Fairy tales have been influential since humanity invented language.

Fantastical tales told and used to

explain the unexplainable and teach the complex, especially to children. From Aladdin to Hansel and
Gretel, various stories have been told throughout time and been translated between numerous
languages while keeping the core principles. Most notably in the past fairy tales were used to teach
children ideas and values that were difficult to explain on their own, such as in Little Red Riding
Hood which conveys the danger of telling strangers your personal information. Though over time
we’ve seen parts of this story develop with culture, evident by modern iterations of Little Red Riding
Hood usually missing the part where the huntsman cuts open the wolf’s stomach and fills it with rocks
while he sleeps. Another tale is Cinderella, which you can see evolve over time from the original
French tale, to the various translations, and finally to the Disney film adaptation. This progression
leaves many minor changes to be observed and a few notable significant changes, such as the
inclusion of a fairy godmother. The three most significant Cinderella adaptations are the original
French writing, Ye Xian, the Chinese version of the tale, and of course the Disney animated film.
Throughout all of them there are notable changes that only become more prominent the more time you
put between modern adaptations and older ones. Many of them however—especially in the case of
Cinderella—have step-family members or family that are unrelated by blood as the main antagonists,
seen as well in stories such as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Little Snow White.

The original Cinderella has her mother die when she is young, she grieves for her regularly and
eventually her father remarries to a woman with two children who are not particularly kind, being
described as “beautiful, with fair faces, but evil and dark hearts.” Their father goes out to get gifts for
them, Cinderella asks for the first branch that brushes his hat. Later she plants the branch on her
mothers grave and it grows quickly due to her tears falling on it. Cinderella regularly prayed to it and
a white pigeon would come and grant her wishes. The sisters prepare for a ball and when Cinderella
asks to attend the step-mother promises multiple times after she sorts peas and lentils out of the
fireplace. When the birds from the tree help her the step-mother gives up and completely refuses.
Cinderella later prays to the tree for clothes to attend and thrice she attends before leaving behind a
shoe on the last time. When the prince comes to check if it fits the step-sisters, the step-mother advises
each of them to cut off different parts of their feet to fit the shoe, however the birds in the tree call out
to the prince each time there is blood in the shoe. Eventually the prince convinces them to let
Cinderella try and it fits. They leave together happily ever after. While the tale of Cinderella has the
mother’s death work as a plot device, there is still no doubt that the extent of the help compared to the
monstrous behavior of the stepfamily is vastly separate. The mother’s only significant bearing on the
story being her telling Cinderella to stay “pious and good” before dying. The magical birds in the tree
above her grave have very little solidified relation to her while the step-mother casts Cinderella down
to a maid dressed in rags, and convinces the step-siblings to cut off parts of their feet, translated into
English being “Then her mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut off your toe. When you are queen you
will no longer have to go on foot."” which shows in direct dialogue the step-mother’s true greed and
selfishness, by her malice not only being projected to Cinderella, but as well towards the step-siblings.

Ye Xian follows a similar pattern however instead of a branch, she finds a fish and befriends it,
eventually taking it to live in a pond by her house. The step-mother is said to be “Angry that Ye Xian
had found happiness,” and dressed up as her to kill the fish. Ye Xian was distraught and kept the
bones of the fish, praying to it. When the festival came around Ye Xian wanted to go, obviously the
step-mother was against it, but when she prayed to the fish bones she was granted a magnificent dress.
However, she never met the prince directly, rather it was the shoe she left as she ran that caused him to
search for her. Eventually he found her, the shoe fit, and the stepfamily was stoned to death.The
translation to English phrases it rather bluntly “The mean woman did not like Ye Xian for she was
prettier and smarter than her own daughter so she treated her poorly.” Though there are other
translations that change details such as making her forgive the step family and others that put more
focus on the fish bones, the premise still stands extremely similar to the original Cinderella.

The Disney version, while closer to the original, loses any relevance to Cinderella's mother and
instead trades it for a fairy godmother, there are no lentils in the fireplace and the step-sisters are
depicted in what was typically considered an uglier fashion. The losing of the shoe remains the same
but the reason for which she runs away isn’t, as in this version the fairy godmother magic has a time
limit. Eventually the prince finds her, she fits the shoe, and they go happily ever after. In this version it
softens the cruelty of the step-mother, making it feel more like an honest parenting mistake rather than
an intentional choice to force Cinderella to relentlessly clean the house then refusing to let her attend
events. The most that truely exposes it is the line of narration “Thus, as time went by, the chateau fell
into disrepair, for the family fortunes were squandered upon the vain and selfish stepsisters, while
Cinderella was abused, humiliated, and finally forced to become a servant in her own house.” which
highlights what went on before the movie started at where it did.

What you see in every one of these stories is a continuation of the evil step-mother trope. In a study
conducted by Schacht Ryan, Meeks Huong, Fraser Alison and Smith Ken R, they state “Indeed, folk
tales of step-parental abuse abound cross-culturally and are embedded into stories taught to children…
However, stepfamilies are only formed after children experience multiple unfortunate events (e.g.
parental loss, poverty), blurring causal interpretations between step-parental presence and stepchild
outcomes. Moreover, stepchildren have been shown to be integral to household functioning, caring for
their half-siblings and stabilizing relationships.” and so the trope can be seen as a sort of “means” for
the abuse the characters suffer, a reason to be put down in comparison to the step-siblings and
additional research backs the idea this trope is false in a 2021 survey of 295 stepchildren, researcher
Todd Jensen found most had positive relationships with their stepmothers. It can additionally be noted
that when one progresses through these stories, particularly from oldest to youngest, certain themes
are lost over time. Particularly in regards to topics such as death and violence. The first tale the
step-sisters cut off various parts of their own feet under instruction from their mother, in Ye Xian the
parents are stoned, in other variations of the tale the step-sisters are fed to the step-mother, yet this
never appears in modern adaptations of the tale. There is always a happy ending where the worst the
stepfamily gets for their cruelty is having to watch Cinderella get married and live happily ever after.
As American author Haley Stewart says: “While protecting the innocence of children by sheltering
them from overly gruesome material is something all good parents seek to do, have we swung so far
in our attempt to protect children that we don’t tell stories that help them process dark things?” which
is especially relevant with the rise of overly sanitised children's media that show nothing but infinite
happy endings where all is forgiven. It is not just the more gruesome parts of Cinderella that are cut
out, but her grief. She is not just upset about her treatment, but her mother’s death, that with her
step-mothers abuse, isn't fully overcome and still grieves her death even years after her father has
remarried. There is very little mention of this at all in the movie besides the starting narration
mentioning Cinderella’s father as a widowed man.

When you begin to notice this pattern in reimagined fairy tales you begin to question what was lost in
an attempt to protect children. How Rapunzel was not royalty and managed twins alone after being
cast out, how Snow White’s step-mother intended to eat her lungs and liver, in Little Red Riding Hood
there is a second wolf that is also killed. In all of these the most important parts are lost, the parts that
convey the depravity of the villains to enforce the danger both in becoming cruel and trusting cruelty.
Tales that were once used as warnings washed out and replaced. While it is often said that bad things
could happen to anyone, we still shield children from knowing this and thus remove the ability to fully
understand when bad things do happen. What fairy tales convey is not always good (in the case of the
evil step-mother trope) yet it is not always bad, and how they change over time can be used as a lens
to observe the societal opinions regarding children and what they should or should not be allowed to
know about. One final time I circle back to a quote from the article written by Haley Stewart “The
fairy tale acknowledges that parents do not always love and care for their children as they ought, that
loved ones die and leave us alone and grieving, that evil is real and often powerful, and that violence
and sin are present in our world.”