History Literature / WintersTale

-->Now?... You have ''no idea'' what "now" is. ''Now,'' I was flying. ''Now,'' I breathed fire and I ate them as they fled. ''Now,'' I whipped my tail and the winds trembled. '''Now,''' I am hidden in this pale shade of flesh and bone. Now I am witness to man's eternal salvation, now I am witness to his demise. Do NOT speak to me of time, demon, its simplest ebbs and turns elude your meager understanding!

* WhiteStallion / CoolHorse: Athansor.

* BeardOfSorrow: Peter has one after the TimeSkip (and, more importantly, [[spoiler: Beverly's death]]) but loses it as he begins to remember his identity.

* CompositeCharacter: Willa becomes the head of the Penn family's newspaper empire and a major character in the modern day parts of the film; in the book, it was her brother [[AdaptedOut Harry]] who became editor and eventually reconnected with Peter.
* EvilIsHammy: Both the Judge and Pearly.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Both Pearly and the Judge.

* ScaryBlackMan: [[spoiler:Creator/WillSmith]] as The Judge, complete with VoiceOfTheLegion at certain points in his scenes.

* VoiceOfTheLegion: The Judge.

* AdaptedOut: Due to the difficulties of turning an 800-page novel into a two-hour film, a great many important characters from the book are entirely or almost entirely absent, including most of the Baymen and the Short Tails gang[[note]]Peter is raised by ''Pearly'', of all people[[/note]], Reverend Mootfowl[[note]]the engineer-priest who taught Peter everything he knew about machines[[/note]], Jackson Mead[[note]]the wandering angel who wants to create bridges that unite earth and heaven[[/note]], Beverly and Willa's two brothers, Hardesty Marratta[[note]]son of an insanely wealthy man who asked him to choose between wealth and a silver tray with a poem about justice -- he chose the tray and thereby begins his story[[/note]] and Martin Gamely (Virginia's husband and son from her first marriage, respectively), Virginia's mother, Harry's daughter Jessica, Jessica's fiancé Praeger de Pinto[[note]]managing editor of both the ''New York Evening Sun'' and ''New York Morning Whale'', later candidate for Mayor of New York whose platform consists merely of reviving all the most beautiful things about the past[[/note]], and Asbury and Christiana (friends and co-workers of the Penns, Marrattas and Praeger, and later of Peter Lake as well). Peter's childhood friend Cecil Mature, a.k.a. Cecil Wooley, makes it into the film, but his role is greatly reduced, not to mention changed so much that all the two characters have in common is their name and their broad function as Peter's maybe-guardian angel. Basically, the only main characters from the exclusively modern-day sections of the book to make it into the film are Virginia and Abby, with the consequence that the Gamelys are no longer old family friends of the Penns, but just a couple of people Peter meets in the present day through sheer coincidence - though a sharp viewer will notice that Beverly's father does mention that their next-door neighbours are named the Gamelys at one point. Beverly's father, the insanely wealthy Isaac Penn, founder and owner of ''The Sun'' and ''The Whale'' newspapers, appears only briefly in the film. In the book, he is more consequential, and dies just after Beverly, as though following her.

* IllGirl: Beverly, who is dying from consumption.

* AdaptedOut: Due to the difficulties of turning an 800-page novel into a two-hour film, a great many important characters from the book are entirely absent, including most of the Baymen and the Short Tails gang[[note]]Peter is raised by ''Pearly'', of all people[[/note]], Reverend Mootfowl[[note]]the engineer-priest who taught Peter everything he knew about machines[[/note]], Jackson Mead[[note]]the wandering angel who wants to create bridges that unite earth and heaven[[/note]], Beverly and Willa's two brothers, Hardesty Marratta[[note]]son of an insanely wealthy man who asked him to choose between wealth and a silver tray with a poem about justice -- he chose the tray and thereby begins his story[[/note]] and Martin Gamely (Virginia's husband and son from her first marriage, respectively), Virginia's mother, Harry's daughter Jessica, Jessica's fiancé Praeger de Pinto[[note]]candidate for Mayor of New York whose platform consists merely of reviving all the most beautiful things about the past[[/note]], and Asbury and Christiana (friends and co-workers of the Penns, Marrattas and Praeger, and later of Peter Lake as well). Peter's childhood friend Cecil Mature, a.k.a. Cecil Wooley, makes it into the film, but his role is greatly reduced, not to mention changed so much that all the two characters have in common is their name and their broad function as Peter's maybe-guardian angel. Basically, the only main characters from the exclusively modern-day sections of the book to make it into the film are Virginia and Abby, with the consequence that the Gamelys are no longer old family friends of the Penns, but just a couple of people Peter meets in the present day through sheer coincidence - though a sharp viewer will notice that Beverly's father does mention that their next-door neighbours are named the Gamelys at one point.

* AdaptedOut: Due to the difficulties of turning an 800-page novel into a two-hour film, a great many important characters from the book are entirely absent, including most of the Baymen and the Short Tails, Reverend Mootfowl, Jackson Mead, Beverly and Willa's two brothers, Hardesty Marratta and Martin Gamely (Virginia's husband and son from her first marriage, respectively), Virginia's mother, Harry's daughter Jessica, Jessica's fiancé Praeger de Pinto, and Asbury and Christiana (friends and co-workers of the Penns, Marrattas and Praeger, and later of Peter Lake as well). Peter's childhood friend Cecil Mature, a.k.a. Cecil Wooley, makes it into the film, but his role is greatly reduced, not to mention changed so much that all the two characters have in common is their name and their broad function as Peter's maybe-guardian angel. Basically, the only main characters from the exclusively modern-day sections of the book to make it into the film are Virginia and Abby, with the consequence that the Gamelys are no longer old family friends of the Penns, but just a couple of people Peter meets in the present day through sheer coincidence - though a sharp viewer will notice that Beverly's father does mention that their next-door neighbours are named the Gamelys at one point.

* MindScrew: The plot is amazingly complicated, and any reviewer attempting to explain it tends to come across as insane.

* BrotherSisterIncest: A common, one might even call it traditional, practice among the adolescents in the community of Baymen who raise Peter. Peter himself practices it with his foster sister Anarinda, though because they aren't blood relatives, it's actually frowned upon by the community.

[[[[SimilarlyNamedWorks Not to be confused]] with the play ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'' by Creator/WilliamShakespeare, or with the 1992 French film ''Film/ATaleOfWinter''.

Not to be confused with the play ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'' by Creator/WilliamShakespeare.

TheFilmOfTheBook was released on Valentine's Day in 2014, starring Creator/ColinFarrell as Peter Lake, Jessica Brown Findlay as Beverly Penn, and Creator/RussellCrowe as Pearly Soames.

* AnachronismStew: Deliberately with the Judge; he's wearing a Music/JimiHendrix t-shirt and reading ''[[StephenHawking A Brief History of Time]]''. In 1915.