Fairy tales and adaptations

Ooh, I just found a rant I wrote a while back, but forgot to post to my blog:

I'm having a bad day; a rant is in order.

I'm thinking about writing an adaptation of the original Sleeping Beauty, with realistic characters. By "original" I mean the non-Disneyfied version, where the prince doesn't only kiss the princess...see, in the original, the princess is pregnant by the time she wakes up. This has always bothered me; the princess wakes up and finds a naked stranger in her room, and she marries him??? WTF?! If it was me, I'd start yelling for the guards as soon as I saw him, and after I had a chance to think, I'd probably send for the executioner.

Most current versions of the story make it seem like the princess knows the prince, and that she was waiting for someone to rescue her from the sleeping spell. This makes no sense; she's been asleep for 100 years, so she can't know the prince, who is only 18-20. Also, she is ASLEEP, so she wouldn't be aware of the passage of time, or the fact that she's under a spell; when she wakes up, as far as she knows, she just fainted at the sight of blood when she pricked her finger, and has been asleep for a few hours. There is no way for her (or anyone else in the castle) to realize how much time has passed, until they get in touch with their neighbors, who are now the descendants of the people they knew.

Fairy tales can be a great source of plot ideas, but the characters can be so stupid sometimes. I don't mean because they're flat; that's to be expected when tales are passed down orally. I think even flat, orally-passed-down characters should have realistic reactions; as it is, their actions are totally asinine.