Fate: The Winx Saga Review

Hello, everyone! Today we're going to discuss about the new Netflix show called "Fate: The Winx Saga" which happens to be the live-action adaptation of the cartoon series "The WInx Club". Alfea College has opened its doors and welcomed new students.

This show was actually critisized a lot before even its air date mostly by the original fans from the cartoon series. I've actually done my research about the original series so I will not just review the show but I will also compare it to the original one. And to be honest after watching the first trailer a couple of times, the song and the phrase "Bloom has the potential to be one of the most powerful fairies the world has ever known" were stuck in my mind for weeks. So let's begin!

The show is about a young fairy called Bloom whose parents are human so that's the reason she just learned about her magic. She attends Alfea College which trains fairies of all kind and also specialists who are powerful fighters. Bloom is a fire fairy and lives in a dorm room with four other ones. Stella is a light fairy and heir to the throne of Solaria which is the most powerful countries in the Otherworld. Musa is a mind fairy and more specifically an empath. Aisha is a water fairy and Terra is an earth fairy.

THERE ARE SPOILERS FROM NOW ON SO IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SHOW I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO!

So, let's start discussing the characters

I really enjoyed Bloom as a character. She was genuinely scared of her powers especially because she discovered them by hurting her mother. I must say I didn't really like her mother, I found her irritating and mad. Bloom clearly wanted answers about her past since she discovered her parents weren't the real ones and she might have behaved weirdly at some point especially when she didn't trust her friends and lied to them but she was misguided by Beatrix. I believe she really matches with Bloom's character from the cartoon series.

Stella was kind of different from the cartoon series. At first I found her really annoying but we later discovered that she behaved that way because of her terrible mother who only wanted her to show power and never show weakness or emotion. I found her powers of light kind of boring at first but we were shown what light fairies can actually do, I found them really interesting. I don't think I liked her relationship with Sky and I was glad she admitted that it was toxic in the end (and finally a Netflix show which recognizes toxic relationships). But I was glad she got along with the rest of the girls in the end.

Terra was the character with the most criticism because of the fact that she is nothing like Flora from the cartoon series. I actually enjoyed her character very much. She was passionate and sweet but deadly and powerful when she wanted to. She was smart and I loved the fact that she actually said "Cut the bullshit, we know the truth" to her father and headmistress Dowling. I'm tired of shows where wise characters hide facts from the main characters to "protect" them. I can agree to the fact that she is nothing like Flora but that's why her name was changed. To show that she was never supposed to be like Flora. She is Terra and we love her for it.

Musa was actually really interesting. Her powers in the cartoon series was actually Music but it was changed to Empathy in the Netflix show. I like her powers very much. The fact that she wanted a more active power reminded me of Phoebe from Charmed. I liked the detail that she wears headphones all the time to avoid feeling other people's emotions. I also loved the fact that she couldn't help her boyfriend Sam, who's also Terra's brother, because she couldn't bear if she felt him dying because she had felt death before. When her mother died. I found that really traumatizing for her. Feeling death and not actually dying. But even though she was scared, she still got up and helped him.

Aisha was a really good character. She was always trying to help Bloom with her powers and cared for her. I found her kind of annoying when she told on the girls to Dowling but she was just trying to help them. At first, I was kind of confused with her name because in the cartoon series her name was Aisha but they changed her name to Layla in some countries (like in mine). She was clever and incredible and I wished we got to see more about her family.

I think I liked Sky as a character. He was trying to be the best because his father was the best too. I don't have much to say about him because he was the "typical" boyfriend in the show but I liked his backstory with Vicki and Stella.

I really liked Beatrix. She was an air fairy that controlled electricity really well. She just wanted to be more powerful and she read as much as she could about magic and its history. I loved the fact that she wasn't just a mean girl that wanted power and that she was doing all of this because she wanted to avenge Rosalind. I really liked her backstory and her personality and I'm glad we're going to see her again in the next season.

I actually kind of liked Riv. He was annoying at first because he was pretending to be this bad boy that never followed the rules but he grew on me. He wasn't that obnoxious and he was actually really nice around his best friend, Sky.

I must say I was surprised by Headmistress Farah Dowling. In the cartoon series, her name is "Faragonda" and she is portrayed as sweet and nice whereas in the Netflix show she is kind of distant from her students but she truly wanted to protect them all. Especially when she knew that more Burned Ones were out there she immediately started training everyone for battle. I didn't like her at first but she was truly nice and I was really sad Rosalind killed her in the end. I didn't expect that at all. Also, a lot of fans complained about the fact that in the original series The Winx were six and not five. There was a character named Tecna who was the fairy of tecnology. I actually understand why Netflix did not create TEcna as a character, because they wanted to show magic morerealistically and connect it to nature and technology is something human made, it didn't exist in nature.

Of course, there were more characters in the show like Dane who was a specialist in the Alfea College who is confused about his sexual orientation because he likes both Beatrix and Riv. I was actually kind of weirded out he joined the "Dark Side" in the end but I think he'll come around. There was Terra's brother and Musa's boyfriend Sam who was also an earth fairy. I don't really have much to say about him except of the fact that he was sweet and nice.

Now, I think it's time to discuss about the storyline and the relationships.

I didn't expect the story to be that good. I thought the show would be very cringey and boring but it was actually the quite opposite. I liked the fact that Bloom's parents didn't know about her powers and she told them in the end whereas in the original series they knew from the beginning. I liked the whole story with the Burned Ones that were extinct for years but now they've arrived again because they want Bloom. I also liked Rosalind as a villain in the show, she actually taught Bloom a lot but I think she only did it because she wants to control her later on in the show. Before she killed Farah, she told her that a much greater eveil is coming which actually made me really excited about the next season because Rosalind isn't the main villain The Winx Club has to face. I was actually shocked that Andreas, Sky's father was actually alive and hidden all this time and that Silva, Specialist teacher, was arrested. I liked the whole story about Rosalind lied to everyone that she evacuated the village just so she could kill Burned Ones and Blood WItches, which are humans that have magic through sacrifices and blood. I was also excited about the fact that we saw fairies combining their powers and I would love to see The Winx Club doing the same some time. I was kind of dissapointed at first because I thought that they made both Beatrix and Bloom blood witches from Aster Dell, but when Rosalind explained that Bloom was kidnapped by the witches when she was a baby and her magic is not just fire but an ancient and powerful power called The Dragon Flame I was truly thrilled. Because that's Bloom's power from the original series which is actually the strongest of all powers and it originates from Domino which I would love to be mentioned and shown in the next season as a "hidden and forgotten" part of the Otherworld. I was really excited to see that after Bloom killed some of the Burned Ones, they became human. Which made me think of the theory that maybe Burned Ones are actually people of Domino turned to mosnters for some reason. Because Rosalind said that the fire burning inside the Burned Ones is the same as Bloom's. And finally, the transformation. From the moment Farah mentioned that ancient fairies had tranformations and wings but that magic was lost as time went by, I knew that Bloom would transform in the end. I actually liked the fact that the tranformation was just wings and not a whole outfit like it was in the original series beacuse there is a difference between a kids show and an adult one. It would be cringe to see Bloom change to sparkly clothes all of a sudden. I also liked the fact that her wings were made from fire meaning that all fairy wings will be made my their element just like its shown in the intro of the show, which I'm obsessed with. The only thing I didn't like about the transformation was the fact that with Bloom floating and Aisha's water all around her it was kind of too much but they just wanted it to seem really special. And I also loved that they explained that Bloom transformed that easily because her power is ancient.

As for the relationships, I liked Musa's and Sam's one because it was sweet and cute and Musa actually felt comfortable feeling what he was feeling too. I was kind of sad that Terra and Dane didn't work out but I guess it's for the best. Dane's, Riv's and Beatrix's was kind of weird. I'm not sure if I like it but I dont hate it. They seemed like they had a connection. And at last Bloom's and Sky's which I'm also not sure if I love it. It was nice having them together but we didn't get to see much on their relationship because the show focused on the storyline, which I loved. I guess we'll see more of them in the next season.

Overall, I didn't expect the show to be that good but I really liked it in the end and I'm excited for the next season. It wasn't at all like the cartoon series but it was a good show in general with a really nice plot and twists.

Written by: Angelo