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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
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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* "[[Rumpelstiltskin]]".
* [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/twelvedancing/stories/katiecrackernuts.html Katie Crackernuts]", the prince is forced to leave his bed every night to dance at the fairy hall, and is deathly ill because of it.
** The same thing, albeit [[Gender Flip|gender-flipped]], happens in ''[[Jonathan Strange
* Two Medieval accounts mention a pair of green children who showed up in the English town of Woolpit in the 12th century. They claimed to be from "Saint Martin's Land", an underground world.
* A lot of classic Scottish fairy tales have these, but just as easily have helpful fairies. They're probably most frequently seen in stories involving Changelings, but are seen as being somewhat interchangeable with trolls.
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'''Jace''': ''All right?'' By which I take it you mean we survived?
'''Simon''': Well...
'''Jace''': Faeries are the offspring of [[Villain Sue|angels and demons]], with the beauty of angels and the viciousness of demons. A [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]] might attack you, if you entered its domain, but a faerie could make you dance until you died with your legs ground down into stumps, trick you into going for a midnight swim and drag you screaming underwater until your lungs burst, fill your eyes with faerie dust until you gouged them out at the roots--
'''Clary''': Jace! Shut up. Jesus. That's enough.
'''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
* 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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** 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
** 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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* The Elves of Ios in the ''[[Iron Kingdoms]]'' are xenophobic isolationists who have [[Hidden Elf Village|closed off their nation's borders to outsiders]]. Of the few Elves that do leave their homeland, a fair proportion are assassins who have dedicated their lives to hunting down and killing human wizards and [[Magitek|mechanika]]-users. They do this because they believe that human arcane magic and mechanika are draining the life from their last remaining [[Physical God]], thereby dooming the Elven race to extinction; whether or not this is actually the case has never been conclusively addressed.
** To say nothing of the Nyssian Elves, who are enslaved body and mind to a [[Cosmic Horror]].
* The Eldar of ''[[Warhammer
* The Elves in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy. You get either [[Fantastic Racism|arrogant bastards]] (High Elves), xenophobic bastards (Wood Elves) or [[Complete Monster|murderous bastards]] (Dark Elves).
** The Wood Elves in ''Warhammer Fantasy'' well qualify: they are extremely xenophobic and generally act more like a force of nature than a civilized people. This is especially true with their king, Orion the Hunter, who every spring [[The Wild Hunt|goes on a rampage around the woods and nearby area]] with a host of spirits and wild hunters.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Rifts]]'' and ''[[Palladium]]'' have a wide range of fairies and nature spirits, some of whom are Scrupulous or Principled and positively nice (such as brownies) while others are nasty, brutish and puckish. Even nice fairies, though, are apt to feed you enchanted food with unpleasant results. The continuity also has the Splugorth, low level [[Cosmic Horror]]s who employ magic-resistant species to rob the fae and put them into mystical weaponry.
* The Fae are... generally decent in ''[[Scion]]'' (at least the Irish ones). But they have their rules, and if you break them, it's your ''ass''. The Erl-king (mentioned above) shows up as well, and is a fairly powerful, nasty sort.
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** Or Puck could side with your rival who tries to [[Love Potion]] you to abandon the quest, but accidentally ''get'' your female party member (the funniest scenes ensue in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' because of this).
* The pixies in ''[[Fable]]'' are malicious childlike buggers with raspy voices and a penchant for human sacrifice.
* The Elves of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' have a bit of this trope, seeing how they [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat people]] and don't consider this to be in any way reprehensible, while considering lying as bad as murder. It doesn't help that they will [[Disproportionate Retribution|besiege you if you cut down too many trees and then proceed to devour your flesh]]. Since the game perspective in Fortress Mode is [[Elves Versus Dwarves|from the dwarves]], though, they tend to be seen more as annoying than terrifying.
A more fitting example are the Night Creatures, who resemble the more ogrish and monstrous kinds of Unseelie fairies. Occasional marauders who live in caves, they kidnap mortal spouses and corrupt them into similar beings, when they aren't simply eating their flesh. Their grotesque features are even procedurally generated, so that no two Night Creatures are alike.
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** Also played with in the first game, where the hero can be forced to dance with fairies to the point of death.
* Averted in the ''[[King's Quest]]'' games. There are wicked ones (Lolotte, Malicia), inscrutable ones (Mab, the Fate Sisters), and benevolent ones (Genesta, Oberon, Titania, and Edgar). Certainly, they can wield magic and have a strange logic on how things should run (The [[Fan Sequel]] ''[[The Silver Lining (video game)|The Silver Lining]]'' also depicts that they prefer to be outside, no matter the weather), but they aren't much different than humans otherwise.
** Played straight in the [[Extended Universe]], however, where a number of more traditional fairies show up in the [[King's Quest:
* Mostly subverted in ''[[Tears to Tiara]]'', where The Fair Folk turn out to be pretty nice people indeed. The closest one to this trope is the item shop owner Epona, who at worst is an [[Honest John]]. Her shop is even called '[[Gratuitous English|The Good Folk]]', though this is more of an allusion to mythology (it's set in Britain during the Roman invasion) than a lampshading.
* ''[[Touhou]]'''s actual fairies don't really fit beyond being mischevious; they're universally stupid and weak. On the other hand, some of the [[Youkai]] come pretty close, most obviously [[Reality Warper|Yukari]], who is beautiful, mysterious, and [[Boss Subtitles|the one behind the spiritings away]].
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* The Glomdoring commune of ''[[Lusternia]]'' traffick with fae including redcaps, barghests and slaugh. Also, their native race, Shadow Faelings, are a cross between The Fair Folk and Drow.
* The Hidden People, the extremely creepy [[Our Gnomes Are Weirder|Gnomes]] from the ''[[Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent|Puzzle Agent]]'' games.
* The Mystics of [[
* In [[Dragon Age]] people ''think'' the Dalish Elves are this and treat them accordingly. Which is unfortunate, given as they are for the most part simply nomadic hunters who just want to be left alone.
* ''[[King Arthur the Role Playing Wargame]]'' features both Sidhe courts (Seelie/summer court and Unseelie/winter court) as prominent factions you can ally yourself with if you follow the Old Faith. The Seelie mainly operate on [[Blue and Orange Morality]] and are described as honourable and honest 'in their own way' (being Old Faith and Righteous), while the Unseelie are fairy, err, ''fairly'' malicious (Old Faith/Tyrant) and [[Deal with the Devil|and bargains with them usually involve giving them your subjects' children]]. Allying with either court allows you to hire [[Changeling Tale|children the sidhe have "whisked away"]] as soldiers for your army.
* The Fae in ''[[Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning]]''. They are also divided into Summer and Winter; Summer representing growth and Winter representing decay, though neither is inherently good or evil. They have mixed feelings about mortals. Some of them dismiss them as short-lived "Dustlings", and others are fascinated by them because of their unique perspective on life and death. The Fae are so powerfully linked to Fate that they do not truly die—they merely repeat their lives in an endless Great Cycle. Fae also occasionally forget that when mortals die, it's for keeps. Fateweaver Argath claims that the Fae are actually ''easier'' to understand than mortals because they usually don't change with time. The Tuatha Deohn are a horrific exception to this rule. They are a cult of Winter Fae that have changed thanks to the power of Tirnoch. As a result, they are now brutal warmongers who wish to purge the world of all mortal life.
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[[Category:Elven Tropes]]
[[Category:Urban Fantasy Tropes]]
[[Category:The Fair Folk]]▼
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fair Folk, The}}
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