13 Fairytale Plot Details You Never Questioned as a Child

You know that moment when you’re revisiting well-known stories as an adult and actually think about them? Or actually notice a moment that’s gone over your head for years? Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. There’s a whole list of fairytale plot details you never questioned as a child – and I’m not talking about things like “Does love at first sight really exist?” or “He couldn’t recognize her face?”

Disturbing Fairytale Plot Details
We Didn’t Notice as Kids

I blame this post on Into the Woods, Hansel and Gretel, and Van Helsing – things I happened to listen to in the background while working recently that got me thinking.

 1. Why does Red Riding Hood’s grandmother live alone in a wolf-infested forest?

This one’s more disturbing when you think about it in context with other fairytales. After all, who is it that normally lives alone in dark forests? Helpless grandmothers or witches?

2. Who decided to send a little girl alone through a wolf-infested forest? And exactly how was she safe if she stayed on the path?

Think about this one combined with the previous one. If Little Red Riding Hood‘s grandmother was a witch, it makes sense that the path to her cottage might be magically protected.

Unfortunately, it also makes sense that the path to her cottage might specifically protect children from the wildlife. Considering what witches in fairytales traditionally ate.

3. Why are princes always wandering the wilds alone?

“Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” etc. There are several fairytales where a big part of the plot is that a prince was traipsing about the woods alone and comes across the heroine.

Sometimes, this makes some sense because he’s hunting, but why is he alone? Where’s his page/squire or his hunting party?

4. Why did so many characters blindly follow the directions of cats, dolls, trees, etc.?

From “Puss in Boots” to “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” there are stories where the main character basically does whatever his or her magical guide says. It works out for the characters, but why was this a theme? Especially since these stories were meant as warnings for bad behavior. I mean, why would cultures want to encourage blindly obeying magical objects or creatures?

5. Did the little mermaid and the prince even speak the same language?

Some authors depict mermaids as knowing all the languages of the people who cross the seas (from eavesdropping). Others show them as speaking their own language. Personally, column B with a few words here and there from column A makes the most sense for a culture forbidden to go near the surface.

So if the little mermaid and the prince didn’t speak the same language, why was it so important that she not talk? Was that actually a reference to siren myths? Would the magic of her voice have made him fall in love even if he couldn’t understand her?

6. Did Goldilocks weigh more than a baby bear?

She broke the Baby Bear’s chair, remember? If it didn’t break when the bear sat on it, why did it break when Goldilocks sat on it?

7. What kind of servings did the bears have to result in such different temperatures of porridge?

Ok. My science nerd is showing, but in the same types of bowls in the same room, the porridge should’ve cooled at a similar rate. Unless the Papa Bear and Baby Bear both had more porridge than the Mama Bear, this makes no sense.

8. Why didn’t wolves chew their food?

It wasn’t like the old tales were afraid of being scary or gory. So why did several of them have wolves that swallowed people whole? To the point where the people or goats could be removed alive after cutting open the wolf.

Even big bears don’t eat like that, and considering the style of life when these tales started, the odds of not having ever seen a predator eating something were pretty slim.

9. Why wouldn’t a witch with an oven big enough to fit a person in it have magical protection from fire?

That seems like an obvious protection spell to have. Was she not a very good witch? Was she not very bright?

10. How do you prick your finger on something that isn’t sharp?

Sure. The spindle of a spinning wheel can look a bit scary, but they aren’t generally sharp. So how do you prick your finger on that? An embroidery needle would’ve made more sense given the princess’ station and the sharpness issue.

11. Did the kingdom have any thread or cloth after the King ordered all the spinning wheels burned?

There’s only so much you can do with a drop spindle. That act had to have a major negative impact on the thread, cloth, and clothing industry for the country.

Was the economic downturn the witch’s real goal?

12. Why didn’t the witch bespell the tower to keep strangers out?

That’s one case where the witch didn’t seem to do much magic. Maybe, she did something to make Rapunzel‘s hair grow so that she could get into the tower (which, honestly, seems like a very odd choice of methods). Otherwise, she only did banishment spells (assuming she used a spell for that).

Really, if she’d chosen other methods of entering the tower or protecting it, the prince would’ve had a much harder time.

13. Why did witches that ate people have to keep their word?

Did you ever notice this trend? Here’s how it usually goes: the hero/heroine has to take shelter or work for a witch, the witch agrees not to eat the character if he/she works hard, and the witch continuously tries to make the main character unable to do all of the work – by hiding a grain of what he/she’s supposed to gather, setting impossible tasks, etc. If the main character succeeds in the task, the witch has to keep her word and not eat him/her.

Why? Why would an evil witch who eats people be forced to keep her word? And how could the witch be forced to keep the letter of the promise when she was allowed to break the intention of it?

I skipped some of the most obvious ones, and I still feel like you could point out more. What makes them most disturbing, however, is the fact that we never noticed these ones as kids. What does that mean?

-Em