If Cinderella’s shoe fit perfectly, why did it fall off?

r/

Like… hear me out.
The whole damn point was that the glass slipper only fit her, right? It was a “perfect fit.” Then HOW did it fall off during the most important moment of her life?
Was it actually a perfect fit or did the Fairy Godmother go to Wish dot com for those shoes?
Someone explain this plot hole before I lose faith in fairytales forever.

Comments

  1. ScottHawk88 Avatar

    She was running so her feet got all sweaty and slippy

  2. Iocnar Avatar

    Scanners.gif

  3. rsvihla Avatar

    Because it was necessary to the plot. Like nudity.

  4. Fall_of_the_Empire25 Avatar

    It’s a rigid shoe, so in order to put it on or take it off at all, it can’t fit perfectly snugly. Like clogs.

    Also, she was running and the shoes just weren’t intended for that kind of thing.

    Although when you think about it, a glass shoe would be a nightmare to wear… especially barefoot.

  5. whiskey_epsilon Avatar

    You ever tried running in glass slippers? It’s glass, there’s no traction, no flex, it doesn’t mold to your feet.

    The real question you should ask, is why it didn’t change back at midnight when everything else did?

  6. Ill_Donut555 Avatar

    In the original fairytale her shoe gets stuck in tar, it didn’t fall off. Tar also plays a role in other segments of the fairytale.

  7. persephonepeete Avatar

    … you’ve never lost one of your shoes doing something?

  8. eh_lora Avatar

    Raised on original “if-the-toe-does-not-fit-cut-it-off”-version here:
    Girl ran away twice, so on the third night the Prince covered the stairs outside the castle doors in pitch (presumeably to make her fall flat on her face), which her shoe got stuck in. (Also, just fuck everyone else who tries to exit)

  9. Hot-Spread3565 Avatar

    Expansion and contraction, day temperatures are higher perfect fit , falls off at night in cooler temperatures, sheesh!

  10. yes_thats_right Avatar

    A shoe can be the perfect fit for walking in, and not perfect for running.

  11. MissMarchpane Avatar

    Plot reasons. It needed to fall off, so it fell off. This version of the story is a fairytale from the 1690s; it’s not exactly a place to look for perfect logic.

    Although I’ve read one no magic adaptation from the early 2000s where the shoes were just made by a very good glassblower and the heels finally start to give out as she’s running, so she just kicks them off to avoid having broken glass in her feet. So some authors do try to explain it, which can be very interesting!

  12. morts73 Avatar

    Glass slippers would be a nightmare to walk around in, I’m surprised she didn’t kick them off sooner.

  13. NYVines Avatar

    “The point of the story wasn’t to get her to look pretty for the dance. She has to get the prince. The magic worked as it was designed to”

    —F.G.M.

  14. A_ThorusRex Avatar

    There was bubblegum on one of the steps

  15. NewNameAgainUhg Avatar

    Shoes back then were more like slippers, they weren’t tied to the foot or ankle. Any person running would lose their shoes. The difference with Cinderella is her way smaller foot (and in some versions the material of the shoe)

  16. rocklare Avatar

    Glass heels sound terrifying, imagine if it shatters while your wearing them. Oof.

  17. moondancer224 Avatar

    Glass shoes made with magic by a fairy and you are questioning contrivances of fate that might make the fairy able to keep her bargain?

  18. dementedskeptic Avatar

    Because she is greasy

  19. mcdray2 Avatar

    Also, at midnight all the fancy clothes and the horse drawn carriage went back to being rags and a bunch of mice with a pumpkin.

    Why did that shoe not turn back into her old one?

  20. MercuryRyan Avatar

    Because she has sweaty feet, and we all know that leads to footwear coming off. My whole leg went right through my slides due to my sweaty feet once.

  21. noodlesarmpit Avatar

    As a former wearer of jelly sandals, clearly it’s because her foot was sweaty AF.

  22. missusfictitious Avatar

    Don’t you realize the whole thing was set up BY THE FAIRY GODMOTHER? The shoe was supposed to fall off, it was supposed to be found by the prince. And the “stroke of midnight” time limit was by design too, so that she had to hurry off, leaving both her and the prince feeling as if they had unfinished business together. Imagine if they’d had the chance to just talk all night and eventually find out they had little in common? Or Cinderella has too much champagne, gets a little bold and reckless and shags the prince in a drunken haze? Nobody’s picking up that glass slipper from a walk of shame.

  23. Foghorn2005 Avatar

    I danced ballroom in college, completely, so well fitted shoes were important. I still saw MULTIPLE instances of a heel go flying mid competition the poor woman dancing the rest of the round with one shoe

  24. gyroidatansin Avatar

    I still prefer Sondheim’s solution to the problem by having Cinderella choose to leave her shoe behind.

  25. Kamikazepoptart Avatar

    Maybe her feet got sweaty from running/dancing and it slipped off?

  26. PrincessBuzzkill Avatar

    Take it from someone who used to wear heels – you don’t want them to be snug.  Especially if they’re a rigid material (like glass).

  27. RussDidNothingWrong Avatar

    Fairy godmother was trying to get her girl laid, that’s why.

  28. StragglingShadow Avatar

    I believe the prince sets a trap of tar to catch her, and she manages to get out, but her shoe gets too stuck, so she runs without it.

  29. drewconnan Avatar

    It’s magic. 

    It fell off because she needed to leave something behind so the Prince could find her later and whisk her away from her terrible life. Maybe the fairy godmother preprogrammed it, or maybe the slipper or the will of magic knew to do it. But it happened because it was necessary to save her and reward her for her hard work.

  30. Interesting-Set-5993 Avatar

    ok so I’m gonna answer based on the Disney movie.

    There’s a part where she’s bringing breakfast upstairs to her step-bitches, and you barely notice it, because that cat Lucifer is trying to catch Gus the fat mouse, who’s in one of the sisters’ teacups. As she’s going up she loses a shoe on the stairs, suggesting this is a common mishap for her.

    After midnight when she realizes the glass slipper has stayed unchanged, she says a “Thank you 🥹” to the not present Fairy Godmother, suggesting it must have been meant as a gift or keepsake.

  31. Chapea12 Avatar

    It’s the time honored play of leaving something at the guys house so you have an excuse to come back. My wife ran this with earrings early in the relationship

  32. esk_209 Avatar

    Magic shoes — it was a massive manipulation by the fae. The shoe would “fit” only when it needed to fit. There wasn’t anything special about Cinderella’s shoe size; the shoe would shift size in order to fit her foot and only her foot, and it was enchanged to “fall” off at just the right time because the fae wanted their marriage for their own political purposes.

  33. elbowbunny Avatar

    She’d been gettin down with the Prince all night. Waltz after waltz after waltz. Gurl’s slippers were sweaty af for sure. She starts to run & boom! Her foot shoots outta that slippery sucker. The other one stays on cause she digs deep & spreads her toes to keep it in place. Allegedly.

  34. MrsFannyBertram Avatar

    Duh, it is fated. Part of the shoe being perfect is that it falls off so the Prince can find her. If it didn’t fall off then it wouldn’t be perfect

  35. Internal-Mood-803 Avatar

    Here’s the simple answer: the steps were covered with tar/pitch.
    So the slippers stuck to them. 

    Original Grimm Fairy Tale 🙂 

  36. avsa Avatar

    Maybe it’s the like the one ring and it decided to fall off at that moment in search of Mordor 

  37. russwestgoat Avatar

    You try running in heels

  38. Sexy9Girl Avatar

    Found myself sprinting in heels last week trying to catch the last train. Even my most comfortable pairs were slipping off. Now imagine doing that in literal glass shoes Cinderella was just living the authentic heel wearing experience.

  39. Phil-McRoin Avatar

    What’s weirder is that this guy is in love with her, he spent the evening with her, after that one evening he is 100% sure he wants to marry her, but he has no idea what she looks like. The only way he can be sure she’s the one is if he gets a good look at her feet. Dude just sounds like a creep with a foot fetish that’s more overt than Quinten Tarantino.

  40. Sea-Stranger8247 Avatar

    Because they were glass slippers with a heel and she was running down stairs. It happens.

  41. TheRealcebuckets Avatar

    You try keeping a sweaty glass high heel on your feet while outrunning guards down a staircase.

  42. Sagelegend Avatar

    It probably got caught on something.

  43. Samwry Avatar

    She was dancing. No socks or stockings. It was warm. She was sweating. OF COURSE a glass slipper would “slip” off with the toesweat and so on lubricating the journey. It’s actually a miracle that one slipper actually stayed on!

  44. Meincornwall Avatar

    I can’t believe a whole country enabled a foot fetishist to run rampant.

  45. Successful-Throat23 Avatar

    Bibbity boppity boo

  46. Gab288 Avatar

    Maybe her feet were sweaty from dancing ?

  47. Green-Dragon-14 Avatar

    How else was the Prince supposed to find her.

  48. GardenLeaves Avatar

    Your feet can swell after wearing them for too long right? Maybe that, or perhaps sweating could be a reason

  49. reblynn2012 Avatar

    I would just like to say that as someone who has worn heels, high and low, all her life, that if one starts running or even maybe really hurrying, in said heels, more than likely one is going to lose one. Or, at least have to stop and adjust it. Note women in old movies running from monsters. Or, Cinderella trying to beat the clock. They always lose a dadgum shoe.

  50. Flat-Table8787 Avatar

    Maybe they made her feet sweaty

  51. OldandBlue Avatar

    Glass slippers is a wrong translation coming from a confusion between verre and vair. Vair is squirrel fur.

  52. less_doomed Avatar

    Magic.
    It has to be the fairy godmother working behind the scenes.

  53. draconiclady0610 Avatar

    ….Maaaaaagicccccc…….

  54. Carpenterdon Avatar

    Umm, It had to fall off so she would end up with her prince. If it hadn’t she’d have had one great night at a big party then back to drudgery under her step mother.

  55. SJammie Avatar

    In one of the older versions, they were fur slippers and it was because her foot was so small and dainty that no one else’s would fit. But that was just one version.

  56. senectus Avatar

    Women’s shoes are not made for function.

  57. pussthekat Avatar

    Or maybe she did it on purpose to catch attention at the club?

  58. LengthinessAcrobatic Avatar

    A shoe can fall off while running even if it was a perfect fit. Specially if it was a “party” shoe.

    What bothers me about Cinderella is the prince trying to find any girl with the same shoe size because he couldn’t remember a face that he fell in love with on first sight?!

    Wait maybe I’m wrong, this might be the origin story of Quentin Tarantino.

  59. WatermelonMachete43 Avatar

    Ever try to run in high heels?? Even heels that fit well are prone to falling off.

  60. HaIfhearted Avatar

    As a guy I can’t say I’ve ever ran down a flight of stairs in a pair of high heels but it sounds really hard to do.

    Honestly the simple idea of actually running at all in high heels sounds like a nightmare.

  61. rory_breakers_ganja Avatar

    Never knew the answer, but I remember being grounded from recess in first grade for asking this same question.

  62. MrDavieT Avatar

    Because it was Disney’s interpretation of the old fable.

  63. MaDCapRaven Avatar

    In the story the prince spread pitch on the stairs.She got stuck and the shoe came off.

  64. Content-Dealers Avatar

    She wiped out on the steps. It was pretty bad.

  65. SunnyFlow13 Avatar

    we’re all know it’s a glass shoes. and she had been dancing for hours, her feet might’ve been sweaty. glass become slippery when wet. so yeah. :)))

  66. Embarrassed-Paper588 Avatar

    The only relevant question surely is why was the Prince so slow he couldn’t recognise the women he had danced with the whole night just because she had on rags

  67. sfdsquid Avatar

    Have you ever tried to run in heels?

  68. wallguy22 Avatar

    In the Rogers and Hammerstein version, she takes it off and gives it to him before she runs away.

  69. RainIndividual441 Avatar

    It was smooth glass. She was dancing and sweating, and then she bolted down the stairs at a run. The most perfect slippers in the world aren’t up for that. Sneakers, sure! Boots, sure! Slippers? Nahhhhhh. 

  70. twystedmyst Avatar

    Feet sweat. Glass is slippery. When you wear shoes with no socks and that are made out of a material that’s not breathable, where does the sweat go? It pools and collects inside the shoe. It seems pretty simple that even with a perfectly sized shoe, it would be slippery and fall off. I don’t wear heels anymore, but even the ones that fit well, if there’s not a strap, they can come off. Especially if you’re running.

  71. Goji103192 Avatar

    Human feet bend, twist, and move while walking… glass does none of those things.

    Carefully walking and twirling around at a ball, it’s gonna be fine. The most you’ll need to worry about is the glass breaking from weight or impact.

    But running down stairs, your feet are going to move around a lot. So the odds of them shifting out of rigid glass slippers is much higher.

  72. Guroburov Avatar

    Maybe because dancing with the prince blew her socks off. I’ll show myself out. Sorry.

  73. Dndfanaticgirl Avatar

    The magic was wearing off so the shoes ability to stay on was lowered. Meaning sweat, even a bad step on her part would cause it to come off

  74. vintagemisfitbarbie Avatar

    She was getting reemed! If your shoe doesn’t fall off, you’re not doing it right!

  75. 4GetTheNonsense Avatar

    Cinderella sweated off that shoe trying to catch her ride back to the house 🤷‍♀️

  76. Kendota_Tanassian Avatar

    It’s in the name: it’s a glass slipper.

    Slippers are made to easily slip on and off, that’s why they’re called slippers, after all!

    Besides, if it hadn’t slipped off (because she was running, down stairs), the Prince wouldn’t have had any way of finding her.

    Besides, a “perfect fit” for a shoe she’s going to dance in won’t be either too tight, or too loose. But it will be loose enough that it might easily come off when she’s running down a flight of stairs in a hurry.

  77. Turbulent_Yellow_706 Avatar

    Real talk though: she probably ran down marble stairs in glass heels. That’s less about fit and more about physics + panic.

  78. Moist_Potato4689 Avatar

    Glass shoe = sweaty feet = slip off.

  79. buhito15 Avatar

    So the prince could find her, it was a setup by the fairy godmother.

  80. TheWolr Avatar

    In a version of Story i know, Cinderella attended three balls and always left before midnight. On the last one the prince wanted to know her name so to find her when she leaves ordered the stuff to make stairs sticky (idk with what, maybe honey, maybe some glue) and he was lucky as when Cinderella was again running away she lost her shoe and because she was in a hurry could not retrieve it.

  81. doubtfullfreckles Avatar

    If there’s nothing holding a shoe tightly to your foot, it can come off easily. I’m into K-pop and have noticed that a lot of idols that wear heels will have a clear strap to hold the shoes on better. There have been times when they didn’t have that and the shoe comes off

  82. Plant-Hoarder-61 Avatar

    Umm she’d been dancing all night and clearly had sweaty feet!

  83. jennimackenzie Avatar

    It was the same thing as when the pumpkin and mice turned into a couple of horses and a carriage. Like how the heck?!?

    The whole thing is really unbelievable and not based in reality at all. So frustrating.

    /s

  84. TheOConnorsTry Avatar

    The modern Cinderella is not the original, to the best of my knowledge the original is actually a Chinese tale and the slipper only fit the protagonist because she was the only one whose feet were that tiny…

    So yeah, slipper fell off because its a silk slipper instead of a glass high heel, it only fit one girl in the area because no one else bound their feet to be that small.

  85. tklishlipa Avatar

    Ever tried keeping a glass slipper on your feet while running? Thought so

  86. PinkestMango Avatar
  87. mutemarmot42 Avatar

    I’m no expert on the various stories, but I’ve worn heels. If I tried to run in heels with no strap of some kind, no matter how perfectly fitted, I’d definitely lose one if not both.