fables

Shades are a Fable (multi)species that is first mentioned in Fables #87 — "Bufkin: Chapter One of Witches," and appears in Fables #112 — "All in a Single Night."

History

Business Office

After the magic holding Fabletown together have been unraveled, Bufkin is stranded in the Business Office along with all the formerly imprisoned Fables. The flying monkey worries, stating that shades and all sorts of creatures have been freed and roaming the Business Office.[1]

The false bride

Rose Red encounters a group of ghostly shades while visiting a land of lost souls. One of them is the false bride, who wanders at the edge of the living world, night after night, never to know rest. The people who sentenced her to death are lying in their graves, but each Christmas Eve, they are freed from their resting places and allowed to walk about as shades. A shadowy, semi transparent figure strongly resembling Boy Blue gets Rose to promise him a kiss, but when she learns he is noncorporeal, he tells her that her promise means she must also restore him to life.[2]

Boy Blue

Whether or not this shade is Boy Blue is unclear, and Rose does not seem to recognize him.[2] However, if this is indeed Boy Blue, Rose's promise of bringing him back to life is kept, as he is briefly resurrected as one of her "Knights of the Endless Round Table" as she's preparing for war with her sister Snow White.[3]

Known shades

Appearances

Fables

Original source

In Greek mythology, a shade is a disembodied spirit who inhabits the underworld. The term also refers to the visible yet intangible manifestation of a deceased individual; a ghost.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Fables #87 — "Bufkin: Chapter One of Witches"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Fables #112 — "All in a Single Night"
  3. ↑ Fables #150 — "Farewell"
  4. ↑ shade, Oxford English Dictionary. "The visible but impalpable form of a dead person, a ghost. Also, a disembodied spirit, an inhabitant of Hades (= Latin umbra); chiefly with allusion to pagan mythology."