories have never once heard a story in which wishes go wrong, or else they would have planned out their wishes better. IRL, I like to imagine most of us, like the protagonist of Time at the Top, have already planned out our three wishes to provide maximum benefit with a minimum of risk. (Alas for her, she didn't get three wishes! She got three trips into the past. It works out well enough anyway.)
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Date: 2020-11-25 10:54 pm (UTC)She was sufficiently dim and naive that she thought he was in love with her, just ever-so-slightly more in love with the road.
Also, I think it's a key of the wish-giving genre that people in these stories have never once heard a story in which wishes go wrong, or else they would have planned out their wishes better. IRL, I like to imagine most of us, like the protagonist of Time at the Top, have already planned out our three wishes to provide maximum benefit with a minimum of risk. (Alas for her, she didn't get three wishes! She got three trips into the past. It works out well enough anyway.)