The Y2K Futurism of Winx Club script

Intro:

Most fantasy stories tend to go one of two routes: either some kind of ancient or medieval world, most often based on medieval European vibes; or they’ll take place in the modern day, with the magical world hidden in its shadows. Or perhaps there’s some kind of magical “otherworld,” inaccessible to conventional methods.

Winx Club, by stark contrast, is different not only from most other magical girl properties, but a lot of media thanks to its commitment to blending sci-fi and fantasy through the aggressively Y2K lens of futurism. No generic medieval European castles, nor modern cities with vampires in abandoned churches. No, Winx takes place in a universe full of diverse magical worlds, with several other dimensions on top of that, all of them stranger than the last.

Playing Tales of Arise, with its blend of sci-fi and fantasy, has made me think about this a lot more. I don’t think I fully appreciated just how unique Winx Club’s approach was when I was younger, but I’ve been loving it more and more as I get older. The way magic and technology are fused so seamlessly and effortlessly helps it stand out from the crowd. And so today we’re gonna talk about why it’s so great, and how much I love it.

Now without further ado, let the madness begin.

What is a Space Opera?:

Now when you think of opera, you probably think of those old-timey stage shows where a bunch of Italians dramatically sing at each other for several hours for the entertainment of rich people. And you’re not wrong. But a space opera, despite the name, does not require singing, but it does require being dramatic. Well, really, a space opera really just applies to the scale of the story. It’s a subgenre of science fiction taking place across multiple worlds, often ones that are engaging in political conflict and even war with each other, though that’s not always necessary.

Some obvious examples include Star Wars and Star Trek. Really, any story involving a universe of worlds can be classified as a space opera. Because of this, worlds tend to be very simple, often having only a handful of governments each, or sometimes even one, with an equally limited climate. Having multiple worlds as complex and diverse as Earth would prove quite exhausting, and difficult for audiences to remember, so it’s usually more advantageous to have each world express a certain aesthetic or theme.

Part of why I enjoy this, honestly… is because you can be fast and loose with the science of things. Sure, the magic system will need some rules, but the story and characters are what really matter. No, I don’t care how traveling between planets on a spaceship works, or whether magic consists of particles or whatever else. All I care about is how those things work to tell an engaging story, and how they help express the characters’ personalities and arcs. It’s the whimsy of fantasy with a flashy sci-fi veneer, which I am a big fan of.

The Magic Dimension fits this genre like a glove. Though Bloom is from Earth, most of the story takes place in a separate universe of worlds filled with magic, which continually expands with each season. And what’s more, there’s a seemingly infinite number of worlds to explore. You can very easily create any number of new worlds at any time for whatever story you need. This is far more than just the concept of an “Otherworld,” with only one fantastical world paralleling the ordinary one. It offers an incredible amount of variety for the story in terms of culture and aesthetics, and even allows fans to speculate about existing worlds we haven’t seen yet, unseen corners of worlds we know, or even create entirely new worlds of their own.

The capital of the Magic Dimension is Magix, the crossroads of all the worlds where people of all walks of life come to coexist and hone their abilities. Its capital is Magix City, a bustling, futuristic metropolis full of flying cars, and it’s also home to the three most renowned magic colleges across the universe: Alfea College for Fairies; Cloudtower College for Witches; and Redfountain College for Specialists. Magix alone has so much to offer in terms of interesting settings to let the characters explore different dynamics and conflicts, which works perfectly for the first season, which takes place primarily on Magix.

Then we have other worlds, like Solaria, the planet of the sun and moon. Here, the stars always shine, and the people live in effortless luxury and opulence. Lynphea is the world of nature, full of vast forests and mountains. The forest floor is left uninhabited so as to keep its ecosystem intact, while the people build their cities high up in the trees and mountains, which are only accessible by giant flying leaves which can navigate the powerful winds coming down from the mountains. Oh, and of course it has a secret cave behind a waterfall, with a willow who lost its sister, whose tears can reverse the flow of time.

Melody is a world of music and harmony, inspired by East Asian cultures. We haven’t gotten to explore as much of it as I would’ve liked, but in my mind, I like to think here its pretty standard for everyone here to express themselves through music. Everything here exists in harmony. Zenith is the world of technomagic, which we’ll go into later. Magix City may be a futuristic metropolis, but Zenith takes it to the next level, looking about as weird and out there as you’d expect a sci-fi city to look. Its climate is also kept perpetually cold so as to keep its technology running efficiently, which also tracks for how its people tend to be quite unemotional and fixated on rationality.

Andros is a world of endless ocean, where there are two kingdoms: one of humans living atop the scattered islands; and one of mermaids, inhabiting the depths of the world’s seas. It gets changed into a patriarchal kingdom later on with tritons, but in our hearts, it remains a matriarchal queendom of mermaids. There are plenty of other worlds too, like the resort realm of Espero, the realm of paradox Oppositus, the island of dragons Pyros, and the trash world of Eraklyon. Even in the newer seasons, there are still new worlds being added that make for pretty interesting locales with unique visuals.

And of course, with all these different worlds across a vast universe, you need a way to get between them… which leads us into…

Technomagic:

Fusing technology and magic, Winx Club employs the concept of technomagic: technology that is literally powered by, you guessed it, magic. Again, it allows the specifics of how it works to not really matter, so long as its rules remain consistent, and it be used to tell an interesting story. Technomagic comes in many forms: spaceships, flying cars, wind riders, and even the characters’ phones. Some worlds employ it more than others, like Magix and Zenith, but it’s pretty ubiquitous.

Though there are wizards and sorcerers, the third Magix School of Redfountain instead trains specialists, who employ technomagic to differentiate them from the fairies and witches. Their weapons, called phantoblades, are basically lightsabers that take on many different shapes and weapon types based on whoever’s using it. Their spaceships are also quite useful when traveling between worlds. Because in the first three seasons, you can’t just willy nilly go between worlds—you need something to get there, be it a spaceship, a magic ring that can teleport you, or a portal device made by a couple of nerds in a weekend.

And given Tecna is a Fairy of Technology, she pretty much has power over technomagic. She embodies this fusion of sci-fi and fantasy perfectly, which is why she’s so pivotal to the story and worldbuilding, and why her removal… sadness me so deeply. You wanna know why Tecna got removed from Fate: The Winx Saga? Because they literally took the concept of the Magic Universe away, ditched the sci-fi elements and the space opera, and turned it into a generic urban fantasy setting of ugly, grimdark European castles. And because of that, they couldn’t keep a techno fairy around anymore, so they ditched her.

And it’s so sad to see that, because this fusion of sci-fi and fantasy is a huge part of why Winx Club is so unique and memorable. It just ain’t Winx without that Y2K futurism. Even the later seasons wind up losing it a bit. I’m not sure if the reboot will feature this element prominently, but you can be damn sure I will continue hollering about it ‘til the day I die.

I’m the Unicorn of War, and honestly, I’m quite certain technomagic support is just as much of a shit show as our world’s tech support.