Fables – Legends in Exile, Part 2: In Class discussion:

Our in class discussion of fables was very interesting, and started with Joseph giving a well interpreted presentation on the subject. We went right into one of the most important topics regarding this comic, one that was also discussed in close detail in our E-Reserves article on Corporealizing fairy tales. The idea of the originally vague fairy tale characters coming to life with detailed personalities and desires, giving them a whole new level of depth and individualism. Fables puts characters like Snow White into a whole new perspective, and especially in her case we are left with a completely new interpretation of the character, once the singing, cheerful beauty in charge of keeping things tidy for the seven dwarfs in only the most un-sexual of ways, we now see her as a very active character, with a definitely present sexuality about her and in charge of Fabletown as deputy mayor. We move away from her innocent fairy tale character and find her adapted to a new complex environment. As a class we argued that these transformations where necessary to allow for a more realistic and detailed flow of events in Fabletown. The original fairy tale characters were used as templates, to set them up with a certain background in the tale, without having to introduce them individually in terms of where they came from originally.

Many times when reading through this volume of fables, this offers a way of recognizing the characters, as Snow White is presented to us as a very pale figure, with strikingly red lips and raven black hair, just the way she was initially portrayed in the tale by the Grimm brothers. Essentially we saw what a commonly known fairytale character would be like if they were placed in this New York City setting, and how their characters would have to differ to deal with the complexities of such a vast environment. This is where we saw the idea of a properly rigid “happily ever after” fade away in the story. Where the original tales left its characters vague and open to interpretation so that one would not get distracted from the clear cut plot and easily recognizable moral of the tale, Fables presents us with a very complex setting, with its characters facing real life financial and personal problems, and making their individual situations much to intricate to resolve in a clean happily ever after way with all good prevailing and all evil being eliminated by the end of the tale.

In Conclusion, Fables is a noteworthy piece of entertainment, specifically aimed at introducing adults to the world of comics, through a relatable and intelligent way of bringing recognizable fairytale characters together in a new setting, and focusing on how each one of them would prevail in a dark society like the one portrayed in Fables.