Fate: The Winx Saga | Is It Actually a Good Adaptation of The Winx Club? | Finding All the Similarities and Differences

If you’ve read my full review of Fate: The Winx Saga or my first impressions from the trailer you will know that I did not expect this show to be a faithful adaptation of the TV animated series or the Winx Club comics and books I read growing up. However, a lot of long term fans of the series are upset that this did not meet the adaptation criteria that they expected.

Adaptation when it comes to media can use an overly simplified definition of “An altered or amended version adapted for filming“. Whilst an adaptation will be altered and amended to better fit the new medium it’s being shown in, it usually still keeps the derivative work of the original intact. These are the core principles that would be covered by copyright laws if the adaptation was created without permission from the original creator.

For Fate: The Winx Saga, there were a lot of parts of the show that fall under derivative works whilst also having a lot of alterations. So I’m going to talk through all the differences and similarities of the original Winx Club cartoon and the new live-action Fate: The Winx Saga. Please be warned, there will be spoilers ahead.

Characters

Bloom

In Fate, Bloom is a “not like other girls” kinda girl, and explicitly claims to not be a basic bitch “like her mother”. She can be quite mean, especially towards her mother and there’s multiple occasions where she just doesn’t seem to like other people. She does start to get better throughout Season 1, and starts to make friends and be able to rely on others but it’s very different to her original version. She also seems more self-centred in Fate, where she’s only trying to find out about her family and doesn’t really ask the others how they’re doing.

OG Bloom was a girl next door who didn’t quite fit in on Earth and still wanted to believe in fairytales. She instantly becomes best friends with Stella, who actually encourages her to attend Alfea with her, and she gets on with her roommates quickly and suggests they form “The Winx Club”. She’s headstrong in the cartoon, which allows her to become the natural leader of the group on top of the friendships which shows her as a central part of the group until the other girls get along better.

In both versions, Bloom can be extremely impulsive and this puts her in bad situations which her friends have to help her out of. She’s also insecure, impatient and when things get too difficult she sometimes tries to escape the situation rather than resolve it. Whilst both versions give Bloom flaws to overcome, the cartoon Winx Club version made her a bit more friendly and open to her new friends, which made her more welcoming to the watcher as well.

Bloom’s backstory is both similar and changed from the original series to the live-action. In the original she is sent to Earth by a nymph named Daphne, who turns out to be her older sister. She’s then found by Mike and Vanessa in the middle of a fire who adopt and raise her. She finds out about her powers when Stella is accidentally on Earth and needs help fighting off a troll, where Bloom instinctively blasts them away.

In Fate, Bloom is a changeling and was placed in Mike and Vanessa’s family at birth by Rosalind as their baby had a heart defect and died. Her original family is yet unknown, although it may be similar to the show as in both series Bloom holds the Dragon Flame which is a powerful force. The changeling storyline was a lot darker than the original, but is also linked to many fairy myths so I did enjoy that added folklore which matches the aesthetic of the show.

Stella

Stella is one of the most changed characters in Fate: The Winx Saga. In both versions she’s the Princess of Solaria and has the family ring which allows transportation between realms. In the original Winx Club Stella is friendly, bubbly and optimistic which is a stark opposite to her in Fate. In Fate she’s a stereotypical mean girl, who doesn’t like any of the other girls at first although this does lift the ditzy blonde stereotype away from her character which is good. She’s sometimes sarcastic or sassy which matches her original personality, but they make her less likable with the story too.

Not just within the group, but with nearly all other characters in the Fate show, Stella gives and recieves animosity. Her previous relationship with Sky is not in the comics, she seems to be taking on the role Diaspro had in the original show to keep Sky and Bloom apart. However this causes a lot of jealousy, resentment and even a little fear for Bloom and Stella’s relationship. There’s also a strong rumour that she blinded her ex-best friend Rikki for talking to Sky, which deters people from her even more.

Overall, Stella’s backstory changed a lot in Winx Fate, but these changes also explain the differences in her behaviour extremely well by the end of the season. In Fate, she has a tenuous relationship with her Mother who looks down on her, whilst also believing Stella is just an extension of her that makes her look weak. Her mother is cruel, and forces her through extensive training in magic to keep up appearances.

In the original Winx Club show, Stella actually has a good relationship with both her mother and father, and the biggest conflict is that her parents are divorcing (but both clearly still love her). The change in backstory seems to be directly connected to the larger story arc in Fate with Queen Luna being attached to characters like Rosalind and Andreas. One thing I did like was Queen Luna showed off light powers as being able to create illusions too which is an interesting expansion of Stella’s powers especially when she’s no longer a fairy of the sun & moon, but just a light fairy in Fate.

Aisha

In the original cartoon Aisha actually doesn’t arrive until season 2, where she is opinionated, intuitive, and open minded to others. There’s a bit of conflict with those she’s similar to like Stella, which is also prevalent in the show. She had her own story arc of trying to get back the pixies, as well as saving her planet and people in future episodes.

Aisha in Fate is tenacious and a perfectionist, and to be honest is lacking a story arc in the show although she has a littler background one which revolves around not being as good as she wants to be at magic. This then turns to a bit of jealousy when others, like Bloom, aren’t struggling anymore and causes conflict between them. But for the most part, her storyline is so centred around being Bloom’s friend and roommate that I’m actually struggling to describe her as a person.

The similarities between the characters are that they both love sport with Fate showing that she loves swimming (which matches her original home planet which was mostly water!). Both versions also show Aisha as caring and wanting to protect her friends, although in Fate she refers to adult authority more than talking to her friends.

Musa

I can’t discuss Musa and not bring up the white-washing controversy of her character. Musa was asian-coded, and was based on Lucy Lui in the original design stage of the Winx Club show. Her homeworld of Melody was based on China, and there’s a lot of asian-style heritage and culture references. Actress Elisha Applebaum’s heritage has said to be 1/4 Singaporeon but on her CV under appearance her agency claims: Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and White and her features fit this as she’s heavily eurocentric in beauty standards and white.

Musa’s character has been changed a lot in general, including her powers. Originally the fairy of music, in Fate she’s an empath which means she can feel other people’s feelings. Whilst music is a part of her character in order to avoid her empath powers, it’s not as huge as in the original show. Being an empath does make her less of a fighting character, and Dowling puts her in a support position during fights and training. This does register as her being more of a support role than some of the other characters, although I hope to see her thrive more in the next season.

In the original show she is paired with Riven, however in Fate she starts dating Sam who is Terra’s brother. I love this change as it avoids the toxic relationship that the original Winx Club portrayed between them. It also gives Musa more depth as her main personality doesn’t revolve around her on and off again relationship which causes her to be irritable. She’s now irritable because she can feel other people’s bad emotions, especially when all these bad things start happening.

Terra

Terra is a new show only character, and replaces two characters from the original show. Along with Musa, she’s one of the issues of white washing as one of the characters was Flora, a latina-coded character (based on Jennifer Lopez!). She has Flora’s nature/Earth powers, with Tecna’s social awkwardness and she even name drops Flora who is her cousin in this iteration.

Terra also fits firmly in the middle of the five girls for how much of a developed character she was, and I think this is a little bit because she’s brand new, but she also has two family members in the show to develop her even more. Both Bloom and Stella have heavy family inclusion and backstory because of this, whereas Musa and Aisha have no family inclusion and lack a lot of backstory.

In Fate, she’s a flawed socially anxious mess that was overly positive and talkative to everyone to try and get them to like her. I did actually like how they portrayed her being bigger than the other girls, as it was accurate to real life. She felt insecure, and didn’t even want to change in front of the other girls. However, the inclusion of body diversity (of only one character being different…) doesn’t excuse the white-washing of replacing a coded-latina character with a white character.

She does get a bit of a storyline which is learning to stand up for herself against those who put her down. I assume this will develop and improve her insecurities which cause her to be annoying too. But at the moment, her character mainly just makes you question “Is Flora going to be in Fate?” and why wasn’t she in it from the beginning if she does exist in this world.

Sky

Sky is different in Fate: Winx from the original show, but does have some similarities. In the original he is the crown prince of Eraklyon and both his parents are raising him to be a good king. With this, he is engaged to Diaspro as an arranged marriage when he meets Bloom. He also has longer hair, which I’m glad did not make it to the live action show. In the original show he also goes by Brandon in the first season, as him and his Squire swap places at school to protect him.

In Fate, he’s not a prince and he’s grown up at Alfea because his family is dead. Silva is his surrogate father who raised him, and he’s got a lot of pent up feelings about not knowing his dad. His dad does become a bigger plot point in Fate (similar to Stella’s mother!), however his mother is never mentioned. In both shows, his personality is similar in that he’s a good guy that follows orders and does his duty.

The Diaspro storyline from the original show and the switching with his Squire seem to be half merged to create a timeline where Sky and Stella are an item. In the original Stella dates the fake Prince Sky who turns out to be his Squire Brandon, which feels like a bit of a nod too when she’s in love with him at the start. The Diaspro storyline is where Bloom and Sky can’t be together because he’s already with someone else, and Stella has just slotted into place to reduce the need for another actress.

Riven

Riven is one of the most similar characters to his original. In the Winx Club cartoon he was the jerk in the group, and didn’t really like other people. He doesn’t like working in a team, and he criticises a lot. Even in Fate where Sky is his best friend, he still believes Sky looks down on him and lashes out which he would do in his original form too.

Riven does stand in as a “all the other specialists” too in this show, but doesn’t really take on any other aspect of the other guys. They introduce Dane as a specialist and Sam as a love interest, but they’re very different from the source material so it’s hard to attribute them to a certain original character,

In both Fate and Winx Club Riven dates the “enemy” character which is Darcy in the cartoon, and Beatrix in Fate. However, in the original Riven then goes on to date Musa who shows interest in him a lot earlier on. These two have an extremely toxic relationship which isn’t currently in Fate, so I do hope Fate doesn’t force this to happen, especially since Musa has a more healthy relationship with Sam.

Beatrix

Beatrix is code for be-a-trix, which I’m sure the writers on Fate were very proud of themselves about that. Beatrix is a mashup of the three witches in the original show that were called the Trix. She has Icy’s leadership quality and desire for power, Darcy’s boyfriend and Stormy’s lightning powers.

In Fate, she’s actually (apparently) a fairy instead of a witch, and witches aren’t really a thing until like a mention in the last episode. She also doesn’t seem to have a vendetta against our main characters, but an interest in Bloom to get her own way. At one point they even nearly become friends, if not allies.

Dane

Dane is a pure addition to Fate and brings a black LGBTQ+ character to the show which kind of helps diversity but there are still white-washed characters that were already POC. He has a couple of storylines around Terra, Riven, Beatrix and Bloom a bit – but I wouldn’t say he’s a main character as he goes along with what others say a lot.

Farah Dowling

Farah Dowling is Fate’s version of Faragonda and is the headteacher/director of Alfea’s fairies. She’s a lot younger and less of a fairy godmother figure to the girls, but clearly is proud of them similar to her source material.

In Fate, Farah actually gets a backstory along with the other teachers. With Alfea changing to an ex-military style school, they have a more military background which links directly the plot of the show. In the original, the three headmasters of the three schools were part of “The Company of Light” and have faced the same villains as the girls do, however it’s just not as focused on as it was in Fate. This gave all three of them a bit more depth to their characters, rather than just being teachers who help solve problems when needed.

Saul Silva

Saul Silva is Fate’s version of Saladin/Codatorta and is the headteacher of Alfea’s specialists. His strict training of the specialists takes on Codatorta in spirit, but they’ve definitely made him his own character, own storyline and actual meaningful relationships with others in the cast. His relationship with Sky is fatherly, and you also see him care about the other teachers as they have a lot of history. He actually has such a good story arc, that I’m intrigued to what will happen to him in Season 2.

Ben Harvey

Ben Harvey works in the greenhouses at Alfea, and is Terra’s father. He doesn’t have a direct comparison from the original cartoon, but has a huge wealth of backstory with the teachers as well as being connected to Terra and Sam.

Rosalind

Rosalind is a completely new character to Fate: The Winx Saga and finding her is the main story arc for both Bloom and Beatrix. Her backstory is carefully interwoven with the teachers and there’s a lot of misinformation from both Rosalind and the teachers about what actually happened (since we’re mostly knowing from Bloom’s POV). She’s a powerful fairy, and this is where it differs from the original a lot, in that she was the one to put Bloom on Earth.

Queen Luna

Queen Luna is vastly different in the show and the original cartoon. She’s Stella’s mother, and in the original married into the royal family but gets divorced and still loves her family but separated and not as a ruling monarch. In Fate, Queen Luna seems to be the ruling queen and Stella’s father isn’t really mentioned. Luna is a lot more abrasive, strict and negative towards her daughter and she sees Stella as an extension of her self image rather than a daughter.

Andreas

In the original show, Sky’s father is King Erendor of Eraklyon however in Fate he is Andreas of Eraklyon and is a war hero, and warrior but not the King. In Fate, Andreas is actually dead at the start of the season, but is then found out to be still alive but just didn’t come back to Sky for years, leaving him in Silva’s hands instead. During his absence he adopted and raised Beatrix as part of Rosalind’s plan (which I’m sure we’ll find more about in the next season!). Andreas is firmly in Fate to give Sky daddy issues that he didn’t have in the original show.

Friendships

In general, the friendships in Fate: Winx aren’t quite the same as the Winx Club. However, seeing as one is a children’s show and the other is a YA aimed show, I understand why there’s a difference. In the original show the girls mostly get on from the very beginning, with Bloom forming the “Winx Club” very early on in their school life. There’s some bickering, mostly with Stella for being self-centred and sometimes with Tecna as she’s socially awkward but it’s just bickering. They go on (alongside many seasons with a lot more episodes I may add) to have sisterly relationships and they’re the best of friends.

In Fate: The Winx Saga they start off not really wanted to form friendships, except maybe Terra. Aisha wants to be friends, but she wants the perfect roommate friendship to go along with her perfect life. But Bloom starts off by telling her parents they’ll all kill each other like Lord of the Flies, and Stella doesn’t get on with any of them. They fight over boys, fight over which plan to go ahead with, and fight over pettier things which just don’t align with the theme of friendship in the original.

By the end of season one of Fate the Winx Saga, the girls have become much closer and they all go home with Bloom to meet her parents (and explain magic and stuff). But so much goes on in the show, that the development between a lot of them just isn’t there.

On top of the core friendships, I was disappointed with how Fate portrayed relationships between mothers and daughters, Musa’s mum is dead, Terra’s isn’t around, Aisha didn’t speak about her family and both Stella and Bloom just didn’t get along with theirs. Bloom’s was more teenage angst, but then she literally gave her mother third degree burns after setting the house alight (by accident). But Stella’s mother is a piece of work. I was just disappointed as in the original there are a lot of good scenes which show positive relationships with both parents for many different characters, but there’s a lot of tension and trauma in this one.

I kind of went through relationships in the character changes, but a core one is that not all the girls get a love interest straight away that you know they’re going to be with for the rest of their lives. Stella and Sky have already broken things off (multiple times), Riven has dated multiple people, Musa has Sam which is completely new (and he’s totally at risk of being killed off to give Musa AND Terra motivation for something).

World

In the Winx Club animated series, the magic dimension is huge with multiple planets and a solar system. Alfea is set in Magix, which is one place which has the three schools (Alfea for fairies, Cloud Tower for witches and Red Fountain for specialists). However in Fate: The Winx Saga, the dimension is condensed into one world, the Otherworld and Earth is The First World.

In Fate, Alfea is actually within Solaria which is a country, but in the source material was a planet of itself. Eraklyon was also another planet, as well as Lynphea, Andros, Domino, Zenith and Melody which were the home planets of each of the girls. Shrinking down the dimension to a world is probably smarter due to budgets for a live action, but since the entire season was in or around Alfea it does feel very small.

Story

The story in Fate is very different from the Winx Club show but does have similar key points. First up for similarities is that Bloom finds out she has powers, goes to Alfea, wants to find her true family because her Earth family turn out to not be her parents, hears voices in her head (which lead her to someone who knows about her origins) and she’s the main person that brings the group of girls together.

Now let’s go for the differences.

Bloom finding out her parents weren’t her parents was a lot harsher and a lot darker. Being a changeling heavily affects the story because her parents didn’t 1. adopt her out of love, and 2. even knew they were adopting her. Plus, her parents actual daughter actually died, and it’s just really hard watching the scene.

Rosalind being the one to make Bloom a changeling also removes Daphne, who is actually Bloom’s sister, from the show. Whilst Rosalind does still fit the role of the voice giving advice near the end of the season so she can become stronger, it’s not out of love of selflessness because it’s her sister, and it lessens that particular family theme.

Rosalind in general is just a huge difference. In the original the Trix were the bad guys in season 1, in Fate Beatrix is a bad guy but she’s already working for other bigger bad guys. On one hand I like that she’s already linked because it’s more believable that she’ll be around in the next season (instead of being defeated and then going to work with the closest monster/man who promises power to them like the Trix.). On the other hand, I’m always worried when there’s a “it’s gonna be worse” in case it’s written into a corner and it ends up disappointing (like Pretty Little Liars).

Rosalind’s backstory and how the entire season has been set up is also vastly different to the bad guys just wanting more power. There seems to have been wars, and politics, and a lot of secrets from the adults which has caused a lot of issues. Rosalind’s time in Aster Dell is just part of a mystery that isn’t in the original, but is intriguing all the same.

On top of the backstory and added character depth for the adults, we also have the burned ones who are a huge mystery. With Bloom having a connection to them somehow, I’m really curious to understand if it’s connected to her Dragon Flame powers or the family she’s looking for.

Speaking of Dragon Flame, in Fate Bloom has to re-find transformation magic from Rosalind before she can have wings. In the cartoon, they’ve always been able to transform, and it’s the original transformation which is called “winx” rather than their suite name at school. I did like the clear set up from the first episode saying that transformation magic was lost, and I understand it’s to reduce cost as the CGI isn’t brilliant anyway – but it was a core thing from the original so I’m hoping the story justifies the girls having to learn how to get wings.

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What did you think of Fate? Is it a good adaptation of the Winx Club?