Fables/WMG

Fables

Fan Fiction of the Fables written by the comics' Mundanes increases their powers through popularity and subtly influences their lives, though the Fables don't know about it.

It's been established that a Fable's powers, longevity, and ability to come Back from the Dead hinge on how their stories are remembered by the Mundanes. It's also been shown that modern-day interpretations of these stories do the same thing -- specifically during the time of Jack Horner's attempt to boost his own personal power by making movies based on his exploits. Therefore, every piece of fan fiction a Mundane makes, no matter how mundane or X-Rated, should do the same.

But most fanfic is posted online. Have you ever seen a Fable use the Internet, let alone be adept at it?

This means...

Every bit of new literature since the Fables of old eventually spawns a living, breathing Fable.

As stated above, the fact that Jack Horner thought he could improve his own personal power by creating movies of his fables to increase people's belief in him proves that Fables can use modern media to spread belief of them and increase their power (Snow White, Cinderella, etc. must really be loving Disney for the assist), but what if it goes farther than that? Some Fables, like Pinocchio, have tales that are old but not ancient (the wooden puppet's stories being produced at the turn of the 20th Century), so obviously how long your personal fable's been going on in the Mundane world doesn't dictate whether or not you exist in the Homelands (though it does dictate how powerful you are, to a point). And with the onset of movies, TV, and video games, fictionalized worlds are being created practically every second, so it's likely that there is a Mushroom Kingdom, a Matrix, and a Sunnydale in the Homelands, newly formed with their respective characters and undiscovered by the Adversary or any other "old-time" Fables. Of course, that means, that with such a huge rate of expansion, there's no way the Adversary would be able to conquer the Homelands entirely, and the new, modern-day and/or future weapons would give him much more problems than he ever dreamed of. Wait until he runs into the Star Trek and Star Wars Fables. Or any of the omnipotent and omniscient Mary Sues pumped out by fanfiction authors everyhwere...

• • The Jack movies were worldwide blockbusters seen by millions. Fanfic appeals only to a relatively tiny few.
• Although not referred to by name for copyright reasons, the Land of Oz and Narnia were two of the first lands conquered by the Adversary, confirming that new Homelands were still developing at least into the twentieth century.
  • By its own Canon, the "normal" Narnia is dead and gone for anyone not in Heaven, but although it was going to pot in the final book, Aslan was ultimately the one who decided it was time to lay his creation to rest and who started its Armaggedon. In Fables, how certain is it that the Adversary personally destroyed that world, and how possible is it that he simply claims to have destroyed that world? Is this whole thing a simple nod to Narnia, or merely another author's Take That?
    • Not just that: in Animal Farm Snow White kills Shere Khan when Mowgli is an adult, but in The Jungle Book Mowgli killed him as a boy of about twelve.
    • Honestly, it's hard to be sure it's actually Narnia. There are at least three different lions that could be Aslan -- one that gets killed in his Homeland near the beginning, one who lives on the Farm, and a third. Of course, it's possible that, since it's an Aslan, the lion who was killed in his Homeland came back to life (it's what he does, after all).
    • This brings up an interesting question: at what point in a series' timeline does Fables take place? In one like Narnia, which spans several hundred years and allows popular characters to die off the Homeland might not actually resemble any one story much at all, and instead become a big mashup of all the books. In this way Narnia might not have been destroyed before the Adversary got to it.
      • Since Lancelot mentions the Great Lion when knighting Flycatcher, I figure the real Aslan probably wasn't conquered. I mean, other lions have been mistaken for him before by those who don't know better. The Narnia that got invaded would probably be a kind of an echo.
• Of course, if The Adversary finds and decides to conquer the more recently-created lands, he'd have the assistance of the Villains of those fictions. (I mean, wouldn't Darth Sidious make a deal with the Emperor, at least to betray him later?)
• If we include anime into the mix, the Adversary is pretty much screwed... Just imagine Goku, Sailor Moon, Kenshiro, Guts, Naruto, Ichigo, Kinnikuman, Guy, and much, much other anime heroes reuniting to defeat their enemy? Ouch. Taking in consideration that only the Ginzuishou has practically an infinite ammount of power, Sailor Moon could transform the Princesses into ultra-powerful sailors almost like her. Goku is, by canon definition, "the strongest warrior in the Universe". Muscleman (or Kinnikuman, as you prefer), has super wrestling skills that rendered him as the most powerful wrestler of all times. Ichigo... Well, when Bleach comes to an end, he'll probably have the most powerful spiritual technique ever, so, technically, he's training. Naruto has a bigass, nine-tailed demon, that's the most powerful thing in his Universe (although he's still training, too). Guy has hammer that can crush stars for godsake. Kenshiro can punch people to death in milliseconds, and Guts... He's the goddamn Guts. Unless, you know, the Adversary is the anime forces...
  • In a similar vein the "classic" Fable Lands of East and Central Asia would be a nightmare to conquer. Many East Asian and Central Asian myths make very little distinction between a god, demon and spirit resulting in many very powerful creatures. Rakshaha, Deva, Pontianak, Yuki-no-onna, etc. Furthermore if the "popularity power" hypothesis is true, the characters from Chinese epics like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Legend of the Water Margin and especially Journey to the West would be pretty tough. Especially since the first involves multi-generational armies, the second 108 outlaws and lastly the Monkey King himself who was powerful enough to thumb his nose at the forces of the Jade Emperor himself. Oh yes and the armies of the Jade Emperor (ie the local version of God) mentioned in Journey to the West would probably make an appearance too in the Fable Lands of the Far East....
• Also if the Adversary ever made contact with the Warhammer 40,000 universe, his empire is so seriously fucked. The Imperium of Man alone would steamroll over them although Hansel would probably get an Evilgasm the first time he learns of Ordo Hereticus.
  • Not neccesarily- they may ally themselves with him conditionally- he may be bad, but not as evil or inhuman as most things the Imperium fights- they are Lawful Evil, after all (perhaps Lawful Good. Its hard to tell. Either way, they'd ally).
  • Now, if he came across the Anime Fables, specifically Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, land of Chaotic Good freedom fighters who oppose all forms of autocracy outright and have the ability to shatter worlds...
  • Also considering W 40 K, the Fables would do well not to accidentally open a gate into a Necron Tomb World, Ork Waagh or Tyrannid swarm.
• How could you conquer Oz? Baum could never keep its depiction straight from book to book, meaning there would have to be many different Oz's and there are so many different versions of Oz, is there a Wicked Oz, Movie Oz, Musical Oz, Return to Oz Oz, you know what I mean.
  • Just because there are many different interpretations of a character/place in various stories and by various authors, doesn't mean that there are several versions of them out there in real life. There's probably just one Oz, albeit one that may have aspects of the various different interpretations -- kind of like the story of Pinocchio and Gepetto in the Fables continuity doesn't exactly follow Carlo Collodi's book, but uses aspects of it mixed with aspects from the Disney version.
• Hey, think about the comics! Just the DC Comics universe would be a complete PAIN to conquer if you're not Darkseid. Neither can you do Marvel if you're not Galactus. Combine the two together and throw in the other comic universes...the Adversary is frickin' SCREWED. (And I'd love to see Spider-Man and Deadpool get in a fight with Nightwing and Blue Beetle, which ultimately culminates in Yo Mama insults.)
  • Fables take place in vertigo, which (kind of) take place in the main DC universe, or at the very least an alternate one where the DC heroes are present. So the heroes and villans of DC aren't fictional, meaning they wouldn't be a problem for the Adversary until he tried to concur the "real" world.
• And let's not get started if the Adversary's forces ended up in Gensoukyou

It's the Fables themselves who unconsciously grant themselves greater powers.

Relying on their "Mundy Popularity" is just a psychological crutch. Evidence for this? Forgotten Fables like Wayland and Sambo still have their powers, and Geppetto and Boy Blue's abilities far outweigh their popularity.

• Also the Blackwood Witch states that she does not believe in the popularity theory when she confronts Baba Yaga. And it seems to be somthing in it, as she win easily over the more well known Baba Yaga. The witch even states that in nearly all the stories she was involved in, her part ended before the part where people start when they tell it.
  • But that was about actual sorcerous ability, while the popularity thing seems to be more about making the Fable harder to kill...
    • It's not really clear just what aspects of a Fable are affected by popularity. Jack, for example, seemed to gain increased strength and speed as well as greater durability when his movies came out.
    • The Blackforest Witch might not be as widely known by name, but she's been involved in almost every single story with an unnamed witch in it. No one says you have to be known by name, just known. She's actually far, far, far more well known than virtually any other magic using character in the entire Fables multiverse.

Proximity is a factor in Popularity Power.

Aside from being in a place she had interwoven with advantageous spells, Frau Totenkinder was able to wipe the floor with Baba Yaga because they were in America, rather than Russia. They were surrounded by people who had never heard of Baba Yaga, but knew Hansel and Gretel by heart. Not sure about how this would work in the Homelands.

The Arabians who visited Fabletown are not the real Arabian Fables.

They're such racist caricatures that I suspect they're actually based on Western bastardizations of Arabian fables. Furthermore, they didn't arrive in the real-world Baghdad, but rather the Middle East American's imagine, which is also a "fable" in it's own right. Only, no one's picked up on this yet.

• They're hardly "racist caricatures", rather they're largely true to the descriptions in the original stories... or the most popular versions of those stories, at least. Different time, different cultures, resulting in different storytelling conventions. Which, in the case of Arabic and other Middle Eastern traditions, did involve a good deal of caricature. The chronologically recent Western emphasis on "realistic" characterization didn't exist then.
• This is a rather cultural ignorant theory as it largely ignores all of the tales of 1001 night (which really exist, yes, it's true) and every other legend of now muslim countries. The only misconceptions may be Sindbad who, for newer researches, may not only be historical as a person but also chinese. But that is debateable to the aspect that most people know Sindbad as a somewhat arabian guy.
  • However, I'm fairly certain there is no belief that all djinns are confined to lamps in actual Arabian fables.
    • There isn't. Even Qu'ran itself has a part about Djinns, and they are, in general, trickster devils, and that was rather difficult to deter their irremediable nature. The whole story of genie in a lamp is, in fact, a Sealed Evil in a Can, but, in this case, a minor evil that could come handful in case the can owner outsmarts the evil, of course.
    • Traditionally (in Arabic myth) Suleiman/Solomon was responsible for canning up large numbers of malicious spirits, including jinni by tricking them into entering enchanted flasks and bottles. The lamp is from elsewhere. Note that similar legends exist in Kabbalah Judaism...
    • Remember Bill Willingham is very, very pro Israel, which is why here it's Snow that does Arabian Night while Scheherazade goes form Magnificent Bastard to just another of King Shahryar's brides to be saved by Snow via the delays, yeah...

If Americana exists, then Superman can show up.

If anyone is an American fable, it's him.

• This Troper believes you mean Captain America (comics). That's where we'll find him again, True Believers - He might be dead in 616, but there's gotta be a mythic version somewhere out there!
  • I'm still betting on Supes. Cap is popular, but not Superman popular. Plus, Fables is DC.
    • But Cap has the advantage of actually existing in America. Or rather, in a city (N.Y.C.) that exists in Fables and in Real Life, as opposed to Metropolis U.S.A. He wears a flag and Died For Real for the ideal America! And the Big Two have done crossovers before; at the very least there oughta be a Captain Ersatz of Captain America, if myth and the Afterlife aren't enough to overcome inter-company rivalry.
• Tastes great, less filling. If one can exist, both can. But Superman is the most well known and popular Superhero in Real Life.

The Jack movies are standins for Pirates of the Caribbean

Since Jack would, presumably, want to make movies about a trickster named Jack, and the actual movies couldn't be mentioned by name.

Popularity increases more then just durabillity

In FABLES, Jack is extremely popular and such nearly impossible to kill. Having Excalibur stabbed through him was only horrible in that he could not wander about in regular society sporting a sword in his chest. Then he actually removed it, despite the protests of his story-mage friend. This also explains why Bigby Wolf can do a lot more then just blow things over.

• That's not a WMG, it's canon. Jack got increased speed, agility and strength, as he himself notes in the story. Not that we can believe anything he says, ever.

The reason why no modern literary characters have become Fables is because the story of the Fable has to come to an end before the Fable is created with all the memories of of its "Story".

Due to things like Cash Cow Franchises, Spinoffs, Franchise Zombies, Sequels and worst of all Fan Fiction most modern stories never actually end and never get the chance to become Fables.

• But there have been many post-modern stories about many Fables, usually parodies or radically rebooted versions, but some actually faithful continuations of the source materials. So long as anyone is writing about one of the characters, their stories can't really be said to be "over".

Bufkin is responsible for Prince Charming's demise during Operation: Thunder Cloud.

Never mess with a monkey armed with a mountain of books.

It takes a while for stories to become Fables.

There seems to be a delay period between the writing of a story and when it becomes "real" in the Homelands; no modern characters more recent than the early 20th century, if that, show up. The mundane Real Life explanation is of course that Public Domain Characters were mainly used to populate the Fableverse, but in-story, there seems to be nobody more recent than the Victorian age. So it might take a century or so for the ideas to cross the gulf between worlds and "set" into living forms --or alternately, for the Fables world to "influence" Mundys' imaginations into adding them to their fiction.

The Fables are real and Mundy minds merely pick up mental images of them and tell stories about them.

As more worlds form links to the Homelands, their events also get transmitted to the minds of Mundies to become "new" fiction. The interdimensional patchwork known as the Homelands are eventually going to connect to all the alternate realities in The Multiverse. We're already connected, which is why our world has a portal to The Homelands; this means events in our world must be fiction in somebody else's universe.

The ever increasing length of copyright protection is a ploy by the Authority to keep new Fables from popping up.

Because should things like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny ever cross over into the public domain, the Authority is toast.

Oh, and for your consideration: Deadpool as a Fable. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

• • Deadpool is already more unkillable than most of Fabletown so it's not like it'd matter much.

Fables existed before the stories about the stories of their adventures became stories in the mundy world.

The Homelands are simply another reality populated by beings that apear to be human and animal but in reality are a single race that just has a wider dimorphism than we are used to. As said above the stories about these beings were passed into the heads of mundy storytellers. The reason no modern fiction becomes fables is because they don't exist outside of our imaginations.

Frau Totenkinder's knitting is actually a spell.

What kind of spell? Maybe it's to enhance her powers. Maybe it's a sealing spell for Mr Dark, or some future Big Bad we don't know about but she does.

Snow White was suffering from the magical version of brain cancer...

... back in Volume 2. Her Healing Factor powered by Popularity among the Mundies had been keeping it at bay for a long time, but the emotional (and later, mental) stress in Volume 1 temporary overpowered it. That explains both the Idiot Ball and why she wanted a quiet "vacation" at the Farm in the first place.

Goldilocks' Boom! Headshot! at the end of the arc accidentally blew out the tumour, preventing this sort of thing from happening again.

The "Red Riding Hood" that Boy Blue knew in the Homelands was the Snow Queen.

We know whoever it was had to be a very trusted witch, since they would not have wanted their spy to escape/turn traitor. And despite her icy heart, she does appear to care for Geppetto at least, so she should have been capable of faking her concern for Boy Blue.

Though it is possible the imposter did really like Boy Blue, at least a little bit, since they tried so hard to get him to leave on that last ship. If the only goal was to get rid of all of the rebels, it would have been better for her if Blue had stayed at the castle and died there, allowing his cloak to be claimed by the Adversary's forces.

Blue Beard and Shere Kahn are alive and plotting their vengeance.

In The Good Prince, the pair have allied with the emperor and are receiving magical treatments to return to life. When we last saw them, Blue Beard can hold a cup if he focuses enough. For all we know, they've become solid again and are carving out their own kingdom, preparing to take on Fabletown.

Frau Totenkinder secretly owns an abortion clinic.

Think about it: she used to get her power from killing/eating children, but as a citizen of Fabletown, she's not allowed to do this anymore. The Fables think she now gets her power from a drop of the blood of every newborn, but we know thanks to Kay that this is only a cover; furthermore, he says that he's seen her method of getting power, and it's something that wouldn't make the Fables happy at all. She says, however, that she's not breaking any Fabletown laws because it's a legal business. Well, abortion is legal in America, but we've seen what most Fables think of it...

• No offense, but this is so blatantly obvious that it concerns me that there are people out there who don't already consider it canon.

Jack Frost is going to become an updated version of his father.

Ok, right now Frost seems to be The Cape (trope), with a touch of Lawful Stupid, but he's clearly more naive and sheltered than actually dumb. Now, every intro to the characters makes a big deal about how Jack is a lovable rogue without the lovability. This, effectively, means he's a scoundrel, a character type that pre-dated the lovable rogue. As Frost becomes more worldly, he'll BECOME a lovable rogue.

Frau Totenkinder is a great power.

Her performance in duels against Baba Yaga and Mr. Dark, both of whom were considered great powers, suggests that her power level is in that range. When she finds Dark's empty box, she wondered if a similar box had ever been designed or constructed for her. The names of her weapons and other magical devices are rather archetypal in nature. Precisely which great power is unclear, but her knitting evokes aspects of an incarnation of Fate, and in her backstory she has, at various times, played the role of all of the Three Faces of Eve. (Though her role as Mother was quite subverted).

• The Great North Wind makes a comment about how she was about to become one, "An archetype for witches or something", but drained most of her power battling Mr. Dark.

Ozma's prophecy about the cubs

"The first child will be a king. The second child a pauper. The third will do an evil thing. The fourth will die to stop her. The fifth will be a hero bold. The sixth will judge the rest. The seventh lives to ages old, and is by heaven blessed." And here's the link http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/07/sdcc-09-the-annual-fables-one-page-tale/

My guesses are: Ambrose will either be five or seven since he's currently a bit of a moron. Equally, Winter's shyness lends her to 4 in my opinion. 2 could possibly be Blossom since she has been seen with woodland animals before sort of like Snow White and this may pan out with her living in the wild. Darien seems the likely one or six with Connor as five. Therese then fills in the last slot but six or four seem likeliest. Near-baseless speculation so far since we know very little about them but it'll be interesting to see how it turns out...

Mr. Dark will be defeated on/by Halloween

The one night of the year where everyone embraces the darkness and laughs at it. Men, women, children - they all put on ghoulish masks and laugh at death, reveling with it without fear. That will be the single day Mr. Dark is at his weakest and can be defeated. Not by the light of hope or anything else, but by a Jack O' Lantern.

Frost Taker will become a Checkovs Gun in the main series.

We know Max imbued it with magical powers, but then left it with Totenkinder.

The 100th issue was actually a parody of Wham Episodes.

Think about it: a ton of stuff happens, but most of it cancels out. Mr. Dark is trapped, but gets out. Frau Totenkinder is dead, but then she's alive again. In the end, we went through all that, and we're right back where we started, only with Frau Totenkinder going into what's likely to be a Ten-Minute Retirement.

Ambrose will become a historian.

That's how he'll "judge the rest." Hence why we've gotten narration from his point of view: It's from his writings about his childhood.

The pigs in charge of the revolution from Animal Farm weren't actually the three little pigs

They were in fact Snowball Napoleon and Squealer from the george orwell book animal farm. Snowball was Colin and was executed because the other two hate him more than any real lack of loyalty or to send a message. that's why they were starting revolutions for the sake of starting ti. as for why the rest of the characters aren't from Animal Farm there the pigs killed and took the identities of those pigs and left the rest to die because the pigs are just like that.