Fables: The Adversary

[Smuggletrain]

Since The Adversary will be revealed soon, who would you personally like him to be? This thread is not to speculate or argue over who it actually is.

Early in the series I would have liked to see the Cowardly Lion from Oz become the Adversary. His gift of courage from the wizard taken to extremes and perverted into a lust for domination.

Really it would work for any of the Oz trio. The Scarecrow's brain resulting in him becoming a calculating tactician. The Tin Woodsman's heart being clockwork and cold and unable to manifest compassion.

How about the rest of you. Any personal favorites you thought would be a cool idea?

[The Adventurer]

My big guesses continue to be

The Blue Faerie - Establishing the Gepeto/Pinnochion connections.

The Generic Woodsman - Ever the Fairy Tale hero, taking his talents to the big leagues.

[Duy]

I want it to be Peter Pan, establishing a connection to the "Pan" figure we saw in one of the early issues.

[The Adventurer]

Can't referance Peter Pan and Co. by name because they are Copywrited Characters. Owned by a Childrens Hospital in England. You can be vauge about it, but if you need an established character to be the Advesary, being Vauge isn't an option.


Personaly I'll be very disapointed if it ends up being Pan, the Half Man Half Goat Fae/Devil. It's so.....predictable.

[The Dosadi Experiment]

I still say it's the devil.

The devil is a character that can be seen throughout hundreds of fables and fairy-tales. He's had pretty big roles also. I'm surprised he hasn't made an appearance yet.

[Smuggletrain]

Can't referance Peter Pan and Co. by name because they are Copywrited Characters. Owned by a Childrens Hospital in England. You can be vauge about it, but if you need an established character to be the Advesary, being Vauge isn't an option.

And that has nothing to do with the thread. Once again, this thread is not to speculate who the Adversary will be revealed to be. There is already a lengthy thread on that topic. This thread is for each poster to lay out who they would like to have seen as the Adversary.

[milk114]

Which would make a better story for the Advesary... a "good" guy gone bad/mad with power or a "bad" guy gone worse with power?

I would like to see an Adversary who is not evil by any means but benevolent. A traditional "bad" guy who is just misunderstood/misguided and now making amends by creating paradise in the conquered lands.
In other words have the fables in the mundy world misunderstand what's been going on all these years.

Sort of like the idea that the Adversary is a nice Stalin/Castro who actually creates a true communist state where once the dust settles people are better off versus the rich capitalists who were driven off because they wanted to maintain their own personal wealth and prestige (Bluebeard, Prince Charming, King Cole) or they misunderstood what was going on (Three Pigs, Flycatcher).

And in this Benevolent-Castro figure I would place ***Santa Claus.***

The "fables" website I had bookmarked isn't working and can't seem to find any other fansite, and all my trades are at a friends house in another state so I can't say for sure whether Santa Claus has been in the book yet or not, but I believe he *should be* the Adversary.

In truth he would be one of the younger fables, especially the U.S. red-suited fat man drinking the Coca-Cola version. But this added more power to him as his story became crystallized in the minds of children everywhere. Add to that he brings gifts to everyone in a single 24-hour period, and that he is omniscient. Why only make everyone happen once a year when you have the power to make everyone happy all year round! And all the dark creatures, wizards and so on that he used to "conquer" other lands don't seem so dark when compared to some of the "good" folks in Fabletown (Bluebeard and his butler, Gingerbeard grandma, Bigby Wolf and his pop).

I guess my hope is that there is some sort of inversion of our expectation of "good" and "evil" as we only really see the opposing forces from fabletown's point of view. I'm not saying I want Snow White to be evil but since Willingham has gone out of his way to show the grayscale of morality in many of the stories, especially Animal Farm and Bigby I think that also should be applied to the Adversary/Emperor and his gang.

I think Santa Claus would be great. And imagine a trash-talking Rudolph ala Pinocchio. Or better yet, make the adversary Mrs. Claus, who is definitely not part of the older, pre-19th c. traditions. She gained power along with Mr. Claus. No one ever mentions what it is she does but keep Santa happy so why can't she usurp his position in trying to make everyone happy? Break a few eggs and all that.

Go Santa Claus go!

[Smuggletrain]

^ I really like that idea. Especially because noone ever really thinks of Santa as being omniscient, thus making him one of the most powerful fables. Plus maybe his appearance alters according to whatever land he is in. Being that a good number of fables are Germanic in origin, he could appear in those lands as the classic German wanderer Santa.

[BlaqueBolt]

santa is an interesting idea, but i would be pissed if it was santa. We all know who it is but i would like it to be the actual brothers Grimm, but timeline really doesnt allow that

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I like the idea of it being Walt Disney.

Or maybe any corporation really.

Or Shrek.
nothing made me wish I was watching an actual fairy tales adaptation than watching Shrek.
It made me depressed - if this is rthe best we can do to replace the old one's then we are in deep shit, was my thought whilst watching it.

[The Dosadi Experiment]

Santa Claus is just a bastardization of Sinterklaas.

you people only have your jolly fatman, because we brought you the character of Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas, a bishop, a miracle worker, long and thin with a golden staff, rides a white horse, and has his black peters, black manservants who do his dirty-work.

our version is so much cooler than yours is, because our version is totally hardcore.

[Spiff]

I just hope it's not Gepetto, unless they do something to really make him snazzier. I just find it so...meh.

I do like the Santa Claus suggestion, though. I mean, is a guy that sneaks into your house, no matter what the reason, all that nice? The Tooth Fairy too.

But just to throw a suggestion, I want to see Aesop being a mad collector of Fables, in order to add them to his repertoire.

[Kirayoshi]

I arrived kinda late into interest in Fables, but I had an idea.

Wouldn't it be weird if the smallest of fairy-tale characters turned out to be the most powerful?

My nomination is a character who once saw himself as the conscience to another character, only to be spurned. He resented it bitterly, until he decided to become the 'conscience' or commanding voice of all Fables. He took over the land because he thinks he knows what's best for everyone else, and wishes to impose his will on the world.

I nominate--The Talking Cricket from Pinnochio.

And yes, he was originally called the Talking Cricket, not Jiminy.

[static]

i gotta sneaky suspicion that the "advesary" is going to be some existential being..like the adversary is a manisfestation of the apathy todays culture has for traditional fairy tales or something like that.

Personally just hope that its a character with a story and not some representational being.

[The Adventurer]

I arrived kinda late into interest in Fables, but I had an idea.

Wouldn't it be weird if the smallest of fairy-tale characters turned out to be the most powerful?

My nomination is a character who once saw himself as the conscience to another character, only to be spurned. He resented it bitterly, until he decided to become the 'conscience' or commanding voice of all Fables. He took over the land because he thinks he knows what's best for everyone else, and wishes to impose his will on the world.

I nominate--The Talking Cricket from Pinnochio.

And yes, he was originally called the Talking Cricket, not Jiminy.

Possible, but in keeping with the original story of Pinnochio, the Cricket was killed by Pinnoc, crushed by a mallet.

[Kirayoshi]

Possible, but in keeping with the original story of Pinnochio, the Cricket was killed by Pinnoc, crushed by a mallet.
Well, keeping with the original story, didn't the smart litte pig kill the Big Bad Wolf by placing a pot of boiling water under the chimney as the Wolf was climbing down it?

Death seems to be as ephemeral in the world of the Fables as it is in other facets of comics. So maybe the Cricket survived Pinnoc's attack. Maybe it was Pinnoc's trying to kill him that led to the Cricket's taking a more Macheivellian approach.

[Forsaken_One]

Well, keeping with the original story, didn't the smart litte pig kill the Big Bad Wolf by placing a pot of boiling water under the chimney as the Wolf was climbing down it?

Death seems to be as ephemeral in the world of the Fables as it is in other facets of comics. So maybe the Cricket survived Pinnoc's attack. Maybe it was Pinnoc's trying to kill him that led to the Cricket's taking a more Macheivellian approach.
And Red Riding Hood (I think) cut open the wolf and put stones in it, then threw him into a river. His excuse was that he could hold his breath for a long time, being part wind. They just come up with excuses for whoever surviving and occasionally ignore death or a happy ending (the blind guy who saw only evil had a happy ending as I recall).

[Sharcque]

I originally wanted it to be Alice in Wonderland, the story being that she cut off the Queen of Hearts head, and replaced her as the new Queen...

[Blueferret]

Possible, but in keeping with the original story of Pinnochio, the Cricket was killed by Pinnoc, crushed by a mallet.

Heh. Y'Know, all Adversary threads eventually lead down this road. Funny.

[Jack]

I still say it's the devil.

The devil is a character that can be seen throughout hundreds of fables and fairy-tales. He's had pretty big roles also. I'm surprised he hasn't made an appearance yet.
You mean apart from in #11?

[The Adventurer]

Heh. Y'Know, all Adversary threads eventually lead down this road. Funny.

I don't understand the original point of preventing this kind of discustion? what goes a thread to throw out names without haveing any kind of actual discution on the matter?


Seems pointless.

[Go Go]

See the thread (it actually started on the old forum but it was one I restarted after the reboot) about "Who is the Adversary?" for a lot of people's discussions as to who they think the Adversary is and why. A lot of people have given a lot of time and thought (as well as discussions/debates) as to who they think the Adversary is.

[GremlinClr]

i gotta sneaky suspicion that the "advesary" is going to be some existential being..like the adversary is a manisfestation of the apathy todays culture has for traditional fairy tales or something like that.

Personally just hope that its a character with a story and not some representational being.

Yea but that would be a direct ripoff of The Nothing in Neverending Story. I would hope Willingham would be a little more creative then that.

[Blueferret]

Keeping with the original theory of who I'd like it to be, I'd like it to be Peter Pan. Even though there's no chance of it happening, I think the idea of Peter growing up and becoming a conqueror is intriguing. Throw in the Lost Boys and Hook and you've got plenty of fun that can hapen.

[Troy Wall]

Santa Claus is just a bastardization of Sinterklaas.

you people only have your jolly fatman, because we brought you the character of Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas, a bishop, a miracle worker, long and thin with a golden staff, rides a white horse, and has his black peters, black manservants who do his dirty-work.

our version is so much cooler than yours is, because our version is totally hardcore.

So your Santa Claus is into slavery? That is pretty hardcore! :eek:

[Shevek]

I just posted Santa Claus as an idea in the other thread... and this one has even more good reasons why it should be him!

Santa for Adversary 2005! (sorry, overdosing on general election campaigns here in the UK)

[edhopper]

In an interview in this month's Comic Buyers Guide, BW revealed that the Adversary was originally going to be Peter Pan. But as posted here, they ran into some British copyright problems. So he changed it to Gepetto. He thinks it is actually a better choice. But I really like the Pan idea. Gepetto makes a better "puppet king" ruler of the Homelands. But Pan would be the better adversary in battle.

[fredaug]

hi there

i was thinking about getting into the farrie-thing. Is that a good idea. I guess you would think so since you're posting here, but listen to my story:

I have spent the last six years doing my dissertation (in sociology). I have always love comics, but just didn't have the time. anyhow, my girlfriend gave me v for vendetta, 49ers and other good stuff as a present for completing my dissertation. After that, I tried getting back into comics again and have read myself up to date on preacher, lucifer, sandman and 100 bullets - which i all liked. also got some stray copies of other series. but you - pro readers - convince me why i sould be reading faries!

It is not that I am opposed to it, I read the first free copy at vertigo-site, and I kind of liked it, but then again there is a hell of a lot I like.

ps. i saw something in previous posts about who the mystery person was, please don't spoil it for me by telling me in the replyes...

yours/fredrik

[CaptainCanada]

i was thinking about getting into the farrie-thing. Is that a good idea.
Fables is a great choice, especially if you have any interest in folktales (and various novels currently in the public domain). I bought the first volume about a week ago, and I now have all eight, as well as the prequel graphic novel.

The first volume is a good introduction to the cast, but it's the second where things really get good.