Fairy Tales and Capital Punishment

Previous posts on this blog have discussed how fairy tales relate to controversial subject matter such as nationalism, politics and racism. However, out of all the issues associated with fairy tales, one of the most problematic is their use of capital punishment. Many fairy tales are notable for ending with the villains getting executed in particularly lurid and gruesome fashion. Fairy tales appeal to us because of their ability at providing wish-fulfilment, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing a villain punished for their misdeeds (something which doesn’t happen as much as we’d like in real life). However, the use of the death penalty to deal with them raises a number of issues.

To start with, we need to establish a distinction between capital punishment and other means of killing off a villain. For example, Disney films often end with the villain suffering an impressively disturbing death, providing a welcome dose of darkness in otherwise light-hearted movies. However, Disney villain deaths are often accidental, with baddies such as Gaston, Frollo and Clayton falling to their deaths as a result of their own hubris. In the Disney films where the hero or heroine actively kills the villain (e.g Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Mulan), it is done during a battle, either out of self-defence or the need to protect others. There is a world of difference between a death which occurs by accident or in battle, as unpleasant as it may be, and executions which are designed to be as degrading, terrifying and protracted as possible. Thus, even those who enjoy seeing the Wicked Queen from Disney’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves fall to her death can find it uncomfortable when the Brothers Grimm version ends with the Wicked Queen being forced to dance herself to death in red-hot shoes. The nearest thing to a villain being executed in a Disney film is when Scar’s hyenas turn on him at the end of The Lion King, and that is the result of his henchmen acting in their own self-interest. In contrast, fairy tale executions are the result of a normally benign ruler (who usually tends to be the husband or father-in-law of the protagonist) adopting the role of nemesis and inflicting an incredibly unpleasant punishment in the name of justice.

However, there are techniques which make the use of capital punishment in fairy tales seem more tolerable. The main way of doing this is by reducing the characters to archetypes. Just as the heroes are purely good, the villains are purely evil. The lack of depth and internal psychology makes it much easier to hate the villains, as they are defined solely by negative traits and actions, increasing opposition to them enough to make execution seem like an appropriate punishment. In fairy tales, capital punishment seems to be presented as a relatively reliable instrument of justice. Although heroic characters may be threatened with the death penalty (as in The Six Swans) they are invariably rescued before anything bad can happen to them. One major issue with capital punishment is the fact that many innocent people get executed for crimes they didn't commit, but as this doesn’t happen in fairy tales, it seems a lot less unjust. In addition, the gruesome deaths which occur are described in a very superficial way. We just hear that they happen – the details are omitted, as the blood, gore and pain which makes these fates so unpleasant is not mentioned in any way. This creates distance between the action and the audience, ensuring that there is less awareness of the reality of capital punishment and putting it within the fantastical context of the fairy tale environment.

A key way of creating distance from the villain and justifying the use of capital punishment is through a frequently used trope called the ‘Original Position Fallacy’, in which a character makes an unwise proposal based on the mistaken assumption that they will not suffer the consequences of it. This plot device is often found in the subgenre of ‘False Bride’ fairytales (of which The Goose Girl is the most notable), in which a villainous stepmother or maidservant steals the protagonist’s throne. These stories end with the heroic king discussing the plight of the heroine and asking the villain what punishment should befall the person responsible for this. Said villain doesn’t realise that the ruler is referring to their misdeeds and, out of sadism or a desire to protect their secrets, suggests a particularly nasty form of execution for the criminal, most often involving being stuffed into a barrel lined on the inside with spikes and dragged through the streets by horses until they bleed to death. It is then revealed that they have “spoken their own sentence”, and the punishment is carried out on them instantly. With the ‘Original Position Fallacy’, the villain literally brings their fate upon themselves. This makes their suffering into a direct punishment for their overconfidence, reducing its disturbing impact.

Another reason for retaining the use of capital punishment in fairy tales is the need to reflect the fact that they tend to be set in a much harsher era. Fairytales typically take place in an unspecified version of the past which exists between the medieval era and the dawn of the industrial revolution. During this time, maidservants would be harshly punished for their infractions. In Germany, even petty misdemeanours from maidservants were treated as major crimes, with lazy or dishonest servants being forced to stand in the pillory and being banished from the town. Meanwhile the ‘Bloody Code’ in Britain meant that many maids were hanged for mere theft. In this context, the crimes which the villainous maidservant commits in The Goose Girl (Refusing to fetch water for the princess she is meant to be looking after, stealing her throne, forcing her to work as a servant tending geese and killing her horse) are definitely worthy of more extreme penalties. The period was also defined by a belief in the “divine right” of the absolute monarch, as kings, queens, princes and princesses were believed to receive their power from god. This meant that attempts to subvert this hierarchy posed a major threat to order and stability. In fairy tales, this danger is often embodied by devious maidservants and wicked stepmothers trying to assassinate or overthrow the protagonists, and a harsh response to them reinforces the message that mistreatment of royalty can have dire consequences. The society of the past was much more brutal and barbaric than the more permissive world we live in today, and the use of capital punishment in fairy tales reflects this reality whilst expressing it in a fairer way, with only villains truly suffering.

The decision to cut capital punishment out of fairy tales is often dismissed as an attempt to sanitise them. However, there are reasons of getting rid of it which go beyond a desire to avoid traumatising children. One reason is the need to adopt a more realistic approach, which avoids the moral certainties needed for the death penalty to be acceptable. This is made clear by comparing the Brothers Grimm story The Six Swans with Hans Christian Andersen’s version of the tale, The Wild Swans. Both feature a protagonist who is accused of witchcraft, but gets rescued by her brothers at the last minute. In The Six Swans, the heroine is deliberately framed for witchcraft by a wicked stepmother who kidnaps her children. The story ends with the crimes of the stepmother being exposed, and she gets burnt at the stake instead of the protagonist. However, in The Wild Swans, the character who accuses Princess Eliza of witchcraft is an overzealous archbishop, who is portrayed as misguided rather than evil and does not receive any punishment for his actions. The Wild Swans simply ends with Eliza’s innocence and purity being recognised, disproving the archbishop’s allegations about her. This difference in approach indicates a more sophisticated attitude towards morality. In real life, you are more likely of finding an antagonist like the archbishop, who acts based on mistaken assumptions and prejudices as opposed to pure malice. In this situation, the best way of dealing with them is simply to demonstrate that they were wrong. Even when using more straightforward villains, modern fairy tales have often sought different ways of giving the villains their comeuppance without killing them. In recent Disney hits such as Frozen and Moana, villainous characters have been humiliated instead of killed. Villains have been less important to recent Disney films, as the studio has focused increasingly on providing more complex and developed protagonists, so they don’t really need a spectacular defeat. Furthermore, the outright villains in these movies, such as Hans and Tamatoa, are focused on upholding their personal image (Hans with his “Prince Charming” façade, Tamatoa with his boasts about how shiny he is), meaning that the most satisfying way of dealing with them is to discredit them. Sometimes, there are better ways of dealing with a villain than simply killing them, and undermining their beliefs or image can be a stronger punishment.

The reduced focus on villains has coincided with an increased emphasis on heroes and heroines. Instead of being mere visions of beauty and power, they have to be strong, realistic characters and positive role models. This means that, for those who read old fairy tales, it can be uncomfortable to see the kind, beautiful heroes and heroines reacting to extreme methods of execution by standing back and doing nothing. In fact, in one horrifically racist ‘False Bride’ story from Portugal, The Maid and the Negress, the heroine herself is the one who suggests that the villain should be killed, with her bones made into bed-steps and her skin used for a drum. Even when her suffering is taken into account, this is unnecessarily sadistic, making the supposedly virtuous princess into a much less appealing character. More recent stories have often featured different responses to villainy, giving the protagonist greater depth in the process. In several adaptations of The Goose Girl, including the 2009 version for the popular German fairytale series Sechs Auf Einen Streich (Six in One Stroke), the heroine intervenes at the very last minute, choosing to spare the wicked maidservant from her gruesome demise and have her exiled instead. These versions of the story often make it clear that the maidservant’s actions are motivated by her frustrations with her job, and her dissatisfaction with life as a servant (This is seldom discussed in the original fairy tale, where she seems to be acting out of mere spite). Thus, the heroine’s willingness to show mercy indicates that, unlike her enemy, she is not going to let her experiences of forced servitude make her bitter and resentful. The need for protagonists to set positive examples for the audience means that they need to be merciful and compassionate as well as brave and beautiful, and refusing to use capital punishment is an excellent example of this more enlightened approach.

Conclusion

Like many issues, the decision of how to punish the villains in a fairy tale is a matter for the storyteller. If you have to kill off a villain, accidental deaths or deaths in battle are probably preferable. They tend to be integrated into the story more effectively (the execution of a villain tends to occur at the very end of the story, after their defeat) and offer the most satisfying aspects of capital punishment, such as ensuring that the villain can’t hurt anyone again, without the numerous problematic features. That said, the gruesome creativity of execution scenes in fairy tales tends to make them highly memorable, and many readers enjoy these moments. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be kept, as the means of punishing a villain should depend on their personality and behaviour. Whilst some tales have antagonists who are annoying rather than evil and not worth punishing in such an excessive fashion, others feature villains so despicable that even the most gruesome execution is not nasty enough for them. Ultimately, the approach taken towards capital punishment should vary according to the type of story. In a more moralistic tale which adheres to the primal sensibilities of Brothers Grimm, executing the villain in gruesome fashion can be an effective way of appealing to our desire for revenge. However, in a fairy tale which places more emphasis on providing complex and interesting characters, the use of capital punishment is often unnecessary and inappropriate, and should generally be avoided.