Fate: The Winx Saga

Fate: The Winx Saga, is a teen drama with a darker tone, based on the characters and world of the kid’s cartoon Winx Club. Why we are adopting yet another kid’s show/cartoon into a drama series, one may never know. When I heard they were adapting Winx Club I was confused. I think it should have been left as a kid’s show for children to enjoy the idea of a hidden fantasy world of fairies and magic. However, here we are. I honestly liked this series more than I thought I would, given I grew up with the 2004 cartoon and assumed they wouldn't give it justice.

The original Winx club cartoons were a part of my childhood especially when I was really little. I had the comic books, the dolls and would wake up early on weekends to watch on 4Kids TV. For some perspective, Winx Club is a 2004 Italian show from Rainbow studios. The show holds a lot of nostalgia for me, as it was something I watched when I was really young. Personally, I found it didn't include the best of the old show which I would have liked to see, given that I have a personal connection to it.


In comparison to the kid’s show, they both take place at Alfia a school for fairies, where Bloom and her friends fight off magical creatures and learn how to use their powers. What’s different is that the “specialists” originally attended an all-boys school to train in combat. Whereas in Fate: The Winx Saga they are all at the same school and boys can be fairies and girls can be specialists. I like that they broke the gender roles they had in the original, yet it doesn’t make a lot of sense as to why they are at the same school it just seemed like they were too lazy to introduce two separate schools.


Another difference is the characters, a lot of them are missing like Tecna, Tim, Brandon, and Flora. Maybe the plan is to introduce them in later seasons, but it doesn’t make sense why they weren’t included if you are making the series based on this specific group of characters. Otherwise, most of the characters are either inaccurate to the cartoon or not even from the cartoon at all. To me, it doesn’t make sense to take these characters and make this show if it isn’t going to resemble the original at all. I think that is one of the few things that shows like Riverdale have done right. I think the writers should have made an entirely new show without the use of these characters, considering they barely use the old stories.


Another issue that I have with this series is that there is very little diversity and characters from the original who brought diversity were cut out, for example, Flora who was Latino in the original series. Then there are characters like Musa who in the original was Asian and in this show is white.


All inaccuracies aside, I find the show pretty enjoyable to watch, I feel like because I have a bias towards the old show, it clouds my judgement of this new show. The story is kind of slow, the acting is okay and the characters are not very well developed, yet I found myself unable to turn it off. Even though I think it could have been better, if you don't think of it in connection to Winx Club it's a clever show. 

The cartoon was just a cute fantasy kids show and it should be left at that unless done right. This was meant to be a kid’s show, not an edgy drama. I think if more work was put into this series they could have been more successful. Going into watching this show I had pretty low expectations, I was a little surprised by this show. However, I think they could have stuck closer to the original, satisfying old fans. I think the idea was there but the execution missed the mark. I’m interested to see how people who have never seen the original series react to this show, compared to people who grew up with Winx Club.