Literature / Disney Fairies

Part of the books' main cast^{Clockwise starting from the top} Rani, Bess, Fira, Tinker Bell, Beck, Lily.

Disney Fairies is a book series written by Gail Carson Levine (of Ella Enchanted fame) and published by Disney. They're based on Peter Pan, but specifically focus on the various fairies that live in Pixie Hollow, including the well-known Tinker Bell.

Books

• Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg (2005)
• Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand (2007)
• Fairies and the Quest for Never Land (2010)

There are also more than 40 shorter chapter books written by different authors, as well as a number of tie-in short stories, comics, and early reader books targeted at younger audiences. Most of the tie-in material disregards Quest for the Wand and Quest for Never Land, focusing solely on characters and concepts introduced in Quest for the Egg. Never Girls, a spinoff series centered on four young girls who find a portal to Pixie Hollow, was also released in 2013, and new installments were published several times a year until 2020.

The series launched in 2005 and has since become a multimedia franchise. The Tinker Bell animated films are loosely based on the books; however, most of the book's characters were Adapted Out and replaced with new fairies in the transition from page to screen, and the setting of the movies is sufficiently different from the setting of the books that they are now generally viewed as two separate continuities.

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Tropes in this series include:

• A Day in the Limelight: Most of the chapter books are based around one fairy or another. Many are focused on in the first novel (Vidia, Rani, Prilla and Tink all get some), but others were invented later, such as Rosetta and Iridessa.
• Aerith and Bob: Some of the fairies have perfectly normal human names (Terence, Lily, Jerome, Taylor, Jason), while others have fantasy names related to their talents (Silvermist, Trill, Humidia, Elixa).
• Aesop Amnesia: Everyone suffers from this to some extent. Silvermist, who learned not to be superstitious in a chapter book, learned the whole lesson again in a Never Girls book. And Vidia learns a lesson about selfishness so often that it's practically a Once an Episode plot point, but she always seems to forget it by the next installment, sometimes becoming even meaner along the way.
• The Ageless: Fairies don't age, and Prilla is born looking like an adult. They can, however, die, and do so with surprising frequency.
• An Aesop : Most of the books have morals at the end, some more Anvilicious than others.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Kyto gloats about how he's going to eat Mother Dove alive as he fights the fairies.
• An Arm and a Leg: Rani really is put through the wringer in the novels. She has Prilla cut off her wings to be able to swim and ask the mermaids for assistance. As the only wingless fairy, she needs to ride a bird to fly, but not even the other water fairies can explore underwater like Rani can.
• The Artifact: Tinker Bell's outfit. Its simplicity looks really out-of-place compared to the far more elaborate and detailed wardrobes of the other fairies.
• Artifact of Doom: The wand in Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand. If you thought the One Ring was bad...
• Apocalypse How: A Regional-level one happened on Never Land at some point in the distant past, although several of the books disagree on what exactly the nature of the calamity was (it's generally said to have been some kind of cataclysmic fire, but some books say that it was a natural disaster caused by a volcanic eruption, while others say it had something to do with a great war or an evil force). The cause of the cataclysm aside, though, most stories agree that it destroyed most of Pixie Hollow and burned down the Pixie Dust Tree, leaving the few surviving fairies with a much smaller kingdom and a very finite supply of dust. It also created Mother Dove, who was an ordinary bird before the heat transformed her into a wise, magical being. Some materials set the Tinker Bell movies before the fire and the books afterwards, but this explanation stopped appearing as more movie-exclusive characters showed up in the films, and the movies are now generally assumed to take place in a different continuity altogether.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: One of the Aesops in Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand. The characters long for the opportunity to use the wand for themselves, but nearly all of their wishes turn out horribly; Vidia finds out that effortless speed makes flying boring, Ree's wish to shrink the hawks is horribly unethical to everyone but her, Terrence's desire to make Tink love him robs her of her autonomy, and Rani's wish to make a mermaid be her friend winds up being virtually meaningless. Even the mermaids, the people the wand was supposed to be for, would up making each other deaf, mute, and illiterate with their wishes.
• Beware the Silly Ones: With the exception of Kyto, many of the series' villains aren't actively evil so much as they are selfish, silly, and clueless.
  • The Great Wanded Fairies are patronizing, but they're also friendly, hospitable, and genuinely well-meaning. However, their access to powerful wand magic, dependence on said wand magic, and overall laziness and impulsivity make them dangerous to the Never fairies. They knock Clarion and Tinker Bell unconscious by accident while dancing, and then one of them vaporizes Tink in an instant because she thought the Never fairies were a cute prank or dinner show (although she brings Tink back just as quickly once she realizes her mistake). Even their generosity ends up being a hazard, as they give their guests so many unwanted presents that Clarion has to throw most of them overboard to keep her carrier afloat.
  • The Never Land mermaids are extremely vain and self-obsessed, but they also pose a serious threat to the fairies because of their willingness to use powerful mermaid magic for petty and selfish reasons. In Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand, Soop sends a flood to Fairy Haven and drowns several fairies because she was mad about not being given a fairy wand quickly enough.
• Bizarre Seasons: Never Land has these, being a Genius Loci that can effectively control itself. Fairy Haven specifically only ever has warm, pleasant spring and summer weather. That's why the storm in the first book is such a problem; a hurricane of that size hasn't happened for as long as any of the characters can remember, so none of them have any idea what to do.
• Big Storm Episode: The first book centers on a hurricane.
• Broken Aesop: Vidia and the Fairy Crown is full of this, mostly because Vidia's personality changes a lot Depending on the Writer. In the book, Vidia is accused of stealing the crown just because she made some off-color comments about Clarion earlier, when in reality she had no involvement in the crown's disappearance and it was simply misplaced by an attendant. By the end, Vidia is proven innocent, and everyone apologizes to her for being poor judges of character and making assumptions. But a later book written by a different author had Vidia actually steal a wand, which was much more powerful and dangerous than the (entirely symbolic) crown had ever been, making it retroactively look like the others were right to hate her all along—she may not have stolen the crown, but she was a thief who had no qualms about endangering everyone else just to make a selfish wish.
• Canon Welding: Several of the Never Girls books weld aspects of the movie canon and the previous chapter books' canon, incorporating the most popular parts of both. Book-only characters like Rani, Prilla, and Dulcie appear often, but Fawn, Iridessa, and Rosetta are more prominent than Beck, Fira, and Lily, and Bobble, who was previously exclusive to the movies, shows up occasionally as Tink's tinker-talent friend (oddly, Clank is missing). Clarion has a similar personality to the Clarion from the movies, but Vidia retains her book personality, including her Character Tic of referring to everyone with patronizing pet names. Many aspects of the setting's lore are taken from previous books, but Mother Dove is absent (as is the Pixie Dust Tree, inexplicably). The series also has the overall Lighter and Softer tone of the movies, Retconning darker plot points from other books.
• Christmas Episode: A Fairy's Gift, one of the Never Girls books, takes place during Christmas. The fairies start losing their magic to disbelief right as the holiday season begins, and the story follows the titular girls as they try to drum up belief among their fellow children.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Prilla is in charge of this (somehow.) She's kind of an advocate, playing with kids to boost their belief and specifically asking them to clap for the fairies during emergencies.
• Clear My Name: Vidia in Vidia and the Fairy Crown after she's accused of stealing the titular crown (although she bounces between this and Then Let Me Be Evil, only accepting help begrudgingly and insisting all the while that she doesn't care about the consequences.)
• Cool Crown: The fairy crown, which is said to be an important artifact that's passed down from queen to queen. Clarion ends up giving it to Kyto in exchange for peace (although he ends up double-crossing her).
• Contrived Coincidence: The entirety of Vidia and the Fairy Crown. First, Vidia makes a joke about "snatching the crown off [[Ree's]] high and mighty head" right when said crown goes missing, making everyone suspect her immediately. Then it turns out that the crown is missing because of a whole series of contrived coincidences happening at just the right times—nobody intentionally stole it, but it was repeatedly misplaced and mistakenly discarded, only to end up in a giant pile of almost identical crowns.
• Creepy Child: Sarah Quirtle, the girl whose laugh Prilla was born from. Something went wrong when Prilla was created, leaving Prilla with an extra piece of humanity that fairies don't normally have, and Sarah without that piece of herself. She winds up growing into a dead-eyed, creepy little girl who doesn't play like a child her age unless Prilla is around. A wish on the wand later fixes this, though.
• Darker and Edgier: Gail Carson Levine's books are significantly darker than the other book series and the Never Girls series that followed them, focusing on life-or-death struggles like natural disasters and evil dragons. Bloodless Carnage is completely averted (in fact, Captain Hook being afraid of his own blood is a plot point), as is Never Say "Die"—Redshirt fairies pass away often, sometimes violently. Later books tended to have much lighter plots in which the risk of character death was nonexistent, and some of the Never Girls books went so far as to Retcon certain aspects of the Gail Carson Levine trilogy, such as fairies dying of disbelief.
• Demoted to Extra: Pretty much the entire book cast was demoted once the movie was released, replaced with characters who were, up until then, Recurring Extras. The most obvious examples were Prilla (the focus character of the first novel, and a major character thereafter) and Rani (a water-talent who lost her wings). Fira was also the primary light-talent fairy in the books. All three were absent from the movies.
• Depending on the Artist: Almost all of the books have elaborate full-color illustrations, but they're rarely very similar to one another (and sometimes contradict the source material.) Tinker Bell is really the only character whose design remains consistent.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Nearly everything about the characters' personalities changes depending on who's writing them. Tinker Bell bounces between a Clingy Jealous Girl who Would Hurt a Child and a Genki Girl Wrench Wench, Vidia is either an outright Jerkass who never pays for her mistakes or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who just needs a friend, Clarion/Ree is either a down-to-earth Action Girl who happens to be the current ruler or an untouchable fantasy High Queen, Silvermist is either cool and collected or a complete and utter space-case who can barely understand metaphors, the list goes on. This only got worse as the movie canon characters drifted further in personality from their literary counterparts.
  • The writers generally agree that some sort of apocalyptic, Pixie-Dust-Tree-destroying cataclysm happened in the distant past, but they can't seem to reach a consensus on what exactly it was. According to various writers, it was either a volcanic eruption, a great forest fire, collateral damage from a nameless battle, or an intentional attack by a vague, evil force.
• Disability Superpower: Rani cannot fly due to having no wings, but this grants her the ability to actually swim — other fairies sink like stones thanks to their wings.
• Disney Death: Averted. Several fairies die throughout Gail Carson Levine's books (of disbelief), and they stay dead.
• Dragon Hoard: Kyto is obsessed with his. Over the course of the series, he adds Rani's wings, Ree's shield, and the fairy crown to his ever-growing pile of valuables. Never Girls also features a new dragon called Tryas, who made Queen Clarion herself a part of her own hoard.
• The Dragon Slayer: A slightly more benign version. Gwendolyn is called a "dragon scaring talent" after the fairies fight Kyto. Seeing as Gwendolyn is a human child, she couldn't exactly slay a dragon, but she was able to scare him in a way the tiny fairies couldn't.
• Dream Sue: All of the characters do this to an extent when they have wand madness, but Clarion gets it especially bad. By the end of her fantasy, she's imaging herself as a great and all-powerful, yet universally adored, empress/dictator.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In Gail Carson Levine's books, Clarion was drawn to look like a short-haired brunette, and most of her outfits were blue. Almost all later books give her a blonde updo and a pink dress, possibly to invoke the image of a Princess Classic.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Queen Clarion goes by "Queen Ree" at first, and this is eventually dropped.
  • Moth is suddenly changed to "Fira" in later books, with the explanation that "Moth" was her nickname.
  • The first book features none of Tinker Bell's friends from the first Tinker Bell movie, all of whom become recurring characters in later books.
  • The first book is also full of extremely dramatic life-or-death struggles, with a few fairies dying, while the chapter books are much less dramatic and more "Young Girls Light Reading", with themes about friendship, working too hard, and belonging.
• Everytown, America: The main setting of the Never Girls series is a small city about which no information is given aside from the fact that it isn't near an ocean. All of the named places within the city have generic names, like "City Park."
• Evil Gloating: Kyto does this at the end of Fairies and the Quest for Never Land. Ree offers him her crown and her shield as a peace offering, and he takes them both in a false show of gratitude, then brags about the fact that he has them as he continues to burn fairies to death.
• Fish out of Water: Several of the Never Girls books focus on the fairies coming to the human world, typically by accident, and causing a ruckus because they don't understand "Clumsy" life.
• Forced Transformation: Rani is transformed into a bat by mermaid song in the second book, with her consciousness trapped inside. By the end, the bat agrees to trade places with her, becoming a kind of Greek Chorus in her mind.
• Garden Garment: All of the characters dress like this. When their clothes aren't made of flowers, they're made of other natural materials, like wood, fur, and wasp skin.
• Gaslighting: Vidia does a pretty nasty version of this to Silvermist in Silvermist and the Ladybug Curse. While she doesn't spread the rumors about the "curse", she's there to insincerely offer Silvermist her "support", speak about the severity of the curse, smirk when things go wrong, never help when they do, and just kind of hovers around to make sure Sil knows what's going on.
• Genius Loci: Never Land can sense what's going on, and often intervenes in the plot to work for or against the protagonists. It's generally helpful, but if the characters are trying to do something it doesn't like, it will pull back and make it more difficult for them to travel.
• Genki Girl: Prilla is extremely excitable, often doing cartwheels midair.
• Glory Days: According to the books' lore, Pixie Hollow/Fairy Haven had a its golden age in the distant past, but it ended when some kind of localized, regional apocalypse destroyed the Pixie Dust Tree and greatly weakened the Never fairies' kingdom. In the present day, pixie dust is a very finite resource, and the fairy world is implied to be much, much smaller than it used to be.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Clarion, if her anecdote about trying (and failing) to ride a butterfly is anything to go by. She's also an Action Girl who doesn't like shoes.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Vidia's hair is black, but it's often drawn to look purple or blue. Clarion's hair also shifts from blonde to brunette on occasion.
• Hazardous Water: Water is always dangerous to fairies—their wings work like sponges, and will invariably pull them under and drown them once they absorb enough water. It's mentioned that fairies have drowned in puddles like this. The only one who can swim is Rani, who had her wings cut off.
• Hostile Weather: In the first book, a hurricane breaks Mother Dove's egg, which is responsible for Never Land's magic. The same storm puts multiple fairies in danger and is implied to have killed some wildlife and at least one mermaid.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Fairies are stated to never say apologies as "I'm sorry" but instead say "I'd fly backwards if I could." They also greet each other with "Fly with you" in place of "hello."
• Hufflepuff House: Most talents. Only a few are ever put in the spotlight, and they tend to err on the cooler side. Background talent groups, like the fairies who maintain the home tree and clean up after the others, are rarely main characters, and aren't often involved in the plot.
• Ignored Epiphany: In "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg", Vidia has to pluck a feather from a golden hawk, who sends the pain it feels to her:
  "She could have acknowledged then and there how much plucking hurt. She could have admitted she'd been cruel to pluck Mother Dove. She could have recognized that pain is pain, whether it's pain to others or pain to oneself. She could have sworn not to inflict pain on purpose ever again. But instead, she convinced herself that the hawk was the one who'd been cruel. She decided he'd made the pain worse than it really was.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothing: In ''Rosetta's Dress Mess," Rosetta is tasked with designing an outfit for a fashion show, and she asks some of her friends to help her since she doesn't have any ideas and is running out of time. Because none of her friends are fashionistas like she is, the resulting garment is described as hideous. She does end up wearing it eventually, but only after a heavy redesign.
• Informed Attribute: The fairy crown is said to be priceless, ancient, and extremely important to the Never fairies, to the point where Vidia was threatened with banishment for supposedly stealing it (although she was innocent in the end.) In practice, though, Clarion loses it twice, once permanently, and nobody seems too concerned about the fact that it's gone.
• In-Series Nickname: Tink for Tinker Bell and Ree for Clarion. The latter was later dropped after Gail Carson Levine's trilogy ended and became a case of Early-Installment Weirdness.
• Interspecies Romance: Vidia nearly sells out her whole race because she falls in love with a genocidal dragon. He seems to like her back, too!
• Invisible to Normals: Fairies are invisible to adult humans, in one of the books' many moves that defy both the movies and the original Peter Pan film to stay closer to Barrie's book.
• Karma Houdini: Kyto. He kills seven people, and in return gets an enclosure with more space, a larger hoard with Ree's crown and shield in it, and a new friend in the form of Vidia. Even the POV character Gwendolyn points out that it doesn't seem fair.
• Kill It with Water:
  • The mermaids do this to the fairies when they aren't provided with their promised wand in time. The fairies are especially vulnerable to floods because they're so small, and because their water-absorbing wings make it easy for them to drown and they can't fly with wet wings.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Vidia, Depending on the Writer. Despite her chilly exterior, she has a hidden soft spot for Prilla, and she occasionally chooses to do the right thing in the end.
• Law of Disproportionate Response: In the chapter books, Clarion's treatment of Vidia indicates that Pixie Hollow's laws could get disproportionate at times, in both directions. Beck Beyond the Sea had Vidia convicted of mixing gravel into a bag of stolen, highly-potent pixie dust, for the purpose of reducing Beck's flight distance to the point she'd drown in the sea, all so Vidia could get easier access to Mother Dove and steal more highly-potent dust. The punishment for this was being grounded—literally—for two weeks. In sharp contrast, Vidia and the Fairy Crown establishes that the penalty for stealing Queen Clarion's crown is permanent banishment from Pixie Hollow, despite the existence of several hundred crowns that are identical, except they lack the ability to change size to fit the wearer's head. Furthermore, Clarion eventually loses the crown when it blows into the sea during Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand, and nobody seems to care very much.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • The chapter books compared to Gail Carson Levine's novels. They are largely themed around "Fira works too hard" or "Rani runs away to hang out with mermaids because she's sad", not "all of Pixie Hollow is doomed, and a few fairies literally die."
  • Never Girls is lighter still, with major plot points from the original trilogy being Retconned so they're more age-appropriate for the target audience. Instead of dying from disbelief, fairies simply lose their magic, the new dragon Tyras made Clarion a part of her hoard instead of trying to kill her like Kyto did, and mermaids are just rude and ornery instead of outright deadly.
• Loose Canon: Pretty much all of the books are "semi-canon." There's no official continuity, elements of different series tend to contradict each other, and characterization and lore differs significantly Depending on the Writer.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Clarion gets a shield made from an earring when she fights Kyto.
• Magic Wand: The fairies get a sleeping one in the second book in the trilogy. It winds up slowly driving the main characters mad and ruining everyone's lives, and nearly kills half the cast at the end of the book.
• Making a Splash: The water-talent fairies do this, with the caveat that they can't control very large amounts of water due to the fact that they're so small.
• Meaningful Name: Fairies' names are often (but not always) related to their talents. Prominent examples include gardening-talents Rosetta, Iris, and Lily; music-talents Trill, Cleff, and Strad^note Strad is an instrument-maker, and her name is presumably a reference to Antonio Stradivari, water-talents Silvermist, Humidia, and Rani ^note Rani means "queen" but sounds vaguely like "rainy", and light-talents Iridessa, Glory, and Helios.

• Missing Child: Gwendolyn is a young girl who winds up traveling to Never Land because she's descended from Wendy Darling. Throughout the course of her time on the island, she gets involved in a battle with the evil dragon Kyto, and winds up suffering burns on her legs and watching multiple fairies die. Meanwhile, her family is stuck at home, wondering where their daughter went and what she's up to. Gwendolyn herself wonders at one point what her parents and grandmother would think if she never made it home.
• Mundane Wish: One of Rani's wishes on the wand is to become friends with a mermaid. Considering how everyone else's wishes turned out, making a Mundane Wish may not have been the worst idea.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: In "Vidia and the Fairy Crown", the queen's missing crown was accidentally placed in a room full of duplicate crowns. in this case, there was no secret test— the fairies had to figure out which was which through trial and error.
• Never Say "Die": Notable for how often it's averted. Characters are not shy about the word "death," and several (minor) characters catch fire, drown, or fade away of disbelief over the course of the series. There's a scene at the end of Fairies and the Quest for Never Land where Rani tearfully informs Gwendolyn that Kyto killed seven people.
• Noodle Incident: Several:
  • When the reader is introduced to Rani, she's slathering her wings in batter, hoping it'll dry and form a protective crust. This fails, prompting Tink to mention Rani's previous, disastrous attempts at protecting her wings while underwater, including a Noodle Incident involving balloons.
  • Clarion apparently tried to ride a moth at some point. According to her, it went badly, but she does not give specific details.
• Not Me This Time: Vidia is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who insults people for fun, gaslit Silvermist for weeks, tried to murder Beck, stole the wand, and taught Kyto how to fly... but she really didn't steal Ree's crown.
• Odd Friendship: Prilla and Vidia. Vidia actually slaps her in the original book, but their quest to save Mother Dove's egg makes Vidia somewhat try to help Prilla later (usually via a sarcastic lecture). Prilla is also the only person to see any good qualities in the much-hated Vidia, helping her out when nobody else would. Vidia actually smiles at her, which basically never happens anywhere.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The first dragon mentioned is Kyto, the Big Bad of the third book. He's a violent hoarder who's nothing but antagonistic to the fairies, and he's so evil that his flame can corrupt Mother Dove's eggs. The second (and only other) dragon is Tyras, who's basically a Lighter and Softer version of Kyto; she's just as obsessed with her hoard, but she wants to kidnap Clarion and keep her in said hoard, while Kyto just wanted to kill her.
• Our Fairies Are Different: There are a few different kinds of fairies in Gail Carson Levine's trilogy, although only two ever get page time and only the Never Land fairies are fully explored. The other species, the Great Wanded fairies, are as tall as people and entirely reliant on their wands, which has made them somewhat dim, lazy, and irresponsible. They're not malicious, but they can't understand why anyone would put effort into anything instead of simply wishing for it, and their lives are empty and meaningless in the eyes of the Pixie Hollow fairies.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: While the mermaids in the Mermaid Lagoon look as you'd expect them, they're selfish, vain, catty, and have the attention span of a gnat. When Rani briefly considers living with them, they're quick to disregard her, and find the concept of working to set up a party bizarre.
• Pimped-Out Dress: A frequent feature in the illustrations, usually courtesy of The High Queen Clarion, The Fashionista Rosetta, or resident seamstress-talent Hem. Clarion's main outfit is a long pink gown with a skirt made out of flower petals, but she's also drawn in a blue ensemble with trailing green ribbons, a Happy Holidays Dress made of green and red poinsettias, and various other elaborate, floor-length dresses, some of which are seen only on mannequins in Hem's workshop. And Rosetta, the resident fashionista, is drawn in a different outfit almost every time she appears. She and Fawn both get long ballgowns similar to Clarion's when they attend a formal dinner in Rosetta's Daring Day. One book had every main female character dress up in fancy Garden Garment formalwear and left space for children to make their own fairy dresses using pressed flowers.
• Red Shirt: All of the fairies who die in Gail Carson Levine's trilogy are recently-introduced redshirt characters with no backstories.
• Retcon: Initially, the fact that fairies die when children stop believing was a major plot point, and random background characters occasionally dropped dead of disbelief with no prior warning. Later books changed this so disbelief just diminishes fairies' magic instead of outright killing them.
• Rising Water, Rising Tension: In Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand, the narrative occasionally cuts back to Pixie Hollow, which is being flooded by angry mermaids. A few paragraphs are written from the perspective of a shoemaker trying to stay alive in the rising water. She doesn't make it, and dies regretting the fact that she never got to make her own wish on the wand.
• Shown Their Work: According to the inside flap of Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan was one of Gail Carson Levine's favorite books as a child. In selfsame book, we find out that Captain Hook's blood is purple and it's one of only two things he's afraid of - something directly from Barrie's book that you don't find in most adaptations.
• Stinky Flower: In one of the chapter books, "Lily's Pesky Plant", the eponymous plant surprises everyone by smelling awful and makes Lily's case for continuing to care for it much harder.
• Stop Drowning and Stand Up: Vidia gets this in "Silvermist and the Ladybug Curse".

• Tempting Fate: Rosetta and her new shoes in "Rosetta's Daring Day".
• Tender Tears: Water fairies are very prone to tears.
• Terms of Endangerment: Vidia does this a lot, nicknaming everyone with obnoxiously patronizing pet names even when she's verbally sparring with them. A notable example is when she calls Clarion "love" as she's threatening to kill her by throwing her into the Sun.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: In Vidia and the Fairy Crown, Vidia goes back and forth between this and Clear My Name. She insists that she didn't steal the crown, but that even if she did, it wouldn't matter, because she doesn't care about the punishment anyway. In the end, Prilla helps her prove her innocence, but Vidia only accepts her help begrudgingly... and insults the queen again the second their wild goose chase for the crown is over.
• Token Mini-Moe:
  • Prilla is this at first, being the youngest of all the fairies. She also serves as something of an Audience Surrogate, as she's unfamiliar with Fairy Haven's rituals and etiquette and needs them to be explained to her.
  • Gabby, Mia's six-year-old sister, is this among the Never Girls. The older girls often find themselves chasing after her or trying to take care of her.
• Tomboy: Fawn, an animal-talent who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. She and Rosetta form a Tomboy and Girly Girl pair.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Fawn and Rosetta are close friends, but Fawn is an animal-talent who likes dirt, worms, and adventure, and Rosetta is a gardening-talent who likes perfume, fashion, and high tea. Rosetta's Daring Day follows the pair as they attempt to participate in each other's interests, with Rosetta dragging Fawn to a formal dinner hosted by the queen and Fawn taking Rosetta on a muddy trek around Pixie Hollow.
  • Vidia is also something of a tomboy to Prilla and Rani's girly-girls. Vidia is brash, rude, and obsessed with flying and racing, her design is angular and sharp, and her clothes are relatively masculine and functional by fairy standards. Meanwhile, Prilla is a friendly and energetic blinking-talent fairy who loves children and wears a pink dress, and Rani is a graceful, emotional water-talent fairy who wears a blue dress.
• Unreliable Illustrator: Even though Gail Carson Levine describes Prilla as looking like an adult in most respects in Fairies and the Quest for the Egg, illustrator David Christiana draws her as looking like an eight-year-old child. Many other characters get the same treatment—whether it's Hair Color Dissonance, Inconsistent Coloring, or something else, their illustrations, although beautiful, often don't match up with their descriptions. Tinker Bell is the only character that stays consistent.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Kyto is this. The series' previous villains, the mermaids who sent a flood because they wanted a wand, were malicious, but mostly petty and unconcerned about the effects of their actions. Kyto enjoyed making people suffer, and made a game out of killing as many fairies as he could while bragging about it to their desolate and captive leaders.
• Wasteful Wishing: Almost nobody makes a truly meaningful or important wish. Most turned out pointless (e.g. Rani's wish to become friends with a mermaid), cruel (e.g. Ree's wish to shrink the hawks) or harmful in other ways (e.g. Vidia's wish to fly faster, which killed any drive she had to keep practicing.) The wish to restore Sara Quirtle to normalcy was the only one that wound up sticking.
• Water Is Womanly: The water-talent fairies can modify and shape water to their will. They consist of females at an even higher rate than that of the other talents, and the most commonly shown water-talent fairies Rani and Silvermist both wear long slender all-blue dresses with water-themed decorations.
• Weird Weather: The hurricane in the first book. Never Land is normally a Genius Loci that doesn't have inclement weather as a general rule, so when a massive storm appears out of nowhere and tears through the island, it's a big deal.
• Wicked Cultured: Captain Hook, so much that he snores in iambic pentameter.
• Will They or Won't They?: It's very clear from the books (especially the first, and Tink, North of Never Land) that Terence is in love with Tink (when trying not to think about her after a fight, he finds himself "failing to not-think-about Tink for an hour now"), but that she refuses to "have her heart broken again" after Peter brought "The Wendy" to his hideout. She seems to notice him and his looks in Tink, North of Never Land, but she seems to just consider him a friend.
• What's Up, King Dude?: Clarion's relationship with her subjects was initially this. Her title was rarely used, and she went by the much more casual nickname "Ree." This was eventually dropped, and by the time Never Girls came around she was exclusively called Queen Clarion.
• When It Rains, It Pours: The hurricane in Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. By the time anyone notices how bad the weather is getting, it's already too late to do much.