With the unfortunate cancelation ofFate: The Winx Saga, fans are left wondering what might have happened in the Season 3 that will never be. Season 1 had a noticeable lack of fan-favorite fairy, Flora (Paulina Chávez), who was seemingly replaced by original character Terra (Eliot Salt), as both have earth-based magical powers. With only a brief mention of Flora’s name, it seemed like she had been written out of the series altogether. But Season 2 of the adaptation gave viewers what they craved whenFlorawas finally introduced.
It stands to reason, then, that Season 3 might have continued the pattern. Flora’s introduction to the show lends evidence to the theory that characters we don’t see in the first two seasons may have made appearances in the now-scrapped following seasons ofFate. It’s unclear how many seasons there may have been and how many opportunities there may have been for old characters to appear in new ways, but season three may have introduced some lovable (and noticeably absent) foundational characters fromThe Winx Clubproper. It’s unfortunate that we may never know how these absent characters may have fit into the new Winx Club’s relationship dynamics, as well as the overall story.
Strangely, only one fairy from the original cast of magical girls doesn’t make an appearance inFate: Tecna (Morgan Decker). As the only fairy with technology-based magical powers, Tecna doesn’t necessarily fit in with the magical girl fantasy style of worldbuilding ofThe Winx Clubproper, making her an odd addition upon first viewing. However, unlikeFate’s reimagining of fairy powers being derived from nature only,The Winx Clubincluded fairies with a wide variety of powers, making Tecna a mix of magic and modernity that looks out of place on paper but fits in well within the actual story.
Tecna’s Importance in The Winx Club
Tecna played an integral part ofThe Winx Club’s story, being the fourth fairy introduced directly after Bloom (Molly Quinn), Stella (Amy Gross), and Flora (Alejandra Reynoso). The order of these girls’ appearances is telling: Tecna is introduced directly after the main character, the main character’s best friend, and the fan-favorite character. Being so quickly introduced makes Tecna one of the founding members of the Winx Club and places an emphasis on her character and power set, telling the audience that she is important.
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It is refreshing to see the “smart tech-savvy one” character trope in a fantastical setting. While “the smart guy” character appears in many forms of fantasy stories (for example, Sokka fromAvatar: The Last Airbenderor Hermoine fromHarry Potter), these characters usually display their intelligence by excelling in one or many forms of magic or use their strategic smarts to make up for their inability to perform magic. Introducing technology-based magical powers presents a clashing of fantastical and technological that feels irreconcilable at first.
In practice, however, this combination of magic and tech is part of what madeThe Winx Club’s worldbuilding and character building unique and fun. InThe Winx Club’smagic included modern technology, making tech an integral part of life and human nature. Considering that technology is often the product of humanity exploring the boundaries of the mind and using more traditional forms of nature to push those boundaries and progress, it makes sense that technology would fit right in with powers like Flora’s (an all-encompassing nature power set) and Musa’s (a music-based magical power). The original show’s magic system played very loosely with what is considered natural, choosing not to use the rigid but time-honored tradition of the four to six elemental powers in favor of including subsets of those main elements.
Tecna Could Have Fit In With Fate
Fate’s adaptation of the original story changed the magic system from the ground up. In this new world, each fairy power set is derived from some form of the four to six elemental powers that stems only from nature (fire, water, air, earth, light, and mind). In a magic system that is based firmly in the elemental structure, technology doesn’t have much of a place. This makes Tecna’s powers, and herself, an outlier, both on paper and in practice. This is an understandable reason to scrap the character, considering that most of her development and interactions with others stem from either her excitement for technology or struggling to emote and connect with her friends due to an over-reliance on logic rather than feelings.
However, Tecna’s behavior stemming mostly from logic rather than emotion doesn’t necessarily need to be paired with a technology-based magical power. She may still have fit into the world ofFateas the same character with similar issues regarding emotion, as long as her powers change from technology to something more nature-based.Fatealready made a change like this by shifting Musa’s (Elisha Applebaum) fairy powers from music to the mind.
If one character’s magical powers have already been altered to fit the story, then the same treatment could be given to Tecna, whose personality, apart from her powers, would have created an intriguing dynamic with the pre-existing cast, who are all relatively emotional characters. Considering that Bloom’s (Abigail Cowen) power in particular is tied to emotion, Tecna may have had an especially interesting relationship with her.
Technology and Magic Can Improve Tone
There is an even greater missed opportunity by leaving Tecna out ofFate. Keeping her technology powers would have created an interesting plot line. Her unique fairy powers, though out of place in a nature-based elemental magic system, would have perfectly aligned with the more modern, dark urban fantasy tone ofFate. Considering that Bloom grew up in the human world and that much of the worldbuilding of Alfea is a parallel to the modern world, introducing technology as a part of fairy magic may have shaken up the order of Alfea and become an engaging and world-altering plot line that changes a traditional nature-based system by throwing a bit of change/modernity into it.Fatemay even have been able to comment on the positives and negatives of integrating modern technology into a magical, whimsical world.
Throwing a technology fairy into a magical world would have helped to better connect the human world with Alfea and contributed to the darker and more modern tone. Considering thatFateis marketed more toward teenagers and young adults whileThe Winx Clubcartoon was marketed toward young girls, the shift in tone from happy and colorful to dangerous and dark would have benefited from having that link between fantasy and modernity.
No matter what, she could have been written into this new version of Alfea, Tecna’s addition would have been an improvement to theFateseries. Her importance in the original show shouldn’t go overlooked merely because her powers don’t fit intoFate’s worldbuilding at first glance. Her character, as well as what her technology magic would have meant for the characters and the plot as a whole, would have elevatedFate’s story. It’s a shame that the show was canceled before it unearthed Tecna’s potential.
