Okay, so the real story of The Little Mermaid written by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1836 is actually a pretty cool little tale (wink wink pun intended). Plot details are switched about and Disney adds overlapping and layering in some pretty cool ways that weren’t previously there, mainly involving Ursula.

The largest adjustment to the story is Ariel’s driving desire for becoming human, which also reveals Anderson’s motives for writing about our little mermaid in the first place. Ariel becomes enchanted with this idea of “human immortality” as she daydreams of being with the prince. The notion that humans live forever, even after their death, is what pushes her to the decision to go see the sea witch. Anderson alludes to the afterlife here and uses the rest of the remainder of the story as a means to peak the interest of young people to this Christian ideal.

In Andersen’s story the mermaids aren’t fearful of humans. Each of Ariel’s sisters swims up to the surface of the ocean to explore the world above when they come of age (thing breaking amish). King Triton and the sisters even visit Ariel once she is living with Eric.The mermaids do however, look down on the humans, thinking them ugly and primitive. So lose the image of King Triton destroying Ariel’s grotto and replace it with the whole kingdom singing “Under the Sea” with Sebestian. They really do think “darlin it’s better down where it’s wetter”.

But then there’s the sea witch. Disney’s Ursula must be one crazy bored old lady. Ariel comes to her for help, hoping to be able to become human, and Ursula tries to scare her for pure fun, knowing that Ariel will go through with it, then she works to see to Ariel’s ultimate failure. Anderson’s sea witch requests Ariel’s tongue simply because it is the greatest thing Ariel, being the best singer on land or in sea, has to offer to her. Another part of this exchange includes that Ariel will feel like “she’s being stabbed with many sharp knives” with every step she takes. Sad and greedy yes, but not nearly as screwy as Ursula going out of her way to harm a little mermaid in order to get revenge on her father for banishing her for apparently good reasons since she’s crazy cakes.

Oh and the prince in the Andersen’s story is such a tease. He loves Ariel like a small child or pet, seeing her as a dumb pretty little thing to keep around because of her adoration for him and her unmatched grace while dancing. “Kiss the Girl” is much less romantic. Each time Eric kisses Ariel on the cheek, the lips, or embraces her she is pained cause she knows that he doesn’t love her like she loves him. She must watch as he seeks to marry “the girl with the soft voice that saved him” while Ariel is unable to tell him the truth and show him her talent. I do salute Disney for the added plot twist of Ursula transforming herself and using Ariel’s voice to pretend to be this girl. Andersen sends a random princess to steal Eric from Ariel and this is pretty anticlimactic and unprovocative.

The largest Disney plot switch ever is in the ending of this story. In Disney’s story, Ariel is successful in winning over the story. In Andersen’s story, Ariel is successful in gaining immortality, however she loses the prince to the other princess. How this works out is the conditions of the sea witch’s original spell were that Ariel were to become human and stay human should she marry the prince, but if the prince were to marry another, the morning after their wedding day Ariel would turn to sea foam. So after the prince marries the other princess, Ariel’s sisters sacrifice all their beautiful hair to the sea witch in order to get a magic dagger that Ariel could use to stab the prince to save herself. Ariel throws the dagger into the ocean instead, with herself after it, only to be risen up by “the daughters of the air” and given conditional access to the afterlife. This is where it gets religious. Ariel must spend 200 years in purgatory, although her sentence will be adjusted based upon good deeds (shortened sentence) or bad deeds (lengthened sentence). Following this sentence she will be immortal in the afterlife.

Andersen tells an intriguing little tale (sorry I love that pun), but we can see through religiously lined plot details that this story was an effort to shape the thoughts about the afterlife in young ones’ minds. It’s not surprising that Disney cut these parts out as Disney tends to avoid the discussion of religion in order to reach as wide of an audience as possible and also to not confuse young children. I don’t prefer one ending over the other; each story compliments the other despite their inability to overlap sensibly.

After exploring these past few stories, I just want to share how much I love that understanding different interpretations and manipulations of the same stories has further opened my imagination while I’m enjoying them. If it’s not Disney stories that intrigue you, I hope you all can find something that allows you to enjoy a similar experience.