On Fairy Tale Stories

 It’s been a weird week, but I got a surprise ice cream sandwich at one point and that’s a nice little how-do-you do. I’m currently re-reading The Dragons of Winter and I have to do a Book Diary post for Bone Shard Daughter soon.

Anyhow I’ve been randomly thinking about fairy tales since the last Note and also reading School for Good & Evil. There should, in theory, be a way to tie in the Fae from The Invisible Library in here somewhere, but I don’t know what it is so just know from here on out that I have them in mind.

On Fairy Tale Fantasy

For the record, we’re not going to talk about any of that “It’s like a fairy tale, but DARK!!’ nonsense because it’s stupid.

Something I talked about more than once in discussing School for Good & Evil and why it didn’t work for me is the worldbuilding. Basically, a lot of the nitty-gritty of how things worked or the history of the world are handwaved as “fairy tales” and so I had trouble understanding the world the story was set in. I didn’t get a sense of history or even that anyone lived in that world other than the main characters. It was a bit odd.

Here’s the thing I think gets to me: I tend to divide fantasy and fairy tale into two different things.

Now I realize that this classification line is basically arbitrary. I think we could very easily say that fairy tale IS fantasy, or at least a type of fantasy. But there are subgenres of fantasy that are very much not fairy tales at all. Epic fantasy, high fantasy, dark fantasy–these may incorporate elements of fairy tales, but they themselves are not fairy tales. 

Fairy tales tend to be one-off stories. The ones we know are often aimed at children, but they don’t have to be. The worldbuilding isn’t a large part of the story, but it doesn’t have to be: you’re telling a story about a small group of individuals in a single adventure or set of adventures. You don’t need to know the history of the world its set in or the way the magic works–these things are purposefully more obscure, which is a handy way to let the story take place in different settings (del Toro was going to do a Beauty and the Beast movie in Napoleonic France, for instance). You can have a relevant bit of backstory, but that’s not the same as having a world history. Characters lean towards archetypes–and playing with those archetypes is a way to do a great analysis of fairy tales, what they mean, and how they’re told!

[Also, not too relevant to the conversation, but notice! Fairy tales don’t actually have to be about or even heavily feature fairies in them. A lot of the big name fairy tales don’t have explicit fairies in them at all.]

Something School for Good & Evil did that I couldn’t mesh with–and this is more of a Me Problem than a book problem–is that by adding King Arthur to the mix, I already felt like this put the story in a certain timeframe. I’m not hard and fast about the date of King Arthur stories, but I put that in the early or mid medieval period–a long time before any of the other fairy tales floating around in the story. 

But more solidly as a criticism, it was a story that necessitated worldbuilding–it took place in a fantastical setting with a strict hierarchy and rules (the School itself), so it didn’t feel like a fairy tale, all the while also using that to handwave that it didn’t want to do the work of actually building the world, which desperately called for it. I didn’t know if this school had any students older than the main characters, for instance.

There is a very difficult balance to try to tread here. I remember thinking that Snow White & the Huntsman ALSO didn’t work all the way for me (although I think I liked that film better than most people did) because it tries to turn the story of Snow White into an epic fantasy. There’s a Chosen One prophecy (I think? I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but it’s on Netflix now so I might rewatch it), there’s epic battle scenes, and there are fantastical beasts in the wilds. It changed the story into something it’s not. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but it doesn’t feel like fairy tale.

Whereas something like the first season of Once Upon a Time feels more fairy tale-ish, though it IS also leaning into epic fantasy. I suppose there IS a prophecy about Emma, but I saw that more as a ‘here is a loophole in the spell Rump wrote it’ rather than an actual prophecy–later seasons write her more as a specific Chosen One type though. Other than a few rules, such as about True Love and not bringing back the dead, the magic isn’t really explained all that much, and there IS worldbuilding enough to give you a background, it’s not too in-detail. OUaT kind of floundered for me when it kept exploring more and more backstory, as well as leaning more heavily on Disney sources rather than just fairy tales.

Fables by Bill Willingham kind of doesn’t feel much like a fairy tale at all, especially since he includes so many characters and elements that aren’t fairy tales (which doesn’t make it bad!). Basically all public domain is fair game in those stories, and it seems to bend more towards ‘Characters from a specific society’s cultures’ rather than just ‘fairy tales’, and indeed we see that the different “Fable” worlds are based on what different cultures see their worlds like. The American Fable worlds have the old West and Chicago gangsters.

Whereas something like Stardust–which is entirely an invented story–feels very much like a fairy tale. It’s set in a specific time in our world, yes, but the fairy tale world is much more timeless, and we’re not given too much, if any, backstory about how that world works, how that magic works, or what went on in the past other than vague hints. It’s notable that I don’t think Neil Gaiman is all that interested in doing hardcore worldbuilding, so he tends to lean towards this kind of story.

Fairy tale stories can be made into epic fantasy quite easily–and quite well. If that’s what you’re aiming for, it’s fine. The Witcher does this shamelessly. But if you really want to stick to fairy tales, be aware that it’s a careful line to tread, and it’s very easy to lose the balance. If I find myself asking too many questions about when or where this is taking place, or how the world works, it’s probably not that strong of a fairy tales–but it can be made into an epic fantasy if those questions are answered.

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