Markup View

Author: NotOnAnyFlatbread

Aug 5th 2017 at 11:44:18 AM

I think WickedFairy would be better than the current name, but I would favor MalevolentFairy instead. Particularly due to examples like Film/Maleficent, where the fairy is inarguably intending to cause harm towards the cursed characters, but not portrayed as generally evil.

I also think that the current description seems only tenuously linked to the idea of a FairyGodmother and more about evil or malicious fairies in general, so the description should probably be clarified so it's obvious whether or not the fairy godmother parallels are part of the trope criteria or not. Note that godparents are people selected by the child's parents, generally because the parents believe the godparents will care for their child, while most of the current examples are about the fairy from Literature/SleepingBeauty, who was not only ''not'' the child's godmother, but was deliberately excluded from her christening.

A harmful fairy gift given at a christening or to a newborn baby does play off the idea of a fairy godmother, but to me, that seems to be a plot trope about the "gift"/curse (the circumstances of its giving, and whatever consequences it brings) rather than a character trope about the fairy who gives the gift. As a plot trope, e.g., something like ChristeningCurse (or possibly FairyGodmothersCurse, even though most examples will probably not technically be godparents), that could encompass both malicious curses from malevolent fairies (e.g., the Sleeping Beauty examples) and misguided "gifts" that end up being harmful (e.g., Lucinda from Literature/EllaEnchanted).