Fables #1-5: A Medical Review

October 27th, 2004

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Fables #1-5 “Legends in Exile”
Bill Willingham, writer
Lan Medina, penciler

Spoiler Warning!

If you haven’t read the first five issue of Fables, this post gives away the solution to the murder mystery! Proceed at your own risk!

Spoiler Warning!

In the end of the first storyline in Fables, Bigby Wolf is able to show that Rose Red’s death was faked. Jack and Rose had collected her blood and stored it in their freezer then used it to stage a crime scene. Is this possible?

No, not really.

First off, Bigby’s math is right on. The average female has just about 9 pints of blood (roughly 4½ liters). A blood loss of 40% (known as a Class IV Hemorrhage) is invariable fatal if not treated immediately.

The issue comes down to blood collection and storage. According to the story, Jack withdrew 5 or 6 pints of blood from Rose and stored it in the freezer. While the body can replace the fluid lost to blood donation in 24 hours, it takes nearly two months to replenish the blood cells. That is why a person is only allowed to donate blood every eight weeks (56 days).

Jack and Rose couldn’t withdraw blood too fast or Rose would develop a severe anemia and be extremely weak and tired (and unable to drink heavily — a significant problem for a party girl like her). Assuming that Jack and Rose were pushing it, they could probably withdraw double, or 2 pints of blood, every two months. Thus it would take them 5 to 6 months to get the necessary amount of blood.

Blood isn’t easy to store; it takes special chemicals and a constant temperature. Whole blood and red blood cells are stored at 1-6° C (34 – 48° F); this shouldn’t be a problem for a good quality home freezer. The shelf life of whole blood is 42 days. Even then, the blood requires the addition of certain chemicals to keep if from clotting and still undergoes some decomposition. Rose and Jack would be storing blood for three time longer than that (assuming they used it right away). While some of Rose’s stored blood would still be good by the time the pair got around to using it, much of it would have clotted or been noticeably broken down.

Even if the appearance of the blood wasn’t a tip-off, certainly Bigby’s wolf nose is good enough to tell that other chemicals had been added to the blood, or at least that the blood had degraded. After all, his senses are good enough to identify the blood as Rose’s just by smell.

Final nit-picks:

  • According to the art, Jack looks to be withdrawing blood from the back of Rose’s hand, not the antecubital fossa (the inside of the elbow), which is the preferred place for speed and comfort.
  • The freezer looks to be holding more than 6 pints of blood.

3 Responses to “ Fables #1-5: A Medical Review ”

  1. Nevin
    October 27th, 2004 at 10:38 pm

    Ah, but…
    1) Rose could go into hiding afterwards, so she could have afforded a larger-than-normal donation at the last minute. No one would have noticed if the dead girl was anemic and low-energy. This alone probably couldn’t explain the amount they drew, but….
    2) We’re talking about Fables, not humans. They seem to be better at recovering from injury than normal people (at least, if enough people care about their stories), and they also have some magic. Most importantly, the blood itself could have the same immortality that the Fables seem to, so your concerns about shelf life wouldn’t apply.

  2. scott
    October 28th, 2004 at 10:23 am

    Good points.
    1) This never occurred to me…it makes good sense. Still, 2 pints would pretty much be the most they withdraw at any one time. 3 pints is 1/3 of her circulating blood — a Class III Hemorrahge, which is potentially fatal. 4 units would be 44% of her blood, knocking her into that fatal Class IV Hemorrhage.
    2) In my first draft, I did have a disclaimer about these characters being Fable as opposed to human, so the same rules may not necessarily apply. Somehow I left it out of the posted version.
    Still, if that’s the case, I think it’s a cop-out on the writer’s part. Having some human physiology apply, but not all, is a little too convenient, particularly if it’s done arbitrarily. It’s changing the rules in the middle of the game. I know comic writers have done it in the past, and will do it in the future, but I think it’s cheating. It’s part of what Steven from Peiratikos is talking about in his excellent essay on Mysteries and comics.

  3. Mark H.
    October 31st, 2004 at 12:21 pm

    Goldilocks got a pretty good shit-kicking in one issue, though. But everyone knows who she is. I’m only vaguely aware that there was a Rose Red in those old-timey stories, and don’t know much other than that.

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