Starting to seriously think they are based on the faeries from Maleficient… the little ones are all strong, compared to normal mortals, but hella incompetent. The one is mists covered the very thing she should be protecting from her sight, the spymaster apparently lost her book of secrets in the stomache of a bug… and their ridiculousness during the theater quest juts shows little brains, whimsical personalities, and great power… like the 3 fairies are shown as in the movie.
The Winter Queen is clearly Maleficient. Beloved by faeries, super powerful, competent, and willing to do what is necessary. Looks regal and has a cold as hell personality… just saying seeing the resemblances here.
To me it seems a mixture of contemporary whimsical fae with a dash of the fae from legends. Personally while I love the whimsical side it would be nice to see more of the darker side.
The winter court is an idea that spans a very long time.
The Winter Court represents what people see as the malevolent side of the Fae. The fae of this court frown upon humans. They’re more inclined to talk about their ope cruelty. This makes them look none other than evil, however one chooses to define evil . The Winter Court has free reign over winter solstice and autumn equinox months, and are strongest during that time. By and by, the fae of this court are sensible, chilled, dark, baleful, and what have you. They are the epitome of winter.
However Ardenweald feel more like a mixture of all the courts combined with a large dash of Disneys Tinkerbell.
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The Night Fae isn’t based on Maleficient, they just both happen to borrow from much of the same source material.
That would make the Maw Walker the adopted Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty.
Stay away from spindles.
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I mean the reason i suggest its borrowing a lot from Maleficient is the darker part is missing… but in the disney version non maleficient, maleficient is evil… so like???
The Winter Queen and her Court of Night are ostensibly inspired by the Seelie and Unseelie Courts in the Scottish classification of faeries, as well as by Fairy Queen characters such as Titania (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)
In the original Disney version Maleficient was a dragon shape shifted as human much as Chromie is. The fae in the more recent movie were inspired by a school project on biomes and hold little kinship to the fae court of legend.
While originally creatures that were not of natural origin like giants were considered fae thats changed quite a bit since Tolkien. There now seems to be a nested hierarchy were fae is both the name of a general category and one more specific to Irish/Scottish (and some other cultures) legends.
The stories have changed quite a bit and I think it was mostly during my generation. From my grandparents I heard tails of the winter court and superstitions to avoid being kidnapped. The fae were not delightful or even helpful but rather devious creatures who had little concern for the well being of humans. From Disney I learned… well Tinkerbell.
So while I think the current idea of the fae did have a great deal of influence I think there are still a lot of roots held in more traditional lore.
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