Hi...It's me...again. Sorry for bothering you. But I was looking through the Fables comics and noticed the similarities and differences between Snow White in The Wolf Among Us game vs the comics. So I was wondering, what is your personal opinion about the character and she is handled the different media's?
Hello! You’re not a bother at all! I love having an excuse to ramble about this franchise.
I confess, I haven’t finished reading all of the comics so this is an imperfect opinion based on incomplete information.
Short answer: Similarly to Bigby, I like Snow in the game better than in the comics. She feels like a more fleshed-out and well-rounded character in the game.
Long answer:
All the characters in the game, including Snow, feel like they have more depth than in the comics. Despite the comics being longer, the characters feel static and don’t change much. In the game, the characters feel like they’ve been impacted and changed by the story’s events.
I definitely think Snow’s personality was softened in the game compared to the comics. Bother versions are assertive, both call Bigby out on his shit, and both genuinely want to help Fabletown but are privileged in a way that limits that goal because they don’t entirely understand how to help underprivileged Fables. But Snow doesn’t have the same Ice Queen energy as she does the comics.
I don’t dislike Snow in the comics the way other fans do. I have a soft spot for unlikable female characters and I don’t think all female characters are obligated to be warm balls of sunshine (especially considering the traumatic shit Snow has gone through). But in the game we see glimpses past that strictness that give her more layers and dimensionality than she does in the comics.
Like I said in my post on Bigby, the characters in TWAU just feel like they have more depth than in the comics because the scale is smaller and the struggles more internal. Snow is not just a one-note ice queen but instead a woman whose business-like demeanor hides someone who is desperately trying to maintain order in a very chaotic situation.
Part of this is because Bill Willingham just doesn’t seem interested in the internal lives of the characters like Telltale is. I know Fables is an ensemble story and is more interested in the bigger scope politics of the world rather than individual character journeys. But the result is that characters go through horrible things and the story weirdly just keeps going. It glosses over how these events would actually affect them and it feels so weird.
(Potential spoilers in this paragraph)
Snow goes through SO MUCH traumatic shit in the first few volumes alone. She thinks her sister is murdered, she’s ruthlessly pursued in volume two by Fables who want her blood, she’s drugged and almost assassinated by Bluebeard and Goldilocks, she has sex with a man she’s only just now warming up to while under the drugs and gets pregnant, survives the battle of Fabletown while pregnant, goes through an extremely painful birthing process delivering six werewolf children, and then had to quit her job as mayor and move away from Fabletown to raise them away from their father who has fucked off to somewhere unknown. ALL WITHIN THE FIRST FEW VOLUMES.
Like, kudos to Snow for having the strength to survive all that but I’m reading all this thinking, “Damn, girl, ARE YOU OKAY???”
But the story never pauses to really sit with Snow and consider how all this is affecting her. Which is weird given how much time we spend with her and how she’s one the closest characters that Fables has to a protagonist. She just experiences horrible things and then just carries on with business as usual. Because Willingham just doesn’t seem to care.
Compare this to the TellTale game, where we see how things affect Snow. She’s shaken when she sees Lily’s dead body glamoured to look like her and even worries Lily’s death was her fault somehow. She’s unnerved when she finds out her boss has been creeping on her and glamouring sex workers to look like her. She gives Bigby a lot of shit because she’s worried he’ll get hurt. We see moments where her professional front slips and we see someone who is rightfully terrified of this whole situation.
The comics rarely stop to do the same. How does she feel about having to quit her job to raise her kids far away without Bigby? How does she feel after being drugged and impregnated without her consent? How does she feel about GETTING HER FUCKING HEAD BLOWN OFF by Goldilocks? All this has to be taking a psychological toll on her, right??
TellTale Snow reacts to things, comics Snow doesn’t because Willingham doesn’t seem to care all that much.
Plus, sometimes Snow’s characterization in the comics feels like a conservative man’s uncharitable idea of a “strong female character.” Like he thinks if a woman is strong and assertive, that means she’s just a mean old bitch. He can’t imagine an assertive woman would actually give a shit about anyone or be properly affected by anything. And later she becomes this weepier version of herself around Bigby, but it feels out of nowhere and contrasts with what we’ve seen of her so far. It doesn’t feel like a gradual character arc.
It feels a little Taming of the Shrew, like Willingham created this assertive female character and wanted to “take her down a peg” and domesticate her. This change feels out of nowhere because, again, because Willingham isn’t interested in looking inward at his characters enough to connect any dots.
And I won’t get into Snow’s romance with Bigby because…Willingham just can’t write romance like TellTale can. The few glimpses of romantic potential we see between them in the game is way more convincing and makes me way more invested than any of the explicitly romantic moments in Fables. I just wish the TellTale games would cut off from the comics entirely and give Bigby and Snow the better love story they deserve.
So yeah, in short: I appreciate both versions but TellTale Snow is given more depth and more time to respond to things than her comic book counterpart. TellTale simply cares more about Snow’s internal life than Willingham does.
Sorry for another long response, but I hope this makes sense. I love Snow White as a character. When I went to read the comics after I finished the game, I was excited to see her as mayor and get a proper love story with Bigby. Unfortunately, I just don’t think Willingham is as good at character-driven storytelling as TellTale is.
Thank you for the question!
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i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one
his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.
ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication
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