The most glaringly obvious difference between the tales of Little Red Riding Hood and Little Red Cap is the ending. The Perrault version ends swiftly and gruesomely with no chance of redemption, no moral being taught and no real purpose to the story other than to tell a frightening and entertaining story. The moment the wolf devours Little Red Riding Hood, that is the end. In the Grimm version however, the story continues to evolve long after the wolf swallows the girl. A hunter actually comes along and cuts the wolf's stomach open, gets the grandmother and the little girl out, alive, then kills the wolf by filling his stomach with stones. This is far less sadistic for the humans, but far more sadistic for the wolf. In addition, the vicious wolf-killing doesn't stop there, but continues on after everyone is safe and happy again. The second killing occurs when another wolf starts lurking around the grandmother's house, hoping for a two-for-one value meal. This wolf is also the victim of a devious plot, but this time it is Little Red Cap and her grandmother who pull off the cunning task, without the help of a male hunter.

The grandmother instructs Little Red Cap to take a boiling trough of sausage outside, causing the wolf to slide off of the roof when he catches...

After that, everyone lived happily ever after, with Little Red Cap having learned a valuable lesson about always minding your mother and never allowing yourself to be duped by someone with less than honorable intentions. and, of course, she also learned how to pull off some pretty creative killings. The emergence of her darker side is not surprising, however, considering the trauma she went through inside the wolf's stomach before she was rescued. The same can be said for grandma, who likely went through a metamorphosis of her own after enduring such a harrowing experience.
Of course, the girl and the grandmother in Perrault's story never got a chance to learn any lessons or have any epiphanies because their story ended the moment the wolf devoured them. The abruptness of the ending in Little Red Riding Hood is far more jolting than the ending of Little Red Cap, but then again, it refrains from being preachy and moralistic and just tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Grimm's story of course has a beginning, a middle and an end as well, but there is also an epilogue tacked onto the end that takes it in an entirely different direction -- not only in terms of plot, but also in terms of purpose.