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desperateknot · 2 days ago

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Limbus Company's Queequeg is based on The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Here is why I think so:

Disclaimer: First of all, I am not a native English speaker. Therefore, there might be some parts which I have phrased weirdly and some grammatical mistakes. More importantly, I may have fully understood or maybe even misunderstood some parts of the source materials. If I made some mistakes, please be patient with me. Secondly, I have independently realised this connection. However, I am sure that there may be people before me who have already had this idea. Not all points I discussed here are discovered by myself. Thirdly, it is recommended that you reread the original story by Hans Christian Andersen to understand what I would be talking about. Personally I read it from

Now, I will list all the parallels between the story of The Little Mermaid and Limbus Company's Queequeg.

1. Queequeg quite literally almost became a Mermaid, and her motivation in the quest was not to be consumed by the pale and become a Mermaid too. The Little Mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s story wanted to stop being a mermaid and gain an immortal soul.

Ishmael: It's the Mermaids' cry… Queequeg: Our future. If we fail to escape. Queequeg: Cry and cry. Trying to kill all we see. Queequeg: Then melt. Very slowly. And later… Queequeg: Float away. Like we were never here. Queequeg: Don't want to be Mermaid. Queequeg: The Pallid Whale. Have to kill it. Only then, we get out.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

“I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.”

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

You may say the Mermaids in Hans Christian Andersen's story and the mermaids in pmverse aren't the same thing. And you would be right. However, please notice Queequeg's wordings regarding the mermaids' demise. Because that is a surprise tool that would help us later.

2. The Little Mermaid is a daughter of the Sea King: she is a princess of the ocean, while Moby Dick Queequeg is the son and the rightful heir of the king of the fictional island of Kokovoko, making him the Prince of said island. Limbus Queequeg, while not being a literal prince or princess, is of considerably high prestige when she was with the Middle, her original (?) family.

The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. [...] She was, however, deserving of very great praise, especially for her care of the little sea-princesses, her grand-daughters. They were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; [...]; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish’s tail.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff; [...].

Moby Dick by Herman Melville: Chapter XI - Biographical

Queequeg: They wanted to make me 'Big Sister'.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

3. The Mermaid wanted to grow up to see the world above the ocean, since she wasn’t allowed to until she reached the age of 15. Queequeg, similarly, wanted to become a Big Sister.

When the sisters rose, arm-in-arm, through the water in this way, their youngest sister would stand quite alone, looking after them, ready to cry, [...]. “Oh, were I but fifteen years old,” said she: “I know that I shall love the world up there, and all the people who live in it.”

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Queequeg: So I killed. And killed. And killed. Not because of orders. Killed with my own hands. Because I wanted to. Because I wanted respect as Big Sister.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

4. The Mermaid abandoned her family under the ocean to marry the Prince so that she could gain an immortal soul. Moby Dick Queequeg also left his family in search of Christendom. Game Queequeg ran away from the Middle (who also called themselves a family) to pursue a new life for her own.

“I know what you want. [...] You want to get rid of your fish’s tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul.”

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

A Sag Harbor ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. [...] Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home

Moby Dick by Herman Melville: Chapter XI - Biographical

Queequeg: And I ran. Again.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

5. The Mermaid exchanged her voice for a pair of legs when going to land. Queequeg had herself be lobotomised and lost some of her speech ability as one way to cut herself off from the Middle, escaping them. More prominently, in the original story, the Sea Witch explicitly demanded that the Mermaid let her cut her tongue as payment. We can see how that parallels Queequeg explicitly stating that the doctor cut up her tongue.

“But I must be paid also [...] You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; [...]."

"[...] Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught.” “It shall be,” said the little mermaid.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Queequeg: My speech, also touched by the Middle. So I went to doctor… to cut up my tongue. To cut up my brain. To break myself.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

6. The Little Mermaid feels pain with every step after drinking the potion to turn her tail into legs. Queequeg also felt pain when she cut herself in an attempt to erase the tattoos of the Middle.

"[...] Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. [...] At every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow.

Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be, she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives [...]

[...] She danced again quite readily, to please him, though each time her foot touched the floor it seemed as if she trod on sharp knives.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Queequeg used to spend some nights… … in crushing loneliness. In unbearable pain. Queequeg sat in the corner of a dark, dark room. She looked down at her arms. Then, with a small dagger she uses for cutting harpoon ropes… She mercilessly tore into her arms. Like she was carving something into her flesh.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

7. The Mermaid died when she refused to kill the Prince because she loves him too much. Queequeg died because Ishmael "unearthed" her broken heart, as Ahab said. Her faith in Ahab crumbled because of her affection for Ishmael.

[...] The knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam.

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Effloresced E.G.O::GasHarpoon Ahab: This happened because you dared to unearth her buried heart! Because you forced her broken heart into the open! Effloresced E.G.O::GasHarpoon Ahab: The fault lies with you once again, Ishmael! Effloresced E.G.O::GasHarpoon Ahab: Look at what you've done. Watch her determination crumble, her conviction collapse. Now, with her faith broken, the pale claims Queequeg!

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 3

In a way, she died because of her affection for Ishmael. I think we can all agree the affection that she held toward Ishmael is what allowed the pale to consume her. What kind of affection this is doesn’t matter, even though I, an Ishqueg shipper, have my own personal answer for it.

8. The Little Mermaid died turning into seafoams. Except she didn't. She was a good enough person to be turned into a daughter of air, and with enough good deeds, she can achieve an immortal soul.

"A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. [...] But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves. [...] After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul.”

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Limbus Queequeg died having her ego dissolved into Ahab and after that, “disintegrated until she was no more”, not unlike the fate of turning into seafoam.

Except. She didn't. Sort of. In the end, her soul assisted Ishmael in killing the whale. Her immortal soul?

This is where I circle back to my first point. "Queequeg didn't want to turn into Mermaid". This is correct, however, for our purpose, we can say she didn't want to dissolve into nothing, like foam of the sea, which perfectly matches up with the Little Mermaid's motivation.

ISHMAEL: That she didn't want the Whales and Mermaids to tear her apart and devour her when her corpse sinks deep into its waters.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 1

Queequeg: Then melt. Very slowly. And later… Queequeg: Float away. Like we were never here.

Canto V Dungeon: Floor 2

“So I shall die,” said the little mermaid, “and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?”

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Other than those direct parallels from their stories, there are still more themes that I have yet to talk about.

1. The sun is seemingly a theme from The Little Mermaid. When living as a princess Mermaid under the sea, the Mermaid was said to arrange her personal flower bed to be “round like the sun, and contained flowers as red as his rays at sunset” and that she “cared for nothing but her pretty red flowers, like the sun”. Other than that, the first time the Little Mermaid rose to the surface was explicitly right after sunset and that she also died right at sunrise. This is a more tenuous connection, so I put it here, but we all know how Queequeg loved the colour of Ishmael's hair, which was compared to the sunset.

2. When the Mermaid was finally 15 and allowed to rise to the surface for the first time, her grandmother dressed her up for the occasion, by placing a wreath of white lilies on her hair with half a pearl on every flowers’ leaves — although the Mermaid princess found the wreath to be heavy and would much prefer her own red flowers. Then, her grandmother “ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.”

When the Princess said this was hurting her, her grandmother replied with “Pride must suffer pain.”

I think that line sums up Queequeg's life in the Middle best. She did not seem to have enjoyed all the killing and torturing of innocents, but the tattoos she got for enacting “Vengeance” shows her high rank and prestige.

3. In between Moby Dick's Queequeg left his home in search of Christianity only to be disappointed, The Little Mermaid's effort to attain an immortal soul having some religious subtext, and also the Middle calling themselves a familial terms while following strictly a decree from a book, it gives Queequeg a bit of Christianity themes. (But it is really in a particular way). One can also read her leaving the Middle as something similar to Adam and Eve being casted from the Garden of Eden: stripped of protection and comfort for the burden of knowledge and guilt.

What exactly it means, I am really not of the authority to say further, as I am not at all religious. I am living and grew up in a particularly secular country and also doesn't have any education about the subject.

So, assuming that I have proved that Limbus Queequeg has another source material other than Moby Dick, where do we go from here? If Queequeg is the Little Mermaid, who is the prince? Who is the Sea King, her grandmother, her sisters?

Next time, I will discuss why her utter lacks of autonomy is a feature, not a bug, but it is a bug sometimes.

And how Limbus Ahab is a prince. That is important too.

#limbus company #project moon #analysis #lcb ishmael #lcb ishqueg #queequeg #lcb queequeg #the little mermaid #limbus company lore #canto 5

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masterhallmark · 8 months ago

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Rant incoming

I feel like the problem with a lot of Disney's live action remakes (and arguably Wish) is they're trying to appeal to a crowd that no longer exists, namely the people who used to claim that the Disney Princesses were sexist.

All the interviews tend to include, "Well she's not chasing a MAN anymore" which...almost no one sees the princesses like that, anymore. Virtually NO ONE still believes the princesses are man-chasing sexist caricatures of women.

Cinderella is now hailed as an abuse victim who stayed strong long enough to get help to get out of her situation. Anyone who says she should have saved herself is basically regarded as a victim blamer. And it's very clear in the film she wasn't looking to marry the prince, she just wanted a night off. She was the only one who wasn't in line to meet him. She didn't find out she met the prince until he went looking for her!

Snow White is now hailed for her negotiation skills, ability to calm down after extreme stress (she had a moment of panic and had to cry for a bit, but who wouldn't after finding out The Queen hired someone to kill you?), and ability to take charge of a house of adult men. And again, she was an abuse victim, this time trying to escape ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS. While she dreamed of her prince, it was secondary to her main goal of SURVIVAL. There are also entire video essays about how Snow White gave hope to people during The Great Depression.

Everyone acknowledges that Ariel wanted to be human BEFORE meeting Eric. We all know she was a nerd hyperfixating on humans, and also standing up to her prejudiced father.

We understand Sleeping Beauty wasn't the main character, the Three Good Fairies were, AND PHILLIP WOULD NEVER HAVE BEATEN MALEFICENT WITHOUT THEM! He literally depended on them! WOMEN SAVED THE DAY! But even then, is it really such a sin for a girl to fantasize about romance and fall for someone with corny pickup lines?

We all understand Jasmine just wanted someone to treat her LIKE A PERSON. She rejected every Prince before Aladdin because they treated her like a prize. So why did they need her to want to be Sultan? How did that make her more feminist when she already wanted to be treated like an equal and have a say in her future? Is it only empowering if you want a career in politics?

We admire that Belle, despite living in a judgemental village, was kind to everyone (even though she found the village life dull), and her story teaches girls that the guy everyone else loves isn't always a good guy. What's sexist about teaching girls about red flags? And she didn't start being nice to The Beast until he started treating her with respect and kindness.

Do I really NEED to defend Mulan or Tiana? I think they speak for themselves.

Rapunzel was yet another abuse victim who just needed a little help to get out of her bad situation. In this case, she also needed to learn that she was an abuse victim, and that what Mother Gothel did WASN'T normal, much like many victims of gaslighting.

And don't get me started on the non-princess animals.

Perdita had a healthy relationship with Pongo to the point she was open to express her pregnancy fears to him, and was ready to TEAR APART Cruella's goons for daring to touch her puppies as well as adopting the other puppies. Like, she was so ferocious the goons mistook her for a hyena! She's basically that "I AM THAT GIRL'S MOTHER!" scene from SpyXFamily if Yor were a dog. She and her husband were a TEAM.....but they made a Cruella live action to turn her into a girlboss?! The literal animal abuser!? THAT'S the woman you wanted to put on a pedestal when Perdita was RIGHT THERE!?

Duchess kept her kittens calm after they had been catnapped and was classy as heck. Nice to everyone regardless of social class during a time period where that was uncommon.

Lady stood up to Tramp when she believed he had abandoned her and didn't really care about her. She found out he was a heartbreaker and was like, "Nuh uh. No. You are not doing that to me! You put me through enough."

Miss Bianca from The Rescuers was IN CHARGE the whole movie, and was willing to risk life and limb to save an innocent child. THAT TINY MOUSE TOOK ON ALLIGATORS! And she picked Bernard to accompany her because he was the only one who wasn't ogling her. And then in the sequel SHE DID IT ALL AGAIN! I wish I were as brave as her.

Like, the public haven't accused these ladies of being sexist caricatures since 2014 (Actresses and actors don't count, they're out of touch like the rest of Hollywood) yet Disney is operating under the assumption that the public still thinks that way, hence all the "sHe'S nOt AfTeR a MaN iN ThIs VeRsIOn" talk.

The live action remakes are trying to attract an audience that doesn't really exist much, anymore, and back when it did exist, was comprised mainly of people who didn't actually watch the films. The Disney princesses are no longer seen as sexist, and feminine qualities are no longer seen as weak or undesirable.

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