Fate: The Winx Saga brought the fairy magic of Winx Club to live-action on Netflix, but it also made some changes to that magic along the way, including six different types of Winx fairies. In Winx Club, there was a wide range of different fairy abilities. Each fairy wielded powers unique to themselves, determined by their own distinct personality and history. Musa was the Fairy of Music, for instance, Aisha was the Fairy of Waves, Tecna was the Fairy of Technology, and Flora was the Fairy of Nature. These skill sets were highly specific and specialized to each Winx character, rather than adhering to a more uniform system like Harry Potter or Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Fate: The Winx Saga changes that formula by introducing six core elements that every fairy’s magic connects to – fire, water, earth, air, light, and mind. Aisha’s “waves” magic simply becomes water magic, Musa is a mind fairy, and so on. However, even though two fairies may wield the same element in Fate, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the same inherent abilities. Each element can manifest in different ways for the Winx fairies. Here’s everything Fate: The Winx Saga revealed about fairy types before being canceled after season 2.
Fire Fairies Explained
The fire fairies largely fall in line with the powers you’d expect from the Winx fairies – creating and throwing fire, controlling the spread of fire, and other such firebender-type abilities. Bloom is the show’s main fire fairy, and she utilizes all of these powers in Fate: The Winx Saga. Some of her more impressive displays of strength are likely caused by her connection to the Dragon Flame of course, and therefore wouldn’t be accessible by most normal fire fairies. That mostly just relates to her season finale wings and the impressive powerup they seem to give her — although Fate: The Winx Saga season 3 might well have expanded on this, given how much Dragon Flame played into season 2's wider narrative. At one point Bloom does mention that she doesn’t get cold because she’s a fire fairy, and while it seems like a joke, it also suggests that those with her abilities can control the surrounding temperature without lighting things on fire.
Water Fairies Explained
Aisha is the primary water fairy of Fate, and like Bloom’s fire powers, her abilities mostly consist of psychokinetic control over water, similar to the waterbenders in Avatar. Water fairies can pull from lakes, rivers, ponds, or even small amounts of water, holding the water in place, moving it through the air, or using it as weapon to throw at opponents. Since water is an element that fights form, it's particularly difficult to control and takes a lot of practice. An accomplished water fairy is able to create miniature rain clouds and a small rainbow. Other abilities of these Winx fairies include keeping someone underwater for long periods of time by providing them with an oxygen bubble to breathe.
Earth Fairies Explained
Magic gets a little more complicated with earth fairies, mostly because they’re the primary example in Fate: The Winx Saga season 1 of an element manifesting differently in different characters. Terra and her brother and father are all earth fairies, but they each wield very different abilities. Terra has control over plants and can encourage them to grow or bend to her will. Her father Ben can alter the state of solid earth, as seen when he turns the ground between Beatrix’s feet to quicksand in order to capture her. Terra’s brother Sam can phase directly through walls, presumably because he is able to briefly manipulate the essence of the earth within them.
The biggest divergence in The Winx Saga’s earth magic from other similar fantasy stories is the control over plants. It fits with Flora’s Winx Club nature-based powers, but it also separates Fate from something like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where waterbenders are the ones who control plants by manipulating the water within them. It’s unclear if all earth fairies can control plants, but Terra at the very least seems unusually adept at it. Presumably, telekinetic powers over rock and other forms of earth exist, though they haven’t yet been shown.
Air Fairies Explained
Air magic in Fate: The Winx Saga manifests a bit differently than some might have expected. The primary air fairy shown is the duplicitous Beatrix, whose main ability has to do with electricity. Lightning being a part of the air element makes sense, as static is an effect of electrical charge imbalance in the air. Dowling also says that air fairies have control over speed, temperature, and sound. Presumably, the speed part means wind control and possibly even flight of some sort, further aligning itself with elemental magic shows like Avatar. The sound aspect of air fairy magic is particularly interesting and hopefully will be explored further in Iginio Straffi's proposed movie.
Light Fairies Explained
The main light fairies shown in Fate: The Winx Saga are Stella and her mother Luna. Stella is absent from the elemental training scene early on, so Dowling doesn’t get to expound on the nature of light magic like she does with the other five. However, both Stella and her mother show off some impressive displays of light magic over the course of the series. Stella is able to create stationary or mobile beacons of light, or generate immense blasts of light to use as attacks or deflections.
The more interesting aspects of light magic lie in its potential for deception, however, prompting many to wonder what happened to Stella's friend Ricki. Stella is able to manipulate the light around her to appear invisible, and her mother is able to create whole illusions targeted at specific people, submerging them in worlds that aren’t even real.
Mind Fairies Explained
Headmistress Dowling describes mind magic as being connected to thoughts, memories, and dreams. Of all six elements, it’s the least tangible and therefore has the most potential for wild additions in the future. Musa is the primary mind fairy, and her abilities manifest mostly through her status as an empath. She can read emotions off of people just by being near them, and in the season 1 finale she is even able to take some of Sam pain away and channel it into herself. Dowling, who dies at the end of season 1, is also seen using mind magic to interrogate Beatrix, which suggests some fairies who wield the element can read not just emotions, but tangible thoughts.
Dowling’s mention of memories and Musa’s ability to siphon emotions from others means it's likely a strong mind fairy could selectively remove memories from another person or implant false ones. That could explain some of the discrepancies around the destruction of Aster Dale and Rosalind’s various schemes, and it could play a major role in the future of Iginio Straffi's proposed live-action Winx Club movie.
Will The Live-Action Winx Club Movie Have Fairy Types?
Since Fate: The Winx Saga was canceled after the second season, many have expected the fairies' stories to come to a close. However, Winx Club and Fate creator Iginio Straffi has confirmed that he's shopping around the idea for a Winx Club movie. Though he's still unsure as to why Fate: The Winx Saga was canceled by Netflix, Straffi is taking it in stride and plans to close out the saga with a $100 million live-action movie that will return to its animated roots. According to Straffi, the new movie will be a Winx Club film, rather than a sequel to Fate, which means that most of the changes made in Fate might be retconned. In Winx Club, fairies have specific types of powers, but there's not any Avatar-style canonization of classifications. Rather, their powers are fueled by their positive feelings and are more like personal superpowers than schools of elemental magic. In an interview (via Variety), Iginio Straffi gave some insight into what the Winx movie could cover: "These will comprise not just the characters’ relationships in school — which are a big part of what the Netflix series revolves around — but the franchise’s more epic fantasy aspect: transformations, battles with witches, the Trix." So, even though Fate: The Winx Saga is over, there is a possible movie on the horizon that explores more aspects of Winx Club.