Whether collected by The Brothers Grimm, written by Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson or by other prolific writers or collected by others, which one is your favorite, and why? And it doesn't have to have been adapted by Disney.

I ask this because Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson have been by Special Interest for a while now. My favorite is "The Snow Queen", because unlike most fairytales, it spins the damsel in distress scenario on its head, with the way the heroine saves her boy best friend from the titular snow queen, and along the way meets several different interesting characters. It could make for a great 9 episode miniseries on HBO or something.

So what is your favorite fairytale or fairytale character?

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    8 hours ago

    Mąʼii, the Coyote of the Diné Bahaneʼ (under folktale I guess)

    a trickster type I guess that is always up to shit and consistently self-owns really hard. sometimes relatable, sometimes totally off the wall. invariably punished severely for misdeeds.

    if I were to meet him on the road one day I would probably ask wtf he was doing and expect the answer to be extremely intriguing but like 95% bullshit. how can you lack affection for someone like that?

  • AntifaSuperWombat [she/her]
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    11 hours ago

    Queen Dido of Carthage. Pretty badass depiction for a woman in antiquity. Just hate how her character was completely butchered by Virgil’s misogynist dead ass.

  • Barabas [he/him]
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    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    Baba Yaga almost solely based on her house.

    • TheChemist [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 hours ago

      Apparently, she doesn't appear in just one Russian Folktale. She appears in a lot of them. I myself would be happy just to have a mobile home like hers.

      • Barabas [he/him]
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah, she is a more or less pan-slavic entity. Kind of like Odin is for germanic peoples.

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
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    16 hours ago

    The giant from Jack and the beanstalk cause he could smell out and destroy the English

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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      edit-2
      16 hours ago

      There are also Redcaps, faerie looking like short old men with iron boots and polearms, brutally murder Scots and Englishmen at the border.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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        15 hours ago

        So named because they dip their hats in the blood of people they murdered. ANd I believe in one version they have to keep killing because if their bloody hat ever dries out they will die.

  • CloutAtlas [he/him]
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    15 hours ago

    I wanna say Tom Bombadil. He's just a silly wife guy who's too busy touching grass and wearing his little booties to care about some ring.

    • TheChemist [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 hours ago

      It is almost a shame that he was adapted out of Peter Jackson Trilogy. Although maybe he would have brought in some pacing issues. Or maybe he still exists in that adaptation, just offscreen and not mentioned.

    • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
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      12 hours ago

      they were doing the freakiest sex while the hobbits slept. you cant convince me otherwise.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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    15 hours ago

    Either Raven or Odin. In both cases because they're just always up to some incredible bullshit. Zhuge Liang for the same reason if he counts.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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          edit-2
          3 hours ago

          Both him and Guan Yu counts because that book got like at least 4 revisions during the few hundred years it has been in circulation and it was always done by Shu fans who found previous version not going far enough.

    • PointAndClique [they/them]
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      edit-2
      10 hours ago

      Zhuge Liang invented the repeater crossbow. And a self-powered military transport. And using lanterns for military communication. Oh and steamed buns.

      Edit: meant to reply to comment below. Rip me

      • Dessa [she/her]
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        10 hours ago

        Great thing about Robin hood is that you can make him into anything you want. There's no canon that's off-limits. He could easily be a communist and it fits with the themes. He eats the rich and gives to the poor and redistributes Sherwood Forest! That's perfectly thematic for him and his gang.

        Or her? Robin and Marian have swapped gender riles in the past. It wouldn't even be the first time.

        • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
          ·
          6 hours ago

          Or her? Robin and Marian have swapped gender riles in the past. It wouldn't even be the first time.

          F/F Robin Hood / Maid Marian, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SOFT GAYS, Scars, Angst with a Happy Ending, Swearing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Blood and Injury, healing, Survivor Guilt, Canon Typical Violence

          now someone just needs to write it lea-pout

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
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    17 hours ago

    Joan Vinge did an interesting riff on the Snow Queen story with the adventurously titled novel The Snow Queen. Worth a read.

    I really like Orpheus and Eurydice. I took a class on the myth in undergrad and it's interesting how a simple story developed into so many explorations of love, loss, and the complexity of knowing when to hang on and when to let go. The stage production of Anais Mitchell's Hadestown was stunning.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
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      10 hours ago

      Skill issue, I would simply have the goddess of love come down at the end and fix everything.

  • PointAndClique [they/them]
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    13 hours ago

    Guess my favourite and ill stomp so hard through the floor that ill fall to the centre of the earth

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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    16 hours ago

    Probably djinni from One Thousand and One Nights, this was my favourite book in childhood. And i also hate Andersen, it traumatised me for a good time.

    • TheChemist [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 hours ago

      The Ring Djinni or the Lamb Djinni? There were two Djinnies in Aladdin and The Magic Lamp.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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        edit-2
        4 hours ago

        Both djinn, i think i mistook singular and plural in this case. I think ring one deserves some more sympathy since most people just remember the lamp one.