a retrospective on fairytale retellings🌹 

your hair ate and left ✨zero ✨ crumbs

“If he's trying to kiss her while she's asleep, that's weird; but if he's trying to actively kill her, now that's hot.”

When you said the most important and culturally iconic retelling --- I immediately went "SHREK."

i miss how my life felt when Cinder first came out

Thank you for Barbie Rapunzel shout out. Those movies were my jam as a kid and Rapunzel was one of my favourites! That horse Boticelli was my introduction to Italian renaissance painters lmao

You asking to bring back the "normal person goes to fantasy world trope" is so funny to me because as an avid anime fan all I want is more traditional fantasy and less "normal person in fantasy world" because every show coming out lately is just an exact copy paste of that trope.

I see Cinder on the cover, I click. I SEE LEONIE UPLOAD AND I CLICKKK

Librarian here. The fairy tale retellings are still going strong. Seems like a quarter or third of all juvenile or young adult books we get in are fairy tale/legend/myth retellings. And the adults get plenty of retellings of their own.

There's a 2021 Little Mermaid retelling called Skin of the Sea, which is a duology, and integrates West African folklore, making the mermaid a Mami Wata, if anyone's interested.

ABSOLUTELY, THE BARBIE MOVIES ARE SO IMPORTANT. Princess and the Pauper and Barbie and the Nutcracker were my first Barbie movies as a kid and it's shaped me as the hopeless romantic creature that I am.

I took a fairytale class in college and let me say that the history of Fairytales is quite interesting and fun to delve into. I’m now a bigger fan of the brother Grimms fairytales vs Charles Perraults. I also found it interesting that one of the brothers (Jacob) was a linguist who created the “Grimms law” which helped linguist to pin point when consonants shift between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic. One more interesting thing is the brothers took out all the sex and the moral meanings that Charles had and made it more gruesome (which I appreciate) and apparently they did this because it wasn’t for the children but for anthropological study (Wilhelm was the Anthropologist). Fairytales do have a cultural and linguistical importance in society and I love the fact that they get retold multiple times in different lights because it’s a reflection of not what only the author thinks but what society also values as well.

20:47 "where the prince just falls in love with the prince", I want to read that!!

I love retellings if they do something actually unique that's more than "female character now gets a sword and drives the plot forward but still ends up as the prince's bride in the end". Give me the perspective of a character that was side-lined or villainised in the original. Make another person/the villain the love interest. Turn the original love interest into the new villain. Make it queer and feminist (actual feminism, not the girl now has sword kind). Take the original and put it into a whole new genre. One I loved more recently was Malice, which is a queer Sleeping Beauty retelling from the perspective of the villain, which is a perfect example of "villains are not born but made". Back in the day, I absolutely loved the Lunar Chronicles and while I do remember the retelling aspect getting progressively less good with every book (the wolf is just a streetfighter named Wolf - really? And what of Snow White was even still present in Winter at the end?), I imagine especially the first book still holds up in many ways (turning Cinderella into a cyborg who loses her entire artificial foot is a choice that I cannot help but stan to this day). I long for more creative and queer retellings that do not just repackage the original in a feminism light version or pretends to be a retelling but bears so little resemblance to the original it's barely recognisable as such, like many retellings end up being.

The best one of these is actually Till We Have Faces, CS Lewis' dark af retelling of the cupid-psyche myth from the girl boss sister's perspective.

Not me thinking the retelling of Aladdin, where Aladdin falls in love with the (male) genie sounds really interesting and progressive for its time and it then turns out the genie is changed to be female :(

There’s a Cinderella retelling that came out in 1999 called “Just Ella” by Margaret Peterson Haddix that takes place after she is found and brought to the castle, and not everything is as good as expected. It’s in a similar vein of “Ella Enchanted” for reading level and stuff, and it’s so good. Those 2 books shaped my childhood.

I have been on a fairytale binge lately. Recently read The Bear and the Nightingale, Juniper and Thorn, The Lost Story, The Book of Gothel, and now an illustrated version of the Grimms fairytales

Retellings in a fanfic component also reflects the commodification of our stories by big corporations. Like you said, our stories started as oral traditions - now they are owned by billion dollar companies. We push back by reclaiming these stories and tropes.

The amount of Peter Pan retellings that exist is WILD. I went down a researching rabbit hole not too long ago and now I have a list of almost 50 books XD

when i was younger i absolutely adored the ever after high book series which is more middle grade but felt so complex and interesting the lens of a fairy tale re-telling. i also really love how the stories not only explored the main characters but also the other kids in the school and how they are struggling with accepting their 'destined' role in the world :)

I honestly love this sort of genre(?), I've always loved fairytales growing up so getting to enjoy newer yet similar versions of them as i get older gives me such a feeling I can't describe. It's nostalgic in a way. P.s: your hair looks GORGEOUS it brings your features out a lot more and especially your eyes,you - ironically enough - look like you came straight out of a fairytale book, in a snow white or a belle-esque kind of way. so pretty!

Something she said about changing trends in what women and girls want/ who they relate the most to in stories made me wonder if similar forces are what gave rise to the "villainess" genre in manga/ light novels.

Hello I am an old. Ella Enchanted was my fave book when I was a kid, it's so sweet. I'm shocked none of Robin McKinley's fairy tale retellings were above the threshold. I feel like fairy tale retellings have always been hugely popular, it just looks like a trend because the Internet came to be and Goodreads favors more recently published books.

The Malice duology is a great retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the villain perspective, and it’s also sapphic! Highly recommend

Cinder and Once Upon A Time (plus Wicked) being my teen years is so accurate.

16:20 'isle of the lost' was originally a Disney original movie named Descendants which they later adapted into a book which gave them a opputunity to dive more into the characters lives before moving out of the island from where the movie takes place

I disagree that in grimm cinderella that the prince pushed the story forward. Cinderella pushed the story by refusing to give up and going to the ball, which by then pushed the chain of events that followed. Without her going, the story wouldn't have progressed

My off the wall retelling of Beauty and the Beast is where, after the beast turns back into a man, Belle decides she liked him better (aestheticly) when he was a beast, so they try to find the witch to turn him back. You also said you wonder where the genre of people going to fantasy worlds went. The answer is Japan. It's goes by the name Isekai. (Although, Isekai can be anything where a person travels from their world to another, be it a normal person to wonderland, or Tolkien dwarf to modern Japan).

a queer fairy tale re-telling that i enjoyed at the time was cinderalla is dead which actually went viral for some time during quarantine. it was a very refreshing take on the original tale and the plot was pretty good as well. also at this point marissa meyer is just the queen of re-tellings because her recent duology 'gilded' which is a Rumpelstiltskin re-telling was also well recieved. it wasn't really my cup of tea but i can definitely see why people would like it

bruh you hair.... IM OBSESSED 😭😭😭

Girl you know your color palette very well! Sll the colours you choose from the clothes, the decor and everything suits you very well.

There's already a secret history retelling, when we were villains has basically the same trope and vibes of the original

The 10th Kingdom is the OG retelling show. It deserves more love.

The corset you're wearing is divine, such a nice touch to the fairytale theme haha

14:00 thats is the entire genre called Isekai and its mostly popular in japanese light novels but also its in western books too

This all just gets me thinking about how storytelling in general is just such a core part of humanity and human history and they're like windows of truth to who we are as beings on this earth. Like even archetypes and tropes that aren't fairy tale inspired are all just passed down ideas from one thing to another and can probably be traced back to who knows how many thousands of years. It's just so cool, I love thinking about what it means to be human and stories is one of my favourite things to connect to it.

i'm at the tail end of writing my masters dissertation on classical myth retellings with a special focus on Medusa, and this video was so cool to watch. you touched on some of the things I mentioned in my dissertation as well which was really cool. if anyone sees this video in my references, MIND YA BUSINESS!

if you are interested, I highly recommend Disfigured by Amanda Leduc, which goes through the ways in which disability is shown in traditional fairy tales but is used to signpost villainy/punishment for misbehaviour. As a disabled person, I very much related to the memoir aspects of it, and the fresh perspective on how the signposting harms disabled people.

DUDE IM SO GLAD YOU TALKED ABOUT THE GOOSE GIRL THAT SERIES DEFINED MEEE

The book "East of the Sun & West of the moon" sounds very much like a Greek mythology retelling of the story between Eros and Psyche. (Suggestion: you could watch the video "Miscellaneous Myths: Eros and Psyche" by Overly Sarcastic Productions, it's only 6 min. and 28 sec.)

Regarding Scheherazade, I cannot more highly recommend John Barth's _Chimera._ The first part of the book is about Scheherazade and her sister. It is largely an exploration of the nature os stories and storytelling. I won't say more for fear of spoiling it. Don't forget to put Rimsky-Korsakov on the stereo while reading.

Tiger Lily is one of my favourite books ever!! Although it follows Tiger Lily it’s told from the perspective of Tink, it’s fantastic 🥰 thank you for talking about it, it’s such an underrated gem!!

The lunar chronicles is one of my all time fav series to this day

Loved this video!! I feel like people often forget Gilded by Marissa Meyer, even though it has the perfect dark forest fairytale retelling, mist and folklore vibes. (It’s a rumplestilskin retelling). Just throwing that recommendation out there ;)

Big fan of the idea of just printing out a cover image of a book you're talking about on cheap paper and sticking it to the wall!! MUCH cheaper than buying each one and/or tryna get them from the library, depending on where you live.

I was living for the fairytale retelling era back in like 2015. It was my whole personality. Now, I’m all about cozy fantasy which feels right ha

The 2010s were fairy tale reimaginings and adaptations galore. Not only in books, but other media as well: Ever After High in dolls with an animated web series and books, RWBY as an anime-inspired web series where fairy & folk tale characters are badass hunters, Grimm, Once Upon A Time, and other television shows that were centered around fairy tales and/or monsters & myth, Tangled, Frozen, and Disney’s live-action remakes as silver screen adaptations, and one of my favorite book series, The School For Good and Evil, in which young people attend a magical school to become the next heroes and villains in fairy tale storuws (it got an awful Netflix movie adaptation). I don’t know why the fairy tale reimagining craze was EVERYWHERE during that decade, but I got a lot of my favorite media out of it! I wonder if the next reimagining & retelling trend will be classic novels and stories that are in the public domain, like how we’re seeing bad horror media retelling of classic children’s tales like Winnie The Pooh or Steamboat Willie. I think this trend will continue this decade as more and more old IPs enter the public domain and people seek to make money off of them.

the look, the background, the dressss, just chef's kiss!!

This was a perrrrrfect opportunity to talk about east by edith pattou !! Its a really good retelling of east of the sun west of the moon

You had me at Cinder AND Little Thieves in the thumbnail 🤭 [Little Thieves, my beloved 💛 I will never stop recommending it to literally everyone!!!]

The dried flowers hanging above the burning candle stressing me out 😅 (also I love how you said it was 2014 towards the end. So many people I know keep saying 2014 instead of 2024, it's impressive) aaand as someone who isn't quite old enough to remember the "golden years" of YA fiction, it's endlessly fascinating to see the timelines you've made and what books influenced what trends (thinking of your YA fantasy timeline video).

I just finished „a court of thorns and roses“ an hour ago. This comes at a perfect time. So excited😍😍

On the other hand, some may love retellings but the market is probably pushing them (just like the film industry does with remakes and sequences) because it's an easy way to profit

Honestly the amount of effort and work that went into this video… I respect it so much.

oh my god you unlocked a serious wave of memories with Goose Girl! I reread that book so many times as a young teen

Your videos are the best part of my day!!!!!!

Your video just let me wind down for the evening perfectly, thank you. Your videos have such a cozy vibe, being entertaining yet not overwhelming :)

Aaaah yes we love an analysis!!

I love retellings, you explored this so well, I love these essay type videos 😊

Loved this video! I took an oral exam about fairytale retellings in uni with a focus on Angela Carter. That was a fun exam to study for.

This was such a good overview of the trends and importance of fairytale retellings! Love your way of explaining such an intricate topic. I watched it once for the context, and twice to note down all the new books I discovered!

i love your deep dives, they’re always so interesting and unique!!!

YOUR HAIR OMG IM IN LOVE YOU LOOK SO GOOD

LOVE your YA retrospectives!

loving this YA eras tour videos by Leonie!! i always feel nostalgic watching these type of videos, brings me back to my golden age of reading (when university hasnt ruined my reading life yet lmao)

Love this video! One of the first young adult series that I read and loved growing up was The Sisters Grimm which is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm

amazinggggg!! I love your videos so much 💟

You know it's gonna be a good day when Leonie uploads a video 😂

Love our YA literature classes by Teacher Leo 🥳

omg your HAIRRRR it suits you so so well, gorgeous

I love these deep dive videos! I hope you continue them with whatever bookish topic you’re feeling next :)

Totally in love with your hair and outfit 🤎

You’re outfit is to die for. Love the video!

Your hair tho 💗💕 It looks so good on you!

I didn't read a lot when i was a teenager so in the 2010s so i actually love hearing about the different books I missed from your videos

Your videos are so well researched and always so nice to watch! We can tell a lot of work goes into them, great job!

I love you a bit more every time you mention Once Upon A Time, this TV show has a grip on me 🤧💜 I looved the video, awesome job 😍🥰

So interesting :) The path from ya dystopian with a fmc to fairytale retelling just makes sense. btw your top is beautiful!

You have the BEST video essays!

your hair is absolutely giving in this video!! ur whole outfit fits the topic sooo well (also very slay video!!!)

Every time you post a video I stop all I’m doing to watch it!! Love your videos and your new haircut btw❤

I love these videos !

Your channel is a beautiful side of youtube. Truly another level❤

22:30 that story reminds me of the legend of Psyche and Cupid

Love the new hair you look gorgeous as always!

Your whole style (outfit, hair, earrings) is amazing and so perfect for the topic.

These are my favorite videos of yours !

It's perfect timing. I'm currently listening to the audiobook For The Wolf by Hannah Whitten, which seems to be a retelling of Red Riding Hood but in fact it's so much more like Beauty and the Beast

I loved this so much!! You are so good at creating a through-line in these videos and summarising your thoughts at the end. It’s so satisfying!! The only thing that’s not satisfying is the blank 2013 space 😭 I need to know what was meant to be there!!! Please!!

My comfort channel 💝

Watching your videos is like listening to a best friend talk about her hyperfixation and I love it

I love the corset! 😍 Such a nice touch to a brilliant video!

I really dig the new haircut, Leonie! :-) And gesturing with the dagger was a nice touch. Not terrifying at all. LOL.

Exellent analysis! Thanks for sharing Also: I'm half asleep and completely fascinated by how the blouse you're wearing under that corset style bodice straight up looks like a fishu. Very 18th-century vibes.

These are always my favourite of your videos! Unrelated and not to be shallow, but you're absolutely glowing in this video! Soo beautiful!

Obsessed with your new hair!! It’s giving modern snow white

YES ONCE UPON A TIME!!!

I love your videos! This kind of analysis is amazing

even tho i stopped reading i don't miss a single video from the best booktuber

As always, queen of aesthetic and digestible and interesting deep dive into a topic. I love the way people reformat the telling of a story to make it their own, to a degree it's also a form of "writing" back either to the original authors story/fairytale or the society that created them!