Sympathy for the Devil?

There's a new school of thought roaming the halls for fiction. I've referred to it in the past as revisionist fairy tale history. The stories handed down through the generations are very clearly morality tales all with the same basic message--being good is better than being bad. There are myriad ways to put that, but the easier to digest the better. Wolves, vain queens, little men who can spin straw into gold are best avoided and it's easy because they so obviously look evil. It's Black Hat Syndrome or the Disney-fication of character as I like to call it. But a new tendency, a revisionist modern view, is starting to take root in fairy tales.I say modern because it's our modern sensibilities, our post-Freudian minds, that asks the question, "Why does evil exist?" It begs the question, what happened in the evil queen's life to make her hate the step-daughter so much? Can we really blame a wolf for wanting a meal--a lot of us eat meat? Is it wrong to expect payment for doing all the work while the maiden gets a new life? My question is, do you think our fairy tale reading ancestors would have asked these questions?It's a topic I've been wrestling with lately regarding the new crop of fairy tales. I'm sure everyone knows about Maleficent, Disney's new live action take on Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective. I will admit, when it first heard about it I was a little miffed because I was in the middle of writing a novel called The 13th Fairy based on the original story and I set it in Reconstruction America. It was told from the point of view of the overlooked fairy who didn't make the party list because of a lack of golden dishware. A ridiculous reason to exclude a guest who has the potential to give some great gifts or (as they found out) a truly horrific curse. I started to wonder what happened to the fairy after she dropped the party-killing bomb. I thought her story would be much more interesting than a girl who falls asleep and waits for a prince she's never met to wake her with a kiss. I always thought it was a little presumptuous of the other fairy to put the rest of the castle to sleep while they waited for the big rescue. Talk about royal prerogatives! Nowadays the castle folk would have sued.But I digress. I think it's a sign of maturity when you start wondering more about the bad guys in a story than the heroes. When we're kids we ask why about everything, but I don't remember questioning the stories that ended "....And they lived happily ever after." I figured it went without saying it included pretty dresses and lots of cake, the only happily ever after a seven year old can imagine. Now I wonder about the other characters. Were the castle folk paid for their time in stasis? Were the king and queen relieved to have some new clothes? Most importantly, did Maleficent (the best name for a villain, by the way) regret her impetuous act or did she have a real axe to grind? I still haven't seen Maleficent, but I can't wait to find out what happens.Are there any fairy tale villains you wish you knew more about?