Even though that it’s long been proven that the remains of young Anastasia were found among those of her siblings, it is possible that during the making or even the writing of this movie people believed that the body of Anastasia was /not/ found, and declared missing, and therefore a mystery to her whereabouts. So basically it’s possible that people at the time, at least here in America, believed that Anastasia could have survived the massacre of her family. At least that’s what I was told in the classes I took.

Now, I’m not giving my school the benefit of the doubt that they gave me a commendable education. But I can only assume that if this was taught in the public school that I particularly attended, then it must have been taught in many other public schools as well.

If we as humans hope to do well in the future, we should not only teach the truth of history, but also the fibs of history. Lets not forget, there was a woman who claimed to have been Anastasia, and was only discovered that she wasn’t long after the woman had died. It was then, and my guess sometime after the movie came out that people figured that out.

So that would explain why they bothered to turn Anastasia into your typical Disney princess film, as opposed to outright saying they had no idea what they were doing or talking about. If you think about it, there are many many other princess stories to warp and give a Disney-esque to. I mean, what was stopping them from making a Rapunzel movie at the time, or even a Nefertiti, or heck even a Joan of Ark movie. True, Joan of Ark didn’t have a child-appropriate ending, but neither did Moses, and Dreamworks made that work.

But let’s talk about Rasputin.

I don’t really know why people have a problem with this particular version of Rasputin. Because anything they say about him is… not a lie. True the only things we really know about him are mostly legend, but here, “We thought he was a holy man, but he was a fraud.”

This is kind of true. History lesson time! Rasputin, before being close to the Romanov family, he was seen and feared as a mad monk. He had mysterious healing powers and everyone he met feared him for reasons unknown, but to me its probably because he intended to make him uncomfortable. But the way its usually described is usually a discomfort one would get around unusual supernatural things like demons or ghosts. ”Rasputin sold his soul for the power to destroy us.”

It was when he healed Alekse that he was half-welcomed into the family. I say half-welcomed because he was basically there to keep the boy alive, but wasn’t treated anything better than a creepy person who lived with him. It wasn’t the beard that made him creepy. He did shamelessly flatter the family calling the Czar and Czarina “father” and “mother”. Not to mention, the Czarina Alexandra thought that God was speaking through Rasputin, so she respected him. Could one blame her? Rasputin healed her only son, and there’s where the respect from the rest of the family comes from. He was highly regarded by the family, but apparently he did share family secrets. Especially secrets that he was romantically involved with Alexandra. Nicolas felt so silly having being cheated on, he ordered Rasputin away “You are a traitor, get out!”

Later on, after a few… slight inconveniences to his life, Rasputin received a “vision” showing in uncanny detail the fate of the Romanov family “If I’m killed by my brothers, you have nothing to worry about. But if I’m killed by a member of your family, none will survive.” After that disturbing vision, he drank heavily after that vision and became very hostile. But he didn’t warn the Czar and his family in 1916. It was years before that. The warning or prophecy seemed to have actually been genuine toward the family, but it’s also possible that the family didn’t take it that way, and took it as a threat from Rasputin himself.

And he eventually became hated by everyone in the country, having said that he was basically ruling the country behind the Czar’s back. So yeah, considering his reputation, one could only assume that he was this Satanic guy trying to come off as godsent. And not to mention that his guts were literally carved out of his body survived and later consumed gratuitous amounts of cyanide, shot several times and survived, that maaaaaay give people ideas that Rasputin actually had some kind of “evil” powers. Or was at least possessed. I think he was possessed, but was he possessed by something evil? Slovic legend of their white god would say otherwise. It’s something to consider for you religion junkies.

What’s similar to the movie and Rasputin’s story is that he returned to the family, and was killed by a family member. In real life, he was killed by Nicolas’s nephew, in the movie he was TECHNICALLY killed by the grandmother. What actually killed him was drowning in the frozen river. The fact that a few years prior, Rasputin miraculously survived being filleted by a prostitute, would explain why in the movie they kept his design rather zombie-like from when we first see him to after he dies.

But you have to look at this from the outsider’s perspective. Any real person with supposed mystical powers, even if they aren’t evil, would be seen as evil to humankind. People believed that his death lifted a curse on the country, so what does that say exactly? That this version of Rasputin is not that far off? Well aside from the unnecessary physical comedy, I’d have to say that it’s possible.

But what about that Romanov curse in Anastasia? It only went after Anastasia, why didn’t it go after the grandmother!? The answer is simple, my fellow simpletons. The grandmother was only married into the family, she wasn’t of Romanov blood. UH-DUHHHHHHHHHH. That’s why a curse placed upon a family name wouldn’t work. I know, I’ve tried.