What Fairytale Retellings Rewrite Villains As Protagonists?

There’s a particular thrill when a story hands the mic to the ‘bad guy’ and lets you hear their side — I’m the sort of person who’ll pick up a retelling just because the dust jacket calls someone a villain. Over the years I’ve collected a bunch of goodies that do exactly that, and they run the gamut from sly kid’s picture books to sprawling adult novels and TV epics. If you want to start with a classic, read 'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire: it rebuilds the Wicked Witch of the West as Elphaba, a complicated, political, and heartbreakingly human woman. I read it during a rainy week in my thirties and kept stopping to underline lines; it’s dense, a little sour and wonderfully revisionist. On the cinematic side, 'Maleficent' (the films starring Angelina Jolie) and 'Cruella' give major studio gloss to similar ideas — both turn iconic Disney baddies into protagonists with hurt pasts and messy motives, and they’re great if you want something visually lush and emotionally direct while you snack on popcorn.

For kids (or anyone who loves wit), Jon Scieszka’s 'The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs' is a must — it’s the wolf’s newspaper-style alibi, and it’s hilarious while also prompting you to ask who decides what a villain is. There's also 'The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig' by Eugene Trivizas, which flips roles for a clever, unexpectedly kind twist. On the literary side, Angela Carter’s 'The Bloody Chamber' is a compact collection that retells fairy tales with a feminist, often sympathetic eye toward characters who were villains or monsters in older versions; her prose is lush and uncanny. Gregory Maguire’s other book 'Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister' does an almost anthropological take on Cinderella’s world, making the stepsister a blurry mix of victim and survivor — brutal, human, and oddly tender.

Comics and TV have been terrific at mining villainy for depth. The comic series 'Fables' (and its spin-off 'Fairest') populates a contemporary world with fairy-tale figures and spends a lot of time letting the darker, formerly-villain characters drive the plot — Rumplestiltskin and others become tragic antiheroes. On TV, 'Once Upon a Time' repeatedly recasts traditional villains (Regina the Evil Queen, Rumplestiltskin, even Peter Pan) as layered protagonists with histories that explain — if not excuse — their choices. For YA readers, Marissa Meyer’s 'Heartless' is a solid pick if you want the origin-story vibe for the Queen of Hearts with romance and gothic whimsy.

If you’re assembling a reading/watch list, pick by mood: quirky and short? Try Scieszka or Trivizas. Dark and reflective? 'Wicked' and 'The Bloody Chamber' will sit with you. For blockbuster empathy with visual impact, stream 'Maleficent' or 'Cruella', and if you want long-form character study, binge 'Once Upon a Time' or dive into 'Fables'. I personally love alternating between the sly humor of a picture book and the grim poetry of an adult retelling — it keeps my brain amused and my sympathy muscles working. Which kind of turn do you usually enjoy: a villain rewritten as simply misunderstood, or one shown as morally messy and complicated?

For a classic, literary angle, John Gardner's 'Grendel' is the quintessential monster-as-protagonist novel. It retells the Beowulf epic from the perspective of the monster, Grendel. The writing is phenomenal—existential, cynical, and darkly humorous. Grendel isn't just a mindless beast; he's a lonely, philosophical creature trying to find meaning in a world that fears him and that he, in turn, finds absurd. He observes Hrothgar's kingdom, debates with a dragon, and grapples with his own nature. It's less a fairy tale and more a myth retelling, but it's the absolute blueprint for making a villain a complex, sympathetic, and even relatable viewpoint character.

I wonder if the next wave of these will come from AI-generated stories. Not that I'm endorsing that, but the concept is tailor-made for LLMs to take a prompt like 'Rewrite Snow White from the Evil Queen's perspective in the style of a noir thriller.' The ethical questions are huge, but the sheer volume of potential 'what-if' narratives is staggering. For now, I'll stick with human authors, but the thought of endless personalized villain tales is kind of fascinating and terrifying.