My husband has been making his way through the TV show Grimm lately, so every now and then I’ll catch a few minutes of it while walking through the living room. It’s funny how many of the creatures and storylines trace back to fairy tales I thought I knew.
It got me thinking.
As kids, we remember fairy tales for the magic. The castles, enchanted forests, talking animals, and happily ever afters. But when you revisit those same stories as an adult, you realize they’re… kind of horrifying.
My favorite was always Beauty and the Beast.
I adored the library, the enchanted castle, and, if I’m being honest, the Beast himself. Even as a kid, I liked that he wasn’t perfect. He was rough around the edges, lonely, and trying- sometimes unsuccessfully-to become someone better.
But if you strip away the songs and the Disney magic, the story gets pretty unsettling.
A father is sentenced to death for picking a rose.
His daughter offers herself in exchange and becomes a prisoner in an isolated castle.
The servants have been trapped as household objects for years, watching their lives slip away while hoping their master can break a curse before it’s too late.
That’s not exactly bedtime story material.
And yet… it works.
I think that’s because fairy tales have never really been about magic. They’ve always been about people.
The Beast isn’t scary because he has fangs. He’s scary because he represents something familiar: the parts of ourselves we’d rather hide. Anger. Loneliness. Shame. The fear that if people truly knew us, they’d leave.
Belle doesn’t save him by defeating a monster.
She sees the humanity that was buried underneath it.
Maybe that’s why these stories have lasted so long. They take ordinary fears and dress them up in extraordinary circumstances. A witch becomes temptation. A wolf becomes betrayal. A curse becomes grief. A beast becomes the version of ourselves we worry no one could ever love.
Fantasy lets us explore those fears from a safe distance.
Maybe that’s the real magic.
So now I have to ask my readers- what fairy tale did you love growing up? And after looking back at it as an adult… is it a little creepier than you remembered?
Writing Update: The Burden of Wings
Life has been wonderfully busy lately, which means my writing time has been a little more limited than I’d like. Most of my progress has happened behind the scenes- working through plot threads, strengthening character arcs, and figuring out how scenes fit together in a meaningful way.
No shiny new chapters to report just yet, but sometimes the quiet planning is what makes the writing stronger when I finally get back to the page.
I’ll have more to share soon. 🩷
G.A.
Geneva Alaire 
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