Wishful Thinking // my own speculations

 Some fairytales have similar elements. Often these elements seem bizarre or unrealistic to us. Here's some wondering about maybe why. (Oh, and a picture dump. I tried to make it relevant, but you know. *shrugs*)

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1. Was the love at first sight element people’s wishful thinking? Arranged marriages were what part of the culture and society back then. People often married for advantage and monetary reasons. When it came to romance they had to tough it out. True love was impractical. Love at first sight would have been a comforting hope. 

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2. The rags-to-riches could be another wishful hope. People from lower classes rarely married anyone of a higher class.So perhaps beauty and kindness was thought to transcend even class? Or perhaps even that was wishful thinking? There are many fairytales where a poor person would may into royalty, like Cinderella simply for beauty or a virtue. Or perhaps it was the hope that one could be married for something more than status or money. That their character might actually be attractive. 

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3. Most stories are clearly told during eras where women were suppressed. Yet some of these tales have many different versions. 

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Take Red Riding Hood for instance. Charles Perrault first wrote it with a very clear message. And it did not end well for the leading girl. But these tales were also often told by women, as they were spinning and weaving or sewing. It was meant to keep time with the spinning of the wheel.

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 This also is why a lot of fairytales have related elements in them. Rumpelstiltskin spinning gold. Rapunzel pricking her finger on a spindle. Etc. Perhaps this is where the term “wives tales” comes from? Anyhow, there’s another version of Red Riding Hood (The Grandmother) where the little heroine outwits the wolf and escapes. Which version do you think the ladies told? 

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4. The Grimm brothers get a lot of criticism for altering their original edition of fairytales. They get a lot of criticism for many things actually. I understand this, but to a certain point. 

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If you look at the big picture of the all fairy tales from around the world, you'll notice a lot of them are similar. It seems to me that fairytales have been retold again and again. Each storyteller told their own retelling of it. They altered it and made the story their own to fit a specific culture or set of beliefs or their audience. People are still doing that today. So yes, the Grimm brothers changed things. But we're still changing even what they've changed, so do we really have a right to critique them?

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5. In most fairytales, you rarely find gray characters. Most characters are archetypes that either represent everything good or everything evil. Sometimes I wonder if this stems from our desire for transparency. Who wants to question people’s motives all the time? To always wonder if someone was telling you the truth? Why can’t people be who they say they are? 

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Also, there’s always that one person who seems really good. And although you know that no one is ever perfect, you still imagine that person as embodiment of all things good.  

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 In a world where there's constant lawlessness and pain, you want something that is pure and untainted. You want to believe that a perfect, incorruptible person exist (personally, I suggest God as the answer).  

Similarly, there are times we want to blame someone for all the bad things that have happened. And when someone does something wrong, we don't always want to try understanding why. 

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We don't want to consider that maybe they're human too. When they’ve hurt us, we don’t want to put them on a victimized level. They are the villains here, right? (I'm not saying these points of view are a good idea, I'm just saying sometimes we tend to do this; I fall into this pitfall, at least.)

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Fairy tales do this for us. They give us indestructible goodness and irrational evil. 

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Fairytales, in some strange way, are stories of hope. The people who told and wrote this stories lived in dark times. (Ever heard of the Dark Ages? And I wonder if perhaps this is why some fairytales are so dark.) People found comfort and excitement in these stories. When a group of people gather around a fire at night there's always that one person who wants to hear the same story, or sing the same song, over and over. That person finds something in the story or song to grasp onto, be it happiness or thrill or just plain hope. 

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That's what fairytales were for people then. Fairytales are still around today, still evolving. I think that's because humanity will always be in need of hope. Therefore we will always need fairytales. 

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 What do you think?