Why was the Tale of Two Sisters altered in “Once Upon a Time: A Story Collection”?
The original “Storybook of Legends” Ever After High book by Shannon Hale is one of if not my favorite book of all time! It was so much deeper with its themes than the tv show ever was and I was taken by surprise when I read it. One of my favorite subplots was Raven discovering the Tale of Two Sisters story and seeing how dark it truly was, which really highlighted how terrible it was that the headmaster and the royals expected every last person to follow their destiny!
Well today I got the “Once Upon a Time” book by the same author and was excited to read the Tale of Two Sisters story again in its entirety, but tbh it was very disappointing! It seemed dumbed down and sugar-coated for kids. I can see why they probably made this decision, but still! Children’s books have always seem to include darker themes than tv shows typically do from what I’ve observed. This change was so unnecessary!
As to what those differences were- in the original, the mean sister pushed the kind sister into the water and said: “Having to see your ugly face every day is as annoying as buzzing flies,” as the kind sister wept that her butterflies had drowned. Then the ghosts of her butterflies flew her out. But in the later version, the ghosts of the butterflies don’t lift her and it’s implied that they survived. The biggest difference was that the quote from the mean sister was removed entirely, and she instead got distracted by her own reflection and failed to pay attention or lift her sister up. The mean sister didn’t push her at all in the new version.
I’m really disappointed they changed the story, because the fact that it was so dark was the POINT! 😭 It was meant to illustrate the cruelty of the royal traditions and highlight the importance of Raven’s choice, and the second version removed some of that from the story. Anyone else agree with me on this?
**TLDR** censorship happened and this unfortunately took away from the impact of the original story :(