The Wolf Among Us is a prequel videogame to the long running Fables comic series.
The premise of both is simple: all of the fables of brother's Grimm fame are refugees
in our world after having to flee their own, and now live in hiding in an enclave in New
York called Fabletown.
The main character of both comic and game is Bigby Wolf, the big bad wolf of legend
now reformed as the sheriff of Fabletown.
BIGBY: Submit a damage report with my office.
Fabletown will pay for this.
The Wolf Among Us has a dynamic storyline that shifts and reacts to the dialog choices
you make for Bigby, and the game is easily one of the smartest takes on fairy tales you'll
find in any medium.
One of the themes inherent in any modern day take on fairy tales is postmodernism, the
fun in the premise seeing how fairytale characters slot into a modern world, of juxtaposing the
mythos of the original stories with the mundane of everyday life.
The Fables aren't mythical characters anymore, no longer princes and damsels and monsters,
they're all just people now trying to get by.
BIGBY: What are you doing here?
NERISSA: Same as anyone.
It's a place where I am.
Where else am I supposed to be?
But more than just seeing how clever the writer can be in fitting the jigsaw pieces of fairy
tale modern day together, The Wolf Among Us is interested in the deeper thematic resonance
to be mined in looking at the consequences of the original fairy tales: in what happens
when you strip fairytales of their gravitas, in the complexities and nuances of how the
Big Bad Wolf would deal with his past in the modern day.
Though the comic series was started back in 2002, twelve years before The Wolf Among Us
was released, my introduction to the Fables universe came first through the game, and
after finishing it I went on to read the comics… and was almost immediately disappointed.
The thing is, while The Wolf Among Us is a nuanced and complicated take on fairy tales,
the Fables comics... aren't.
They're not badly written, but they're only interested in that fun surface level
of draping fairy tales over the modern day without any real engagement with how that
changes or complicates them.
Every way The Wolf Among Us engages with the specifics of the original fairy tales, the
comics don't.
Now, the comic series does actually at first do some smart things: so Fabletown isn't
ripped apart from internal conflict all inhabitants are granted blanket immunity for past crimes
in their old world.
To protect from the outside mundane world they're also forbidden from revealing their
magical identities.
While for the human fables this is easy enough, for inhuman fables like trolls or talking
frogs it requires purchasing expensive spells, called glamours, to disguise themselves, or
risk being shipped off to a farm outside the city.
BIGBY: If you can't afford to look human, you're going to the farm.
It's as simple as that.
MR.
TOAD: Bigby, they're bleeding me dry, mate.
The quality of the spell goes down, but the rates keep climbing up.
Do you have any idea how much it costs to have an entire family in glamour?
These are a great example of taking advantage of the Fabletown premise: they're logical
extrapolations, and they set the stage for interesting conflicts.
Both comic and game explore those conflicts, but do so in fundamentally different ways.
A few issues into the comics those inhuman fables on the farm rebel and try to take the
reins of power for themselves.
This is actually one of the few places the comics really engage with the original fairy
tales and make full creative use of them: there's an especially funny reference to
Goldilocks having gone native with the three bears from her story and now works as a terrorist
and freedom fighter for inhuman fables, but there's very little long term value to the
storyline.
The rebellion is put down after a few chapters, but there's no change to the Fabletown status
quo, no growth for any of the characters involved, no examination or deconstruction of the themes
of the story or original fairy tales.
Instead of being a fun little side story, the tension between human and non-human fables
makes up the core of The Wolf Among Us.
A deep trench of bitterness separates the have's from the have-nots, with inhuman
fables ignored by the Fabletown government and treated like second class citizens.
GRENDEL: Where were you when we reported this weeks ago, huh?
Where are you when we ever need you?
If you'd given one ounce about her, about any of us, she might have been saved!
She might have been cared for!
It's actually remarkably similar to real life ethnic enclaves at the turn of the century.
In trying to solve the first murder of a fable in years, Bigby has to navigate a Fabletown
where Beauty and Beast, like a lot of refugees, were wealthy in their home country but now
find themselves resorting to less than savory ways to pay for a lifestyle they can no longer
afford; where racial resentment between those who can pass as the native population and
those who can't is high; where the weak institutions of the fabletown government have
allowed an organized crime element to rise to power and take advantage of the vacuum
in fabletown just as the mafia did in Italian ethnic enclaves in New York.
Bigby himself operates in a really interesting liminal space between the two classes of fables:
viewed as a traitor and Uncle Tom by one side while also never fully accepted by the other.
Despite the clemency granted to all fables for their crimes in the old world, no one's
forgotten just how many people Bigby ate in the homelands.
COLIN: I'm not saying it's fair, but it's real.
People are scared of you.
I mean, look at your hands.
This is an aspect of Bigby that isn't explored in the comics, and his reasons for taking
on the office of sheriff aren't either.
It's suggested at one point that he came to Fabletown and reformed from his old ways
because of his interest in Snow White.
And it's not a bad motivation per se, it's just that it isn't explored more than that.
There's no character growth, no struggle in trying to refrain from violence despite
his enjoyment and affinity for it, no conflict between his old ways and the new person he's
trying to be, no emotional toll in the suspicion the other fables view him with, no personal
cost in what he's doing.
The best example of this is the introduction of Red Riding Hood a dozen issues or so into
the comics.
With the Big Bad Wolf as a main character you might think one of his former victims
showing up to be a complicated and thorny issue… but you'd be wrong.
There's a single page where Red Riding Hood is upset by Bigby being the sheriff and forgiven
for his crimes in the old world, but it's quickly discovered that she's not actually
Red Riding Hood, and instead an evil witch in disguise.
Narratively, her appearance is simply a ploy by the villains that once discovered isn't
commented on again.
There's no emotional or thematic conflict in it, no examination of the complicated relationship
between former abuser and victim, of how to reconcile past wrongs, of the bitterness Red
Riding Hood should feel over how the other fables have accepted the monster that once
terrorized them all.
The real Red Riding Hood does eventually show up later, but she has even less to do with
Bigby than the fake one.
While Red Riding Hood doesn't appear in The Wolf Among Us, the game does confront
Bigby with an element from his original fairytale: the Woodsman.
BIGBY: If you keep on like this I won't have any choice but to put you down.
WOODSMAN: Put me down?
You gotta a bad memory, wolf.
That's not how it went last time.
And his relationship with Bigby is nuanced.
Instead of the hero of the story as he was in the Homelands, in Fabletown he's a drunk
and abuser of women, and resents Bigby: he's the hero of the story, not Bigby, so why is
he a suspect in a murder case?
Doesn't anyone remember what Bigby is?
What he's done?
These are interesting questions that spring from the original fairytale, and ones that
go unasked in the comics.
They're also used for character growth: depending on your choices in the game there
can be a distinct arc with Bigby and the Woodsman finally burying the hatchet and reaching an
understanding with each other.
Bigby's motivation in becoming sheriff in The Wolf Among Us is positioned as less about
Snow, and more about reforming his image and identity as a whole.
This motivation informs all his actions in the game: the constant friction between lapsing
back into his old Big Bad Wolf persona to speed the investigation along, and the new
order abiding and non-violent one he's trying to forge.
And despite his best efforts there's a real undertone throughout the game that he may
be needed because of his ability to inflict violence, but because of exactly that he'll
never be trusted.
SNOW: I've heard it said that maybe, in some tiny little bottled up way deep inside,
you kind of enjoy it when things go wrong.
Because it gives you an excuse to just, you know, stop pretending.
It's a really nuanced way of engaging with the consequences of the original fairytale
and using it to inform character growth and theme.
Part of the reason the game is so much better at exploring these themes is down to both
a difference in the medium and genre.
The main game mechanic of The Wolf Among Us is decision making and dialog choices, and
the more complex and multifaceted the characters and conflicts, the more interesting it is
to play.
And the noir detective genre is simply a better vehicle for exploring those small, personal
tensions and conflicts than the superhero war story of the comics.
LILY: I think she was off the mundy drugs, but… she was hooking to pay down debt.
It ate me up to see her that way.
Moral relativism is a hallmark of noir which makes creating nuanced characters easier,
and a murder mystery by its nature requires the detective to move through the different
stratas of society and puzzle out the motivations and nuances of suspects and witnesses.
There's also just a hundred small ways the presentation of The Wolf Among Us reinforces
the unglamorous nature of Fabletown: the neon lights that drench the world, the constant
graffiti in the background, the thick atmosphere of the music, Bigby's weariness in quiet
moments, the way his fridge is empty.
Even the titles of the comics and game set them apart: Fables is a generic and vague
title, The Wolf Among Us specific, intriguing, and hints at the liminal space Bigby occupies,
the themes of fear and belonging.
None of this is to say that the original Fable comics are bad.
They're not: they're well written and well drawn.
But they're not everything they could be, not as brilliant as their premise promises.
The fairytale elements in them are just draped over a conventional plot, the connections
only skin deep.
Thanks for listening.
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Thanks everybody, and I'll see you next time.
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