The novel Project Hail Mary describes a conversation between the protagonist, Ryland Grace, and an alien named Rocky. I referenced this episode in my last article but wanted to approach it from another angle.

In the scene, Ryland gives Rocky a quick thumbnail sketch of human intelligence. It’s a powerful way to convey, in a single moment, how he thinks humans learn. He’s light-years away from Earth, describing humanity to a non-human.

As I mentioned previously, he sums up human intelligence in two ways:

• Problem-solving skills

• Survival instincts

That’s it.

That an alien from the far side of the galaxy happens to share the exact same atheistic evolutionary viewpoint as a middle-aged white guy from North America is another story…

How We Learn

This view of human intelligence assumes that our conscious mind is foremost. In other words, we can’t learn unless we are aware we are learning—unless we see it happening.

This, in turn, affects the stories we tell. Stories, by definition, belong to the realm of imagination. Yet we keep telling stories that force everything back into the rational. Today’s stories are one-part narrative and three-parts five-paragraph essays.

What shift occurred here? How can we pinpoint the specific difference between old and new stories?

Snow White versus The Forge

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on the recent Christian film The Forge. At the time, I was preparing to write another article comparing The Forge with the fairy tale Snow White. The purpose of this comparison was to illustrate the key differences between the rational and imaginative realms when it comes to stories.

I am now finally circling back to that conversation, so if this article feels difficult to follow, you may want to read my previous articles here and here to fill in some blanks.

Why compare Snow White with The Forge? After all, they are widely different—not even the same genre.

They share one key theme: both stories explore the process of human growth and learning. Both depict patterns of Christian conversion, death, and resurrection. (Also, a new version of Snow White is being released this month from Disney, so why not?)

For comparison, The Forge puts everything out in the open. The main character, Isaiah's conversion story, and all the prayers and conversations leading to it are laid out explicitly. There is no guesswork. The creators wanted to make what was happening abundantly clear.

Why? Again—because of our reliance on conscious reasoning. We believe we will gain nothing unless we immediately grasp everything we are meant to take away. Unless we see it happening.

Here’s the crucial difference with older stories like Snow White—and if you take nothing else from this article, take this. Old storytellers didn’t trust our conscious reasoning minds as a standalone source.

They knew our senses could be tricked.

We assume we walk around making unbiased, objective observations. They understood that, in reality, life comes at us like a fog or vapor, full of illusions and deception. They knew we must train ourselves to truly *see* in order to exercise biblical discernment.

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Christian Themes in Snow White

Now, contrast this with Snow White (not the Disney version) and how it portrays similar patterns but in a distinctly different way.

Snow White is all about learning to truly see.

Note: Most of the following observations came from a fairytale class I recently took, which was taught by Angelina Stanford.1

The story opens with Snow’s mother looking out a window and wishing for a daughter with a pure “white” soul (this is not about skin color, by the way, but uses biblical imagery). The act of looking out a window is already significant, representing a character who sees with clear perception.

This is directly contrasted with Snow’s evil stepmother, who only ever sees her own reflection with her call and response: “Mirror, mirror.” This immediate contrast is so packed with symbolism that I’ve decided to dedicate an entire article to it—so stay tuned.

Having a pure soul does not mean Snow is fundamentally innocent; rather, it signifies that she is young and still possesses the innocence of childhood. She has not yet been tested.

The stepmother wants Snow dead because her appearance represents a threat. Once again, the theme of perception and sensory information comes into play.

Snow is then banished and finds herself lost in the wilderness. The wilderness motif always represents spiritual wandering. This harkens back to the Israelites wandering in the desert and is also why Jesus’s victory over temptation in the wilderness was so crucial. Snow is lost in more ways than one.

She eventually finds her way to the dwarves’ house, which likely represents the Church or possibly a monastery. The dwarves warn her not to let any strangers in—they know her life is in danger. They watch over her with their seven lampstands, offering their wisdom—but it’s not enough.

The Art of Temptation

The Queen visits Snow White three times in disguise. Snow White looks at her with her eyes and instantly trusts her own perceptions. She is not discerning enough to get what is really going on here

Each time, the Queen stands outside the door conversing with Snow, asking seemingly innocent questions: Did the dwarves say you couldn’t let anyone in? But surely they didn’t say you couldn’t just step outside?

When Snow opens the door, the witch offers her gifts that appeal to her vanity. The final gift is the apple, described as red and white with “red cheeks,” mirroring Snow’s own face. Like the queen, Snow falls in love with her image.

This is the key point: Snow relies on her own thoughts, reasoning, and sensory perception.

It’s no small detail that Eve engaged in a similarly cozy conversation with Satan in the Garden. He appealed to her in the same way—she looked at the fruit, used her mind, and saw that it appeared good. Snow White is an archetype of Eve.

She uses the same kind of intelligence described in Project Hail Mary—real-time powers of perception and problem-solving.

Snow, like Eve, then falls into a deathlike sleep from which only a prince—representing Christ—could save her.

Snow White is about not trusting our sensory perceptions, and it also shows us how to do this, simultaneously overriding reason and appealing to the imagination.

As I’ve said before, I’m not against rationality, or I wouldn’t write these articles. But if one form of learning is elevated at the exclusion of others, we are missing out. By using common images and tropes and appealing to our imagination, these stories become embedded in our souls, changing us—even when we don’t know it’s happening.

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