(Oh hey, sorry! Just wanted to pop in quickly to say that
we recently hit a really neat milestone of 100K! So, to thank you and celebrate, I’m giving
away some goodies! Details at the end of the video, so stick
around! Ok, on with the show!) Hello! Odds are you are probably familiar with this
happily-ever-after-sail-off-into-the-sunset telling of our Little Mermaid. And today, I’m probably going to ruin it
a bit for you. Sorry. How could the tale (hehe) of a nerdy aquatic
princess who “just wants to be where the people are” possibly have anything creepy
and morbid going on? Kelp, let’s crack open this Disney Princess’s
distrubing origin story... The Little Mermaid’s Painful Truth Of COURSE this Disney story has a bit of a
deep sordid origin. That’s why we’re here, afterall! So, grab some goggles, flippers, oxygen, etc.
as we deep dive into the depths of Hans Christan Andersen’s “The Littlest Mermaid.” Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” opens
with all of the merfolk and other underwater creatures gathering at the palace to hear
a concert performed by King Triton's seven daughters, and to hear Ariel debut her most
beautiful voice. She of course, forgets to show up to the festivities,
and is instead collecting trinkets for her human shrine grotto (more on that later). Her father is FURIOUS and embarrassed and
has a lot on his hands, with all these teenage daughters. Poor guy. Hoping to Andersen’s tale, the mer-king
is a widower and is only really mentioned in passing. His mother takes care of the most beautiful
palace, and raises his six daughters. Now, Andersen takes great pains to let us
know how vain he thinks the old merlady is, for some reason: describing her as “a very
intelligent woman, but a little too proud of her rank: she wore TWELVE oysters on her
tail; the nobility were only allowed six.” Otherwise, she is pretty awesome, and takes
excellent care raising her 6 grandaughters. Of COURSE the youngest is the most beautiful,
and the most odd too. Each princess is given a garden to tend to,
planting whatever colorful plants she wants in whatever shapes she wants, and the sister
mermaids even include trinkets and treasures from shipwrecks in theirs. (I think these gardens are what Disney based
Ariel’s own treasure grotto off of.) But of all the colors, and lost items about
the ocean floor, the Littlest Mermaid has only planted red flowers, in the shape of
the Sun. To say she was obsessed with how the sun looked
from underwater would be an understatement. And, under a red tree in the center of her
design, she had placed a single CLEAR MARBLE STATUE OF A BOY that had fallen to the ocean
floor. (Hmmmm….I see I see…) Oh yeah! Fun fact! Disney’s Ariel gives Triton a red flower
when she is absentmindedly in love. Maybe a little nod to the older tale? In the movie, Triton is angry that Ariel went
up to the surface (again), as it is forbidden. In Andersen’s story, once a merfolk reach
15 years of age, they are permitted to go to the surface as often as they would like! But, our Littlest Mermaid and her sisters
are far younger than 15 when the tale starts off, so they pass their days underwater either
gardening, or else listening to their grandmother’s tales of the Surface. The Littlest takes all the stories in, and
as each of her sisters turn 15 and return with tales of their own, she grows more and
more obsessed. Even though the surface is “old news”
to them, they all occasionally go above the waves when the storms are fierce to sing to
sailors (who are about to die) about how great life is ‘under the sea’, begging them
to join them under the waves, not really caring that, in order for a human to see the underwater
palace, they would probably be, well, dead. Fun times, fun times. Whenever they would go off, all holding hands,
and do this, the Littlest would remain behind, wanting to weep her heart out. But, because mermaids can’t cry, “their
suffering is even deeper and greater.” Finally, The Littlest Mermaid turns 15. The grandmother dresses her up with a wreath
of flowers made of pearls, and even lets eight oysters clamp into the Littlest’s tale. It really hurts, but the dowager queen says,
“one has to suffer for position,” a line which Littlest takes waaaay to literally later
in her tale… And with that, Littlest heads TO THE SURFACE. Just like in Disney, she sees the birthday
festivities of a handsome prince aboard a large ship. Just the same, she cannot stop looking at
him, even among the wild fireworks and such. Here too, a storm is brewing, and it takes
Littlest a while to realize that the ship is in danger. At first she is excited to have the handsome
prince visit her father’s palace, but then remembers… dead. Right. So she hurries instead to save him from drowning,
and carries him through the water all night, stroking his soaking hair, passionately kissing
his forehead, and wishing with all her might that he might live. Also, she realizes he looks like her glass
statue back in her garden! Eventually in the morning she sees a shore,
where there is a cloister or church. (She doesn’t know which). It seems safe and protected, so she leaves
him in the bay there. When a big bell rings and a gaggle of girls
start strolling in the garden, the Littlest Mermaid hides. Eventually one of the girls, (the youngest,
most beautiful, of course) spots the prince’s body, and calls for help to carry it into
the big white building. Unlike in Disney, the Littlest Mermaid has
no song to link her as rescuer in the prince’s mind. We can see the tragedy unfolding already…
made more sorrowful because mermaids cannot cry. She grows morose and despondent, and only
finds comfort by hugging the glass statue of the man in her garden. All of her plants grow distended, making the
sun garden more of a jungle. Eventually she breaks down and tells one of
her sisters about the human, and because words among trusted mermaids travels fast, a friend
of another sister gives Littlest the name and kingdom of her lost prince! So begins the Littlest Mermaid’s stalking
phase - every night she makes her way inland and hide in a canal beneath his balcony and
just watch him. She overhears fisherman saying how good and
kind the prince was, and she falls more in love with him. She replays the memory of “his head resting
on her chest, and how passionately she had kissed him,” but is sad because “he knew
nothing about his rescue and could not even dream of her.” Months of stalking ensue, and Littlest is
falling more in love with HUMANS in general - how big their countries are, forests, birds! Mountains! She just wants to live among them, be where
the people are, as it were. So she goes to her grandmother to get the
lowdown on human lifespans. Mermaids, it turns out, live for 300 YEARS,
but when they die, they become foam on the ocean. Humans, her grandmother tells her, have much
much shorter lifespans, but have an immortal soul, and after they die, “rise up to the
unknown, the beautiful world that we shall never see.” Humans have an afterlife, merfolk become foam,
like they never existed. The Littlest decides that more than anything,
she wants an immortal soul, too. Grandma warns her that “we live far happier
down here than man does up there.” Life is just the bubbles down here!) but Littlest
begs her to tell her how to win an immortal soul. “Only if a man should fall so much in love
with you that you were dearer to him than is mother and father, and he cared so much
for you that all his thoughts were of his love for you; and he let a priest take his
right hand and put it in yours, while he promised to be eternally true to you, then his soul
would flow into your body and you would be able to partake of human happiness. He can give you a soul and yet keep his own.” But it will never happen, because they think
stumpy legs beautiful and fishtails gross. Basically, and this is just my read on this,
you will need to make a man obsessed with you, marry you, and he will give you a soul,
and this “flowing into you” stuff makes it sound like the soul is a child, and not
a soul for the mermaid? Does this formula work if a merman fell for
a human woman?! Or would that child be soulless, because the
father’s “flowing essence” is soulless? What about a mermaid and a human woman? GAH STOP COMPLICATING THIS BRAIN. Anyway, a lot of this soul business seems
to ride on the human man. What if he cheats? He won’t be “eternally true” anymore,
so is the soul taken away? STOP BRAIN. Anyway, the merkingdom is having a ball, but
Littlest is SO OBSESSED now with the idea of an immortal soul, and realizes that she
now LOVES the prince more than her father and (dead) mother, thinks only of her love
for him, and would be eternally bound to him. So, she slips out of the palace and pays a
visit to the Sea Witch, although she has always been afraid of her... Right, so Disney introduces their villain,
the exiled Ursula, fairly early on. She has been spying on Ariel as she may be
“the key to Triton's undoing.” Only after Triton destroys Ariel’s grotto
do Flotsam and Jetsam intervene and direct Ariel to Ursula. Ursula takes a more active role in the movie,
which makes sense as the film needed a villain of some sort to keep it moving! In the original tale, there is no such villain,
but I think instead it is the Littlest Mermaid’s own moral code and motivations. Just like Ursula, this Sea Witch lives in
a remote part of the ocean, although to get to her neck of the woods, Littlest has to
swim “where no mermaid had been before” past a maelstrom, or great whirlpool that
threatens to swallow her into its depths. Past bubbling mudflats and a bog, and through
the strangest forest: all the bushes and trees were giant polyps that were half plant and
half animal, with slimy arms and fingers as supple as worms” that tried to grab Littlest
(who had, thoughtfully, braided her hair to keep it from ensnaring her). The worst part about the forest is the thousands
of human remains from a myriad shipwrecks. Arms, and skulls, and partially decomposed. Also, land animals, ship parts, and the occasional
Poor Unfortunate Mermaids who had been caught and strangled. This is a bit more Extra and Creepy than the
soul garden to Ursula’s bone hovel. Like Ursula, this Sea Witch lives in a bone
den, although rather than a whale-type skeleton, her hovel is made of drowned HUMANS’ bones
exclusively. Unlike Ursula, she however has no real nefarious
motivations (she only extracts the price required for the magic asked of her), and is not exiled
but just exists on the edge of the realm. Kinda like a mer-Baba Yaga, if you will. Neither “good” nor “evil” just “dangerous.” Ursula wants to set Ariel up to fail so that
she can use her as a bargaining chip with Triton. Her deal, of course, is if the prince kisses
her with “True Love’s Kiss” by sunset on the third day of becoming human, Ariel
will remain a human. (This seems pretty simple, when compared with
the level of commitment the Littlest Mermaid needs in Andersen’s!) If no kiss happens, Ariel becomes part of
Ursula’s garden. Oh, of course payment is Ariel’s voice,
which Eric recognizes as the voice of his rescuer. Ariel agrees, signs the contract, and is immediately
turned human. HOW CRUEL though? She seems miles below water? She must be able to hold her breath for eons? Thankfully Flounder and Sebastian are there
to help! Anyway, back in Andersen, Littlest shows up
and the Witch, letting her petting toad eat out of her mouth, and holding her eels (which
she calls her “chickens”) close to her spongey chest, already KNOWS why she is there. She says that it is a stupid wish, for it
will only bring the princess misery and suffering. But, if Littlest is set on the idea, it’s
a good thing she came today, for a day later and the magic would have to wait another 100
years. (ain't that just the way?) She then describes the agony of what drinking
the magic potion on land will do: “Your tail will divide and shrink” into “‘pretty
legs.’ It will hurt; it will feel as if a sword were
going through your body.” “You will be the most beautiful human child
ever seen, and will walk more gracefully than any dancer; but every time your foot touches
the ground it will feel as though you were walking on knives so sharp that your blood
must flow. If you are willing to suffer all this, then
I can help you.” Littlest says, yes she is willing! More caution from the witch: “once you have
a human body, you can never become a mermaid again. If you FAIL in your mission to make this prince
fall in love with you, marry you, win the immortal soul, etc., then, the first morning
after he has married another, your heart will break and you will become foam on the ocean.” (There is no 3 day time limit here, but just
that the prince cannot marry another.) And Littlest still has to pay the witch as
well, for the potion will require a lot of the sea witch's own blood. The price? The Littlest Mermaid’s TONGUE. She agrees, and after cleaning the cauldron
with some eels (“for cleanliness is a virtue”), the witch cuts open her own chest and lets
her blood flow into the mix. Once complete, the potion is (somehow) crystal
clear, but before handing it over, the witch cuts off Littlest’s tongue, rendering her
mute. Really shines a new light on Ursula’s line:
“She who holds her tongue gets the man…” eww. OH! Also this stuff is hecka powerful - the sea
witch says that if any of the polyps give Littlest trouble on the way out of her lands,
to pour a drop of the potion on it and it will shatter into a thousand pieces… sooo… JUST WHAT is that stuff going to feel like
ingested?!?! No thanks! Ok, so far Disney has been mostly on par with
Andersen’s tale, even if the older version is a bit more gruesome and drawn out. But here is where things change for the grimmer. More creepy and gory details of course, but
lot more emotional torture for our Littlest Mermaid too. At this point in Disney, Ariel wakes up on
shore, still clad in her clamshells, and with two amazing sets of toes (and legs, of course
of course) She is awfully clumsy at this whole new walking business, and by the time Eric
finds her, she has a makeshift gown, courtesy of Scuttle. There is just something about her, so Eric
takes her into the palace, where she is treated like visiting royalty, honestly. Fancy baths, gowns, dinner, and even outings
with prince (in what has to be one of my favorite Disney dresses, honestly). Anyway, it’s mostly fun in the sun and a
whole lot of wooing, because we gotta get that kiss in before Sunset on the Third Day! Now for Andersen! Poor Littlest swims up to shore in front of
the prince’s castle, and downs the potion. It feels like a sword piercing her little
body and hurts so bad she faints and lays there as if she were dead. She wakes up to the sun burning her body,
and the Prince standing over her nude form (She is shelless, and had no friendly seagull
to filch her a sail), so she quickly covers her front with her own hair. The Prince asks her questions, but she can't
respond, obviously, so she just puppy eyes him until he guides her up to the castle. She IS so graceful on her feet, and all who
see her apparently question how anyone could walk so lightly, but each step feels like
she is walking on sharp sharp knives. Once at the palace, she is clad in silk and
muslin and is no guest, but a “slave girl.” (yeah…) The other “slave girls” are all dressed
fine silk and gold and sing for the prince, who smiles at them. Being mute, Littlest feels sorrowful at being
left out, but then the girls start to dance, and Littlest feels compelled to SHINE! She is the most beautiful of them all, and
the most graceful, even though her delicate feet are torture devices. The prince is so delighted with her that he
calls her “his little foundling,” and asks that she be allowed to sleep on a pillow
outside of his door. Like a pet. Littlest thinks over and over again with each
step: “If only he knew what I gave up to be with him!” Which, once this tale is told, will seem very
sad indeed. 06d_ There are no fancy gowns for this Littlest
Mermaid; the prince has men’s clothes made for her, so she can accompany him when he
goes horseback riding. They adventure and hunt, and climb those mountains
Littlest was obsessed with, but by this point in the tale, her feet are bleeding so much
that other people start to notice. She just smiles through it all, twisted as
that is, and waits until dark each night to walk to the sea to cool her burning feet. Eventually her sisters show up to check on
her and tell her how much pain she has caused them with her absence and how they love her,
but she cannot reply. They visit every night to keep her company,
and eventually even the vain grandmother and mer-king surface for the first time in years,
but they dare not get close or speak to her. Sorrow has descended on this family! Anyway, the prince grows fonder and fonder
of Littlest as the days pass (YES!) but loves her as he would have loved a good child. (AHH BUMMER) Guy has ZERO romantic interest
in his pet dancing girl, but strings her hope along anyway (unbeknownst to him, of course)
saying things like “You are dearest to me and have the kindest heart of all. You are devoted to me and look like a young
girl I long ago saw who I’ll never see again. I was in a shipwreck, you see, and when I
washed up on the beach, she saved me! I saw her only twice, but she is the only
one in this world I can love. You sort of look like her, almost enough to
make her memory disappear, and that eases my suffering. For you see, she belongs to a holy temple,
and I’ll never see her again. At least you and I will always be friends
and never part.” etc. Littlest is beyond sad that he has no clue
SHE actually saved him, but she can’t cry (because mermaid, so the grief is compounded). She contents herself by saying essentially:
This arrangement is fine, and I will love him and devote myself to him, painful feet,
painful heart, and all. But naturally, the prince MUST get married. The neighboring kingdom has great holdings
and a beautiful princess, so a magnificent ship is built for the prince to inspect the
kingdom (but the townspeople know he is really going to “inspect the princess.”) (We ALLLLL know how this is going to end)
anyway, before leaving, the prince tells Littlest “if I ever marry, I shall most likely choose
you, my little foundling with the eloquent eyes.” and he kisses her, lays his head
to rest so near to her heart that the promise of the immortal soul is once again a possibility! She is shaking so much for the idea of happiness,
that the prince asks her if she is shaking because she is afraid of the ocean, and then
veritably mansplains (humansplains?) all about the sea… to the mermaid. As andersen puts it: She smiled as he talked,
for who knew better than she about the world on the bottom of the ocean?” Poor girl smiles through everything! The ship docks, and eventually the Prince
meets the princess. OF COURSE she is the very same one that found
him on the beach and ‘saved his life.’ (She was only at the holy temple in the first
place to learn all of the ‘royal virtues.”) Wow what luck! Anyway, Prince turns to Littlest and says
he is now the happiest man alive, and “you will share my joy, for I know that you love
me more than any of the others do!” OUCH! Littlest kisses his hand as her heart breaks:
for his wedding morning spells her death. 09_Then it all goes awry. Things kick into high gear high stakes in
both tales. In Disney, Ursula shows up with the voice
that enchants Eric, and the next day they are to be married. Wow yeah that happened fast! But we only had 3 days, and this movie is
only 1 hour and 201ish minutes! We’ve gotta MOVE people! We know what happens, Ariel and co. find the truth out, and do everything they
can to stop that wedding! Ursulas’s spell is broken, and Ariel gets
her voice back, but TOO LATE! She is now a mermaid, and under Ursula’s
contract. Triton tries to stop it, but instead sacrifices
himself in his daughter’s place. Eric, now knowing the truth about Ariel, harpoons
Ursula, and eventually impales her with a ship! TRUE LOVE WINS! We have love, a wedding, and even parental
approval and magic that makes it all possible! All the merfolk show up, even. A true Happily Ever After! Buuut NOT for our Littlest Mermaid, of course. Because she is the prince’s favorite, she
gets to hold the train of the bride’s dress. Finally dressed in fancy silk and gold, she
follows the princess to the alter, step by painful step, but cannot hear the music or
see the wedding, for this night would bring her death. The happy couple (and Littlest, of course)
board the wedding ship. A very fancy ‘wedding night’ tent of scarlet
and gold with soft pillows sits on the main deck, and all through the night, the evening’s
dancing takes place around it. (I’m mentioning it because DANG poor Littlest! That is a TERRIBLE visual to see on your last
night of life!) Anyway, of course our mermaid dances the more
elegantly and beautifully she ever has in her short life, and the knives cut into her
feet deeper than ever, but that physical pain is NOTHING compared to the pain in her heart. She is sad that this is the last night she
will see the man she sacrificed her voice, her family, her very life for. But she is not sad about dying, if I’m reading
this right. She dances and laughs with the others until
midnight, but “with the thought of death in her heart.” Then the prince and princess retire to their
love tent, and Littlest prepares herself to be foam. One by one, all her sisters appear above the
waves, all of their hair gone. They have traded it to the Sea Witch in order
to save Littlest! If only she will take the dagger they bought
with their hair, and “before the sun rises, plunge it into the heart of the prince; when
his warm blood sprays on her feet, they will turn into a fishtail and she will be a mermaid
again.” She will get to keep her 300 years of life,
and oh yeah, even the vain grandmother is mourning her they say: all her hair has fallen
out from grief (maybe that’s why she is mourning though?) Anyway, either Littlest dies tomorrow, or
the prince does. Littlest enters the crimson tent with the
dagger just before dawn. She sees the princess laying on his handsome
chest, and Littlest kisses the prince’s forehead. She looks at the sky, to the prince, sky to
the prince, etc. as the sun starts to peek over the horizon. He stirs slightly and whispers his wife’s
name in his sleep, and she knows all is lost. She throws the dagger into the sea, and the
waves turn red where it fell, “like drops of blood were seeping up through the water.” She looks one last time at the prince, and
then throws herself into the sea, feeling herself becoming foam… But then… The sun rises and Littlest does not feel death. She sees her beloved Sun, and for the first
time in her life, feels a tear. Hooray! She also (barely) sees and hundreds of airy
spirits floating above her and filing the ship’s sails, singing with the barest whispers
of voices. Finally Littlest asks “Where am I?” Gasp! SHE HAS A VOICE BACK! She has now joined the ranks of “Daughters
of the Wind” because of her good deed. They are spirits that also have no mortal
souls, but can earn them through 300 years of good deeds on earth. Things like blow cool wind in plague areas
to disperse it, help dry laundry, carry the smell of flowers to refresh the sick, etc. Because of all of her suffering, Littlest
gets another chance to win her soul! And another 300 years to do it… However this is kind of a VERY raw deal for
the wind spirits, if they encounter a household with a good child in it, their 300 year sentence
on earth is shortened by one year! BUT if they come across a bad child in their
travels, a year is ADDED to their sentence. WHAT?! I mean, why should bratty kids have anything
to do with their lifespans? It’s all random! I think it’s a moral take-away for children
reading the tale, like “be sure to behave and be an angelic child, because you never
know if the wind spirit that is randomly blowing through your house is the spirit of the Littlest
Mermaid herself, and you don’t want to make her suffer any more than she already has,
do you?” But like, if there was a bratty child, they
absolutely WOULD want to make her suffer, so they would keep being bad? Eh? Poor Littlest Mermaid. Can’t even catch a break in her limbo state
of being. OH RIGHT! The ending. The prince and princess wake up and stare
off into the sea, for they have a feeling Littlest threw herself overboard during the
night. Invisible, Littlest kisses the bride’s forehead
and smiles at the prince. They live on, none the wiser to all the Littlest
Mermaid has sacrificed for them. The End. So, that’s our dive into the deep bloody
painful origins of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid!” I do hope you enjoyed hearing this tale! CURVEBALL! If you met with the sea witch and could get
any wish granted, would you do it? She only takes the most precious thing you
have, afterall. Would it be worth it? Magic sure is complicated! Anyway, THANK YOU for watching this video! And WOW you all, THANK YOU for following me
along on this fantastic youtube journey as well - we hit 100 THOUSAND subscribers recently,
and my creepy heart is still floored. Like bottom of the ocean floor-ed. (heh) SO,
to thank you all, I wanted to do something special! I’ll be giving away a choice of a $20 gift
card to either Steam or the Nintendo EShop. There will be 3 winners total! Check out games like “Little Nightmares”
or good ol’ “Bendy and the Ink Machine” to feed your spooky soul! To enter, click the link in the description
below, and choose how you’d like to participate! I’ll be contacting winners in 3 weeks, so
do be sure to check your email! Kelp, that’s all for now! But hey, you can follow me elsewhere to see
behind-the-scenes stuff as I work on the next video, if that’s your jam and stuff. Oh! and do subscribe here if you haven’t
yet, but like what you’ve seen! Ok. See you soon in the next video, but mind the
wind spirits meanwhile. Good Bye!
