Destiny: The Winx Sagatake over the live action from Netflix Winx Club, brings a edgier makeover to the popular Magical Girl series. And while, yes, that means bigger and more terrifying forces of evil, it also means the teen fairies partying with their friends, posting on social media, and hooking up with adorable love interests.
“It’s always very important to us to ground the stories in real human elements,” says noted creator Brian Young the Vampire Diaries, explained. “And to ground the stories in real emotion, so that they still feel relatable and still feel like something for everyone to show what it’s like, I have experienced something like this
The school full of cute boys was a feature of the original show. The academy, dubbed the Red Fountain, was home to the “Specialists” – basically knights from the universe. Destiny: The Winx Saga keeps the whole knight thing but updates the schools for more modern sensibilities: girls and boys can train as fairies or specialists depending on whether they have powers or not. The live-action show also updates the dreamy love interests to make them a little more appealing to young adult target audiences than the prince-like cartoon equivalents, and makes the romance a big part of the show in a way that clearly appeals to young women.
A standout example from this season comes when fiery fire fairy Bloom (Abigail Cowen) and brave but oh-so-perfectly brooding Sky (Danny Griffin) take a short trip to Sky’s childhood home. They search for key documents, but while exploring the picturesque countryside, they find a herd of horses. Sky then takes Bloom on a romantic horseback ride while Taylor is Swift “Wildest Dreams” swells in the background. It’s an unashamedly indulgent teenage dream that focuses on Sky’s sensitive side and affection for animals, making him a dream ship in Bloom’s eyes. Sky offers some recollections of his past and narrates his current struggles, showing a nice display of emotional intelligence typically lacking in handsome heroic knight types. And the whole scene actually happened because of a request Griffin made in season one.
“Danny [Griffin] is a horse boy!” laughs Jung. “Danny loves horses so much. In season 1 he came to us and said: Anything you can do to add horses to the show?”
As Young recalls, writer Victoria Bata specifically included a line in which Bloom pokes fun at Sky for being a bit of a horse boy because of Griffin’s passion for horses. It became imperative to include a grand old horse scene for the horse boy.
“By the way,” Young adds. “Horses are not easy to handle. But we just knew we had to do it.”
Season 2 of Destiny: The Winx Saga is now available on Netflix.