I find it _interesting_ that most modern portrayals of fairy tales involve kings, knights, princesses and so forth - the privileged aristocratic classes on top of the social pyramid. Even if the protagonist of such a tale is poor, they are still secretly from privileged parents, and their story tends to be about reclaiming their "rightful" (i.e. privileged) place in society.
Meanwhile, the _vast_ majority of German folk tales I have read feature peasant protagonists. Nobles _might_ appear, but they are the villains as often as they are a force for "good".
Reframing fairy tales to focus on protagonists of privileged birth and relegating low-born characters to sidekicks and background characters was a _choice_. It's so pervasive nowadays that most modern-day storytellers don't even realize that they are making this choice, since they have accepted this as "normal". But it is a choice nonetheless.
And if we are telling stories of our own, we need to ask ourselves what choices we are making when developing our protagonists.
#privilege #storytelling #AmWriting #ClassStruggle
Jürgen Hubert
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2026-09-23 07:29:14 UTC
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