Fairy Tale Protagonists are Evil

  Fairy tales are short, but sweet tales parents tell to their children to kickstart their imagination from a young age and interest them in reading. Most children's media features likable, good-hearted protagonists that you'd want to root for over the evil villains. The thing is... most fairytale protagonists are either really dumb or straight-up assholes. Today, we're only covering the latter, to not make this more of a brick wall than it already is.

 Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example. A classic fairytale about a young girl with golden hair named Goldilocks breaking into the house of a family of three bears while they're out doing... bear things. Then, she eats all of their food, breaks all of their chairs and sleeps in all of their beds. Then. the bears catch her, and she runs away never to be seen again. 

 By the way, Goldilocks is supposed to be the protagonist of the story. After all , everyone knows that people who break in to a stranger's house, eat their food, destroy their property, and then flee the scene of the crime once found out are role models which young children should definitely take after. 

 Fun fact, the original author of the fairy tale acknowledged the fact that Goldilocks was an unheroic criminal by casting her as an ugly old woman who was banished by her family because she was a disgrace, and painting the bears as good-natured and trusting. I guess breaking and entering and property damage became cool after the original fairy tale because they changed Goldilocks to the protagonist somewhere around the line.

 Speaking of breaking and entering, lets move on to the next fairytale, Jack and the Beanstalk. In the story, a poor country boy named Jack (who could have guessed) who lives with his widowed mother trading his cow for some magic beans which grows into a massive beanstalk. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds himself in the giant castle home to an unwelcoming giant, who threatens to grind Jack's bones to make his bread. Jack hides from the giant then leaves and climbs back down the beanstalk, but not before taking a bag of the giant's coins. But that wasn't enough for Jack, and he proceeds to climb up the beanstalk two more times to steal a goose that lays golden eggs, and a harp that can play and sing by itself. When the harp cries for help, the giant finally notices Jack and runs down the beanstalk to try and catch Jack. However, Jack cuts the beanstalk down and causes the giant to fall to his death. Jack and his mom are now rich and bla bla bla happily ever after the end. 

 No idea how they managed to make a fairy tale protagonist that was somehow more unheroic and committed more crimes than Goldilocks, but they did. Jack is a greedy b*stard who breaks and enters into a stranger's house, robs him of his belongings on THREE SEPARATE occasions, kidnaps a sentient harp against its will, and then murders said stranger in cold blood. Sure, the giant was villainous too, given the whole threat to grind Jack's bones to make his bread and him chasing Jack down the beanstalk, but put yourself in the giant's perspective for a moment.

 Imagine you're chilling peacefully in your house when all of a sudden you hear someone break into your house. You'd probably be on edge just like the giant was and want them to, you know, leave. And if this intruder breaks into your house thrice in a row and steals your belongings and you hear your pet crying out for help as it is being kidnapped, you'd probably want to chase after them so you can reclaim your stolen belongings. Sure, the giant could just be a murderer too, but that still doesn't make Jack heroic in any way. 

 In fact, later authors must have realized that Jack was a greedy and unsympathetic protagonist because they justified his actions by claiming that the giant had stolen these goods from Jack's family, or that the giant had terrorized the village Jack lived in previously, which just shows how much of an *ss the original Jack was.

 Also, I'll just mention that the harp in the original story cried out for the giant's help after being kidnapped and now is being held in Jack's house against it's will. It's probably fearing for its life and being forced to sing and play for Jack's family, knowing that if it tries to rebel or escape it might meet a similar fate to its owner. 

 Anyways, this probably was not what you were expecting for a blog in December, but I hope you've had a Merry Christmas and will have a happy 2023! See you next year, and in my next blog!