Let me refresh your memory.
Ariel, is a young mermaid, with a beautiful singing voice. She constantly daydreams about life on land, and she is fascinated with objects from the land. She has 3 friends: a bird named Scuttle, who finds various items from the land. A yellow fish named Flounder, and a headstrong crab named Sebastian.
Well, lets get to the story. Ariel sees a ship, and has to get a closer look. She sees Prince
Eric, and it is of course, love at first sight.
A storm breaks out, and Ariel rescues Eric from drowning, and she is serenading him as he wakes up. Then she goes back to the sea. Eric, begins to search everywhere for the woman who saved him.
Meanwhile in the ocean, Ariel is acting differently. It is pretty obvious that she is all goo-goo-ga-ga over a boy. Her father, King Triton asks Sebastian about who she likes. He accidentally spills the beans about Ariel being in love with a human.
Triton is PISSED. So he goes to Ariel and yells at her about it. Loses his temper, and destroys all of her human trinkets.
So Ariel ends up going to the sea witch Ursula.
Ursula gets her to sign a contract. The deal is, Ariel can have legs, and live on land, but she can’t have her voice, unless Eric kisses her in 3 days. Or, Ursula gets Ariel’s soul
Ariel’s voice is kept in a seashell. You can see all of these creepy lumps in Ursula’s cave. They are all of the souls she has gained over the years.
Well, Eric does not think she is the one who saved him, because she is a mute. He is slowly falling for her. Then Ursula decides to cheat, and she comes to the land disguised as a beautiful girl named Vanessa.
She is wearing the seashell around her neck, and tricks Eric into thinking she is the girl with the beautiful voice who saved him. She casts a spell on Eric to forget about Ariel.
He forgets about Ariel, and decides to marry Vanessa. Of course, Ariel gets her voice back, with the help of her friends. Eric kisses Ariel, but not on time. So Ursula decides to take Ariel’s soul. Triton tries to destroy the contract, but can’t. So he offers his soul to Ursula in place of his daughter’s. Ursula agrees, and grows into the size of Godzilla, and decides to screw things up.
Well, Eric gets his ship, and attacks Ursula. He ends up fatally stabbing her in the gut. She dies, and all of the little lumps (including Triton) turn back in to mermen, and mermaids. Ariel gets her human legs back, and she marries Eric, and they live happily ever after.
Sounds wonderful and joyous.
The original version is not so happy.
The Little Mermaid, written in 1836 by Hans Christian Andersen, tells a slightly different story.
Mermaids live for 300 years, and when they die, turn to sea foam and cease to exist. Where as a human has a much shorter life span, but has an eternal life in heaven.
The little mermaid has 5 older sisters. Each one born 1 year after the one before. When they turn 15, they are allowed to go to the surface, and view the world above the sea. Each sister talks about how great it is. When The Little Mermaid’s turn comes, she sees and falls in love with a prince on a ship.
A storm comes, and she saves the prince from drowning.
She waits until a girl from the temple finds him, and she swims away. The prince never actually saw her.
The little Mermaid does see a sea witch who gives her a potion that will give her legs, in exchange for her voice (as her voice is intoxicating). The downside? Drinking the potion will be painful, as if she is being stabbed by swords. He legs will be beautiful, and she will dance better than any human. However, her feet will feel as if she is walking on sharp blades, and her feet will bleed, a lot.
She will only get a soul if the prince falls in love with her and marries her, since part of his soul will go to her.
So this wonderful prince is attracted to her physical beauty, and he loves to watch her dance. She dances for him a lot, even though it is causing the most excruciating pain in her feet.
The prince is not in love with the mermaid. He is in love with the girl who found him outside of the temple. He says that the mermaid is slowly taking the temple girls place. That is until he finds out the temple girls is actually a princess. So he marries her.
The mermaid knows she is going to die soon. However her sister’s come to help. They gave the sea witch all of their hair in exchange for a knife, that the little mermaid must use to murder the prince. If his blood gets on her feet, she will become a mermaid again.
The little mermaid can’t bring herself to commit murder, so she commits suicide instead. Throwing herself into the ocean. Her body turns into sea foam. However, she turns into a spirit of the air, and if she keeps doing good deeds she will earn a soul, and get into heaven.
So, we have a girl that is so in love with a man, that she will dance for him as her feet bleed all over the place. She is in excruciating pain whenever she walks or dances. Then the jerk chooses some other girl over her, because of her bloodline (she was a princess).
So she just kills herself.
Fairy tales can be so morbid and depressing. LOL
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