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Problems with Fair Folk trope

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janlor1996 Since: Sep, 2016
#26: Feb 16th 2023 at 3:15:23 AM

[up] well even if there is no misuse the trope description seems to be ambigious whenever it is about evil fairies of folkloric fairies; and the laconic page does not help

Malady (X-Troper)
#27: Feb 16th 2023 at 4:52:01 AM

You're interpreting the description wrong, as previously stated, and Laconic fixes are partially for another thread.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
janlor1996 Since: Sep, 2016
#28: Feb 16th 2023 at 5:44:01 AM

Ugh the description first spends 400 words heavily implying the Evil Fae and 176 words saying that not all folkloric fairies were evil in a way that implies that the trope is still about evil Fae. So i think that description is too ambiguous, and even if splitting the trope is not necessary description needs to be changed to be less ambiguous

EDIT: Fixed typos

Edited by janlor1996 on Feb 16th 2023 at 2:48:55 PM

amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#29: Feb 16th 2023 at 6:39:14 AM

Here's the wick check I did Sandbox.The Fair Folk. The 3 interpretations I saw come up the most in usage were: Mysterious and Dangerous beings (12%), Evil/Creepy/Antagonistic Fairies (17%), and Trickster/Manipulator/Changelings (13%) (in total 42%), and there was certainly overlap between the three. This makes sense since that's basically what the trope is described as on the page.

That said, I feel like more of the examples should've highlighted the Blue-and-Orange Morality / punitive-to-the-point-of-violence forest protector aspects more since that seems to be the core of the portrayal, but that could've just been the pages I saw. A restructuring of the description might help to better highlight more the "essentials" for the trope versus things that are just commmonly associated. But the overall content of the trope itself doesn't seem to be getting misinterpreted.

The bigger issue I found was people seemingly using it to just mean "Fairies" (19%), though it's hard to say. I don't know any of the works so when they pothole the trope in an example and don't go on to describe how the fairies are characterized, I can't be sure that these fairies aren't depicted similar to the trope. But I also can't confirm it either. If my read on things is accurate, then that could mean a rename is in order.

The rest of the wicks were either potholes (20%), blatant zces (10%), or too ambiguous for me to sort (4%)

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 16th 2023 at 9:40:39 AM

janlor1996 Since: Sep, 2016
#30: Feb 16th 2023 at 7:25:03 AM

[up] So after the Wick Check that amathieu13 made I think that the description of the trope is still misleading and should be changed from:

"the fairies of folklore could be evil!(but not all of them)"

to

"the fairies of folklore were powerful, mysterious and dangerous beings"

Since like i said in the opening post fairies in folklore were mostly neutral (albeit also in a sense of being morally varied)

Edited by janlor1996 on Feb 16th 2023 at 4:25:51 PM

amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#31: Feb 16th 2023 at 9:12:03 AM

[up] That line doesn't show up in the description. The first paragraph ends with "...it seems hard to imagine that some would consider fairies evil. And yet, some of them were."

If anything, I'd say "...it seems hard to imagine fairies as anything else but the jovial, helpful, and good-natured Nature Spirits we've come to think of them as." And then I'd add "And yet" to the start of the current second paragraph. But that'd be about it.

Evil / antagonistic depictions aren't wrong, they're just a potential outcome due to the Blue-and-Orange Morality and Gaia's Vengeance aspects. And part of the point of this trope is to contrast the depiction of fairies/fairy-like creatures in modern stories that show them as leaning neutral/neutral-good by showing how in past depictions they were much more likely to be neutral/neutral-evil or just plain evil.

Also to be clear, the entire 3rd to last paragraph is dedicated to explaining this difference.

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 16th 2023 at 10:36:47 AM

janlor1996 Since: Sep, 2016
#32: Feb 16th 2023 at 11:44:36 PM

That line does not show but i think that is what first two paragraphs seem to imply. therefore prioritizing the evil portrayal

Edited by janlor1996 on Feb 17th 2023 at 10:47:08 AM

amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#33: Feb 17th 2023 at 5:40:31 AM

^Again, that's a far too reductive read of those paragraphs. As I said, they're mostly fine except for maybe the final sentence in paragraph 1. But now I'm just repeating myself.

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