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Tropes common to fairy tales. See also mythical motifs.
Surprisingly, fairies in the winged, fluttery sense are absent, as are modern, pointy-eared versions of the fair folk.
- An Aesop
- An Arm and a Leg: All variants of the Girl Without Hands have her mutiliated.
- Androcles Lion
- At The Crossroads
- Back from the Dead: common (though not invariable) for heroes, but rare for other characters
- Baleful Polymorph / Animorphism: Frequently a curse cast by a Wicked Witch, Wicked Stepmother, or so on.
- Be Careful What You Wish For
- Beast Fable: The original Funny Animals.
- Big Bad Wolves
- Big Fancy Castle
- Blue Blood
- Bride and Switch
- Cain and Abel
- Changeling Tale
- Cinderella Circumstances
- Child Marriage Veto: One day a youngest child wins is by not rejecting the bridegroom that all her sisters have.
- Clingy MacGuffin
- Curse
- Damsel in Distress: though not as common as you may believe
- Dances and Balls
- Deader than Dead: common in disposing of the villains
- Deceased Parents Are The Best: The Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad will have been a saint; the living dad and his Wicked Stepmother will be indifferent or actively hostile to the young protagonist.
- Distressed Dude
- Don't Go In The Woods
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!
- Dude, Where's My Respect?
- Due to the Dead
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Engagement Challenge
- Everything's Worse with Bears
- Exact Eavesdropping: Talking Animals have a marvelous tendency to talk where the hero can overhear them.
- The Fair Folk
- Fairest of Them All
- Fairytale Motifs
- Fake Ultimate Hero: a form of the false hero
- Family Unfriendly Aesop
- Family Unfriendly Death
- Family Unfriendly Violence
- Faux Death
- Feminine Women Can Cook: How to prove your worth as a bride — for frogs.
- The Fool
- Forbidden Fruit
- Gender Flip: usually played straight
- Giant Food
- Gingerbread House
- Girl in the Tower
- Goldilocks And The Mines Of Moria
- Greed
- Green-Eyed Monster
- Grimmification
- Hair of Gold: more in the illustrations than in the text, though it's not unknown there.
- Happily Ever After
- Haunted Castle
- Hedge of Thorns
- Heir Club For Men
- Hitchhiker Heroes
- Honorary Uncle — in The Three Spinners and its variants, the heroine's helpers want to be her Honorary Aunts.
- Impossible Task
- Impossible Thief
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Though not as common as the Baleful Polymorph transformations mentioned above.
- Law of Inverse Fertility — in the "want but can't get" form only
- Leaf Boat
- Little Red Fighting Hood- common in Fractured Fairytales
- The Lost Woods
- Love at First Sight
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter
- Malicious Slander
- Mock Millionaire
- Moving the Goalposts
- Nameless Narrative: Sometimes one or two characters (hero, heroine, villain) get names, but frequently none do.
- Noble Fugitive
- Offing the Offspring
- Once Upon a Time
- Our Dragons Are Different
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder
- All Trolls Are Different
- Overprotective Dad
- Parental Incest: A common motive for the heroine to flee home is that her father has decided to marry her.
- Pinocchio Syndrome
- Please Shoot the Messenger
- The Promise
- The Quest
- Rags to Royalty (often after a decline from royalty, or at least wealth, to rags)
- Rapunzel Hair: though only in certain types of fairy tales.
- Ravens and Crows
- Red-Headed Stepchild
- Rescue Romance
- Rip Van Winkle
- Royal Brat
- Royal Blood
- Rule of Three: Three siblings of the same sex is the commonest.
- The Runt at the End
- Save the Princess
- Scullery Maid: Running away from your father's attempt to marry you often leads to this.
- Secret Test of Character
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Shape Shifter Showdown
- Shapeshifting Lover
- She Cleans Up Nicely
- Sibling Triangle: The hero's brothesr or the heroine's sisters/stepsisters are often the final obstacle, and can be quite serious.
- Soul Jar
- Standard Hero Reward
- Swans A Swimming
- Sweet and Sour Grapes
- Talking Animal: one of the commonest, found virtually everywhere in fairy tales
- The Wild Hunt
- Threshold Guardians
- Trail of Bread Crumbs
- The Trickster
- True Love's Kiss
- Values Dissonance
- Walking the Earth
- Wealthy Ever After
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve
- Wicked Stepmother
- Wicked Witch
- Wonder Child
- World Tree
- Year Outside, Hour Inside
- You Have Waited Long Enough
- Youngest Child Wins
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