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  • Awesome Art: The Japanese releases of the books utilize very impressive artwork for their covers. The covers depict scenes from the books with shocking accuracy and attention to even the smallest details. Not only that, but each book has two unique covers! The Japanese covers stand out from other covers of this series. Most covers resemble a "generic Disney cover" that doesn't communicate the unique elements of the Twisted Tales series. The Japanese covers are the clear and beautiful exception to this trend.
  • Accidental Aesop: Elsa had it EASY in Conceal, Don't Feel compared to the original movie. Elsa locked herself away for thirteen years in the movie but only three in this book. And even then, Elsa had Olaf to comfort her all those years, unlike in the movie where she was completely alone. Still, she desperately wishes that she was never separated from Anna. She doesn't realize that her childhood turned out much better because Anna was out of the picture. Appreciate what you already have, instead of focusing on what you don't. Every down in life is traded for something greater.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: In Conceal, Don't Feel, the reveal that Freya is actually Queen Iduna in disguise coming to visit Anna is easy to predict. Iduna periodically disappears from the castle, and Freya periodically visits Anna. Both happen once every two months at the same time. Coincidence? Not buying it.
  • Complete Monster: In these Darker and Edgier Disney What If? stories, many characters are made much worse than their canon counterparts. These few, however, stand out in sheer vileness:
    • Once Upon a Dream: Maleficent is the cruel, dark mistress of all evil in the story, dedicated to tormenting Aurora and prolonging her own life. After her original plan to curse Aurora when she was a baby to die on the day of her 16th birthday fails, Maleficent, struck dead by Prince Phillip, uses the last of her energy to trap the minds of Aurora and the entire kingdom in a dream world until Maleficent can gain the power to possess Aurora's body. Rejuvenating herself by brutally murdering people in the dream world—which kills them in the real world—and using their blood in rituals, Maleficent eventually drops the façade of the dream world, indulging in the full-on slaughter of dozens of people for both their life forces as well as just for fun. Though seeming to have gained the slightest hint of care for Aurora during their time in the dream world, Maleficent ultimately rejects these feelings, murdering Aurora's parents and killing innocent people just to torment her while mocking the woman over her coming fate as Maleficent's body jacked puppet.
    • As Old as Time: Monsieur D'Arque, full name Frédéric D'Arque, is the owner of the local Bedlam House whose history goes back to Belle's own father Maurice. D'Arque, a member of the supernatural charmante people, hates his own people and experiments to take out the magical parts of himself to embrace his delusional idea of pure-blooded humanity. In his asylum, D'Arque subjects the charmantes to hideous experimentation for years on end to "torture the magic out of them", implementing 11th-century torture tactics in his research and cheerfully apathetic to the number of charmantes who die either from torture or suicide. D'Arque is willing to use his scientific technique to endorse the king and queen's intended Final Solution across France, and although he claims he would never harm a human, D'Arque is so lost in his own hatred that he murders his best friend Alaric and unhesitatingly tries to do the same to his other old friend Maurice.
    • Part of Your World: Ursula the Sea-Witch, after bewitching Prince Eric into marrying her human guise of Vanessa and keeping King Triton as a defeated trophy, intends on expanding her kingdom via bloody warfare with no care of countless civilians dead. Realizing she lacks her powers on land and with Queen Ariel undermining her, Ursula uses the dark powers she gained from a book of Carcosa and the Elder Gods, intending to sacrifice countless innocents. Deciding to commit genocide on the Merpeople and summon the Elder Ones with Triton and thousands of innocents as her sacrifice, Ursula unleashes death upon the nation, gloating over the pain and suffering of Eric and Ariel's people.
    • What Once Was Mine: Countess Elizabeth Bathory (sic), even before the story started, was a heinous Serial Killer who kidnapped a slew of young girls, murdered them, and bathed in their blood to stay young. Bathory does this after the blood of a servant accidentally gets on her, and she discovers it made her skin youthful, a servant whom she later killed. Learning about Rapunzel, a baby whose hair killed people in certain circumstances, Bathory immediately wanted this baby to herself, and would try and buy her off Mother Gothel, to whom the royal family had given her. When Rapunzel escapes, Bathory immediately starts chasing her down, burning down the Snuggly Duckling in an attempt to get Rapunzel. Bathory later gets her hands on Rapunzel and explains that she wants to use her deadly hair to Take Over the World. Bathory manages to get her hands on Flynn Rider and threatens to kill him, Rapunzel, and Magda before draining their blood if Rapunzel does not give a demonstration of her moon powers.
  • Continuity Lockout: This is likely why What Once Was Mine ignores Tangled: The Series, as not doing so would've spoiled some of the show's biggest plot twists and contributions to Tangled lore.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common criticism of some of the books is that too many of their beginnings are just subpar novelizations of the movies. Conceal, Don't Feel for one was derided by some for being a mere retread of the original Frozen plot with a few changes and some new situations and characters thrown in. Though given how zealously protective Disney is with their crown jewel IP, it isn't surprising if some Executive Meddling was involved, barring authors of Frozen adaptations from deviating too much from the source material, fearing it might ruin the story's integrity or perhaps upset children.
  • So Okay, It's Average: General consensus on this series, similar to A Tale of..., is that it doesn't explore the characters in these new situations nearly enough and/or these situations are not creative enough, akin to generic fanfiction. Although Reflection seems to be received better (likely due to having a different author than the last three books).
  • Squick: This series faces many poor reviews from customers for having "dirt" on the books' pages. These markings are actually meant to be decorative print, but some viewers mistake the page print for dirt.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • A Whole New World is criticized for mainly focusing on Aladdin and Jasmine again rather than exploring things from Jafar's POV, leading to the story being a generic "teenage hero leads a rebellion" story.
    • What Once Was Mine has no connection to Tangled: The Series, and many lament that the book is more like in-universe fanfiction for the fictional tale of Tangled rather than an actual What If? story like the other entries in the series.
  • Unexpected Character: Since all the previous books were based on pure Disney movies, it's safe to say not many were expecting a book dedicated to The Incredibles (bonus points for The Incredibles being one of Pixar's darkest films). And it looks like The Incredibles isn't the only Pixar film getting a twisted tale, with one based on Brave also in the works. Not only that, but the anthology book includes a Ratatouille story.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Hoo boy, the books may star iconic Disney and Pixar characters, but they go in much darker and often more violent directions just by changing one critical point in their source material so that everything for the heroes goes horribly wrong. Characters get injured and even die violently and the villains usually become much more ruthless.

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