Fairy Tale Tropes

A heroine about to discover one of the commonest fairy tale tropes.

Tropes common to fairy tales. See also mythical motifs.

Surprisingly, fairies in the Winged Humanoid, fluttery sense are absent, as are modern, pointy-eared versions of The Fair Folk. Also, a fair number of tropes that are thought of as "fairy tale" do not actually appear in fairy tales.

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Tropes

• Fairy Tale (main topic)
• Abduction Is Love: In all tales of the type "The Golden Bird."
• Abusive Parents: Well, abusive stepparents, anyway. ^note When The Brothers Grimm collected European fairy tales, they were uncomfortable with the idea of characters' biological parents being abusive and so frequently changed the abusive biological parents in the traditional stories into abusive stepparents.
• Alien Fair Folk: Fairy creatures who turn out (or pretend) to be extraterrestrials.
• Amicable Ants: A specific type of grateful helper: the littlest of animals can provide the greatest of helps.
• Androcles' Lion: In some versions, Cinderella and Snow White both befriend animals.
• An Ice Person: A character with powers related to the cold.
• Animal Lover: The protagonist is often rewarded for being kind to animals.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Plenty of them: bakery, puppets, trees, keys, gates, weapon. Sometimes serve as a Chekhov's Gun or Non-Human Sidekick.
• Animorphism: Characters frequently turn into animals, whether due to a superpower, or as the result of a curse.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Rare but not unknown to appear; personified Fates and Months can intervene.
• An Arm and a Leg: All variants of the Girl Without Hands have her mutilated.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When a talking animal advises you to take the dull object, not the shiny one — listen.
• Baby Fever Trigger: Childless royalty - especially queens - long to have children after watching some species of animal and its young. More often than not it becomes a case of Be Careful What You Wish For.
• Back from the Dead: Common (though not invariable) for heroes, but rare for other characters. In some cases, being killed in a certain way is the Curse Escape Clause for the faithful Non-Human Sidekick who has accompanied the hero on his journey.
• Bad Boss: Kings, queens, ogres, and witches don't need you to work for them to assign you the Impossible Task, but it seems to encourage them.
• Bears Are Bad News: Invariably dangerous, though frequently good.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: External beauty is indicative of a character's good heart and virtue.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Especially about your baby.
• Bewitched Amphibians: Evil witches and wizards seem to enjoy turning people into frogs and toads.
• The Big Bad Wolf: Depictions of a talking, evil, usually male, wolf who wants to eat the protagonist and featured in Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Peter And The Wolf, and The Wolf And The Kids.
• Big Damn Reunion: Siblings reunite, spouses embrace after a long journey or separation - but make no mistake, this may just be the beginning of their troubles...
• Big Fancy Castle: Whether the prince's or the monster's
• Blue Blood: Rare but not unknown. Characters of noble blood can act as the Love Interest of a peasant, like a prince or princess; or be the ones who marry up into royalty.
• Bothering by the Book: An Italian variant of The Maiden in the Tower (like "Rapunzel") has the heroine wittingly letting the prince up — after all, he said the right words, she can use them to justify it.
• A Boy and His X: Many fairy tales are about the friendship between the hero and his talking horse. Also heroines have their trusted steed to guide and serve them.
• Bride and Switch: It can be the whole plot, when the heroine is replaced en route to her wedding, or a final complication.
• Brother–Sister Incest: A common motive for the heroine to flee home is that her brother has decided to marry her.
• Cain and Abel: Older brothers often turn violently on their youngest, successful brother.
• Changeling Tale: Faeries kidnap human babies to enslave when they're older, replacing the baby with one of their own.
• Child Marriage Veto: Almost never portrayed in a good light. A girl who refuses the husband her father chooses for her either faces trials until her pride is broken or misses out on an incredibly good catch. The exception is when the father chooses himself as his daughter's husband.
• Clingy MacGuffin: A thing that cannot be gotten rid of or broken.
• Cosmic Motifs: Characters in fairy tales may be identified as special or magical by an astral birthmark, such as the Sun, the moon or a star on their foreheads.
• Cunning Like a Fox: Foxes are usually portrayed as either villains that trick characters into meeting their doom, or as trickster protagonists.
• Curse: Many fairytales involve someone being cursed, usually from angering a witch, wizard, or similar.
• Curse Escape Clause: Characters can be cursed, but otherwise are mercifully given a means to escape their predicament. Thus, their motivation throughout the tale is to find it.
• Damsel in Distress: Women often end up endangered in some form or another, whether or not they're the protagonists.
• Dances and Balls: But be back before midnight! Or show up at it — read your fairy tale carefully to know which one.
• David Versus Goliath: The youngest or smallest one will turn out to be smarter than his big enemies.
• Dead All Along: Sometimes that Knight in Shining Armor or Talking Animal is dead already. Don't worry, he's helping out of gratitude, since you arranged for his burial.
• Deader than Dead: Common in disposing of the villains.
• Deal with the Devil: besides the classic "horns and hooves" devil the deal could be made with evil wizards, witches, or fairies. The plot usully takes two routes: the protagonist either realizes (too late) that the whole business wasn't worth it, or embarks on a journey to get back whatever he sold to the devil of the story (soul, shadow, reflection, heart, laugh, child). In some stories instead of selling himself the protagonist must perform an Impossible Task to get something valuable and escape the "devil's" clutches.
• Death by Childbirth: The most common cause of mothers dying in fairy tales is either childbirth or a disease.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: The Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad will have been a saint; the living dad and their Wicked Stepmother will be indifferent or actively hostile to the young protagonist.
• Distressed Dude: Men need rescuing as often as women, if not more so.
• Don't Go in the Woods: Going into the wood triggers the tale. This is not a good thing.
• Double In-Law Marriage: Sometimes the heroine wins a man for herself and his brothers for her sisters (or the hero wins sibling brides for his brothers). Other times this trope would be in play, but the siblings blow it with some last-minute treachery.
• Dragon Hoard: A hoard of treasure guarded by a dragon.
• Dragons Prefer Princesses: Surprisingly rarer than you might think, but it still appears in a few tales.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Kings often treat any success as proof that more should be demanded.
• Due to the Dead: To honor the dead shows a protagonist's virtue of character.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Some fairy tales require enormous effort for this.
• Eaten Alive: Any character who gets eaten seldom gets killed first.
• Enchanted Forest: A common setting.
• The End: Many fairy tales end in "the end".
• Engagement Challenge: Either the hero/heroine has to perform a task or go on a quest before they marry their love interest for a legitimate reason, or their future parent-in-law sends them on one to get rid of them.
• Evil Matriarch: Some mother characters are villains.
• Evil Old Folks: Witches, stepmothers and evil wizards frequently fall into this category.
• Evil Sorcerer: Particularly dangerous when you're apprenticed to him.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The villain lives in a huge tower.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Talking Animals have a marvelous tendency to talk where the hero can overhear them.
• Eye Scream: Fairy tales might involve someone's eyes being cut or scratched out.
• The Fair Folk: Despite the name, these rarely appear. Powerful magical folk tend to be unambiguously good or evil, with appearances to match.
• Fairest of Them All: Princesses (either the protagonist or the object of the hero's quest) are described as the most beautiful of them all. Of course, queens can also be declared the most beautiful, but they are surely not willing to share the title and the crown.
• Fairy Devilmother: Not all immaculate wish-granters are there to give the baby gifts.
• Fairy Godmother: Although a Newer Than They Think trope.
• Fairy Tale Episode: An episode parodying a fairy tale.
• Fairy Tale Free-for-All: A crossover of many fairy tales.
• Fairytale Motifs: Motifs and symbolism based on fairy tales.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: A form of the false hero.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Run away from the father who wants to marry you? You still have to eat, don't you? Princess or not?
• Family-Unfriendly Death: A gory death in a kids' story.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Violence in a kids' story that's not played for laughs and is serious enough to scare the children taking in the work.
• Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: Fruits in fairy tales possess magical qualities: they can allow a widow/old woman to bear children and can serve as container to dresses, treasures, or even a maiden.
• Faux Death: The hero or heroine of the tale is subjected to a curse that puts them under a death-like sleep, until they are rescued by their love interest (most of the time).
• Feminine Women Can Cook: The heroine sometimes has to prove her worth as a bride by doing household chores. Often crosses over with Impossible Task.
• Food Chains: A character eats or drinks something magical, which does something bad to them. Usually the bad thing is being trapped in the place it came from, regular food now tasting bad or being unhealthy, being mind controlled by the villain, or being transformed in some way.
• The Fool: Surprisingly, the less smart character actually ends up being the luckiest, marrying a princess and getting himself a kingdom.
• Forbidden Fruit: Very common - when the protagonist is warned by their helper(s) not to do something, they should, but do not, listen.
• Forced Transformation: Fairy tale protagonists have to rescue their relatives from an animal curse (usually a brother or brothers), or they marry a prince/princess cursed to be an animal. Frequently a curse cast by a Wicked Witch, Wicked Stepmother, or so on.
• Foul Fox: In talking animal stories, the villain is often a fox.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: What you get when these tropes are parodied.
• Funny Animal: Many fairy tales feature anthropomorphic animals.
• Gender Flip: Usually played straight.
• Genie in a Bottle: Most often found in Arabian tales, but, due to Pop-Cultural Osmosis, the trope found its way to Europe. The Brothers Grimm's "The Spirit in the glass bottle" is the most prominent example.
• Giant Food: Humongous foodstuffs. In fairy tales, they usually either belong to a giant or is some kind of trap.
• Gingerbread House: A deliciously devious trap to lure famished children (or anybody, though generally it will be a child who ends up the victim) who lost their way in the woods.
• Girl in the Tower: One tale type is usually named this.
• The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: In two forms — this is how Prince Charming finds his bride, and this is why the heroine's father wants to marry her.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Wherever evil queens are concerned.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Many objects in fairy tales are golden-coloured. This includes the heroine's dresses (the last of which is gold), a hero's armour (the last of which is golden) and even animals are of a golden colour, e.g., a golden bird, a horse with golden mane and golden bridle, a princess with golden locks.
• The Good King: A benevolent king.
• Good Princess, Evil Queen: A virtuous princess protagonist is pitted against a villainous queenly antagonist.
• Greed: The villain will often be portrayed as rich and greedy.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The stepmother can hate the stepdaughter's beauty on behalf of herself or her less-attractive daughters; older sisters (and brothers) frequently envy the success of younger sisters (and brothers)
• Grimmification: Trying to avoid censoring a fairy tale by making it a lot darker than the original.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: More in the illustrations than in the text, though it's not unknown there.
• Happily Ever After: The source of the phrase.
• Haunted Castle: An old castle that's home to evil spirits and/or some evil creature or villain.
• Headless Horseman: An undead (originally a faerie) without a head, originally from Irish folk tales.
• The Hedge of Thorns: A hedge of thorns appears as an obstacle for heroes and heroines in their quests.
• Heir Club for Men: Fathers tend to be hard on their daughters.
• Hitchhiker Heroes: A hero goes on a quest, initially alone, and gradually gains allies along the way.
• Honorary Uncle In The Three Spinners and its variants, the heroine's helpers want to be her Honorary Aunts.
• Hot Witch: Not unheard of. The Evil Queen from “Snow White” is the most obvious example. Can quite frequently be encountered in Eastern European tales.
• I Know Your True Name: Rumplestilkskin and variants
• If I Can't Have You…: The prince may be shapeshifted because of his refusal to marry a terrible bride. Conversely, the ogre/witch/what have you that was raising the heroine may curse the prince to forget her after they run away.
• Impossible Task: The antagonists of the tale set these in order for the hero to fail.
• Impossible Theft: Stealing something that can't be stolen.
• Inevitably Broken Rule: If a rule is mentioned, expect someone somewhere to break it.
• Intangible Theft: Stealing something abstract.
• Interspecies Romance: Some fairy tales do have the protagonist (male or female) marrying an inhabitant of Fairyland, or a being from another magical species (such as a djinn or peri) who is still human-looking.
• Invisible to Adults: Babies are never fooled by the substitute for their mothers, however good the illusion is.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: Though not as common as Forced Transformations.
• Island of Mystery: An exotic locale that may serve as destination for the hero/heroine on their quest.
• Just Like Robin Hood: Usually subverted: the thieves and robbers from fairy tales tend to be just as bad as their real-life counterparts, though quite often Anti Heroic as well. Still, there are quite a lot of examples told straight: Grimm's "Master thief" is among them.
• The Good Kingdom: One of the most common settings.
• Knight in Shining Armor: The stereotypical noble knight.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Show compassion to the helpless old woman? She's a good fairy who will give you valuable assistance. Kick the Dog? He was a sorcerer disguised as a wolf, and now you're a wolf too.
• Last Request: A frequent cause of the parent form of the Girl Who Fits this slipper.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Mostly of the "want but can't get" variant, though there are a few fairy tales in which virgins can get pregnant involuntarily by magical means, such a drinking from a certain spring
• Leaf Boat: The preferred method of travelling by diminute heroes - think Tom Thumb and variants.
• Liminal Being: Some characters in folklore represent the union between two separate poles: human/animal, land/sky, life/death, etc.
• Liminal Time: Both the time about the wedding and that about the birth of the first child are dangerous; the villains often get power over the heroine here.
• Living MacGuffin: More often than not, the hero of the tale is tasked with bringing a magical bird or a maiden as a prospective bride to their king.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: Common in fractured fairy tales.
• Love at First Sight: Characters fall in love immediately after meeting.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: The hero's beautiful love interest may be the daughter of an ogre, a witch, or even the Devil himself.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: If there aren't three, or only one, it's this, usually.
• Malicious Slander: The villain deliberately badmouths the hero with rumours that the audience already knows are false.
• MacGuffin Guardian: The MacGuffin or a treasure quite often is guarded by someone, be it a dragon, an evil spirit of sorts, or ordinary mooks.
• Mass Transformation: Transforming a whole species, or everyone in an area.
• Meaningful Name: Characters will be named after their visual appearance or characteristics.
• Merciful Minion: Take the character to woods and bring back — a hand, a heart, eyes, as evidence. (Never the head for obvious reasons.)
• Mock Millionaire: Puss-in-Boots and its variants.
• Moving the Goalposts: Often done on top of Impossible Tasks.
• Nameless Narrative: Sometimes one or two characters (hero, heroine, villain) get names, but frequently none do.
• Noble Fugitive: The protagonist is on the run.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: to hide from the wizard that you are mastering his magic books.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Mothers-in-law are often murderous toward their daughters-in-law.
• Offered the Crown: Many a hero has succeeded to the throne after the Royal Brat king has been finally hoist by his own petard.
• Offing the Offspring: Someone kills, or tries to kill, their own kids.
• Off with His Head!: If you fail in the engagement challenge — a frequent consequence.
• Old Beggar Test: A magical being or a noble disguises themselves as an elderly beggar and asks for shelter as a Secret Test of Character.
• Once Upon a Time: The source of the phrase.
• Only Killable at Home: Sometimes, the magical can only be slain in their home (plane).
• Original Position Fallacy: Sometimes the antagonist meets his end according to a method that he himself suggested when asked for a good way to execute a scoundrel.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Depending on the provenance of the tale (but mostly from Europe), fairies may appear in any capacity in the tale. Not helping matters is that some characters from West Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian folklores have been traditionally translated as "fairies", for the lack of a specific term in English, while still retaining their otherworldly nature.
• Our Genies Are Different: Appearing mostly in Western Asian and Asian tales, the djinni may be a servant to the hero, their antagonist, or can even become their spouse.
• Our Witches Are Different: Many fairy tales feature witches.
• Parental Incest: A common motive for the heroine to flee home is that her father has decided to marry her.
• Please Shoot the Messenger: That's the way to ensure that the poor boy/girl doesn't marry your child! That is, until someone tampers with the message so that it says to marry the bearer to the child.
• Predators Are Mean: If the hero is a prey animal, the villain will usually be a hungry predator.
• Prince Charming: Usually the male hero is the son of a king, and a brave and virtuous person.
• Princess for a Day: prior to being princess for life
• Princess Protagonist: Often the heroine is a princess.
• The Promise: The plot hinges on a promise.
• Proud Beauty: Princesses setting their engagement challenges. Particularly those who execute failure.
• The Quest: Archetypically — the character leaves home voluntarily or not, and pick up something to search for on the way if they don't have it already.
• Rags to Royalty: Often after a decline from royalty, or at least wealth, to rags.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: In all the variants of "Six Servants" tale (like "The Flying Ship" from Russia or "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"). Could be considered as something of a predecessor to superhero fiction.
• Rash Promise: A promise that was made hastily.
• Red-Headed Stepchild: A character is hated or scorned for having red hair.
• Rescue Romance: Falling in love with one's rescuer.
• Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: Stories like "Diamonds and Toads" where one person is rewarded for their goodness and the other punished for their faults.
• Rip Van Winkle: A character is put into a magically-induced, very long, coma.
• Royal Brat: Usually the king objects to his daughter's marriage.
• Royal Blood: Someone being related to royals is a plot point.
• Rule of Three: Three siblings of the same sex is the commonest.
• Rule of Seven: Seven children, seven brothers, seven dwarfs, seven goats
• The Runt at the End: One member of a group is a lot different, usually smaller and often the biggest troublemaker.
• The Sandman: A magical man who puts sand in people's eyes to either put them to sleep or make them dream.
• Sapient Steed: The hero or heroine can be helped by their faithful (and magic) talking horse.
• Schmuck Banquet: A villain lays out a banquet and/or sets up accommodation, as a trap.
• Scullery Maid: A common role for the heroine, particularly if she is a princess incognito.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: A form of The Quest: the hero or heroine is searching for a missing parent, their siblings, or a spouse.
• Secret Identity: In Iron Hans and many (not all) of its variants, the hero is a servant at the court, and disguises himself in armor before fighting in the tourney or battle.
• Secret Test of Character: Someone tricks someone else into forfeiting a challenge in the name of morality to test their morals.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Trying to avoid a prophecy coming true makes it come true.
• Shapeshifter Showdown: A fight between two shapeshifters.
• Shapeshifting Lover: A man meets some women that can turn into creatures due to magical skins. He then steals one skin and marries the woman, but later she finds the skin and may leave her husband.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: An ugly or average-looking character becomes very attractive upon bathing and/or wearing fancier clothes.
• Sibling Triangle: The hero's brothers or the heroine's sisters/stepsisters are often the final obstacle to his or her happiness.
• Soul Jar: A character is immortal and/or impervious to injury/disease because their soul, "heart", or life essence is kept in a container.
• Space Whale Aesop: Many fairy tales have drastic, bizarre consequences of not following the moral.
• Standard Hero Reward: Marrying a princess (or, on rarer occasions, a prince) and getting all or part of the kingdom is a reward for heroism.
• Swallowed Whole: Monsters and predators tend to swallow characters whole, and the victim usually survives.
• Swans A-Swimming: Swans are unrealistically pacifistic. At least two types of story feature swans in great capacity: "The Quest for the Lost Wife" (the swan is the form of the supernatural wife) and "The Maiden who Seeks her Brothers" (swans are the form the heroine's brothers assume under a curse).
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: A character decides to give up seeking what they want... and then gets it anyway.
• Swiss-Army Tears: Tears have magical powers.
• Talking Animal: Virtually omnipresent. Sometimes justified; usually not.
• Threshold Guardians: A test of will that hinders a hero's journey.
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: A character leaves a trail, either to find their way or so someone else can find them.
• Treacherous Spirit Chase: A character sees someone who should be far away or dead, and they're usually not who they appear to be.
• True Love's Kiss: Being kissed by one's lover solves the problem, usually by breaking a curse.
• Turtle Island: Could be found in several tales from around the world, most notably Arabian and Russian ones.
• Uriah Gambit: A rare but known variant is for the king to send off a married man on the quest to get at his wife.
• Wealthy Ever After: The hero or heroine's marriage nets them love and happiness. If their significant other is a member of royalty or nobility, wealth is also part of the package. Alternatively, if the protagonist remains single, or romance is not the focus of the story, at the end of the tale they rise out of their poor financial situation by the use of a magic object.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Characters who served their function often vanish.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Something must be done by midnight, or midnight is when the supernatural comes out.
• Wicked Stepmother: An evil stepmother.
• Wicked Witch: The preferred antagonist of fairy tales: evil sorceresses hound beautiful princesses and cannibal witches prey on children protagonists.
• Wonder Child: A weird, and often magical, child enters the life of an infertile couple.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: The passage of time is very relative when dealing with Fairyland.
• You Have Waited Long Enough: The protagonist has been gone for a while and their (usually his) love interest is being forced to (re)marry, even though they (usually she) doesn't want to.
• Youngest Child Wins: The youngest of three/seven brothers, or the youngest of three sisters, ends up being the protagonist and the most succesful of their siblings, becoming royalty by the end of the tale.

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