It's no secret by now that I love fairy tales or the fairy tale retellings are some of my absolute favorite reads. The more retellings I read, the more people I discuss them with and the more reviews I come across for these stories, the more I have realized something. I am very, very forgiving of my fairy tales.
In many books and stories, I find myself bored with predictability, distanced from static characters and undeveloped villains, scoffing at unrealistic scenarios and annoyed by reading similar story lines repeated within the book, or throughout many stories. But this is not so in a fairy tale retelling.
I find this exception to be one of the appeals of a fairy tale. In real life, there are very few, if any people who are wholly evil or wholly good. It is one of the things that makes the world interesting. Even if there is nothing good left in a soul now, there has been at some point. And no matter how good a person might be, there is always something that might tempt them down a darker path. But in fairy tales, it is possible to explore true evil. You don't need to have the back section on the villain to understand why they do what they do or those almost hidden moments of vulnerability in a fairy tale retelling. Your villain is evil because they can be, evil because they are.
In any other type of fiction, I lose interest when I am able to predict a large portion of the story. I don't want to know every action the hero will make before he does. At least something the hero or heroine does should be unexpected. But fairy tales are different. So much of the fairy tale has already been told to me.
I know that Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother get away from the Big Bad Wolf. I know Beauty's innate goodness will eventually break the witch's curse on the Beast. I know that it is incredibly important to be kind and offer food to the ugly crone who approaches you in the forest or along the side of the King's highway. I know that whatever magic got me to the ball tonight, I'd better plan to leave early. I know that if a talking animal tells me I must do something (kiss the frog, cut of the head and feet of the fox etc.) then I should probably not assume that I am smarter than they are. If an animal is talking, chances are when it tells me it's been enchanted, I should believe it. I know that anytime a step-mother appears in a fairy tale bad things will come to the children of the first wife.
And while yes, the path that the tales takes is often new or original, it remains predictable nonetheless. And I don't mind at all. Although, I will say that it makes the story that much greater and more amazing when it does manage to surprise me, or bring something wholly new and original to the canon of existing fairy tales.
I also find it interesting that I love this genre so much, because I do not much care for retellings of novels. Stories like Scarlett, the "sequel" to Gone with the Wind or Wicked feel wrong to me and I avoid reading them. If I learn that a book is a 'retelling' or 'modernization' of a classic novel I avoid reading them. I don't need to read someone else's version of an already written novel. But finding out that a book is a retelling of a fairy tale automatically puts it on my TBR.
I don't know why exactly I so look down on authors who chose to 'redo' an already existing novel but will love and adore you if you chose to retell a fairy tale. Perhaps it is because the fairy tale is meant to be read or spoken aloud to children and very few translations or recording agree completely on which version of the story is correct. Perhaps it is merely because in this regard I am a hypocrite. But no matter. Whatever the reason, whatever the justification, I love fairy tales. I embrace them, I rejoice in them and above all else, I forgive them.
