Editor’s note: This article (slightly edited here) was originally published at the VFA in November 2014, before the sequels to either Disney’s Maleficent or Frozen were made.

Although visionary fiction often has magical and fantasy elements in common with the fairy tales of old, the two differ in some fundamental respects. The themes of the conventional fairy tale revolve about the triumph of good over evil, where the heroes are princes and princesses, or peasants who marry princes and princesses and gain a kingdom or an endless supply of gold. The villains are always jealous stepparents, or evil older siblings, or tyrannical kings and queens. At other times they are monsters, or trolls, or wolves. The latter in particular are ugly and incomprehensible, external forces, wreaking havoc on the heroes and their people, or they are cunning creatures luring some naive vulnerable character to do their bidding, reminiscent of Satan misleading Adam and Eve.

The characteristics of the heroes are equally clear-cut: the shining knight, or the prince, or the peasant who turns out to be a missing prince. They are almost exclusively male, and their relationship with the heroine is defined as “pure” or “true love”, betraying the psychological influence of mysticism that compares this form of love to Divine union. In some tales this true love is key to breaking some spell that has trapped the damsel, as is the case in the story reviewed here shortly.

Visionary differences

Like the fairy tale, visionary fiction is interested in the good versus evil conflict; and like other modern literature, it asks what “good” and “evil” means in the first place, and what might turn a good person bad. Its protagonists are frequently female, and even if they are not lead characters, they are rarely damsels in distress. Love may feature as a … Continue reading →

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