Yeah, this is definitely the case IME. It's easy to read these stories and go away thinking "WTF." But it's important to remember that these stories come from oral societies, which means 90% of the communication is lost since it's only written on paper. But that communication can be reconstructed by a charitable mind.

For example, in the first story in Grimm's Fairy Tales (at least the version I read), there's a mouse and a cat that are friends. The cat and mouse find some delicious food and they hide it somewhere far away from their house. The cat then proceeds to go "visiting relatives" (in reality he is eating up the delicious food) and the mouse is gullible and believes the cat. After a while the mouse discovers the cat ate up all the food and angrily accuses the cat of being deceitful. The cat then proceeds to eat the mouse. The end.

I think this is a profound story on not ignoring the fact that the cat is the natural predator and the mouse is the natural prey in the relationship. The mouse has convinced itself that this time will be different. This has relevance for e.g. not dismissing signs of abuse.

But it's so easy to read that story and be like, "Well, I guess the point is that gullible people get screwed, so don't be gullible." Or even, "It's a dog-eat-dog world." It's a good story to tell a friend who's trying to rationalize being passive in an abusive relationship.