Fairy Tale Tropes

''Tropes common to Fairy Tales. See also Mythical Motifs.''

Surprisingly, fairies in the winged, fluttery sense are absent, as are modern, pointy-eared versions of the Fair Folk.


 * An Aesop
 * An Arm and a Leg: All variants of the Girl Without Hands have her mutiliated.
 * Androcles' Lion
 * At the Crossroads
 * Back From the Dead: common (though not invariable) for heroes, but rare for other characters
 * Baleful Polymorph / Animorphism: Frequently a curse cast by a Wicked Witch, Wicked Stepmother, or so on.
 * Be Careful What You Wish For
 * Beast Fable: The original Funny Animals.
 * Big Bad Wolves
 * Big Fancy Castle
 * Blue Blood
 * Bride and Switch
 * Cain and Abel
 * Changeling Tale
 * Cinderella Circumstances
 * Child Marriage Veto: One day a youngest child wins is by not rejecting the bridegroom that all her sisters have.
 * Clingy MacGuffin
 * Curse
 * Damsel in Distress: though not as common as you may believe
 * Dances and Balls: But be back before 12 o' clock!
 * David Versus Goliath: The youngest or smallest one will turn out to be smarter than his big enemies.
 * Deader Than Dead: common in disposing of the villains
 * Deceased Parents Are the Best: The Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad will have been a saint; the living dad and his Wicked Stepmother will be indifferent or actively hostile to the young protagonist.
 * Distressed Dude
 * Don't Go in The Woods
 * Don't Touch It, You Idiot!
 * Dude, Where's My Respect?
 * Due to the Dead
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Engagement Challenge
 * Everything's Worse with Bears
 * Exact Eavesdropping: Talking Animals have a marvelous tendency to talk where the hero can overhear them.
 * The Fair Folk
 * Fairest of Them All
 * Fairy Tale Motifs
 * Fake Ultimate Hero: a form of the false hero
 * Family-Unfriendly Aesop
 * Family-Unfriendly Death
 * Family-Unfriendly Violence
 * Faux Death
 * Feminine Women Can Cook: How to prove your worth as a bride -- for frogs.
 * The Fool
 * Forbidden Fruit
 * Gender Flip: usually played straight
 * Giant Food
 * Gingerbread House
 * Girl in the Tower
 * Goldilocks And The Mines Of Moria
 * Greed
 * Green-Eyed Monster
 * Grimmification
 * Hair of Gold: more in the illustrations than in the text, though it's not unknown there.
 * Happily Ever After
 * Haunted Castle
 * Hedge of Thorns
 * Heir Club for Men
 * Hitchhiker Heroes
 * Honorary Uncle -- in The Three Spinners and its variants, the heroine's helpers want to be her Honorary Aunts.
 * Impossible Task
 * Impossible Thief
 * Involuntary Shapeshifting: Though not as common as the Baleful Polymorph transformations mentioned above.
 * Law of Inverse Fertility -- in the "want but can't get" form only
 * Leaf Boat
 * Little Red Fighting Hood- common in Fractured Fairytales
 * The Lost Woods
 * Love At First Sight
 * Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter
 * Malicious Slander
 * Meaningful Name: Characters will be named after their visual appearance or characteristics.
 * Mock Millionaire
 * Moving the Goalposts
 * Nameless Narrative: Sometimes one or two characters (hero, heroine, villain) get names, but frequently none do.
 * Noble Fugitive
 * Offing the Offspring
 * Once Upon a Time
 * Our Dragons Are Different
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same
 * Our Gnomes Are Weirder
 * All Trolls Are Different
 * Overprotective Dad
 * Parental Incest: A common motive for the heroine to flee home is that her father has decided to marry her.
 * Brother-Sister Incest: sometimes a brother substitutes for the father. Same plot, though.
 * Pinocchio Syndrome
 * Please Shoot the Messenger
 * The Promise
 * The Quest
 * Rags to Royalty (often after a decline from royalty, or at least wealth, to rags)
 * Rapunzel Hair: though only in certain types of fairy tales.
 * Ravens and Crows
 * Redheaded Stepchild
 * Rescue Romance
 * Rip Van Winkle
 * Royal Brat
 * Royal Blood
 * Rule of Three: Three siblings of the same sex is the commonest.
 * Rule of Seven: Seven children, seven brothers, seven dwarfs, seven goats
 * The Runt At the End
 * Save the Princess
 * Scullery Maid: Running away from your father's attempt to marry you often leads to this.
 * Secret Test of Character
 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
 * Shapeshifter Showdown
 * Shapeshifting Lover
 * She Cleans Up Nicely
 * Sibling Triangle: The hero's brothesr or the heroine's sisters/stepsisters are often the final obstacle, and can be quite serious.
 * Soul Jar
 * Standard Hero Reward
 * Swans-a-Swimming
 * Sweet and Sour Grapes
 * Talking Animal: one of the commonest, found virtually everywhere in fairy tales
 * The Wild Hunt
 * Threshold Guardians
 * Trail of Bread Crumbs
 * The Trickster
 * True Love's Kiss
 * Values Dissonance
 * Walking the Earth
 * Wealthy Ever After
 * When the Clock Strikes Twelve
 * Wicked Stepmother
 * Wicked Witch
 * Wonder Child
 * World Tree
 * Year Outside, Hour Inside
 * You Have Waited Long Enough
 * Youngest Child Wins