One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#70: Innocent Fairies

  Note:  I would like to give a special thanks to SnowyChu for bringing up this subject in a comment for my editorial on why kind mermaids are a complete cliché.  They pointed out to me something about the mythology surrounding fairies that to be honest I was not previously aware of.  Out of pure curiosity I did a bit of research and the stuff I found blew me away.  If you want to know where I found out the majority of my research, I recommend going to http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/fairies-sightings-myths-legends-tales-folklore-magic-a8103531.html.  Prepare to possibly have your childhoods ruined or be enlightened with a side to fairies not many people are aware of.

  When you hear about a fairy in a fantasy story, the words innocent, child-like, and beautiful may come to mind.  In many fictional books, movies, and TV shows, fairies have been depicted as sweet little cherubs.  From Peter Pan, both the classic Disney movie and novel, there is the sweet little fairy Tinkerbell whose magical dust is solely responsible for transporting the main cast to the mystical Never Land.  A figure of pure innocence, the audience cannot help but love the cute little creature and be the evermore devastated when she almost dies from being poisoned.  She has gotten so popular over the years there are even spin-off animated films for the character which Disney has released for the younger crowd.  Other tales such as Cinderella have the generous Fairy Godmother, the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty (the original creepy version and the Disney classic), and the annoying yet sweet Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time video game.  All of these characters are symbols of innocence at its finest.  However, these stories stray far from the actual mythological truth about fairies.

  Fairies in mythology are far from friendly.  In fact, they are usually ugly, quick tempered creatures that can even end your life.  These tales call fairies trows, which is a name that links them to the notorious mythical trolls.  They are depicted as small creatures with gray or even musky brown skin.  Their ears are long and they can be found drinking at your local pub.  When a deal with a human goes bad, fairies have been depicted crippling the person or even bathing them with horrible misfortune.  Worst of all, fairies have been known to kill people in cold blood.  The mythological fairy from the past versus the fairytale fairy we know of today are two  completely different creatures.  Writers all of these years have accidentally created a wrongfully depicted cliché about kindly fairies in literature.

  Like with the mermaid back at the beginning of this editorial, I recommend trying to bring back these darker fairy creatures to all potential writers out there.  Due to over-saturation of good fairies in our media, the actual truth about the creatures have been almost completely wiped out of human memory.  This is a true shame in my mind.  Why can we not have the darker fairy interpretation to go along with our modern innocent version?  We can have the best of both worlds.  As writers, it is our mission to get this truth spread out there.

  Now, one of two things have happened to you after reading this.  The first is that you would like to do research like me on the darker variants of fairies.  The second is that quite possibly I may have ruined your childhood.  Chose your poison, in this case stance on this unknown truth.