Aisha and Nex in Winx Season 9: What If They’re Not a Couple Anymore?
So, Winx season nine looks like a reboot of the series, after all. (I still think it’ll be aimed at preschoolers, but I won’t talk about that again today.) Naturally, since Nex wasn’t in the first several seasons, the big question is: will Rainbow keep him around?
Of course, the Winx fandom hopes the answer is “no”. They’ve pretended Aisha and Nex weren’t a couple for the past several years. I was sad (but not surprised) when I discovered after I stop posting on Instagram, hardly anyone has posted about this couple since.
The fandom is obsessed with Nabu, so they’d be happy to see him come back and never see Nex again. If that happens, it’ll be like that phrase repeated in The Princess and the Frog: “You got what you wanted, but you lost what you had.”
Anyone can write a basic fairy-tale couple with a “charming prince” as the love interest, and anyone can invoke clichés like destiny and soulmates to sell their relationship. Disney has been doing that for decades. It works because the audience doesn’t have to think — just feel. (Once you start thinking, most of those love stories fall apart.)
But it’s not easy to write an authentic couple with a deeper message to their love story. Aisha and Nex have all the elements. They just don’t have the right writers to bring them together.
I’ve said it before: Winx Club is the wrong story for this couple. If Rainbow throws Nex away, maybe it’ll be a blessing in disguise. I’ll finally get to prove my point without worrying about how this show might screw things up.
The Pursuit of Better Stories
My continued goal is to build a new audience for Aisha and Nex who can appreciate the ideas and dynamics woven into their relationship. That’s where AishaAndNex.com comes in. It’s not a Winx blog — it’s a storytelling blog revolving around this couple.
My inspiration isn’t Winx Club anymore, but other more intriguing stories. Anime creators are master storytellers. (Well, some of them.) And people like Matthew Mercer of Critical Role and voice acting fame astound me with their creativity.
The Crit Role players are amazing, too, with the backstories and quirks they come up with for their characters. For example (without giving too much away), one character from campaign 2 was a grave cleric, a cleric who directs souls to the afterlife and helps the living cope with death. A central part of his character was how he liked to drink homegrown teas, which he named after the people buried under the tea plants!
When another character complained about him “cultivating dead people for good tea”, he replied, “Aren’t we all?”
Morbid? Maybe, but it was an interesting contrast with his gentle (and somewhat naïve) personality. Winx Club could never pull off a character like him.
The best part? The player made up that quirk on the spot. He didn’t plan it.
I wanna be that kind of storyteller. And I don’t just wanna tell cute or emotional stories. I wanna tell meaningful stories.
The Winx fandom doesn’t think that’s possible with Aisha and Nex, but that’s because Rainbow failed this couple. And even if Nex is in Winx season nine, this couple still won’t reach their full potential. If the last 10+ years have proven anything, it’s that Winx Club can’t handle Life or Death.
So you’re craving better stories, follow me to AishaAndNex.com. I haven’t posted there in a while, but knowing what might be on the horizon, I’ll get back into the swing of it just in case.
Also, I’ve bought a domain for a separate blog for my Winx reboot. Well, actually two domains: winxwings.com and winxretelling.com. I haven’t decided which to use yet. ? Which one do you like more?
Aisha and Nex will be a couple in this retelling, of course, but unfortunately, they’ll still be bound to the rules of the Winx universe. I don’t wanna change so much of the story that it might as well have nothing to do with Winx Club. (*Cough* Fate: The Winx Saga! *Cough*)
Bottom line: even if Rainbow breaks this couple up in Winx season nine, their love story will continue. And I promise it’ll be better than anything this show could have ever come up with.
An interesting look into your writing process. For your reboot, Winxwings! A little redundant, but the alliteration is catchy and you can do a 5W’s writing joke with the domain name.
When it comes to my process, being the book enthusiast that i am…I tend to take a look at the genre and place it to a specific character.
For example when I had the idea to attempt my various reboots of Winx one of them was…What if the original Mythix Wand Holders shared variants on names or their first names with some of the authors of the classics and were Acheron’s students before something went horribly wrong with Acheron leading to the eventual show? There was Carlos, Charlie, Liam, Jacobo, Jane (the lone girl for a particular plot point), Hans and a seventh boy who’s name wasn’t revealed at the time but now it is Frank. The overall idea was that these characters would experience events that would resemble their stories, Frank being the central character of course and wondering what kinds of messed up tales Liam and Jacobo were writing. Then the seven of them would have collectively used “Story power” to write Winx and the story would unfold in a new more cohesive way. The Wands in “the author analogs” also didn’t look like what the Winx got them as, but rather as something significant to one of their stories in addition to a food item. Jane has a mirror in the shape of a cupcake with a certain color of icing that “Belle” was told to ask the china cabinet about if she was unsure, Liam a green granny smith apple with a “pirate flag” stem, Jacobo a head of lettuce (what “Queen Adrianna” eats for which her Princess is named) with it’s roots getting a bit long around the wand, Charles a glass pumpkin, a seashell holding a peapod for Hans, A cherry sundae that changes size for Carlos and for Frank? A poppyseed bagel with strawberry creme cheese. Might revisit this now.
I was leaning more towards winxretelling.com, but I think winxwings.com would be better for SEO. I’ll decide soon.
As for my process, I don’t know if watching anime or Critical Role is part of it, per se, but those are the kinds of stories I wanna emulate. For example, I love how anime, especially anime movies, blend everyday life with otherworldly elements. It’s always more subtle, yet more enchanting than in western stories.
Going off the D&D improv story, I’m more of a pantser than a plotter. I hate outlining. I may write a loose framework and some concepts to play with, but I don’t plan out every scene ahead of time. I just write.
Often, the ideas floating around in my head come together on their own. I’ll come up with a scene that perfectly bridges two I already thought of or a backstory that explains everything perfectly. So I’d like to think I’m good at writing cohesive stories.
It’s interesting that you based your rewrite around Acheron, arguably the worst Big Bad in the franchise. Calling him the Big Bad might be too generous, since Selina did most of the work. Of course, since the Winx fandom is biased towards the first three (or four) seasons, I don’t know if they’d care about a reboot that included elements from the later seasons, which they see as worthless.
But honestly, season six is my favorite of the later seasons — and not just because of Aisha and Nex becoming a couple. I liked the concept of the Legendarium World, but like Nex’s introduction to the series, it wasn’t well executed. Whenever I think about what Rainbow could have done and what implications the Legendarium World could have had for the story, it makes me think of an excellent anime written by one of those master storytellers.
I won’t say which anime, though, because I might draw ideas from it — but not copy it outright, of course.
That’s the thing about 6….so many good ideas, but so much terrible execution. I was also sort of going for “The Reader, Illustraitor, Editor and the Writer” are equally responsible for the damage caused in my reboot. It kinda felt like that’s what season 6 was trying to do, but fell flat.
Selena was the reader
Acheron the writer
Eldora the illustrator
The Winx as editors.
I mean we all know the later seasons are just the Winx doing PBS spoofs…sometimes good, sometimes…ah no. I feel like that’s an homage to the early days.
They started with Arthur’s voice cast in the first 4 seasons on the Cinelumè side and season 4 might as well be their take on it eh…Timmy?
Season 5-7 has that underlying Reading Rainbow reference with key books as well as Butterflix being a thing…”but you don’t have to take my word for it.”
Season 6 “What’s the story Wishbone!”
Season 7 “Anything to do with the Kratts”, although Kalshara did try to sound like Carmen…but more on the side of Janine LaManna and Brenda Burke who played her on the Time Gameshow….which is similar to Mari Devon in games following the end of the PBS shows as oppossed to Rita or Gina…and quite frankly…Brenda and Mari are the creepiest voices.
Honestly, I dont see them bringing Nabu back. I’m excited to see a full reboot and it’s the perfect way to bring Nex in from the start, skip the fandom drama and give his and Aishas relationship the love it deserves, if not up to previous writing quality. Maybe it will even bring Nex some fans who have no clue about Nabu or the drama, or change peoples perceptions of Nex. That’s my hope anyway. You’ve really been a big part of my attachment to him as a character, and the dynamic between him and Aisha.
I hope you’re right. I think whether they keep Nex or not depends on which audience they’re targeting. While it looks like they’re targeting the older fans because of the Charmix redesigns and this being a reboot, I still can’t get past a couple factors.
One, they’re still calling this Winx season nine, which suggests a continuation rather than a reboot. Months ago, a fan said season 9 would continue some plots from season 8. If that’s true, it wouldn’t make sense if this is just a rewrite of the first three seasons.
Two, the new episode format still suggests this will be a preschool series. I’m not just saying that. People are referencing PopPixie when they talk about the new format, but that’s a Winx spin-off from 12 years ago. I’m also looking at Rainbow’s current and upcoming preschool series: 44 Cats, Pinocchio and Friends, and Summer & Todd Happy Farmers (try saying that with a straight face). They all have three things in common with Winx season 9:
To me, those are signs this season isn’t for the older fans. It’s still for the younger fans, and those fans know Nex better than Nabu. Even if this is a reboot, it’d be strange if a character who’s been in the show for three seasons in a row suddenly disappeared and was replaced with one from 12 years ago who was only there for 1 1/3 seasons then died.
There are other factors as well, like how Nabu threw off the dynamic of the team by being a magic user. It’s easier to balance the abilities of six Specialists and six fairies than five Specialists, six fairies, and one wizard. Not to mention, Nex, having red as his signature color, completed the Specialists’ Super Sentai rainbow theme last season, which had been in place (though more subtly) since season one.
Basically, Nex fits in better with the cast and story than Nabu did. If Rainbow brought Nabu back, it would only be for nostalgia’s sake, not practicality. But I don’t know what headspace this company is in.
I’m glad my blog helped you appreciate Aisha and Nex as a couple. I wish a lot of other Winx fans could, too. Unfortunately, this fandom may not see the merits of this couple until it’s too late. ?
Oh boy, now that you mentioned how the episode format for the WinX reboot is the same format as the other preschool TV series that Rainbow is working with, I am getting worried that the “toning down for children” is still on for the TV series.
I know this isn’t going to be like that “WinX” fan, but I really hope that the season 9 is a reboot in the other direction.
Ooh, I thought of another way to imagine how Winx season 9 will probably be. You remember that episode in season 2 where some guy named Yoshinoya held Diaspro for ransom, and Bloom, Sky, Brandon, and Flora went to Eraklyon to save her? And it had no connection to anything else in the entire season? Or the rest of the series?
Imagine 52 episodes of stuff like that. Voilà. Winx season 9.
Sadly, I think this will be the most “childish” season yet. The Charmix redesigns have the Winx more covered up than in the old days, just like with Enchantix in season 8. I also felt like the Winx looked pretty young in civilian form.
Also, as I keep saying, this episode format doesn’t lend itself to stories with overarching plots. It’s more for telling standalone stories.
So here’s what I think season 9 is: a reboot of the concept of Winx Club — a group of fairies who study at a magic school and fight evil — but not a retelling of Winx seasons 1-3. The episodes will be about random situations at school and throughout the Magic Dimension, possibly involving many villains instead of one Big Bad (although the Trix will probably be the main antagonists again). So basically…the Winx comics.
The reason the Winx are Charmix fairies again is not because Rainbow is retelling the original story, but because making them young again means:
So it lets Rainbow do what they’ve already been doing for the past three or four seasons, but now it actually makes sense story-wise.
To be fair, I don’t know how “childish” these episodes might be, but I don’t think they’ll be anything like the previous seasons. Even the fights might be toned down, and that’ll be partially because of the animation. You can show action-packed battles with CGI, but let’s face it: Rainbow ain’t Pixar. My guess is the fights will feel more like the ones in Regal Academy.
Ain’t nobody Pixar. Even with the Disney side using their cheap knockoff style since Tangled. At least Tangled did have 2d backdrops with CGI for the characters though and the Tangled series did show what Tangled was originally going to look like in 2d. They really need to go back to Disney=2d, Pixar 3d.
So true. I watched a clip Pixar posted recently from the production of Incredibles 2, and it was amazing. Check it out: https://youtu.be/a0VilAhbg5U
Their storyboards are always unique.
Can’t say I’m looking forward to the reboot, considering all they’ve done with the franchise but as always I will hope for the best. I am however looking forward to your retelling, I’ve been reading your posts dissecting the show and I can tell that it’s going to be really good!
Mostly what annoys me is how people act like criticising the show is a bad thing, I’m a Winx fan and while there is good, there’s also a lot of bad which I hate because the show has a lot of great concepts but poor execution (this is what inspired me to do a rewrite of the series).
They definitely should not bring back Nabu, not because he’s ‘different’, but because he’s just a poorly written character who clashes with Aisha’s story. I think Nex is a better fit because he’s a better character, he doesn’t just help Aisha grow to be a better person but he also experiences his own character development.
[…] Secrets. I wrote a post about this a week or two ago but decided not to publish it. But your comment made me realize the Winx fandom may not have noticed this […]