Fate: The Winx Saga World Explained: Realms, Fairies & Burned Ones

In terms of worldbuilding, Fate: The Winx Saga creates an intricate web of lore, magic, and ancient history. Being Netflix’s new live-action adaptation of the long-running and well-loved Winx Club cartoon, Fate: The Winx Saga draws most of its setting from the original, while making significant changes in terms of tone, characters, and narrative stakes. Season 1 of Fate: The Winx Saga introduces the audience to Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a young fire fairy who has just arrived at the Otherworld, a magical dimension-of-sorts where most Fairies reside and use elemental magic for channeling their inner power and ultimately fighting evil.

After unintentionally setting her parents’ room on fire back on Earth, which leads to her mother suffering third-degree burns, Bloom arrives at Alfea, a school of magic, not dissimilar to Brakebills in The Magicians, to learn control over her abilities. As Bloom navigates this newfound world, Alfea’s complex socio-political history is unearthed, in conjunction with the various kinds of magical entities that lurk within the fringes of the realm, who seem to harbor sinister intentions for the worlds-at-large.

Season 1 of Fate: The Winx Saga takes its time to unravel lore-infused setting, while each of the core characters, namely, Bloom, Stella, Aisha, Terra, and Musa, grapple with their own trauma, fraught familial dynamics, romantic yearnings, and inner journeys. With Season 1 of Fate: The Winx Saga ending on an exciting note, here is a deep dive into the various magical entities that thrive in the Otherworld, and the roles they are expected to play in the show’s narrative.

Fate: The Winx Saga World & Realms

The Winx Saga sets up the Otherworld as a magical parallel realm to Earth, where the former is split into seven continents, among which only three are revealed so far: Solaria, Eraklyon, and Linphea. While The Winx Saga centers heavily upon Alfea, which is protected by a magical stronghold known as The Barrier, it is, in fact, located in the realm of Solaria, ruled by Queen Luna, who appears to be the Otherworld’s strongest line of defense. Stella is revealed to Queen Luna’s daughter, and heir to the Solarian throne, and her educational trajectory at Alfea acts as a catalyst for the rising tensions between the two realms. Queen Luna seems dissatisfied with the school’s teaching methods when it comes to Stella, despite the fact that Alfea College is deemed the best for both Fairies and Specialists, boasting a diverse student body and unparalleled brilliance in terms of academia.

While not much is known about the other two realms revealed so far, Eraklyon is described as a neighboring realm to Solaria, known for its fierce warrior culture. On the other hand, Linphea is regarded as a natural paradise, filled with lush jungles, diverse flora and fauna, along with rumors of lost treasures and powerful relics. Apart from this, the Otherworld, as a whole, is a loose adaptation of the Magic Dimension in Winx Club, which spanned multiple realms across various planets, as opposed to the Otherworld, which is a single planet. Moreover, the Otherworld seems to be inspired by a similar concept in Celtic mythology, in which the realm is located at the edge of the world, and is home to the gods and the spirits of the dead. Much like the Otherworld in The Winx Saga, this supernatural realm is believed to be a wellspring of ancient magic, wherein worthy individuals from other realms are invited by its fairy inhabitants, which is also the case for Bloom.

Fate: The Winx Saga Fairies, Specialists & Blood Witches

The student body at the Winx Saga’s version of the school of Hogwarts, Alfea, primarily consists of fairies and specialists. The former are magical creatures who are able to utilize one of six tenets of elemental magic – earth, air, fire, water, light, and the mind. Fairies seem no different in appearance than humans on Earth, apart from the fact that their eyes alter color as per their elemental specialization, such as when Aisha’s eyes turn turquoise blue when she channels magic, as she is a water fairy. Fairies manifest their magic by channeling their own emotions as a source of power, which is amplified when they perform within the Stone Circle, which is a sacred space mythically known to hold an immense amount of primordial magic. Each fairy type has its own set of unique magical abilities, for instance, mind fairies like Musa have an affinity for empathic perception, pain manipulation, and telekinesis. Similarly, light fairies like Stella can control the element in its entirely, harnessing powers such as invisibility, astral projection, and illusion manipulation in the process.

On the other hand, specialists at Alfea are warriors-in-training, tasked to protect the school and the Otherworld as a whole in times of war and conflict. Described as “the first line of defense” between the realm and those who wish to destroy it, the specialists are headed by fencing instructor Saul Silva, who trains them vigorously in preparation for possible unrest in the near future. Apart from being a mentor, Silva is also akin to a father-figure for Sky, an-especially gifted specialist who seemingly lost his biological father at a young age. Apart from this, when Alfea is under attack in the season finale, “A Fanatic Heart”, the fairies and specialists work in conjunction, which is a major part of their training against the Burned Ones in the preceding episodes. With the combined aid of elemental magic and swift military combat, the residents of the Otherworld fight against unwelcome threats – a partnership that is bound to be explored in greater detail in Season 2, if there is to be one.

At a particular junction in the narrative, it is revealed that Sky’s father, Andreas, along with Silva, Professor Harvey, and Farah Dowling, were involved in the mass massacre and destruction of the city of Aster Dell, which was home to Blood Witches. While those involved, with the exception of Rosalind, believed that the village was evacuated and only the Burned Ones remained, it is later revealed that Aster Dell was a village where Blood Witches resided, who were primarily humans who drew their magic with the aid of unnatural means, such as death, sacrifice, and possibly, necromancy. It is also hinted by Beatrix that Bloom was kidnapped by the Blood Witches as a means to harness her power, purportedly the Dragon Flame, that resides within her. This interpretation is wildly different from the original Winx Club, wherein Witches were magical beings in their own right, albeit resorting to sinister means.

Fate: The Winx Saga The Burned Ones

The Burned Ones are posited as one of the major villains in Fate: The Winx Saga, who appears as vicious, scorched humanoid figures with claws, with the ability to infect those they attack, turning them rabid and violent over time. In both the cases of Silva and Sam, who are attacked by two separated Burned Ones, the infection spread at a rapid rate, until it was temporarily controlled by a potion named Zanbaq. In order to survive and heal completely, one must kill the Burned One that infected the said person, which is carried out by incinerating their magical core, or cinder, with the aid of fire magic. After Bloom transforms and sprouts fiery winds at the end of Season 1, she kills several Burned Ones, who revert to their human form after death.

Prior to their arrival in the magical land of the Otherworld, the Burned Ones were believed to be extinct, the last one being sighted and killed sixteen years ago. Much later, it is revealed by Rosalind that the Burned Ones were once-human soldiers, who were transformed into their scorched form with an ancient, powerful source of magic known as the Dragon Flame, which she claims “burns inside” Bloom. This reveal alters the perception of the Burned Ones, who are not merely creatures driven by hate, but rather, retribution, as they were hunting Bloom who carries the flame within her. It will be interesting to witness how Season 2 of Fate: The Winx Saga will go about unraveling more about the history and motivations of the Burned Ones, and how it can potentially impact all realms, with Bloom at the center.

About The Author

Debopriyaa Dutta
(328 Articles Published)

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Apart from being a features writer and critic at ScreenRant, Debopriyaa is a news writer at /Film. She is also a contributor to High on Films & Fansided, and an editor at Digital Mafia Talkies. Her poetry has been published in a wide array of journals, such as Gideon Poetry, White Noise Magazine, and Literaria. Find her on Twitter @angelusatani.

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