The Fair Folk: Difference between revisions
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''[[Light Is Not Good|No one ever said elves are '''nice''']].
''[[Eldritch Abomination|Elves are '''bad]]'''.''
|[[Terry Pratchett]]|''[[
Modern society has lived with [[Disneyfication|the Disneyfied vision]] of Fairies for so long—the Fairy Godmothers of "[[Cinderella (novel)|Cinderella]]" and "[[Sleeping Beauty]]", Tinkerbell in ''[[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Peter Pan]]''<ref>Tink was actually quite capable of mischief in the original movie. And she tried to kill Wendy! But she has since been princess-ified.</ref>—that it seems hard to imagine that some would consider Fairies evil.
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The return of this trope to popular awareness can be traced back to at least 1988, when ''[[The Sandman]]'', a [[Comic Book]] penned by [[Neil Gaiman]], featured a number of Fairy characters who were often either outright malicious or self-centered to the point of sociopathy. Gaiman also used traditional Fairies in his novels and short stories as well as other comic books, and directly inspired authors such as [[Terry Pratchett]] (a friend of Gaiman's in long standing) and Susanna Clarke, author of ''[[Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell]]''. Ten years earlier, the artist [[Brian Froud]] did a series of illustrated books cataloging the ''Shee'' or bad fairies, and their close cousins, the [[Our Goblins Are Wickeder|goblins]]. His work was also the inspiration for the 1982 film ''[[The Dark Crystal]]''.
These Fairies can sometimes share a world with [[The Lord of the Rings|Tolkienesque]] [[Our Elves Are Better|Elves]], who, depending on the setting, may not themselves officially be part of [[Faerie]]. The principal distinction between the two, if there is one, is that Elves are [[Proud Scholar Race|a mildly superhuman longlived race]] living in the mortal world (or a [[Hidden Elf Village|distant corner]] of it), whereas Fairies are much more intensely magical, and live in a [[Fairyland]] outside the mortal world.
Ever wonder why Fairies are called "the Fair Folk" or "the Good Folk"? It's because calling them an ''unkind'' name is a good way to bring down their wrath upon your head. Especially [[The Wild Hunt]]. In addition, simply using the word "fairy" is considered insulting. (It's not clear why. The popular theory is it's like calling a human an ape.) On the subject of names, there's a 90% chance that a named fairy leader will be called Oberon, Titania or Mab. Other fairies are just as likely to have names drawn from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.
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* [[Depleted Phlebotinum Shells|Iron]] - Sometimes it means striking them with iron weapons, or simply a frying pan or just exposure will do the job. In some settings where this would be too much of a [[Weaksauce Weakness]], it's specified as [[Cold Iron]], which usually means unworked iron that has not been treated via forging. How effective it is tends to vary.
** Sometimes steel is named instead of iron, which is, of course, the
* [[Can Not Tell a Lie]] - Sometimes. Note that they ''will'' exploit and [[Ambiguous Syntax|twist]] this for all manner of deception, but a trickster hero can take advantage of this.
** [[I Gave My Word]]: A related note, often the Fair Folk ''must'' keep their word once they give it. Again they might exploit a loophole. For example, a favorite trick is for them to lead a mortal to a tree with the insinuation that there's a buried treasure under it; said mortal realizes he needs to go get a shovel, but also realizes he'd neve find the tree again if he leaves. So he decides
* [[Magically-Binding Contract]] - Related to the above. Any deal with the Fair Folk ''will'' be upheld from their end, though they tend to respect only the [[Exact Words|letter]] of any deal they make. God help you if you fail your end of a deal. (God help you even if you don't!)
* [[Pride]] - That bit up there about how they demand to be called the "fair" folk? They're ''all'' like that. To a one, they are proud creatures, concerned primarily with their own grand schemes.
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'''The Fair Folk''' are often depicted as an [[Inhumanly Beautiful Race]]. Compare and contrast [[Fairy Companion]], [[Our Elves Are Better]], [[Our Fairies Are Different]], [[Witch Species]], [[Our Goblins Are Wickeder]], [[All Trolls Are Different]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different]], and [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]]. See also [[Youkai]] for a rough Japanese equivalent. [[The Greys]] is more modern trope with [[Sci Fi Counterpart|many similarities]]. An extreme example may be an [[Eldritch Abomination]] or [[Humanoid Abomination]]. When humanity appears this way is [[Humans Are Cthulhu]].
{{noreallife|at least, not until we have evidence that the Fair Folk exist}}
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* [[Durarara!!]]'' subverts this trope with Celty Sturluson, an [[Celtic Mythology|Irish]] [[The Grim Reaper|Dulla]][[Headless Horseman|han]]
* The Diclonii from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' are heavily influenced by the Fair Folk and are in fact the "elves" from the title. They reproduce by secretly altering humans so that [[Changeling Tale|any children they have will be born as diclonii]] and they are all very beautiful or handsome. In feudal Japan they used to live like nobles ruling over normal humans until they were hunted almost to extinction. They are not particularly evil, but when they grow older they develop telekinetic abilities with which they almost always accidentally kill their human families and only survive by becomming deadly killers. Except the only remaining queen Lucy, who can give birth to pureblood diclonii and has the unstopable instinct to [[Kill All Humans]].
* [[Kaori Yuki]]'s ''[[Fairy Cube]]'' is probably best example of this trope being used properly in manga. From the protagonist's [[Fairy Companion]] debating whether or not to eat him in the beginning, to a Tuatha Dunann being weak to a pair of scissors (and being unable to cross fresh water), to the presence of ''changelings'' replacing children, a lot of classic fairy-lore is involved. Granted, some of it is modernized (said fairy companion is played as more of a non-romantic [[Tsundere]], for example), but the effort is easily appreciable.
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* In the backstory of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'', it's revealed that not only did the Fair Folk exist in Britain with their own realm, but said realm was even united with England under [[The Faerie Queene]] for a time. Later on however, the Puritans under Cromwell led a great purge, wiping out most of the Fair Folk and driving those who survived away from the human world forever.
== [[Film
* Even though she's usually called a witch these days, Maleficent, of [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney's]] ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'', is actually a "wicked fairy".
** To quote ''[[Discworld|Nanny Ogg's Cookbook]]'': "How hard is it to invite her along, give her plenty of drink and a plate of ham rolls all to herself, and keep her out of the way of your posh auntie? Play your cards right and you could be ahead by an extra good wish."
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* ''[[Spirited Away]]'' is a Japanese [[Youkai]] [[Fairy Tale]] that portrays them as acting very similar to The Fair Folk.
* Aisling from ''[[The Secret of Kells]]''. Though she turns out to be much nicer than how the Fair Folk are usually portrayed, she still doesn't take kindly to those who intrude in her forest and initially even threatens to set her wolves on Brendan if he doesn't leave.
* ''[[Labyrinth]]'', the David Bowie movie, not to be confused with the recent ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]''—see below. When Sarah reaches the outer wall of the Labyrinth, she finds a gardener killing Fairies with a bug sprayer. She calls him a brute, and picks up one of the not-quite-dead Fairies, who rewards her actions by attempting to bite off her finger. When she expresses her amazement and that she thought Fairies did "nice things, like granting wishes", the gardener simply scoffs and says "[[Genre Blind|Shows what you know]]."
** Not to mention [[Magnificent Bastard|Jareth himself]] and his Goblins; the film is essentially a changeling tale.
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* ''[[Were the World Mine]]'', a musical adaptation of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', about an outcast gay kid cast as Puck in the school play who ends up {{spoiler|making a magic flower and causing people to fall in love with people of their own gender, essentially becoming Puck}}, often in musical sequences that are vague about whether it's a fantasy or not. The English/drama teacher, as well, is {{spoiler|implied to be a fairy, complete with magic that makes the townspeople bend to her will. Granted, this is to give Puck/Timothy a chance to fix everything, but it's still not quite right from a human perspective}}. Overall, the fairies depicted are very sympathetic, but there is definite selfishness and laughing at the trouble being caused to mundane people going on.
* Del Toro does it again with [[Don't Be Afraid of the Dark]]. No wings or sparkles here, the creatures [[All There in the Manual|(officially known as Homonculi)]] look more like [[Our Monsters Are Weird|evil hunchbacked lemurs.]]
* King Brian and the other leprechauns in ''[[Darby O'Gill and the
* The creature in [[Absentia]] is actually a {{spoiler|troll}}. Many of the characteristics of the fae are present in the movie, such as the strict adherence to trading, [[Jackass Genie|the rules of which you'll have to figure out on your own]], living in another dimension, torturing people seemingly for shits and giggles, [[Nothing Is Scarier]], and abducting people. The movie is actually a good example of how to make the faeries terrifying to a modern audience.
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* Certainly, [[Brian Froud]] belongs at the top here. Modern audiences must have had a shock when his collaboration with Alan Lee, ''[[Faeries]],'' hit the shelves. It was one of the first books to include as many scary Fairy stories as nice stories. Froud has vocally emphasized that, while there are indeed evil Fairies and good Fairies in mythology, the vast majority of them are neutral. He actually apologizes, in the introduction, for the self-contradictory title of his follow-up book, ''Bad Faeries/Good Faeries''.
* In [[Aaron Allston]]'s ''[[Doc Sidhe]]'' the Fair Folk are just as morally varied as humans are. Furthermore, the Fairy World has advanced at the nearly same rate as the human world, so fairies in the 1990s have 1930s level technology, mixed with magic (which is no longer called magic because it can be studied scientifically). And they've interbred with humans so many times as a result of changelings and other visitations that most are nearly human height. And one of the fairies is a [[Captain Ersatz]] of [[Doc Savage]]. It's a lot [[Better Than It Sounds]].
* The Moorfolk in ''[[The Moorchild]]'' fit the description to a T. They've an aversion to holy water, Rowan wood, St. John's Wort and other yellow flowers, iron (in the setting,
* [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''The Queen of Air and Darkness'' riffs on this trope by having telepathic aliens on a frontier world use the legends of Faerie against the human settlers, right down to kidnapping children to use as changeling warriors.
** ''[[The Broken Sword]]'' is a fantasy novel about Dark Age Europe coexisting (unknowingly) with amoral elves, trolls, etc. Poul includes a [[squick]]y passage wherein an elf lord creates a changeling using an enslaved she-troll. The changeling gets even, kind of. Several of Poul Anderson's other novels and at least one short story also deal with the Fair Folk.
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** ''Here Abide Monsters''. A [[Speculative Fiction]] novel including flying saucers. Nevertheless, the people of Avalon - the [[Alternate Universe]] into which the protagonists stumble via a [[Cool Gate]] - are The Fair Folk.
** In the short story "The Long Night of Waiting", Lizzie's description of the people in the [[Alternate Universe]] in which she and her brother were trapped clearly indicates The Fair Folk, although they seem well-intentioned. Note that "Lizzie" is also the name of one of the girls in Christina Rossetti's ''[[Goblin Market]]''.
* The Elves of [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' series, as seen in ''[[
** However, while they are powerful and cruel, they tend to be thick and unable to learn, and aside from the Queen and select Lords (and even they tend to be highly unimaginative), seem to be almost incapable of forming much original thought.
{{quote|'''Granny Weatherwax''': You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. You're right. I'm older. You've lived longer than me but I'm older than you. And better'n you. And, madam, that ain't hard.}}
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** Flavor text for the original Alpha Llanowar Elves: "One bone broken for every twig snapped under foot." Pretty brutal for 1/1 druids that give you green mana.
** There are also Faeries in the Lorwyn setting; they're mostly mischievous and disrupting, if not outright evil. Though they went from being simply mischievous in Lorwyn/Morningtide to being outright evil in Shadowmoor/Eventide. The [[Big Bad]] for that block was {{spoiler|Oona, Queen of the Fae}}. And [[Game Breaker|exceptionally overpowered]].
** This isn't altogether limited to Lorwyn, although the 'fairytale' nature of the setting certainly emphasized the various creatures' relevant traits. It's pretty much canon that the elves of Llanowar on the 'default' plane of Dominaria consider the life of a tree more important than that of a human, and while Magic's faeries may be the small winged pixie type in general, well, see the flavor text on [
** In most Magic sets, Elf creatures are very Tolkien-sian. A bit more xenophobic, but Tolkien's elves could be pretty xenophobic to anyone who wasn't the [[Chosen One]] too. They're still basically creatures of order and "live and let live", as shown by the fact that (until the Lorwyn block) the color of mana they are most likely to use, after green, is white. Lorwyn, though, is consciously based on faerie tales, so the predatory, capricious and aristocratic aspects of The Fair Folk got emphasized, and for the duration of the block elves were black secondarily to green instead of white. A tribe switching colors is rare, and switching to a rival color like that is almost unheard of.
* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' cosmology, the Seelie Court, ruled by Queen Titania, are arrogant elitists who refuse to consider non-Fey people. The Unseelie Court, ruled by the Queen of Air And Darkness, are simply [[Exclusively Evil|monstrous]]. Of course, since the Dungeon Master has final say what goes on in his/her world, fey in individual campaigns can vary from one end of the spectrum to the other.
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*** Even the conventional "sylvan fey" of the Land of Mists can be nastier than elsewhere, due to the ambient influence of the Dark Powers throughout the setting.
** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' used to have few true fairies, but in ''[[Counselors and Kings]]'' Unseelie are presented as one of the very few things that can truly scare Drow, as opposed to irritate them or cause to back off for now.
*** Some fairies get along with others well, but still are fairly weird. The trio of Glouras (cute singing Underdark sprites with mothlike wings) runs a festhall in Sshamath, de-facto dancing club and concert hall known even to many human bards on the surface. In [[Side-Story Bonus Art|spin-a-yarn]], the Bloody Fist tavern (Waterdeep) has as barmaids and [[Fairy Sexy|sort of]] [[Fan Service]] "the Laughing Sisters", named so because they always giggle, who like to bite people's ears just for the sweet taste of blood. [
** In ''[[Pathfinder]]'', a game based on a modified version of D&D 3.5, elves are aliens.
*** Though it is is the ''gnomes'' who are the Fey-connected people with a more alien perspective on things. The elves may have their quirks, but in comparison their mentality tends to be a tad bit closer to humans (as befits a race native to a Pulp Venus analogue).
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** ''"(Seriously, we could have died. We probably still will. Faeries are tricky.)"''
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], the Faerie are an ancient race who think of humans as pets raised (originally) in a garden world. They apparently feel the same way about werewolves. Fey, one of the protagonists, was changed into her current appearance by an ancient Faerie spirit who now resides in Fey's head. While Fey is inhumanly beautiful, in "Ill Winds" her true form is a luminescent energy form that isn't remotely human.
* Possibly [https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Faeries_(SCP_Foundation)#:~:text=The%20Faeries%2C%20or%20the%20Fae,failure%20at%20destroying%20the%20Foundation. The Faeries] in ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' lore. These beings were first presented as enemies of the Foundation in the lore of [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-001-o5 SCP-001 (Dr. Bright’s proposal, “the Factory”)] named such because the name of the race is unknown and they share the Fair Folk’s vulnerability to iron. No physical description of them is given in this proposal, though animated adaptations do tend to make them look like [[Dark Action Girl]] versions of Tinkerbell. They were fleshed out more in later SCPs, making them fit the Trope far more, such as [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/taboo SCP-4000] (their home, which resembles a [[Land of Faerie]] setting and establishes how they can steal names because they lost theirs - the reason nobody knows the actual name of the race), [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2932 SCP-2932] and [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6666 SCP-6666], both [[Eldritch Location]]s containing information on their history and relations to other SCPs. Curiously, these “updates” seem to imply that the original conflict at the Factory occurred [[Good All Along|because they tried to warn the soldiers]] (stated to be forerunners of the Foundation) of the incredible evil the Factory (which the Foundation was trying to use for their own benefit), and [[Cassandra Truth|the Foundation refused to listen.]]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The "Third Race" from ''[[Gargoyles]]''. Especially the episode when Oberon and Titania were out to capture Xanatos's son Alexander for the Gathering. Goliath thought it was so vile that he actually ''sides'' with Xanatos to prevent Alexander's capture.
** Oberon is consistently depicted in the series as capricious, vain and arrogant, [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|making and breaking edicts on a whim]]. Sure, he'll say his magic will never harm you and yours, and it won't... until he wants it to.
** Aside from their [[Jerkass]] leaders, the other "Children of Oberon" in the series vary greatly in personality, disposition, and form. Though they all tend to be pretty mischievous, even the ones that like humans and Gargoyles. This group also includes [[Macbeth|the Weird Sisters.]]
*** Interestingly, [[Word of God]] has said they used to be a whole lot worse. After being banished from Avalon most changed considerably; besides Oberon who, at the time, was mature and compassionate in comparison. And don't even get started on his [[God Save Us From the Queen|mother]].
*** Titania, his wife, seems to be of the other type thankfully, and is more than capable of controlling her husband. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, she's the instigator for the incident with Alexander. And then also the instigator for the interference of the Gargoyles}}.
*** On the other hand, Puck {{spoiler|is Owen}}.
* ''[[The Fairly
** Also, the April Fool in "Fools Day Out" called causing the Earth to go into an Ice Age by hitting several planets and stuff is a "prank" or "joke".
** One episode also has "Scary Fairies". A state brought on by a fairy being stuck in pitch black for too long, who compulsively desire to eat their Godkid. {{spoiler|Fortunately it's all just a practical joke on Timmy.}}
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* Brian Froud's ''Fairies'' was adapted as a half hour animated special in the 1980's.
* A lot of the spirits from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. Most notably Koh, a giant centipede spirit who delights in [[Face Stealer|stealing people's faces....]]
* The changelings in ''[[My Little Pony:
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