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Question has been technically answered. Fairy is now a redirect for Fantasy-Races.

Should exist?

It's currently used in 7 questions so far... 1 because I added it in forgetting that I don't put my edits in the queue anymore, so no others to moderate my edits...

I'm against it, because a fairy is such a vague concept.

But then, the only other thing we have is ... which is even more vague...

How about replacing "fairy" with "pixie"? That's a bit more precise? Usually pixies are tiny? ... Or could we go with "Tiny Humanoid" or something??

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"Fairy" is such a misleading word...

Reading the recent question about fairies, I was surprised to see that the querents assume fairies to be small, even tiny. Why and when did this idea originate?

I'm a Romanian. In Romanian fairy tales, fairies (= "zâne" in Romanian) are full-sized females, looking like beautiful women and endowed with magical abilities. They can function as women, for example, marrying Prince Charming. (There are no male fairies; in Romanian, the masculine form of the word "fairy" is only ever used in jest, to refer to a man in love with his own appearance.)

French fées are also full-sized anthropomorphs looking like most beautiful women, again with magical abilities.

It's been some time since I read Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream but I definitely do not remember getting the impression that Titania and Oberon were particularly small.

In Gilbert and Sullivans's Iolanthe the fairies are also full sized females.

And in the end they all marry British noblemen, members of the House of Lords.

So that I am puzzled. Why are Worldbuilding Stack Exchange fairies assumed to be tiny?

Given that the word "fairy" is obviously extremely ambiguous, denoting some sort of fantasy being which can be small as a butterfly or large a regular human, I suggest to either remove the tag alltogether or else rename it to "tiny fairies" or something.

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    $\begingroup$ I'd vote to remove it altogether. It's beyond the scope of the question to seriously investigate where small fairies came from, but the Cottingley Photographs (which to our modern, CGI-biased eyes are all obvious fakes in desperate need of Photoshop) did wonders for shrinking fairies in the western world - and even those were based on a children's book available in 1917. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Sep 6, 2020 at 17:36
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I think covers it all. It's an umbrella tag that can be used for questions about elves, orcs, gnomes etc.

My opinion is we should remove the tag from the questions that have it. When a tag has no questions for a day, it gets deleted from the site automagically.

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    $\begingroup$ I agree with this. Otherwise, we'll have precedent for having tags for elves, orcs, gnomes, and everything listed in the Anatomically Correct Series. It's not worth it. We just need one of the mods to agree with you (or to just go make it happen). $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Sep 5, 2020 at 14:39
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    $\begingroup$ @JBH - I made my own answer, inspired by your comment about elves, orcs, gnomes, etc. Because in the end, those are just names... $\endgroup$
    – Malady
    Sep 6, 2020 at 11:40
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I think is overly broad, and we should sort them into other tags, such as these tags that already exist, , , and .

For example,

How to verify or establish identity where shapeshifters exist?

What purpose does serve for that question?

Is it that non-humans and humans are co-existing? Then we should make a tag for that sort of situation on its own.

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    $\begingroup$ Xenobiology referes to the hypothetical biology on worlds other than Earth; it has nothing to do with fantasy creatures. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Sep 6, 2020 at 14:01
  • $\begingroup$ Shapeshifters are also such a huge class that they may not all fall under fantasy races either. They could be one, or they could be aliens, or they could be nanobot swarms. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Sep 8, 2020 at 21:50
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexP - Tell that to some questions that have both tags... Also read my next comment. $\endgroup$
    – Malady
    Sep 8, 2020 at 22:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Nosajimiki - Yeah, but what information does Fantasy Races provide that makes it better than another tag... Presuming we're at a question's 5 tag limit? $\endgroup$
    – Malady
    Sep 8, 2020 at 22:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Malady: I provides the information that the question is about fantasy races. For example, this is valuable to me so that I don't waste energy and time reading the question. (I would if anybody would ever ask a question about actual fantasy races -- that is, people racing in a fantasy context. But all those questions are about badly researched and badly thought fantastical creatures.) $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Sep 8, 2020 at 22:25
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexP - Hmm... ... Well, the question has technically concluded, since Fairy is apparently redirecting to Fantasy Races. I'll give you a Check for your answer. $\endgroup$
    – Malady
    Sep 8, 2020 at 22:27

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