The Little Mermaid is no different in its dark themes. Cut off appendages, attempted murder, excruciating life-long pain - these are all central plot points in the story.
So what do you think? Do you enjoy the Disney-fied version of the classic tale? Or the gruesome original?
She Is Only 15 Years Old, Can Live For 300 Years, And Has No Soul
Right off the bat, we're introduced to the little mermaid princess - the youngest of five sisters. The Little Mermaid (who has no name in the original version) has always been obsessed with the world above.
She's described as the loveliest of her sisters with the most beautiful singing voice in the kingdom.
Rather than featuring her father, the King, Hans Christian Andersen's version instead shows the Mermaid talking with her grandmother.
One day, when the 15-year-old is chatting with her grandmother, her grandma casually mentions that mermaids live far longer than humans - up to 300 years. However, mermaids don't have souls like humans; so when a mermaid dies, they simply dissolve into sea foam. (Quite the image to paint to a teenager, huh?)
Like In The Disney Film, She Falls In Love With The Prince After Saving Him From A Shipwreck
Mermaids aren't allowed to go to the surface until they turn 15. So on her 15th birthday, the Little Mermaid giddily rushes up. She watches a magnificent ship and spots a beautiful young prince, who reminds her of a marble statue she treasures.
The weather changes, and the ship wrecks. Just like in the Disney movie, the Mermaid saves the Prince and gets him safely to shore. Kissing his forehead before she leaves, she instantly falls in love with the 16-year-old.
After this, she eavesdrops on sailors who say he's a kind prince. She even swims under his palace window, dangerously close to shore.
If The Prince Marries The Mermaid, She’ll Get A Soul; If He Marries Someone Else, She’ll Die The Day After His Wedding
As the Mermaid falls deeper in love with the Prince from afar, she longs even more to be on land - and to have a soul.
When she asks her grandmother if there's any way she can gain a soul, her grandma says that if a human man were to marry a mermaid, then the mermaid would gain part of the man's soul.
She also added that a mermaid's tail would be considered ugly on land, because:
They have such poor taste that to be thought beautiful there you have to have two awkward props which they call legs.
Little did grandma know that she was putting ideas into her granddaughter's head.
The Sea Witch Is Far More Terrifying In The Original Book
After her light-hearted chats with her grandma, the Little Mermaid decides that she must do whatever it takes to be able to live on land and be with her prince. (And we do mean WHATEVER IT TAKES.)
So, the teenager leaves a ball at her castle and goes to the truly terrifying lair of the Sea Witch. First, the Mermaid must pass by a forest of half-animal/half-plant polyps, that looked like snakes with hundreds of heads. She quickly darts by these tentacle/arms, careful not to get grabbed as she sees the body of another young mermaid who had been strangled by them.
When she finally gets to the Sea Witch's house (which is made from the bones of shipwreck victims), the Sea Witch has a toad eating of her mouth, with her pet sea snakes circling around her. (So Flotsam and Jetsam from the Disney film are, in fact, closely related to the O.G. version.)
The Little Mermaid’s Tongue Is Cut Off To Give The Sea Witch Her Voice
When the Mermaid finally gets inside the Sea Witch's house, the Witch already knows what she wants. She is willing to give her a potion to turn her fin into legs, but there's a high cost: her voice. (Anyone else singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls” to themselves right now? Just me?)
However, in Andersen's version, there isn't a pretty, glowing shell necklace that takes the Mermaid's voice. Nope - the Sea Witch needs to cut off the Mermaid's tongue.
When the Mermaid is nervous about how she'll be able to win the Prince's heart without being able to speak - or sing - the Witch basically gaslights her by saying her beauty will be enough to win his heart.
The Witch is a pretty effective saleswoman, pressuring the Mermaid that if she doesn't take the potion this very night, she'll have to wait another whole year before she can. (Though it's never clear why she would have to wait a year.)
The Witch also tells the young Mermaid that she can never return to the sea again - she will forever be bound to land.
With far less regard than she should have given, the Mermaid agrees. So, the Witch cooks up her potion - which includes some of her own black blood - and then chops off the Mermaid's tongue and throws it into the pot.
When The Little Mermaid Gets Legs, Every Step Feels Like She's Being Stabbed
The change from mermaid to human is no walk in the park either. The Witch warns the Little Mermaid that when she drinks the potion,
Your tail will divide and shrink until it becomes what the people on earth call a pair of shapely legs. But it will hurt; it will feel as if a sharp sword slashed through you.
Okay, it makes sense that it would be painful as you transform from a fin to legs, but then the mermaid would be fine, right? Nope.
For the rest of her life, every step the Mermaid takes:
Will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow.
(But the Mermaid will have the most beautiful legs and be the most graceful dancer in the land, so that balances it out searing, chronic pain, right?)
