56 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingFairy Tale
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Universal Capacity for Evil
While the central plotline of Fairy Tale involves an epic battle between good and evil for control of Empis, a quieter battle takes place within Charlie. Charlie tries hard to be a good person, but he sometimes finds himself hurting others nonetheless. As he comes of age in Empis, he realizes that good and evil aren’t binary states of being, but characteristics that coexist inside everyone. No person is essentially good or evil. An individual’s morality is continually evolving, determined by the actions they choose each day.
In Fairy Tale, King explores the idea that everyone has a “dark well” of evil inside of them. Goodness is achieved not by eradicating this well, but by controlling it. Throughout the narrative, many characters make bad choices. Some characters learn from their mistakes and choose to act with increased empathy and kindness, while others lean into cruelty and descend into monstrosity.
Charlie Reade is, at first glance, a classic, good-guy protagonist. He is kind-hearted, forgiving, and selflessly dedicates himself to the people and animals he loves. Charlie is an easy character for readers to root for, but as the narrative continues he reveals a checkered past. After his mother’s death and amid his father’s alcohol addiction, Charlie coped by engaging in actions that ranged from rude to outright cruel. His transgressions are revealed in ascending order of gravity, starting with minor pranks and culminating in the revelation that he once threw a disabled man’s crutches into a lake.
Charlie feels intense shame about his past and conceals his misdeeds from his loved ones. He believes that good people don’t experience the impulse to be unkind, so he tries to distance himself from the Charlie of the past. During his time in Empis, however, Charlie is continually placed in situations that require him to use violence. He has to kill several times to survive, and each time he taps into a “coldness” that allows him to tolerate and even enjoy the act of killing.
Charlie is disgusted to find that he can freely dole out violence without regret. He initially feels as though he is regressing to his former self when he gleans enjoyment from maiming his attackers. As he navigates the balance between love and hatred, however, he realizes that every human being has the capacity to be hateful. No one on Earth or in Empis is exempt from this dormant quality, which he likens to “a dark well in everyone…[that] never goes dry” (483). This is Fairy Tale’s ultimate take on human nature: Every person is capable of both good and bad things.
This duality means that redemption from past mistakes is always possible, but it relies on the individual actively choosing to better themselves and control their darkest impulses. Part of Charlie’s coming-of-age involves learning how to be a moral person by accepting the presence of the dark well but resisting the temptation of its poisonous waters.
Elden “Flight Killer” Gallien follows the opposite trajectory. Ostracized and bullied by his siblings, he drinks liberally from his own well of hatred and envy. This culminates in his accessing a literal dark well beneath the palace in Empis and entering into the world of Lovecraftian black magic. Elden’s repeated and deliberate cruelty eventually turns him into a literal and figurative monster.
Charlie’s coming-of-age is also marked by his realization that even those he holds in high regard are imperfect people. As he learns more about Empis, he discovers that Mr. Bowditch was a deeply flawed person who gave in to greed, stealing gold and time from Empis and then abandoning its people to the graying curse. As a result, he lived a long and wealthy but ultimately lonely life and died full of regret.
At the end of the novel, Charlie confesses his worst sin to Leah. Being upfront rather than trying to protect his reputation indicates personal growth. Charlie knows that he can still lead a good life despite his past mistakes. Emerging from Empis, he walls off the well of the worlds rather than going back for personal gain. As he turns away from the portal, he takes control of the dark well within him by rising above selfish impulses. Charlie ends the novel as a character who accepts all sides of himself and chooses to be good whenever possible.
The Insurmountable Power of Fate
Fate is a common theme in fantasy literature. Protagonists are often singled out as special, marked as the only ones who can fulfill certain tasks. In Fairy Tale, King tackles the weighty theme of fate by casting protagonist Charlie as a reluctant participant in a living fairy tale. As Charlie journeys through Empis, he discovers that he is the one destined to save its people from Flight Killer and Gogmagog. King suggests that Charlie’s life is not a matter of sheer coincidence but of a web of interconnected events, people, and choices that ultimately lead him to Empis to fulfill his purpose as the promised prince.
Even before Charlie arrives in Empis, King plants the idea of fate in the reader’s mind. In the first chapter, Charlie describes events in his life as a “thread” that led him to Empis. The red thread of fate is a symbol from ancient Chinese mythology, a belief that people who are destined to meet one another are connected at birth by an invisible thread tied around their fingers. King’s early invocation of this symbol suggests that the series of coincidences that led Charlie to meet Mr. Bowditch and undertake his adventure were laid out well in advance by some greater force. Charlie adds to the metaphor by saying that the thread is actually a “shackle,” conveying the feeling that he could not have altered his fate if he tried.
On Charlie’s arrival in Empis, characters speak of a prince foretold by prophecy, a chosen one who will save them all. Charlie is acutely aware of being “just a high school kid” (270) and rejects any implication that he might have something to do with the prophecy. As he burrows deeper into the city of Lilimar, he is moved by the Empirians’s plight and begins working to save them. In doing so, he embodies the role of the promised prince despite his best efforts.
As Charlie mobilizes the effort to save Empis, his physical characteristics begin to change, with his hair and eyes lightening. He starts to look more and more like a stereotypical fairy tale hero, “a dashing Disney prince right out of an animated feature” (440). His changing appearance causes the residents of Empis to treat him like royalty, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy as more and more people turn to him for guidance.
Charlie accomplishes feats that other Empirians could not, from freeing the prisoners of Deep Maleen to slaying Hana and Red Molly. Many of his discoveries, like throwing water on the night soldiers and shouting Gogmagog’s name, should theoretically have been accomplishable by any other Empirian. The fact that no one thought of such simple solutions before Charlie’s arrival is further evidence that only he can complete these tasks. King fuels this theory by putting Charlie in several life-threatening binds and then having him escape at the last minute. Charlie has plot armor, a phenomenon in which a protagonist can survive any and all dangerous situations because their existence is necessary to continue the plot. After Charlie slays Flight Killer, the hold of the storybook magic lessens, and he feels himself becoming a normal high schooler again, free to leave Empis for good.
Elden Gallien is another character whose fate seems preordained. An ugly and ostracized child, Elden transforms into Flight Killer after striking a dark deal with Gogmagog. While Charlie’s heroism turns him into the promised prince, Elden’s repeated and deliberate cruelty eventually turns him into a monster. Though Elden willingly pursues his transformation, he is no longer in control of his actions once he transforms beyond humanity. He tries to spare Leah, but his body moves to kill her against his will. It’s as if he is fated to carry out his role as the story’s antagonist.
The prisoners in Deep Maleen provide a counterexample of the idea of predestination. They are not protagonists, so they don’t have the same plot armor as Charlie, and they are all slated to die at the Fair One tournament. Instead of giving up and accepting their deaths, however, they band together to keep up morale and seize control from Flight Killer by escaping the castle. Their choices seem to change their outcomes, although one could argue that the prison escape was part of the fateful plan all along.
Through Charlie’s and Elden’s evolutions leading up to their final fight, King suggests that Fairy Tale’s characters are not in control of their own destinies. Yet he undercuts the bleakness by emphasizing the way that love, kindness, and bravery can change even the most fate-blighted lives. Ultimately, King leaves readers with the impression that while life as a whole may be guided by a greater force, individuals retain the power to decide what kind of people–or monsters–they want to become.
Moral Desert
In philosophy, the concept of moral desert refers to the idea that individuals receive what they deserve as a result of their actions, whether good or bad. Moral desert is a key aspect of almost all fairy tales. Thieves, murderers, and monsters are punished (often via imprisonment or death), while good-hearted protagonists are rewarded with wealth, love, or power. The triumph of good over evil is a given in many of these stories. In Fairy Tale, the main protagonists and antagonists receive their moral desert by the end of the story. The clearest examples of this theme are found in the arcs of Charlie, Mr. Bowditch, and Elden.
Mr. Bowditch visits Empis several times, each time seeking something for himself. He takes gold from the palace’s vast stores and time from the magical sundial. Though his thefts arguably don’t hurt anyone, King still frames them as morally incorrect. Mr. Bowditch’s larger sin, however, is failing to help the Empirians after Flight Killer comes to power. He then endangers both the Empirians and the population of his original world by leaving the well open on the off chance that he might want to go to Empis once more. The consequence of his actions is a feeling of regret that lingers until his death, as well as a life empty of love except for his relationships with Radar and Charlie. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he is not at peace with his choices, and he passes the burden of the other world down to Charlie. He also alludes to his slow death–a fall leading to hospitalization, followed by a painful recovery and a final heart attack–being what he deserves.
A more complex example of moral comeuppance plays out within the Gallien family. As a child, Leah and Elden are bullied by cruel older siblings, another common trope in fairy tales and myths. While Leah remains resilient and kind, Elden turns to dark magic to enact revenge on his family. When his plan comes to pass, he inflicts the harshest possible punishment on his cruel siblings in the form of brutal death. Only Leah is spared; Flight Killer rewards her earlier kindness by letting her live, although she is not untouched by his anger and he takes her ability to speak. In the end, Flight Killer is punished by the narrative for his sins: He turns into a wretched monster and is ultimately consumed by the very darkness he sought to unleash on his subjects.
Not every instance of moral desert is delivered via external means. Charlie’s punishment for his exploits with Bertie Bird is the sense of shame he carries around for much of the narrative. His reward for letting go of this shame is a sense of inner peace. Many of the moral deserts received by characters mimic fairy tale tropes; Peterkin and Christopher Polley die violently after trying to enact violence on others, while Leah, who is pure of heart, earns back the throne and rules over Empis.
The presence of this theme does not guarantee that everything that happens within the narrative is fair. Many kind and moral characters die due to offhand cruelty, like Eye. Some die by sheer coincidence, like Charlie’s mother. The world of Fairy Tale is not inherently kinder than the real world, but moral desert ensures that the forces of good win out over evil in time for a relatively happy ending.
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