Tinkerbell and Periwinkle's Secret
They're actually twins
The fourth Tinkerbell movie, Secret of the Wings, has a charming take on the separated-at-birth twin trope. Tinkerbell’s curiosity about the Winter Woods leads her to cross the border where the strange occurrence of her wings glowing drives her to discover that she has a sister – a frost fairy named Periwinkle. A vision shows them how they were split from a single baby’s laugh at birth and separated on their journey to Pixie Hollow, with Periwinkle ending up in the Winter Woods while Tinkerbell is taken to the Pixiedust Tree where the first Tinkerbell movie starts.
Tink and Peri have an adorable getting-to-know-each-other montage where they learn all about each other’s lives. The entire movie is centered around this idea – they want to share and be a part of each other’s worlds, but there are rules against their respective sides interacting. One of my favorite parts of the movie is where Rosetta says, “It’s like you found the perfect lost thing.” To which Tinkerbell replies, “And I’m never going to lose her.” This is a typical-romance plot (look at Romeo and Juliet), so it’s enlightening to see it with siblings instead. Another layer of tension this movie applies to the situation is that not only rules separate them, but the environment as well – the climate the fairy isn’t accustomed to can tear their wings, taking away their ability to fly.
Tinkerbell overcomes this at first through her tinker-fairy prowess, but it isn’t enough in the end. She tears a wing. Queen Clarion and Lord Milori, who take sort of divorced parent-figure roles and are reunited through Tink and Peri’s efforts,1 decide to abolish the rules against their worlds interacting, seeing how it only encouraged her to be reckless.2 Periwinkle comforts Tinkerbell and their wings glow again, making Tinkerbell’s injured wing heal.3
Despite its cliche ending, Secret of the Wings still does a lot of things right when it comes to twins. Even though “giving Tinkerbell a sister” is clearly an afterthought of the franchise, Periwinkle is still treated as an individual with just as much importance and individuality as Tinkerbell and has her fair share of independent screen-time. From pom-pommed shoes to collecting lost things, the twins have similar interests, yet still have notable differences. One of my favorite sequences is when they take turns asking each other questions about themselves. Tinkerbell says that hot chamomile tea is her favorite while Periwinkle says it’s her favorite too, but she prefers it iced. Within that one brief exchange, it establishes their uniqueness while still keeping them similar. It would be all too easy to have made these twins polar-opposites (fire and ice, especially), but instead a nice balance between their similarities and differences is maintained.
Another unsung aspect of this film is that Tink and Peri are fraternal twins. One of Periwinkle’s friends takes time to pick apart their differences, but notes how they have the same nose. Even their physiques are a bit different! The only full identicality is the design of their wings. It feels like a small thing, but when a majority of twins in media are identical females, having fraternal twins (that aren’t female/male either) is a big win.
There is one thing this movie misses a pretty big mark on, though…
It’s never actually stated that Tinkerbell and Periwinkle are twins. A lot of the things I’ve mentioned point to the undeniable fact that they are twins – the splitting of a single baby’s laugh that birthed them and their appearance and identical wings in particular. Even Vidia says, “So there’s another you.” However, it’s still never explicitly stated. Tink and Peri are only ever referred to as sisters. The movie doesn’t deny their twin-ness, but it also doesn’t fully commit to it either.
Why is that? Why clearly establish that they are twins and then shy away from the actual label? Maybe they wanted to make Tinkerbell and Periwinkle’s story a more universal one about sisterhood.4 Maybe the fairies don’t meet the typical identical twin mold being fraternal and the creators feared it would only confuse young viewers to call them twins. Honestly, these are weak guesses as to why the word “twin” is never used in the movie. It’s rather strange considering Disney is rather fond of twin characters.
And so, rather anticlimactically, this secret of Secret of the Wings remains unsolved.
It always comes back to The Parent Trap.
That’s honestly the plot, I never said it made complete sense.
I guess if a fairy tears a wing and doesn’t have a twin, they’re out of luck :(
Maybe this movie was a test-run for Frozen which came out the following year?