Reading Notes: Tiny Tales from the Mahabharata, Part B

 Plot Focus: The Dice Games

Exposition: Duryodhana wants to destory the Pandavas in any way possible, and his uncle Shakuni says he can beat Yudhishthira at a game of dice, so Duyodhana challenges him formally. Apparently royalty were unable to refuse a challenge like this (for playing dice??), so Yudhishthira goes to play knowing that it is probably some kind of scam. In my opinion, true leaders would not follow ridiculous rules like this, so I question Yudhisthira's courage.

Rising Action: Yudhishthira and his family go to Duryodhana's palace, and Yudhisthira goes on to get absolutely flattened by Shakuni. He continues to bet larger and larger things of value, eventually selling himself and his family to slavery over a game of dice. (At this point, I was dumbfounded. What an idiot. He shouldn't even be able to wager his brothers' freedom.) Draupadi gets physically dragged in front of Duryodhana while the Pandava brothers do literally nothing because they think the rules of the gambling are more important than stopping their wife from being abused.

Climax: Duryodhana orders Draupadi to strip her clothes, and Lord Vishnu saves her by magically making her sari impossible to unravel. The Pandavas are terrible husbands and terrible people in general for allowing this. Bhima and Draupadi start cursing Duryodhana, and eventually King Dhritarashtra grants Draupadi all of her stuff back, and they all leave exactly as they came. So arbitrary. So pointless.

Falling Action: Duryodhana challenges Yudhishthira again, and this moron goes back to play again because he obviously is too dense to learn anything from his previous experience of becoming a literal slave over the dice game.

Resolution: Yudhishthira loses again, so all the Pandavas have to go into exile for 13 years.

General Thoughts: I just cannot believe not one of the Pandavas decided to question Yudhishthira's sanity and/or force him to just ignore the challenge.

(Image Info: Dice by William Warby, no changes; Source: Wikimedia; License: here)

Bibliography: Tiny Tales from the Mahabharata by Laura Gibbs, Part B (stories 51-100), specifically 77-87 related to the dice games