Fairy Tale Endings

Look at most fairy tales these days and they always have a happy ending...for the protagonists. Doesn't matter the odds they will overcome them and find a happy way out of it at the end giving them a life of rainbows and unicorns.

And then we have the bad guys; strangely enough they seem to meet either fates worse than death or just death itself, which is usually enough.

When you actually consider what goes on in most fairy tales, especially the original versions, they are just plain nasty, which makes me wonder why they don't update the modern fairy tales and do films that are closer to the original.

Then again, if they were done from the Hans Christian Anderson ones, they would be real tearjerkers instead.

Anyone any ideas as to which one they would like to see portrayed accurately to the original source?

 

I'm not sure I would like to see them portrayed more accurately to the originals...

I like happy endings, because as I became older I learned there were far too few in real life. There's a reason Bowdler's version of Shakespeare was so popular for so many years, sometimes more popular than the originals. With everything so grim, many people turn to fiction for escapism and relief.

 

The happy ending to fairy tales is as old as the earth, so to speak. That happy ending is what makes fairy tales appealing to children. I remember when we were young, my grandmother would read us local fairy tales in the afternoon that we kids would discuss during dinner time. Now I have noticed that soap on tv are being patterned after the traditional fairy tale stories with the happy ending, of course. One writer for tv soap said that fairy tale plots and endings were already time-tested so they are experimenting on that. And from what I see, the experiment is a success because of the high rating that those fairy tale-patterned soaps on tv are getting.

 

I like the modern happy endings. Fairy tales last because they adapt to the time. No one is going to let their children see the wicked queen dance at Snow White's wedding in red hot shoes and then be thrown into the cold to starve. The network censors would have fits!

 

Did you ever see Jim Henson's Storyteller? They had John Hurt as the Storyteller, the fairytales were retold with Puppets and animatronics, and it won awards.

And they kept the original dark endings.



I do wish they had made more, but the second series...oh dear.

 

It's not so much the happy ending, which isn't always there, but I always thought that Fairy Tales were a way of getting a message across to children about what they should and shouldn't do.

Look at Hansel and Gretel - the witch gets burned alive
Snow White - Wicth is forced to dance in red hot shoes.
Little Match Girl - spoilers - she dies at the end
Fairy Tales come from places like Aesop's Fables - Scorpion and Frog anyone

Kids don't want a "happy" ending, they want a little bit of violence and the knowledge they can come out on top.

 

I think you forget...

The steadfast tin soldier is spurned by his love and they both burn alive
The girl in the red shoes dances until her feet are cut off and dies alone while her family are at church.
The matchgirl freezes to death in the snow.

...fairytales were once there to tell children who had seen siblings and babies die, in a world with awful child and maternal mortality, that there was hope for something better afterwards.

 

There's a reason several of those tales come from the Brothers Grimm - grim reading indeed

Hans Christian Anderson is worse though.

 

I would still like to hear/read happy ending fairy tails since the world is facing tons of problems otherwise. But if you wish to read fairy tails with not so happy endings please check The Juniper Tree and Other Tails by Grim Brothers.

 

You mean like the three posts straight above you. You did read the thread??

Wouldn't be surprised if there were Fairy Stories or Children's tales like this in most cultures.

 

I think it's one of those things a lot of people have tried to airbrush out over the last couple of decades, that there are several stories aimed at kids which are not nice.

It's like this current fad of totally protecting the little darlings so they never learn anything about the real world, when these stories are ideal for it.

 

Personally I don't think that there is anything wrong with the happy endings. I agree that there is already enough problems out in the world and it's great to have a sort of escape with these kind of books.

 

Andersen's ending of The little Mermaid would be a good way to get kids to behave, like the 'Santa can see you' threats before Christmas. The poor mermaid has to spend 300 years in a milder version of limbo until she can get to heaven, but every time a child is naughty she cries, and each tear adds a day to her sentence. Wow.

 

Who was it who said "Children don't need stories to tell them monsters exist. They need them to tell them that monsters can be beaten"? Sorry if I mangled it. Isn't that why not all fairy tales get happy endings?

 

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

The original was G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), while Neil Gaiman borrowed and used it without attribution in Coraline.

 

That's a great way to look at it, Reader. I love stories that inspire children and teach them that what they believe can become true for them no matter what their circumstances.

 

I'd be interested in seeing more of the 1001 Arabian Nights tales created and shown. They normally have happy endings for the protagonist and bad endings for those who deserve it. And more Sinbad.

Ok. they are more folk tales than fairy stories, so what.

 

The original Arabian Nights framing stories are a little more ...err.. adult than the Brothers Grimm. I got an unexpurgated version at 14 .