| The Fairy with Turquoise Hair | |
|---|---|
| The Adventures of Pinocchio character | |
| First appearance | The Adventures of Pinocchio |
| Created by | Carlo Collodi |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
The Fairy With Turquoise Hair (Italian: La Fata dai Capelli Turchini) is a fictional character in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio.[1] She repeatedly appears at critical moments in Pinocchio's wanderings to admonish the little wooden puppet to avoid bad or risky behavior. Although the naïvely willful marionette initially resists her good advice, he somehow finds it within himself at last to follow her rightful instruction, albeit a bit reluctantly at first. She in turn eventually rewards him for his well-acquired and genuine goodness by enabling his transformation into a real, flesh-and-blood human boy and becomes a mother figure to him. The character is the inspiration for the Blue Fairy in Disney's adaptation of the story.
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The Fairy makes her first appearance in chapter XV, where she is portrayed as a young girl living in a house in the middle of a forest. Pinocchio, who is being chased by The Fox and the Cat (Il Gatto e la Volpe), pleads with the Fairy to allow him entrance. The Fairy cryptically responds that all inhabitants of the house, including herself, are dead, and that she is waiting for her coffin to arrive. The pair catches and hangs Pinocchio from a tree. In the following chapter, it is established that the girl is in fact a fairy who has lived in the forest for more than a thousand years. She takes pity on Pinocchio, and sends a hawk to take him down from the tree. After a visit from three doctors, including The Talking Cricket (Il Grillo Parlante), the Fairy attempts to give Pinocchio some medicine in order to heal his injuries. Pinocchio refuses to take the medicine on account of its sour taste, prompting the Fairy to summon a group of coffin-bearing black rabbits. Frightened by this display, Pinocchio drinks the medicine, and later tells the Fairy of his previous adventures in a less than honest manner. His nose begins to lengthen, which the Fairy explains is due to his lies. She summons a group of woodpeckers to shorten the disproportionate nose, and after forgiving Pinocchio, informs him that he is free to consider her an elder sister, and that his father Mister Geppetto is on his way to fetch him. In his impatience, Pinocchio leaves the house in an attempt to meet his father on the way.
In chapter XXIII, set four months later, Pinocchio returns to the site of the Fairy's house, only to find a tombstone with writing declaring that the Fairy died from a broken heart, believing that Pinocchio had abandoned her. In the following chapter, Pinocchio is transported to the Island of Busy Bees (Isola delle Api Industriose), where he meets the Fairy, now older, disguised as an ordinary woman. Unaware of the deception, Pinocchio offers to help her carry buckets of water to her house in exchange for a meal. After eating, Pinocchio recognises the Fairy's turquoise hair. The Fairy agrees to adopt him as her son, and promises to turn him into a real boy, provided he earns it through hard study and obedience. Later on, she reveals to Pinocchio that his days of puppethood are almost over, and that she will organise a celebration in his honour. Unfortunately, Pinocchio is led astray by Lampwick (Lucignolo), who coaxes him to go to the Land of Toys (Paese dei Balocchi).
Five months later, Pinocchio is transformed into a donkey, and is thrown into the sea by a man wanting to skin him. The Fairy sends a shoal of fish to eat away at his body, until he is returned to his puppet form. Taking the form of a blue furred mountain goat, the Fairy warns Pinocchio of the impending arrival of The Terrible Dogfish, but is unsuccessful. It is revealed in chapter XXXVI that she gives a house to The Talking Cricket, who offers to accommodate both Pinocchio and the sickly Gepetto. The Fairy eventually appears to Pinocchio in a dream, and commends him for having taking care of his ailing father in his time of need. Upon awakening, Pinocchio is revealed to have been transformed into a real boy, and all his copper coins have turned to gold, accompanied by a note from the Fairy professing her responsibility.
In Walt Disney's Pinocchio, the Fairy (voiced by Evelyn Venable) is referred to as The Blue Fairy, and she differs dramatically from her counterpart in the book. She is one of the four leading protagonists in the film. It is she who brings Pinocchio to life, and she is much less involved in his upbringing than she is in the book, having appointed Jiminy Cricket as Pinocchio's official conscience. She is also shown to be blonde, rather than having the turquoise hair of her book counterpart.[2]
In Giuliano Cencis' 1972 adaptation Un burattino di nome Pinocchio, the Fairy (voiced by Vittoria Febbi) is portrayed much more accurately to the book than she is in the Disney adaptation. She has no role in creating Pinocchio, though she does offer him guidance and support. Though she is accurately portrayed as sporting blue hair, she does not physically age as she does in the book.
In Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night the Blue Fairy voiced by Rickie Lee Jones appears as Pinocchio's guide. In the beginning she arrives at his birthday party and brings to life his glowworm, which he names Gee Willickers. Later she brings him back to life after he has been turned back into a puppet by Puppettino and tells him to make the right choices. After the defeat of the Emperor she restores Pinocchio, brings back Geppetto's jewel box which had been stolen earlier, and brings Twinkle, a girl who had been turned into a puppet, back to life.
In Steven Spielberg's 2001 movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), the Blue Fairy (voiced by Meryl Streep) appears as a plot MacGuffin. The main character, David, a robotic child played by Haley Joel Osment, believes that the Blue Fairy has the power to turn him into a real boy. It also appears in the form of the Coney Island statue of the Blue Fairy, which David mistakes for a real blue fairy.
In Buratino, the Russian adaptation of Pinocchio, there is a female character with blue hair named Malvina. She is a child puppet who one of the other puppets is in love with.
Angelica, the Blue Fairy, is the antagonist in the Japanese/Australian stage show Once Upon a Midnight.
The Blue Fairy was a 1950s children's program on WGN-TV in Chicago, hosted by Brigid Bazlen as the fairy.[3]
Miami's Homeless children, cope with their situation believing a modern synchronistic urban legend invoking many Latino legends the image of "the pale blue lady" fairy. Derived from the Catholic legend of St Senora leading a spritual army of angels tasked with protecting the children from poverty related terrors, against the minions of a vengeful La Llorona. [4]
Actress Keegan Connor Tracy plays the Blue Fairy in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
Collodi, Le Avventure di Pinocchio 1883, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli