Published: January 29th 2021, 8:16:10 pm
So… Fate: The Winx Saga came out, and… it’s an oof.
On its own, its a barely passable teen show that does nothing unique, but when you look at it through the lens of it being an adaptation, it quickly becomes even worse. This show doesn’t understand any of the demographics it tries to reach, and as such, it quickly falls apart under the barest amount of scrutiny.
Not only is the writing and characterization lackluster, but this show also has plenty of other problems, including the infamous whitewashing of several kickass BIPOC characters. I’ve made plenty of other videos about Winx Club, as well as a video foretelling the doom of Fate, so feel free to check those out up in the cards or down in the description.
That said, today I’m primarily going to be focusing on how the show handled each character through the adaptation, with some words on the worldbuilding specifically at the very end. Again, this is coming from a diehard Winx Club fan who feels this is a spit in the eye to the original franchise. With that said, please enjoy my descent into madness.
There’s been a lot of talk over Elisha Applebaum’s ethnicity in regards to Musa being whitewashed. As far as I’m aware, there’s been no official confirmation, and Applebaum isn’t obligated to disclose that information if she doesn’t want to. However, she’s still very much white passing, which is a shame given Musa is Asian-coded, specifically Chinese-coded. The role could’ve easily gone to a number of Chinese actresses, who already face systemic barriers keeping them from the same opportunities as white and white-passing actresses.
That said, Musa’s actually well represented here in terms of personality. She’s far rougher around the edges here given… well, everyone in this show is an asshole for some reason. But when it comes to her personality as someone who means well, but is a bit of a loner who’s experienced loss, they pretty much hit the nail on the head.
The biggest change to Musa’s character is her powers. Music is still associated with her character, but it’s been changed so it’s a barrier she constructs to separate herself from others because of her new mind powers, given in Fate, she’s a Mind fairy. She has no real offensive abilities, but she can pick up on other people’s emotions, as well as sense the presence of others.
I actually find this change interesting. There’s a line from the first movie where Musa says, “I can hear the secret song in each person’s heart, and I can see it!” It’s a throwaway line, honestly, but I always thought it’d be interesting to see her music powers open a door to empathic powers. Her music powers being completely removed is a shame, not only because it made her one of the more unique characters in terms of magic, but also because music was crucial to her character.
There’s a scene in the final episode where Musa talks about how when her mother passed, her empathic powers made her feel all the pain her mother did as she died. It adds to her need to keep away from people for fear of losing them. And honestly, it’s probably one of the very few moments the show actually got some genuine emotion out of me besides annoyance or confusion.
However, music no longer being vital to Musa’s character takes away a core bond between herself and her mother. She talks about wishing to hear her mother playing the piano, and singing with her mother again like when she was little. Her father even swore off music when her mother died because the trauma was that profound, and it made for one of the best episodes of the entire series.
So to see music taken away from Musa is a shame, especially because I would’ve loved to see those empathic elements explored through the music. Aside from that, Musa’s only real storylines are her blooming romance with Sam, and her awkward friendship with Terra as she warms up to people and goes, “Maybe human connection isn’t so bad after all.”
And for what it is, I actually like how that friendship develops, with Terra getting Musa to come out of her shell and help Sam when he’s in pain, and with Musa getting Terra to take action and not be a doormat for everyone else. Really, it’s the only bond in the show that I actually sincerely but into. The only things that come close are Dowling’s grandmotherly concern for Bloom, and Bloom’s strained and messy conflict with her mother, but the latter comes with its own host of issues that keep me from fully caring.
So if I had to say which girl Fate handled the best, it’d be Musa. Still doesn’t give them a pass for the whitewashing, though. Or the fashion choices. The fuck is this raspberry reject color scheme? I admittedly have no clue how Razzies work, but if this show should get one in anything, aside from the whitewashed casting, it should be for the wardrobe department. Stella would be ashamed. And speaking of Stella…
I’d like to propose an idea: this Stella is not the Stella we’re used to. Yes, you can say that about everyone on this show, but Stella specifically is radically different from how she is in the original series. She was loud, energetic, sociable, and knew good fashion like the back of her hand. This Stella, by comparison, is reserved, antagonistic, and dresses like a wine mom in her late 40s.
And the thing is… I actually kinda like the idea behind this new version of Stella. She’s her own character, and which you prefer is more a matter of preference. It reminds me a lot of the radical shift in Sailor Mars’ personality and values between the original manga of Sailor Moon, and the ‘90s anime. So going forward, I’d like to refer to the original Stella from the series as Sun Stella, and this live action version as Moon Stella, mainly cuz of her mom.
In the original series, Stella got her solar powers from her father, King Radius of Solaria, and her lunar powers from her mother, former Queen Luna. She’s much closer with her mother, and the two have an adorable father-daughter relationship for the most part, though Radius is shown to be rather aggressive and unaware of his daughter’s emotions later in the series. But it explains why Stella is as outgoing and passionate as she is if she’s more in touch with her solar side.
By comparison, Fate has Luna in charge of Solaria, and she’s nothing like she was in the original. She’s a fierce ruler whose focus is gaining power so her kingdom remains unchallenged and unthreatened. One of Luna’s main goals is trying to accelerate Stella’s training so she can basically be used as a weapon, so much so that Stella was pushed before she was ready and blinded her previous roommate, which Luna helped cover up, because she’d legitimately rather her daughter be feared by people thinking she intentionally blinded someone who crossed her, than seen as weak for the truth of it being an accident.
And when Stella escapes her mother, she winds up developing invisibility powers, which kinda ties in her wanting to avoid Luna, which… can ya blame her? This Stella has fucked up, yes, but I also find it interesting to see how she could’ve turned out with a different upbringing. She’s trying so hard to project strength, she essentially pushes everyone else away rather than asking for help. And it’s also a shift given none of the Winx originally had these kinds of toxic and abusive relationships with their parents. The closest you get are Musa’s father forbidding her from singing in season 2, and Aisha’s parents sheltering her, and then trying to arrange a marriage for her.
The only real issues I have with her are in the form of her and Sky’s relationship, but more so from Sky’s side than Stella’s. Stella is relying on Sky for so much emotional support that it’s harmful to both of them, and Sky’s just kinda going along with it because… I guess we need the love triangle. Stella’s moment of acknowledging the toxicity of their relationship actually kinda hits for me, but more in the sense of it’s Stella taking the first step towards standing on her own. I honestly couldn’t care less about Sky in all of this. Could she maybe meet Brandon soon? Please? And let’s not also whitewash him?
So… yeah, I like this Stella. I still prefer OG Stella cuz she is a relatable queen, but like I said, two different Stellas. It’s like comparing apples to oranges, or I guess, comparing the sun to the moon.
So uh… turns out there’s a lot more to Terra than we once thought. When Eliot Salt was cast for Fate, it turns out she actually was supposed to be Flora. This is brought up in ModernGurlz’s video about Fate, so I’ll link it in the cards and description, but it’s pretty clear that Rainbow did intend to try and whitewash Flora by choosing a white actress to portray her; a decision which becomes more insidious when you see how Flora’s skin tone has been lightened over the years across World of Winx and season 8 of the animated series.
So when the backlash started, the crew behind Fate likely decided that rather than find a Latina actress for Flora, they’d instead change the character’s name to have an excuse for her being white. Hence why we now have Terra, and why she randomly mentions having a cousin named Flora. It’s a last ditch effort to try and minimize the damage, but it makes it all the more obvious they intended to whitewash Flora all along.
That alone has made Terra unlikable to most viewers, myself included, but whitewashing aside, she has a decent story arc here of learning to stand her ground. She’s very talkative, but has a hard time making friends, and often feels out-grouped by others. They also add in some casual fat-shaming, which yeah, I get they were trying to add some plus sized representation to make up for long-running criticism of the original designs, but you do that by having a cast filled with different body types, and not having those body types be their entire characters.
There’s also the weirdly homophobic and biphobic stuff they do with Dane and Riven that we’ll discuss later on, which seems to be used to make Terra come across as a better, more righteous person to the audience. Like, “Oh, Dane was such a good guy when Terra hit on him, but now that he’s with that edgy bad boy Riven he’s nothing but trouble.” No thanks. I actually dislike Terra more because of this, so thanks.
The only redeeming moments for Terra come in the form of her friendship with Musa, but even then, Musa is the one doing all the real work. I’m at least happy that once Musa came clean about why she couldn’t help Sam, Terra didn’t force Musa to go back. Musa decided to of her own volition. But again, Musa is the one doing 90% of the work.
Out of all of the girls, they did Aisha the dirtiest. Aisha is one of the few cases of a new member of the group actually turning out to be a great choice. Hell, she’s still probably the best written out of the main six. A princess of the ocean world of Andros, a Fairy of not only water, but any fluid, and a loner who grew up sheltered who seeks deep friendships and freedom. A complex main character who’s a young black woman and a princess. We stan.
So imagine the fury upon seeing Aisha in Fate not only have her powers watered down (GODDAMMIT BARB), but also serving as Bloom’s babysitter and a teacher’s pet the whole time with no real story of her own. Bad enough that Flora and Musa being replaced and whitewashed respectively turned Aisha into the token black character, but you don’t even have the courtesy to give her a complete narrative that isn’t cleaning up after and sucking up to the white characters? What a joke.
The shame is that there isn’t much to even say about Aisha here, because she’s barely given any material to work with. She’s not even a princess for god’s sake! Imagine if Andros and Solaria were rival kingdoms, and maybe that added to the conflict between Aisha and Stella. But nah. Aisha’s backstory is wading through literal shit when her powers went out of control as a kid. I’m not joking. That’s an actual thing that canonically happened. Thanks, I hate it.
If I had to summarize how they changed Bloom, it would be that they made her edgy as hell. Original Bloom wanted to be a fairy since she was little, and never felt like she fit in on Earth. She’s a little cinnamon roll who, yes, has a bit of a temper, but ultimately means well. That is not live action Bloom in the slightest.
This Bloom is completely self-absorbed, wanting so badly to figure out who she is and where her powers come from, she winds up ruining everyone else’s lives. She’s basically what most bad faith critics painted Bloom as in the early days. And the thing is… it could’ve worked. If you want a more mature story, it actually helps to make your protagonist more morally gray with major flaws. You just to… ya know… acknowledge those flaws… have those flaws called out… have there be major consequences… just saying.
Instead, Bloom gets rewarded with transformation magic (more on that later) through literally no training or insights, and everyone just coddles and praises her for the bare goddamn minimum. Aisha isn’t given a chance to call out Bloom for using her or talking past her, Dowling is too busy trying to comfort Bloom to lecture her for releasing a goddamn war criminal, and Sky’s cool with Bloom knocking him out in a vulnerable moment because she decides to make out with him as magical zombies try to kill them all. Wow. Such growth.
There’s also the weird dynamic between Bloom and her mother Vanessa. In the original show, Bloom’s adoptive parents are loving and nurturing, and they’ve also known about her magic since day 1; they just weren’t sure how or when to tell her the truth. This Vanessa, though? She does not own her own flower shop (in which Bloom appeared in a fire one night as a little babboo), but instead comes across as a neurotic helicopter parent who does not believe in privacy whatsoever.
She takes Bloom’s door away because she’s too introverted for Vanessa’s liking, and Mike just goes along with it because he has the personality of sandpaper. This all comes to a head with Bloom setting the house on fire accidentally when her anger boils over, giving her mother third degree burns, and conceptually, I kinda like that. I like how dark we were willing to go, but we don’t do anything with it. The parents don’t know Bloom did it, or even suspect her, so any real tension we could’ve had just isn’t there.
Ultimately, Bloom’s story of learning to control her emotions and trust people who mean well comes off as her being a selfish idiot who stumbles into victory time and time again. And if your main character sucks, the rest of your story is bound to crumble.
So instead of having the infamous trio of witches, the Trix, this show instead decided to condense them all into one unmemorable character. They took Icy’s ruthlessness, Darcy’s manipulation, Stormy’s powers, and NONE of any of their charm, and created… Beatrix. Yes. Be. A. Trix. I said it once, I shall say it again, the fuck is the name? If you had to stick with the name Trix, then why do not go for Trixie? Whatever.
That all said… Beatrix is unironically the best part of this show. She’s the only character who I actually feel invested in, and that’s solely because she’s shooting down everyone else’s egos and playing them like fiddles. It’s not her fault if everyone is stupid enough to let her assume control.
Not to mention that I was actually fully onboard with her at the reveal of the Aster Dell backstory, where she’s motivated by the fact her family was killed by the professors of Alfea. But then add the fact it was a village of blood witches (more on them later), and you get a genuinely interesting villain who’s out for vengeance.
To be real, she’s everything Cinder wishes she was. I mean, I usually joke about how Icy is what Cinder should’ve been, but even Beatrix, a lesser amalgamation of the original Trix, is leagues better than Cinder Fall. Wow.
… oh boy here we go. Okay so, we know the show whitewashed two characters, turned the main black member of the cast into a token who exists to serve the needs of everyone else’s stories, took the chance to have meaningful plus sized rep and turned it into, again, token rep with fat shaming jokes, so… what gave these writers the idea they could even handle LGBT rep?
The only specialists from the original series still here are Sky and Riven. Riven is now given Brandon’s role of being Sky’s best friend (though not squire, oddly enough), but Riven’s primary role is just being an idiot who’s led on by Beatrix. It’d be similar enough to Riven being strung along by Darcy, except that Riven already had problems of being a sexist, self-centered jerk. This Riven, though? His biggest problem is being lowkey homophobic towards Dane, which he’s never actually punished for.
Dane himself seemed fine at first. I actually liked him as a character who could be either gay or bi who had a crush on Riven, but would have to get over it once he realized that Riven was just a jerk leading him on for his own amusement and advantage. It’s a tired story for gay characters, especially when it’s your only legitimately LGBT character, but it’s something at least.
Instead, they do this weird-as-hell polycule between Dane, Riven, and Beatrix, where Beatrix is leading them both along for her agenda. Which… great, we love not only polyamory being a villain-only thing, but also the only LGBT characters being antagonists. For those unaware, polyamory is a practice of romantic and/or sexual relationships between more than two people. Not cheating, as that involves deception and dishonesty, whereas with polyamory, everyone is on the same page and 100% invested.
Ideally, Dane would’ve just realized Riven was a jerk and moved on, only for Beatrix to make Riven continue being a jerk to Dane. Instead, Dane kinda becomes more of a Beatrix stan than Riven ever was, with both of them serving her by the end of the season, which… why? What is the purpose of any of this? And why is Dane so pissed at Terra? Yeah, he fucked up, but Terra’s not obligated to forgive him, especially when she was nothing but kind and protective of him. And I can’t even root for Terra cuz the lowkey homophobia is making me hate her even more.
There’s also the biphobia, where Dane and Riven both fit into bisexual stereotypes of being problematic jerks who get with anyone and everyone. Say it with me, fam: Bisexuals are just as capable of entering and maintaining healthy relationships as anyone else. Whether you’re a bisexual who prefers men, women, or anyone else, you are valid. I’m also gonna take this moment to remind y’all bisexuals are in fact capable of loving trans and nonbinary people, because bisexuality is not inherently transphobic. I will not tolerate my LGBT brethren being shamed and demonized in my house.
… Oh god, now I’m scared of what Fate’s attempt as trans rep might look like, and ya know what? Maybe having a cis white guy directing this show about young women from a show praised for its diversity was a bad move.
The professors are… not that bad, actually. They try to do this angle where they’re kinda shady, but ultimately mean well, and for the most part, I don’t mind it. I’m not sure if Faragonda’s name has been changed to Dowling as much as Faragonda is now her first name. That said, she still fills the role of a fairy godmother figure to the girls… well actually, exclusively to Bloom here, because Bloom needs all the attention in the world, or else she’ll probably burn down the school.
My only problem with Dowling is that they don’t do enough with her. In the original series, Faragonda had a direct connection to Bloom’s birth parents and most of the major villains. But here, Dowling’s connection to Bloom is purely tangential. She helped destroy Aster Dell, yes, but she had no idea Bloom was here, and doesn’t have a clue as to who Bloom is. She can’t even figure out Bloom has the Dragon Flame, Rosalind has to tell her before she kills her. (And yes, we’ll get to the death and Rosalind in a bit)
There’s also the fact Dowling… found Bloom in an abandoned Gardenia warehouse? What? How would Dowling know to look here? Why would she even be here? Not only does it make no sense, but it also robs Bloom of her agency. Stella offers the invitation to bring Bloom to Alfea, but it’s still Bloom’s choice to follow. And when Bloom is found out as an Earthling, she owns up and asks to be kept at the school. She’s not the most active protagonist mankind has ever seen, but it’s better than Edgy Bloom just reacting to literally everything around her.
As for Saul, a.k.a. Saladin, I… don’t care. Legitimately, I don’t care enough about him, Sky, or Erendor—oh I’m sorry, Andreas—to analyze them. Same for Terra’s father. Part of me kinda likes the idea of Flora being a bookworm because of her having a parent who’s also a professor, but it’s not Flora. It’s Terra. Therefore, I don’t care.
The only adult character I genuinely like is Rosalind. She’s ruthless and cutthroat, and will do anything to achieve her goals. I actually like that we had that lead-on with Rosalind calling out to Bloom, which evokes memories for returning fans of Daphne, Bloom’s late sister. And then surprise, surprise, it’s not Bloom’s kind sister who died to protect her. It’s the former headmistress who wants to turn Bloom into a weapon, kinda like what Luna wants to do with Stella.
But even then, Rosalind’s goals are still cloudy, so I’m still not onboard with her. Her moment of killing Dowling is kickass, I will admit, but to see Dowling eliminated in the very first season is confusing. What was even the point of her if she was going to be done away with so quickly?
I saved the worst for last: the worldbuilding itself. Winx is completely unlike most of its contemporaries. Instead of going for the cliche fantasy world most of us are used to, it decided to fuse magic with futurism. Magix City is exactly what you’d picture a city of the future to look like, complete with floating cars, airships, and other sci-fi elements.
The Otherworld by comparison is exactly what you’d expect from your typical fantasy series, with an old castle devoid of any personality, and a generic forest. Even the name “Otherworld” is so boring. The Magical Universe was home to countless different planets, all with vastly different cultures and ecosystems depending on what magic reigned there. But the Otherworld just looks like someone decided to pick some random British castle and call it a magical fairy realm. Even the fact everyone in the Otherworld has a British accent, mostly English accents, is exhausting.
The only choice I do kinda like is that they condensed the schools into one building. Practically it was probably to save on location costs and to make production easier, but story-wise, it also keeps all the characters close together. They could’ve kept them as separate schools on the same campus, but I’ll take what I can get.
But what I can’t accept is what they’ve done to both the fairies and the specialists. Fairies apparently have lost transformation magic, likely as an excuse for the show to save on more expenses. They instead save it until the very end for Bloom (with her not having earned it in the slightest), but all it amounts to is Bloom sprouting ugly wings of fire and… nothing else. No iconic transformation music. No cool anime poses. And worst of all, no fairy outfit? You couldn’t even go for the badass warrior aesthetic of Bloomix to keep it edgy? Criminal.
The specialists likewise are unimpressive. They weren’t fantastic in the original, but they at least had access to airships and sci-fi weaponry to try and help out the girls, and that also came with unique uniforms. Here, the specialists are all decked out in black because edgy, they have no armor, they have basic-ass swords, and I hate all of it. The only boon here is that anyone, regardless of gender, can be a fairy or a specialist, which is a fantastic change.
The witches, however, got completely screwed over. Granted, the original series had a weird love-hate relationship with witches. They studied at Cloudtower, and it’s clear they’re meant to defend the Magical Universe from evil like the fairies; they just do so in a completely different method relying on different sources of power. Witches like Griffin were noble heroes, but the show also tended to portray most witches as leaning more towards evil, to where many fairies are more than happy to paint witches with broad strokes as such.
They fully committed to that here. There are no witches at Cloudtower. Beatrix herself is apparently a fairy, but even if she’s a witch, it makes her a “blood witch.” A human who uses sacrifices to attain magic. We never actually meet any blood witches this season, but they supposedly are the inhabitants of Aster Dell who kidnapped Bloom as an infant for her magic. I’m just so over witches all being painted as evil. Again, I am exhausted.
And… the Burned Ones. Honestly, I’m not sure what they’re even meant to be. Rosalind says they’re humans who were transformed into these monsters by the Dragon Flame, and they’re apparently vicious creatures who can infect others just by scratching them. They’re basically zombies, except boring.
We have so many monsters from the original series to go with: ogres; ghouls; trolls; even the Army of Darkness, which for a while I thought were the inspiration for the Burned Ones. But ultimately, the Burned Ones are nothing. I don’t care what they are or where they come from, and no, I’m not scared of them, because they’re boring and uninventine.
So… that was a lot. Fate: The Winx Saga could’ve been an interesting departure from the source material, but it’s clear it doesn’t respect it whatsoever, and is trying so hard to be every dark, edgy, paranormal fantasy series for teens, that it has no identity of its own. It’s a mishmash of other shows with the Winx names branded onto it. I’m only interested in a second season to see how the trainwreck continues, but I think it’s clear most Winx fans are not happy with this product.
Maybe if you’re not a Winx fan, you’ll enjoy it. But even then, I don’t think there’s enough here for the show to stand as its own entity. It’s a mediocre mess that’s too busy trying to look cool to actually do anything cool. And that is the greatest crime… aside from the whitewashing, fat shaming, terrible LGBT rep, biphobia, horrendous fashion, and so on, so forth.
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I’m the Unicorn of War, and Kesha deserved better. Oh yeah, one of Kesha’s songs was featured here, and I was offended on Kesha’s behalf. Disgusting.