Introduction
Long before fairytales were printed on pastel pages and wrapped in happily-ever-afters, they lived in the dark.
In forests thick with hunger, in cottages that smelled of rot, in mothers who turned wicked and fathers who disappeared. These stories were not meant to comfort — they were meant to warn.
Of wolves in disguise. Of love that comes with a price. Of what happens when little girls stray from the path.
They were whispered by candlelight, passed down like curses, each tale a lesson carved in fear. And though time has polished them into bedtime stories, the bones still show — sharp, strange, and bloodstained.
Fairytales, in truth, were never about magic. They were about survival.
We grew up with the ideology that fairytales meant happily-ever-afters etched in gold, castles that scraped the skies, and love that arrived on horseback with a crown and a promise. Pain was only a plot device, a temporary shadow before the light. A poisoned apple, a spindle’s prick, a lost slipper — all solved, all saved, all swept away by Prince Charming. The girl was always rescued, the curse always broken, the ending always happy. But what we weren’t told is that the original tales were written not with hope — but with hunger, violence, and fear. That behind the glass slipper was a foot carved to fit, and beneath the princess’s smile, silence was survival.
Fairytales created a propaganda for little girls: you don’t need to fight for yourself, because someone — a prince, a savior, a man — will do it for you. Girls were taught to see love through rose-tinted glass — or rather, love-blinded goggles. That a prince would choose you only if you carried the beauty of the rarest flower and the silence of a locked room. They whispered in hidden bed stories that your voice was a threat, your rage a joke, and your worth tied to how gracefully you could be rescued. You were taught to be helpless — but beautiful. That was the role. And in a world spun by these stories, anything loud was rewritten as wickedness.
As a little girl, I laughed at the villains — the witches, the stepmothers, the women who dared to want more. I watched them fall and thought justice had been served. But growing up, I see how many of them were painted in red simply for being different. For wanting. For refusing to fit into the glass slipper or the gilded cage. Fairytales didn’t just warn us about danger — they warned us about ourselves. They taught us that to be loved, we must be flawless. And to be flawless, we must be alone. That to stand out, we must outshine — even if it means dimming other women. Even if it means choosing captivity in a castle over freedom in the wild. Because at least the beast gave you a crown.
- The Original Darkness of Fairytales
Behind every ‘Once Upon A Time’, there was a secret that wasn’t supposed to be pondered onto. Because if you took a moment to decode the way fairytales defined love, you’d see the way they dressed abuse as devotion, suffering as beauty and silence as power.
Snow White was not awakened by love — she was kissed while lifeless, entombed in a glass coffin. A prince, a stranger, looked upon her frozen body and felt entitled to claim it. A woman on her deathbed was seen as the epitome of beauty — untouched, unmoving, silent. And for some reason, we were told this was love.
He had never met her, never heard her voice, never looked into her eyes. Still, he believed he had the right to make her his — simply because she was beautiful. He didn’t even know her name, but knew she was the girl of his dreams because a lifeless pretty body without opinions and a voice was his definition of ideal.
We were taught this was romantic. That a man could touch a woman who couldn’t say no, and somehow, it was a miracle. No one questioned how affection could bloom without consent, how desire could exist in the absence of connection.
Snow White’s silence wasn’t a tragedy — it was sold to us as a virtue. Her unconsciousness became her charm. And so, the love story began — with no choice at all.
Snow White laid still and was rewarded.
Cinderella was chosen only when she fit into a pair of shoes.
A prince who couldn’t even remember the face of the girl he danced with all night — yet planned to marry her based on a shoe’s size alone. A man who needed his love to fit into glass slippers to be deemed “perfect.”
In the original Grimm version, the stepsisters didn’t just plead to fit the slipper — they mutilated their own feet, slicing off toes and heels, desperate to become the “perfect” fit.
As children, we laughed at the evil stepsisters. But growing up, the darkness beneath that laughter struck us hard. How broken was a world where two teenagers believed that chopping off parts of themselves, drenched in pain and disfigurement, would bring them closer to love? Because perfection meant shrinking your feet — only then could a prince love you, only then could you be worthy of love.
We celebrate Cinderella’s humility and kindness — but rarely question why beauty came at the cost of blood. Why did her stepsisters have to hurt themselves to be deemed worthy? Why was her value measured by the size of a shoe, rather than the size of her heart?
A young woman is traded like a commodity, exchanged for her father’s freedom, and forced to live with a creature who is a rage-filled monster trapped for years in a castle.
Her confinement is presented as romance —the idea of controlling a person by taming them down and confining them to four walls was displayed as love. They cunningly draped coercion and threats in the guise of a grumpy male lead who supposedly had a kind heart, if only Beauty would scrape her nails bloody unlocking the iron bars of his cruel soul.
Beauty’s journey is one of gradual submission — learning to accept, forgive, and ultimately love a captor. The story tells us that love can redeem even the cruelest, that it is the woman’s role to soften the savage heart through self-sacrifice.
But what does that teach us? That love requires endurance of abuse? That captivity can be confused with care? That the boundary between love and control is dangerously blurred? The “beast” is not just the monster in the castle, but the idea that power can be wielded silently and invisibly. And, we were taught to believe this was the truest kind of love.
In another world, a fifteen-year-old little girl is shown exchanging her voice, giving up all the talent she had for singing to chase a man living in a entirely different world. Her sacrifice is shown as a sign of true love towards a man she barely knew, a blinded obsession that pushes her to trade talent for pain.
Piece by piece, her sense of self is stripped away; yet the story still ends in a “happily ever after.” Because, apparently, what matters most is having a man you just met by your side—no matter in return it takes away everything you were and everything you wanted to be.
Her transformation is agonizing, each step a reminder that love demands suffering, and that sacrifice is its currency.
The story romanticizes this self-destruction, masking a tragic lesson: that to be loved, she must become less herself.
Elsewhere in the canon of childhood myths, a princess who must kiss a frog to break a curse, turning him back into a prince. But beneath the charm lies a troubling narrative about consent and expectations in relationships.
In The Frog Prince, the princess is pressured into a physical act she initially resists—but has to still go through it simply because an adult insists it’s necessary to fulfill a promise. Her boundaries are overlooked, dismissed in the name of duty and tradition.
The tale suggests that love and transformation can be forced, even when one party is reluctant or uncomfortable. It normalizes the idea that promises and obligations override personal consent. Moreover, the frog’s curse is lifted not by genuine connection but by an act that disregards the princess’s feelings, implying that the end justifies the means in love.
It teaches little girls that when you are pushed into an act you are uncomfortable at in the beginning, it rewards you with a love you longed for all your life. It shushes in your heart that to be loved, you need to jump into blazing fire, while the arsonist transforms into the man of your dreams.
In the unraveling of crowns and magic, these stories hint on something hidden, one where every little girl is taught to wait silently for her Prince Charming, a stranger who demands her beauty and submission without respect for boundaries or consent. All she must do is sit still, stay pretty, and sacrifice pieces of her true self, believing that this is love.
- Breaking the Spell — Feminism, Freedom, and Fierce Heroines in Modern Fairy Tales
But stories don’t stay frozen in time. Over the years, something began to stir — the silence cracked, the glass slipper shattered, and the expectations of material beauty faded.
The echoing lullabies of damsels waiting to be saved have started to quieten. The spell is breaking. And from the ruins of poisoned apples, muted voices, and burning feet, rose new voices — fierce, untamed, and unafraid. These aren’t tales stitched in silver and silence. These are the new-age rebellions, masquerading as stories.
In the last two decades, fairy tales have undergone a quiet revolution — shedding their archaic themes and dressing their heroines in agency, independence, and the armor of self-respect.
Contemporary retellings no longer revolve around being rescued, but about rescuing oneself. They question generational trauma, explore emotional nuance, and center female characters not as romantic conquests but as layered individuals on quests of self-discovery.
Let’s take a closer look at how Moana, Frozen, and Brave exemplify this shift.
Moana (2016): A Heroine Without a Prince
In Moana, there is no crown, no ballgown, and no gilded castle. Instead, there is a young Polynesian girl who listens to the call of the ocean — determined to restore balance to a world fractured by human greed.
Moana’s journey isn’t a rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It’s a quiet act of reclamation — a quest driven by love and duty for her people. She doesn’t reject tradition out of defiance but seeks to expand it, to rediscover the wisdom of her ancestors. Her courage lies not just in sailing across dangerous seas, but in confronting the self-doubt that storms within her. She is a heroine who earns her place not through birthright, but through grit, intuition, and heart.
This is a rare and refreshing portrayal of female autonomy — where a woman’s worth is not tethered to romance, but rooted in leadership, resilience, and emotional depth.
What makes Moana even more radical is its cultural lens. The story reclaims mythology through a non-Western perspective — celebrating Polynesian heritage, oral traditions, and ecological responsibility. Moana is allowed to be strong, uncertain, bold, and broken — all at once. She is not a vessel for someone else’s prophecy, but the author of her own legend.
Frozen (2013 & 2019)- Queens with a Purpose
Elsa is a queen whose crown isn’t defined by the shadow of a king. She doesn’t serve as a ceremonial figurehead obeying royal commands, but as a sovereign in her own right — actively shaping the destiny and well-being of her kingdom.
Elsa follows a mysterious voice — symbolic of her inner truth — and discovers the colonial injustices of her kingdom's past. She confronts generational harm and chooses exile not as punishment, but as liberation. Again, romance is secondary to identity, justice, and personal evolution.
But more importantly, Frozen centers female relationships — particularly sisterhood. Elsa’s struggle isn’t to find a suitor; it’s to accept herself. Her powers are both a gift and a curse, a metaphor for mental health, isolation, and societal rejection. Elsa doesn’t need a prince to “fix” her — she needs space to grow, the strength to accept her own nature, and the unconditional love of her sister.
Frozen boldly challenges the foundational tropes of classic fairy tales — especially the ideal of “love at first sight” and the impulse to marry someone you just met. The film doesn’t reward Anna for falling in love with a man she barely knows — it punishes her. And in doing so, it dismantles decades of romanticized misinformation packaged as destiny. It doesn’t just disapprove of the old narrative — it calls it out as naïve, even dangerous.
Brave (2012): Rewriting the Mother-Daughter Narrative
Brave marked a pivotal moment — not just for Pixar, but for the fairy tale genre itself. Its protagonist, Merida, does not dream of ballrooms or betrothals. Her “princesshood” is not a privilege but a burden. When suitors from rival clans arrive to compete for her hand, she subverts the ritual entirely — entering the competition herself, and shooting for her own freedom. Literally.
But where Brave truly distinguishes itself is in its exploration of the mother-daughter dynamic. Merida and Queen Elinor embody two generations of women — tethered by love, yet divided by expectation. Their conflict is not villainous or dramatic in the traditional sense; it is intimate, emotional, and deeply human.
The film pushes the conversation around autonomy, equality, and consent to the next level. It reframes rebellion not as a rejection of femininity, but as a plea for the right to choose what femininity means on one’s own terms.
Merida’s “bravery” isn’t just about defying customs or wielding a bow — it lies in her emotional growth. In envisioning a world where tradition and choice are not at odds, but in balance.
The film doesn’t vilify femininity or domesticity; it simply asks that these traits be chosen, not imposed.
These modern fairytales changed something subtly, brick by brick. It taught the upcoming generation that to be saved you don’t need a Prince riding on his horse, while you sit there helpless. It encouraged little kids to stand up and fight against everything that challenges who they are.
These stories are more than entertainment; they are quiet revolutions. A cry of rebellion against outdated scripts of masculinity and femininity. They whisper the radical idea that identity is not something to be fit into a mold — it’s something to be discovered, defined, and fiercely protected.
- The Fairytales We Still Need to Write
Modern fairytales have done a commendable job at rewriting the destiny of princesses and the definition of happy endings, but we are still far from victory.
We now see women wielding swords instead of slipping into glass heels — heroines whose strength is not just in muscle, but in vulnerability, compassion, and conviction.
Yet, for every Elsa, Moana, or Merida, there are still countless voices left unheard — stories that linger in the shadows, untold, unseen, waiting for their moment under the spotlight.
In this ongoing voyage toward narrative reform, we have not yet arrived at the shore where boys are told that their value lies not in the sharpness of their sword, but in the softness of their spirit. That masculinity is not forged in violence, dominance, or silence — but in empathy, respect, and the courage to be gentle.
We are yet to write fairytales where the prince is allowed to cry, to falter, to heal — where his heart matters more than his inheritance. Where he can fall in love with another prince, or choose solitude, and still be whole. Where love is not treated as life’s end goal, but one of its many beautiful chapters — flawed, complex, and evolving.
Fairytales were never innocent.
They were laced with obedience, stories sharpened into lessons — teaching girls to sleep through danger and boys to mistake conquest for love. They built kingdoms of expectation for men, and solitude for women, crushing them both under the immense pressure of staying in love.
But the ink is smudging. The paper is tearing.
We no longer whisper these tales beneath our breath — we dissect them. We hold them up to the candlelight, watching the rot beneath the rhyme. We question why a girl must sit still in fire before she’s called brave. Why suffering was ever seen as a rite of karma. Why control wore the mask of love, and silence the veil of beauty.
And in their ashes, we begin again.
We forge new myths — fierce, feral, and unafraid. Where the prince need not slay a beast to be worthy, and the princess may well be the beast herself. Where a girl saves herself — not because no one else came, but because she was never meant to be rescued.
These are not tales tied in ribbons and rings. These are tales with teeth.
And still — we are not done. The final battle is not in the forest or the tower — it is in the mirror. Until every child sees themselves not as a footnote, but as a force. Until we stop handing them poisoned apples wrapped in glitter. Until we teach them that kindness is power, that love should never require sacrifice, and that no crown is worth the weight of their voice — our rewriting is incomplete.
So let the old pages burn. Let the ashes of old fairytales feed the soil where better ones will grow.
Frozen made an important step when Kristoff asked Anna’s permission before a kiss — a small, revolutionary moment in a sea of stories built on stolen ones. But if that is our benchmark, we haven’t won. Because consent shouldn’t be groundbreaking — it should be expected. Until every child grows up believing that boundaries are sacred, that respect is not a gesture but a given, and that human decency is the rule, not the exception — the fairytales we tell will still be incomplete.
We’ve torn down the tower. Now we must build a world that doesn’t need one.