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The Fair Folk: Difference between revisions
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Their society and customs, if they even have the inclination to associate, are often [[Deadly Decadent Court|extravagant and elegant but amoral and inscrutable]], sometimes even for [[All of the Other Reindeer|some unfortunate Fairies]] themselves. It's by far not certain what degree of loyalty or compassion they feel for their conspecifics.
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 and 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
These Fairies can sometimes share a world with [[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.
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Often found in concert with [[Grimmification]].
[[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
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* [[Durarara!!]] subverts this trope with Celty Sturluson, an [[Celtic Mythology|Irish]] [[The Grim Reaper|Dulla]][[Headless Horseman|han]] desperately searching for her missing head. At first she may look intimidating and a little bit sinister, but soon we discover she is genuinely a very kind, gentle and caring person. For an Unseelie Fae she is actually one of the most friendly and affable characters in the series. [[Moe Moe|She is also afraid of space aliens]]. Of course, as Shinra points out, part of this may have to do with the fact that Celty's an ''amnesiac'' Dullahan. She might not have been so nice if circumstances were different (quarter-Dullahan {{spoiler|Ruri Hirijibe}}, for example is a serial killer with a monster fetish).
* 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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* Guillermo del Toro's ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]'' wasn't short of creepy magical beings either. Even the nice ones were patently eerie.
* ''[[Hellboy II]]: The Golden Army'', also directed by del Toro, features an [[Evil Albino]] elven prince and a whole host of creepy fey creatures, including Tooth Fairies, carnivorous, insect-like things whose swarms can devour a person whole... starting with their teeth, of course. [[Informed Ability|Supposedly, but in the actual movie]] they eat everything but the teeth, and save those for later.
** It should be noted though that only the prince [[Our Elves Are Better|elf]] and his troll partner were outright evil. Other [[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]] were benevolent enough, albeit belligerent, and the ''[[Our Goblins Are
*** The tooth fairies weren't that bad, though, just hungry. When {{spoiler|the tooth fairy is reanimated}} by Krauss, the fairy essentially said (translated through Krauss) that he and the others were essentially kidnapped and starved until they were willing to attack ''anything''.
** The goblin also fits this trope, since he's nice enough that you forget he's the one [[Offstage Villainy|who came up with]] the idea of building the army. He demands a classic fairy-tale price from the heroes, at the potential cost of Hellboy's life.
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'''Clary''': Jace! Shut up. Jesus. That's enough.<br />
'''Jace''': Look, it's easy to outsmart a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]] or [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]]. They're no smarter than anyone else. But faeries live for hundreds of years and they're as cunning as snakes. They [[Can Not Tell a Lie|can't lie]], but they love to engage in creative truth-telling. They'll find out whatever it is you want most in the world and give it to you -- with a sting in the tail of the gift that will make you regret you ever wanted it in the first place. They're not about helping people. More harm disguised as help. }}
* The Fairy Servants in ''[[Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell]]'', particularly "The Gentleman With Thistledown Hair." A footnote in the book explains that there are two faculties in both men and fairies: a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. Men possess a greater share of reason than magic, and the fairies are the exact opposite. The book also describes the three classes of supernatural beings -- angels, demons and fairies -- as being "[[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|eternally good]]", "[[
* In [[John Connolly]]'s short story ''The New Daughter,'' a family settle in a house built next to a "fairy fort." The [[Sealed Evil in a Can|hive of fairies imprisoned within]] are [[Eyeless Face|eyeless monsters]] that attack anyone who sits too close to the roof of their fort; the eldest daughter falls victim to this -- they [[Buried Alive|bury her alive]] and replace her with a changeling, who converts the rest of the family and releases them from the fort.
* [[The Fair Folk]] in ''[[The Bitterbynde]]'' trilogy by Cecilia Dart-Thornton for the most part are masters of gramarye ([[Functional Magic]]), beautiful, arrogant, and cruel. Several Faeran characters appeal to the idea that their moral code is merely different to that of mortals, and that they cannot be considered evil. It's not entirely convincing when you hear tales of their awful retribution for meaningless and unmeant "crimes" perpetrated by mortals.
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* The Others in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' are a cross between elves, vampires, and cold elementals. The children of the forest are a diminutive, woodland folk with great power. Although they warred with mankind, they eventually made peace, then dwindled away as civilization swept through the continent.
* [[Tad Williams]] seems to like this one, as he uses variants on it in several of his works:
** In ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'', you have the Sithi (basically benevolent, but still alien and unpredictable and with little love for humans) and the Norns (their arctic, [[
** In ''[[The War of the Flowers]]'', "fairy" can be used to describe any intelligent inhabitant of the [[Magical Land]] the protagonist gets stuck in, but specifically refers to the humanoid aristocracy, who are ([[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|almost]]) always [[Aristocrats Are Evil|evil]].
** Largely subverted in ''[[Shadowmarch]]''; the Qar (fairy) races are alien and hostile to humans, but on the whole are no more or less prone to evil than mortals, and the real villains are the mortal [[Evil Overlord]] {{spoiler|and the [[Trickster Archetype]] god who's manipulating him}}. [[Lady of War|Lady]] [[Dark Action Girl|Yasammez]], the most overtly menacing and hostile of the Qar, actually {{spoiler|ends up making a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}.
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* [[Charlaine Harris]] in her ''[[The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries]]'' series would have it both ways with Claudine and Claude. The former aspires to be an angel and tries to do good whilst the latter is amoral at best but both chose to live amongst humans. Then there is Niall Brigant, {{spoiler|the grandfather to the two and Sookie Stackhouse's great-grandfather}}, a fairy prince who has a benign but distant regard for humanity yet sees the benefits of tapping into human industries. Others of their kind have a distinct hatred for humanity and all that it represents. This tension over human contact {{spoiler|and interbreeding leads to a civil war and some use mankind as its fodder}}.
** Don't forget the fairies that {{spoiler|drowned Sookie's parents}} and later {{spoiler|kidnapped and tortured Sookie by cutting her up and biting off chunks of her flesh. Yeesh.}}
* The People (including various kinds of fairies, [[Our Goblins Are
** We're catching up fast, and have [[Teen Genius|Artemis]], who in the first book plans to ''[[Screw You, Elves|extort from the elves]]''. The brilliant part? It WORKS and he pulls a [[Karma Houdini]] and utterly gets away with filching a SHITLOAD of gold while managing to avoid any real negative consequences. It helps that he gave half of it back in a bargain to help fix his sick mother, but still....
* A book called ''The Changeling'' deals with this, and with an outcast of their own kind.
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* Althought the [[Our Elves Are Better|elves]] are more similar to the Tolkien version, the elves in the [[Inheritance Cycle]] nonetheless have traits similar to this. Elves are immortal and magical creatures and though they're mostly good guys it's outright stated that they are haughty, arrogant, twist the truth around and are constantly plotting.
* The [[Slavic Mythology|Veela]] in [[Harry Potter]] are all beautiful and alluring creatures whose dancing exerts a form of [[Glamour|mind control]] over the men who watch them. When angered they transform into birdlike, taloned creatures and throw balls of light.
** The [[Our Goblins Are
* In [[Tam Lin]], the Queen of Elphame lures humans into her realm where she eventually sacrifices them as a tithe to Hell.
* The fairies in ''Poison'' fit this perfectly. The whole plot is set in motion by one of them kidnapping the heroine's sister.
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** It is explained later that the True Fae need conflict to prevent themselves fading away into the random background chaos of Arcadia. As a result, [[Foe Yay|the closest thing they have to friends among other Fae are their sworn enemies, as by fighting they're keeping each other alive]]. They can also be inanimate objects (Props), legions of lesser beings (Wisp), and entire self-enclosed universes (Realms) in addition to their normal forms (Actors). With enough Titles, they can do the aforementioned simultaneously!
** This is in marked contrast to the earlier ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'', where the [[Player Character]] Changelings were actual ([[Half-Human Hybrid|half-]])Faeries using [[Humanity Ensues|human disguises]] to protect themselves from Disbelief, in the [[Old World of Darkness]]. Though the Kithain were basically fae souls shaped by human experiences, some -- especially the Redcaps and Sluagh, and the Sidhe of both Courts just after their return to the Tellurian -- were often chillingly inhuman and capricious, at least when played right. Some sub-groups -- the Leanhaun Sidhe for example -- were specifically meant to reflect the more traditional view of The Good People as rapacious and unsympathetic to their mortal victims.
** White Wolf also published ''Dark Ages: Fae'' which is "officially" considered to be a prequel to [[Changeling: The Dreaming]], but is so radically different it can also be run as a full [[Alternate Universe]]. In it fairies are divided into The Firstborn; who are true fae without need for that pesky mortal shell. Inanimae; beings whose bodies are based on natural elements, as well as artificial constructs. And Changelings; who in this setting are different from both the above. Being human children spirted away and raised as faeries, faerie children raised in the human world, or true [[Half Human Hybrids]]. The fae are divided into 5 courts based around their preferred powers and attitude towards humans. All four of the primary courts, the fifth simply being the neutral group, quite easily come across as this trope. It's been remarked that the difference between good and evil faeries isn't over whether they ''should'' rule over humans, but rather how they should go about it. The Spring Court wants to learn about "modern" humanity and use that knowledge to revive the fear and reverence that they once received. The Summer are the harsh traditionalists, and intend to punish humans for breaking their ancient, and forgotten, oaths, and restore the old order. The Autumn Court, like the spring, wish to learn more about humans and work with them, however rather then outright respect they wish to manipulate the course of history from behind the scenes. Finally is the Winter Court, which isn't actually [[
* The Elves in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'''s Lorwyn set are horned and hooved, supposedly to remind you of deer and satyrs, but... They are also aristocratic, ruthless, and predatory, and have built a society with castes based on cunning and physical attractiveness. The Castes range from Faultless, Immaculate, Exquisite, to Perfect, the top of the pack. Eyeblights, which includes non-Elves as well as ugly or disfigured Elves, are scum and can (or must) be killed.
** 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.
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** 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 [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=171 Scryb Sprites] if you think they're in any way, shape, or form harmless.
** 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 and 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 [[
** While elves are often described as being close to nature and the fey, they are still typed as humanoids; fey has its own type, and includes a very wide array of very strange creatures. In 4E, you may notice that there's not a single good-aligned fey among them...
** 4e consolidates previous editions' elves into three main groups: the Eladrin (4e's High/Sun/Moon/Star elves), Elves (4e's vanilla/Wood/Wild elves), and Drow (the same ol' dark elves). The Eladrin were given the fey-subtype and elevated to the position of masters of the Feywild (4e's Faerie). The Seelie and Unseelie courts can be found in The Manual of the Planes supplement as the Summer and Winter courts respectively, as well as several other courts.
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** 4E has the Primordials, who combine this trope with [[Cosmic Horror]], especially [[Eldritch Abomination]]. Besides being responsible for the creation of the ''world'', they would like nothing more than to return it to chaotic mush. Why? No reason, other than being the various embodiments of [[Elemental Powers]] who can't fathom why the [[Physical God|Physical Gods]] wish a constant in the universe.
** ''[[Birthright]]'' had splitting of [[Dark World|Shadow World]] and the "normal" world, which also ripped all but one original Sie in two -- a Sidhe (elf) attuned to (and immortal in) the normal world, able to use wizardry and a Seelie attuned to (and immortal in) the Shadow World, able to use natural magic (druidism) and [[Glamour|Seeming]]. Now when an elf is born on Cerilia, a faerie just "appears" on the other side. So far no one managed to find two counterparts and bring the pair together to see what happens. Though [[Glamour]] isn't exclusive, they are much better at it than most other Shadow critters.
*** The Elves are [[Our Elves Are Better|as beautiful, shiny and powerful]] as they usually are. However, even the "good" ones [[Fantastic Racism|strongly believe all other races to be inferior]], though a few tolerate the better (and, ahem, most handsome) humans (but never [[Elves vs. Dwarves|dwarves]] or [[
*** The Shadow World make use of the Seelie and Unseelie Court concepts. The Unseelie are as vile and bloodthirsty as you'd expect, but the Seelie can also be very dangerous due to how alien their mindset is. They don't think twice about kidnapping human children like puppies who caught their eye -- they tend not to see humans as people. Changeling "pets" see a good care, though, and can fend for themselves (even in the Shadow World) by the time they aren't that cute and Seelie sends them away.
** In The [[Points of Light]] setting of 4e, in addition to the Eladrin, there are the Fomorians, a race of hideous, evil giants who universally have the powers of "the evil eye" and have the eternal allegiance of all the cyclopses.
** In [[Ravenloft]], the Arak or "shadow fey" range from meddlesome to [[
*** 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.
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