Fantasy vs Fairy Tales

Hi Guys,

There was a discussion about "stardust" on annother forum I visit & I mentioned that to me it seemed more like a fairy tale than a fantasy story, someone said that it is a fairy tale in the traditional sense. That got me wondering, what exactly is the difference, when I said it seemed more like a fairy tale I was thinking that it seemed more geared to a younger audience, but I dont think that's the definition of a fairy tale.

So: Whats the difference between a fantasy story & a fairy tale?

Good question. My first instincts are to say that a fairy tale has a much less complex plot and characters, and is geared towards a younger audience (or pretends to - like Stardust or Pan's Labyrinth - without actually being so). A fantasy has a focus on the development of a different world and system of magic, while a fairy tale simply assumes that magic exists and is set in our world or a facsimile equivalent to it. A fairy tale will is likely to have some sort of a moral to it, even if it's not explicitly stated. A fantasy story is more likely to challenge concepts of morality in a situation not usually experienced in our world.
That having been said, the two concepts are startlingly similar. I'm surprised I haven't considered the difference before.

I think fairy tales have to have some typical characters in them, not necessairly fairies but there is only a limited range.

fantasy can obviously include anything. dragons are hard to fit into fairy tales for example.

and I agree with #2 about the morality.
and world building. Fairy tales are generally much shorter than a full length modern fantasy. Humans don't have magic in fairy tales.

Faerie tale by Feist isn't a fairy tale though.

Fantasy and Fairy Tales show a peculiar bit of historical turnabout. The fantasy genre grew out of fairy tales long ago, but our modern classification system subordinates fairy tales to fantasy because there is more fantasy literature out there.

...but you weren't asking about similarities or beginnings, were you, Seanie? I will add only one point to what the worthies above me have already said: Fairy tales tend to center around a person or persons (read: homo sapiens) and how the world (physical and otherwise) around them affects them. In fairy tales, the main character rarely gets to be proactive -- the story only shows how they can react to their dilemma. I would venture a guess that this is partially due to how we humans viewed the big, bad world in ancient times when we had so much less control over our surroundings.

This is a great idea for a thread. I talked to my daughter about this yesterday for a bit. We agreed with what you people had already said. She also suggested that Fairy Tales usually tie up all the story in a neat and tidy way, almost always happily, while Fantasies are more likely to leave some issues open-ended, and often some of good guys have unhappy endings.

I like this discussion, never really thought about it before, good question Seanie!

I think fairy tales are more formulaic too, following more basic plots than modern fantasy. Fairy tales are more concerned with situations rather than with character development.

But then I found this quote:

"Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted."

by our old friend the professor himself, and that seems to cover both fairy tales and fantasy, so maybe it's just a difference in the style of old fashioned Brothers Grimm fairy tales and modern fantasy ala Robin McKinley?

Didn't Tolkien write an essay on this kind of thing in The Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham? I used to have this book but have long misplaced it, but I think the book included 'On Faery Stories' or some such thing.

I forget the gist, and I don't remember if he really distinguished between fantasy (which may not have been a 'genre' term in those days) but he was VERY definite on the essential elements of 'faery stories'. I'm sure someone can find out more....

Sur la Lune website has a whole section on defining fairy tale. The excerpt I like is this one.

"My own definition of fairy tale goes something like this: A fairy tale is a story-literary or folk-that has a sense of the numinous, the feeling or sensation of the supernatural or the mysterious. But, and this is crucial, it is a story that happens in the past tense, and a story that is not tied to any specifics. If it happens "at the beginning of the world," then it is a myth. A story that names a specific "real" person is a legend (even if it contains a magical occurrence). A story that happens in the future is a fantasy. Fairy tales are sometimes spiritual, but never religious."

Lane, Marcia. Picturing a Rose: A Way of Looking at Fairy Tales. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1993.

There are more definitions at http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/ftdefinition.html

Many of the fairy tales that has survived to this day are Sanitized version of the old ones. Most where old folk tales written down more than a hundred years ago and much of the nasty stuff was removed.
Old fairy tales was often filled with sex, blood, guts and gore and definitely not intended for children.

A lot of the differences between fairy tales and fantasy stories are going to depend on what you've read or seen and how much of it you've read or seen.

The fairy tales most people are familiar with—Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc—have largely been sanitized and simplified into stories that can easily be told to children. But if you study the different versions that still exist you're going to find things that aren't just for children, and plenty of things that aren't for children.

Most of the fairy tales we have today are transcriptions and adaptations of old stories passed down orally through the generations. That's part of the reason why there are so many similar stories. Each storyteller is going to tell it a little bit differently than all the others.

Epics, legends, and myths are also part of the oral tradition. I suppose you could say that they, along with fairy tales, are branches on the tree of oral tradition. Fables would be another branch. There is going to be overlap between the different parts—quite a bit in some places—but there are enough differences that you can usually identify them.

Many of the current crop of popular fantasy stories don't draw much from the fairy tale and fable branches of that tree. Instead they tend to pull from the epic and legend branches. They also often take elements from actual historical events as well as current events.

As I tend to be rather fond of fairy tale retellings I dislike the limited view that they are for younger audiences. Dennis L. McKiernan's Faery novels, begining with Once Upon a Winter's Night, probably could be enjoyed by younger readers, but they were written with adults in mind. The same can be said about Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters novels among other things.

Well, gee, and here I take a break from a review suggesting that the boundaries between Science Fiction and Fantasy are often illusive. I would argue that the primary distinction is between oral and literary traditions. Fairy Tales are structured to be told or performed. Modern fantasy exists almost entirely within the short story or novel structure.

But in terms of subject matter and theme, I don't think you can draw a hard line between them. One of my favorite Grim stories that I dare Disney to make is Godfather Death. People were telling stories about Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Sigfried long before dragons became the third most over-rated critter in fantasy. (Distantly following telepathic companion animals and dark elves.)