Origin

Tinkerbell is the small, helpful pixie friend of Peter Pan. Her voice is like sounds of a tinkling bell, which can only be understood by those familiar with the language of the fairies. A sprinkle of her pixie dust can make you fly. Tinkerbell is a loyal friend to Peter Pan, and she would lay down her life to help him.

Creation

Tinker Bell (sometimes spelt "Tinkerbell" or "Tinker Belle") was created by J.M. Barrie in 1904 for the original Peter Pan play, and would later be part of the 1911 novelization of the play with very little changes made to Tinker Bell.

Other Versions

Disney's Peter Pan & Tinker Bell Movies

In her most widely known appearance, the 1953 animated film Peter Pan, she wears a short lime-green dress with a rigid trim, and green slippers with white puffs this is her most well known outfit. When she flies, she is trailed by small amounts of pixie dust, and this dust can help humans fly if they believe it will.

Since 1954, Tinkerbell has featured as one of Disney's most important branding icons, representing the "Disney magic". She is featured in the opening credits of all Disney movies, sprinkling pixie dust in order to shower a magical feeling over the audience before the movie begins.

Starting in 2005 she got her own line of comic books and movies where she could speak perfect English, leading to the character becoming even more popular than Peter Pan himself.

Her movie series would explore how fairies are born, through children laughter, Tinker Bell joins the fairies being assigned the job as a tinker fairy, although is often in trouble for going out of line and escaping to the human world, something tinker fairies aren't allowed to do, until the rules changed because of Tinker Bell.

Later movies, would introduce the Winter Fairies who are responsible to changing the season to winter, while the main fairies take care of the rest of seasons. One of the winter fairies is Periwinkle that is revealed to be Tinker Bell's secret sister, being from the same child laugh.

Grimm Fairy Tales

In the reimagined Grimm Fairy Tales version of the novel, Pan and Tinker Belle are the villains of the new world. Tinker Belle does Pan's bidding because she thinks he loves her, but when she realizes that he does not she switches sides to that of the heroes.

Archie Comics

In issues #637 and #638 of Archie, the gang is transported to a magical kingdom where they replace the versions of the fairy tales characters. Tinker Bell saves Archie at one point and later shows up as a new student at school.

Once Upon A Time

Tinker Bell was a recurring character in the third season of the show, being a former fairy known as Green. She tried to help the Evil Queen to find true love, but due to her failure would have her wings removed. Tinker Bell was later imprisoned in Neverland, she helped the heroes defeat Peter Pan (who in this version is a villain.) and return home to Storybrooke. Tinker Bell was shown to be reinstated as a fairy, and occasionally appear part of the town, although would eventually fade out of the main group before making a single CGI cameo in the series finale. She was played by Rose McIver.

Peter Pan & Wendy

Tinker Bell plays the same role as she does in the original Peter Pan story, although her crush on Pan is removed due to it being seen as problematic for an adult fairy to have those feelings for an immortal child. This version of Tinker Bell also gets along with Wendy faster, and is shown to be more powerful with her pixie magic, no longer being easily bested by Captain Hook. She was played by Yara Shahidi.