Is it weird that the older I get the more I prefer the darker, original The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen? In it, the mermaid never gets the prince, because he falls in love with some other girl. And it’s so sad because of all the mermaid sacrifices to be with this guy who doesn’t even appreciate her– in the Disney version she just grows human legs and is perfectly fine, and then Ursula captures her voice in that little shell… but in the original story, the sea witch literally cuts off her tongue, and every time she walks on her human legs she’s in great pain, like knives stabbing into her. But she suffers through it because she loves the prince so much, and she wants to be with him so bad… and he never knows, because she can’t speak up to tell him how she feels. He treats her like some sort of pet, and not like a person. Then at the end of the story she dissolves into sea foam while watching the other woman marry the prince.
That’s some dark stuff right there, man. 😃 The first time I read it as a girl it was after I had seen the Disney version, and I remember being so mad about it, that it wasn’t like the movie, that it wasn’t happier… but now that I’m older, wooo boy can I relate to this story. 😉
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad there’s a version where the mermaid gets her man… but I don’t know, there’s just something about the original that speaks to me.