A Fairytale Not Forgotten, But Maimed

    Hans Christian Andersen published a story in 1837 and this tale, like many of his other works became a well known fairy tale. A classic. Then in 1989 something happened.  Someone made a movie of this story. Sort of. It had the same name. It even shared a number of major plot points, but the ending...  Let's just say so many artistic liberties were taken that the original storyline was murdered, dismembered, and then reconstructed into something that bears a faint resemblance to what it once was, much like Frankenstein's monster. 

    I am speaking of The Little Mermaid.  So, what did Disney's plot salad get right? A number of things: the little mermaid being youngest daughter of the widowed sea king, a bunch of sisters, her fascination with the surface world, a prince having a birthday party on a ship that sailed into a storm, her rescuing him and leaving him on a beach, trading her ability to speak and sing to a sea witch for legs, the prince finding her on the beach, him having black hair, her having blue eyes, him getting engaged to someone else, and the celebration of that union taking place on a ship. The original story even has a statue rescued from a shipwreck that looks a lot like the prince, although the statue shows up well before the prince and seems largely coincidental. 

    What are the major things that Disney changed? The number of sisters, the timeline, the surface being forbidden, the presence of slavery, the full cost of the little mermaid's bargain and the lack of an actual villain, but mostly the ending. The little mermaid (who is not named Ariel, because she's not named at all), is fifteen when she first encounters the prince who was celebrating his sixteenth birthday at the time.  She then spends multiple seasons, possibly even a year moping and obsessing about him before saying anything about him to anyone, and it is only because she does eventually say something that she's able to find out what country he's from and where he lives. Then she spies on him for an undefined amount of time and becomes enamoured with the surface world and humans. 

    In the story's lore mermaids are more closely tied to nature than humans, and as such do not have a soul in the way that humans do. Mermaids exist until they fade to sea foam and that is all. There is no afterlife for them, no continuance. The little mermaid becomes fascinated with the concept of souls and desires one herself, but according to her grandmother (who helped raise all the sisters) the only way a mermaid can gain a soul is for a human to fall so deeply in love with her that she meant more to him than all others and then marry her. Then they will share a soul, in a sense. 

    So, quite rashly, the little mermaid who is probably at least seventeen by this point, decides to visit the sea witch. (The area surrounding the sea witch's abode is rather similar to what Disney portrays with the grasping plant like things, but think of something more like sea anemones big enough to eat humans, fish, mermaids, etc. if they get too close.) The sea witch, being both magical and well aware of all sorts of gossip, like a proper fairy tale witch should be, immediately knows why the little mermaid has come. She lays out the terms and limitations of her work. She can give the mermaid legs, but being as it is not her natural state, each step will be like getting stabbed in the foot with a blade. To help counter that, a charm effect will be applied to all the humans she encounter so they find her to be lovely and graceful. If the prince marries someone else she'll turn to sea foam at the dawn of the next day. The price, since the sea witch is using her own blood to work the magic, is not some glowing orb containing her voice, no it's the little mermaid's tongue, which apparently contains her voice (because even without a tongue, I'm pretty sure she should have been able to grunt, etc. but apparently all of that was lost also.) So after having her tongue cut out of her mouth, she swims to the surface, drinks the potion, passes out from the pain of the transformation, and wakes up to the prince standing in front of her. Fortunately, she has a lot of hair of an unspecified color that covers the important bits up quite nicely until her introduction to clothes occurs. 

    The prince, and everyone else,  is charmed by the little mermaid and she becomes his close companion and shadow for another unspecified amount of time. He seems to largely view her as a younger sibling or even some sort of pet. Apparently, she vaguely reminds him of the girl who found him on the beach after he was shipwrecked, the girl he loves but can't have because she's studying at a temple. Time passes, the king and queen want the prince to meet the princess of the neighboring kingdom. They'd like to form a marriage alliance, but are good enough parents and rulers that they won't force him and aren't in a political position where they'd need to pressure him about it. He agrees to go, but is quite sure it will lead no where. In a fit of melancholy he remarks to the little mermaid that he's more likely to marry her than some random princess, because at least she reminds him of the girl he loves. (He's kind of a jerk.)

    So they sail off to the neighboring country. The little mermaid's family are all aware of where she's been and have come to wave and gaze mournfully at her from time to time. Her sisters see her on the ship and follow. The prince meets the princess and in an unsurprising twist: she's the girl he's been in love with since he was sixteen, however long ago that was. They marry quickly and have a huge party on a ship. The little mermaid spends her last night with a broken heart. Then her sisters appear in the water. They traded their hair with the sea witch for a magical knife. If the little mermaid stabs the prince in the heart, when his life's blood touches her feet she'll return to her true form and be able to reunite with her family. Taking the knife, she goes to the newlyweds' room. She briefly contemplates doing the deed, before casting aside the blade. Then as the sun rises she throws herself from the ship, but instead of fading into the nothingness of fleeting sea foam she finds herself part of a host of airy entities. Children of the air whose good works can grant them a soul after a long probationary period. The suffering and loyalty of the little mermaid changed her, giving her the opportunity for more, for the soul she desired all along. 

    The Little Mermaid has a lot going on. Most noticeably, it does not have a traditional romantic happy ending, or even a proper tragic romantic ending (I'm looking at you, Steadfast Tin Soldier). The little mermaid doesn't get the prince, and she doesn't need to. I'm not even sure you could classify this as an unrequited love. She cared for the prince certainly, and while she certainly wanted his love to be of a romantic nature in order to get him to marry her, it would not be fair to say that she was in love with him. She wanted a soul. It seems he was largely a means to an end. Was she heartbroken when he married? Yes, but who wouldn't be if they gambled their life and had just lost? She'd given up so much in pursuit of her goal, and it was all in vain. She didn't get the result she was pursuing. 

    I like the original story better. It teaches an important lesson that fairy tales, like life, don't always fit a prescribed course. There's disappointments, pain, and things won't always end up the way the protagonist or you, would like. At the same time, there's beauty, twists of fate, and touches of the divine that are often overlook. I do appreciate the nod to the original ending that Disney gave by naming the little mermaid Ariel. When you think about it, it is a rather airy name for a water dwelling creature. Still, I wish there was a little bit less "happily ever after" washing of fairy tales in their movie remakes. I get that a lot of them are targeted at kids, but it's not like I'm asking them to include Snow White's stepmother dancing to death in red hot iron shoes at Snow's wedding! Just stop messing up who ends up with whom! Keep the villains falling to their deaths (even though that is soo old), just stop changing the relationship dynamics (and results) that are central to the plotline! It's so aggravating!