#the little mermaid analysis

[artist-issues]

Here’s the thing about Scuttle

I like the newer trailers more because they have more of a spirit of vulnerability and fun, if that makes sense

But you can’t turn Scuttle into a fisher bird that Ariel encounters underwater. That’s the only conceivable reason I can figure out for changing his species; that Female Scuttle will talk to Ariel underwater, not above the surface, because fisher birds can spend more time under water than seagulls.

You can’t turn Scuttle into a fisher bird for precisely that reason. Ariel needs to encounter Scuttle above the surface. Because the idea in the original film, before she sees Eric for the first time, is that she doesn’t have much experience with creatures that live out of the ocean.

She needs Scuttle because otherwise, where did this one mermaid in a sea of mermaids who hate humans get her new-fangled ideas? Where did she come up with the notion that human beings are not barbarians?

She needed to meet a creature that lived out of the water, and could explain things to her, yes. But more importantly: She needed to try going to the surface, and have an experience with a completely non-threatening animal of the air and sky. You don’t get much more non-threatening than Scuttle.

The point of Scuttle, for the story, is more than just “encounter a bird who can explain human stuff.” (If that were all it is, then having a bird talk to her underwater would be fine.)

The point of Scuttle, for the story, is actually “encounter a safe and friendly surface-dweller out of the sea, to prove its not as dangerous as everyone says it is.”

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M TELLIN YA”

Here’s the reason all of this matters: I have a feeling they’re going to try to make Ariel have her “first moment” out of the sea. Like, in the Live Action, we get to see what it was like when she went for it and stuck her head into the open air for the first time. That’s the only reason I can figure why Scuttle would need to be a fisher bird rather than a seagull.

And that’s dangerous. We don’t need that moment.

Because in the original movie, the idea was that Ariel had already been out of the sea multiple times, much to her father’s frustration. Building up to a scene where Triton loses his composure and destroys Ariel’s collection and pushes her too far is going to be a little harder if you make her stick her head out of the water for the first time in the course of the movie.

There’s less sense of a long-term period of building tension. There’s less understanding of how much Ariel is willing to sacrifice and how far she’s willing to go if she…hasn’t gone that far, yet. Just talks to a little water bird and gets near the surface, but hasn’t gone all the way yet.

That takes something away from Eric, too. Eric and her father’s outburst in the grotto work together as the catalyst for change in Ariel’s life. She’s already been to the surface before, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to do whatever it takes to live there. She’s even already encountered human stuff and good creatures like Scuttle, and no danger, when she’s gone to the surface; again, that doesn’t mean she’s ready to sacrifice everything to live there. It’s important that we see that.

It’s not until she encounters Eric for the first time that she reaches the next stage of longing, and is ready to leave her family after her father destroys his statue.

Going to the surface and coming back safely wasn’t enough. Going to the surface and meeting a friendly seagull wasn’t enough. Finding human treasures and seeing a human ship wasn’t enough. Getting yelled at by her father wasn’t enough.

Eric was the last straw. Eric, the human who’s free to make his own choice of bride. Eric, the human who prefers exploring to kingly duties. Eric, the human who would sacrifice himself to save a dog in distress instead of being the barbarian Ariel’s always been told about.

Scuttle being a seagull she has to go to the surface to communicate with is an important stepping stone on the way to proving that Eric was the last straw.

Besides, it takes a lot away from Scuttle. Scuttle is a wonderful character because the whole movie is about being understood, and communicating, and Scuttle understands nothing and has a really hard time communicating.

So in conclusion, everything matters, even the seagull, and Live Action Disney is ruining the seagull.

[twistmusings]

Character Analysis of the Twisted Wonderland Dorm Rooms - Octavinelle

Dorm Room Character Analysis Series

Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul actually has a lot of little touches in his room that are very cute. For one thing, his general decor lends itself to the idea that Azul likes the finer things in life. Truthfully, all of the dorm rooms are have shown a lot of attention to the character's actual stylistic preferences in the Guest room and Azul is no exception.

Rather than having a bedside table, Azul has a second safe in his room in addition to the large one he has in his office. This is interesting because, well, that means that there's things that are likely more important to him than the contracts he kept in his vault in his office. I'm certainly curious about what sort of thing Azul would choose to keep in a personal vault - are they especially important contracts to him? Money? Or, perhaps, just other things that are especially special to him. I know the kneejerk reaction for a lot of folks is to be that it's where he stores his coin collection, however...

Azul actually displays his coin collection in a frame! He has them mounted in velvet.

Several of the other characters have featured a feather pen and ink bottles in their room, however a cute touch is that Azul's pen is actually fish bones. This is a cute little insight into what they may use for pens underneath the Coral Sea. Or, perhaps, Azul just has a flare for the dramatic.

Azul has a trunk and several potion bottles on top of his wardrobe. The fact that Azul has these out in the open on top of the trunk likely means that all of the items in the trunk were potion bottles, and then because they were stored up so high, he placed the ones he commonly uses on top, rather than storing them back inside the trunk. Azul is otherwise very organized, so it would make logical sense that if he's not putting these away, they're likely out because he knows he's going to reach for them again.

This is honestly probably my favorite detail in Azul's room because these are terrariums. Azul never mentions having any interest in Terrariums, but Jade does, meaning that these are likely terrariums that Jade made for Azul and gave him as gifts. This is actually really cute, because though the Leech twins joke about leaving Azul as soon as he becomes boring in canon, this shows that Jade at the very least thinks of Azul in his free time when he's not at work or around Azul by obligation, enough to have given him gifts. it's also worth noting that Azul has these displayed, which means that they aren't a gift that's rotting away in a drawer or stowed away somewhere. It's also worth mentioning that the ones that have plants in them are alive, which requires at least some level of attention to them in order to maintain the environment inside. Little things like this show how much the characters actually care about each other.

Azul's hidden Mickey is next to his shelf of terrariums.

Jade Leech

Jade is an interesting case because he, like Ruggie and Trey, doesn't actually have much displayed in his room in terms of decoration. That being said, what he does have displayed are his terrariums. Jade being the sole member of the Mountain Lover's club, it seems like he probably spends a lot of his free time out and tending to either his plants in the greenhouse or actually hiking.

This isn't likely directly because of Jade, however it seems like Octavinelle as a whole have coat hangers and hat racks that are themed around octopi, which is possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Jade is notably organized - he has his shoes on his shoe rack, his hat and scarf hung up, and his bed made. This will become more important when you see Floyd's half of the room.

There is also this object. While I'm not certain and it doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of Jade's vignettes outright, I suspect this may be a jewelry box. It's a little hard to tell in comparison to a lot of the items in the student rooms, though, so if anyone has any additional input, please let me know! Neither of the other two from Octavinelle have an object like this one in their rooms.

Jade's Hidden Mickey is on one of his terrariums.

Fun fact, Jade AND Floyd both have errors in their Night 2 versions of their backgrounds, as they are both missing the hidden Mickey.

Floyd Leech

Oh, Floyd, sweetheart, you live like this?

Jokes aside, Floyd actually has some things of note! While his side of his and Jade's room (canonically they share a room) is messy, he's messy in a different fashion than someone like Leona. Where Leona doesn't hang his clothes - Floyd does. Or at the very least, it seems like someone does it for him. (Given the haphazard hanging of his jacket, though, I would guess that he probably does it himself.) What does that tell us? Well, more than likely, Floyd gets small bursts of motivation to clean certain aspects of his room, and then grows bored and gives them up. To be quite honest, for those who know of or experience it, Floyd's organization style reminds me a lot of how ADHD folks tend to struggle with forming sustainable cleaning habits, as it's often easier to put something down rather than to put it away.

Snacks, literally everywhere. Floyd has snacks on his desk as well as on the shelf above his bed. It would seem that Floyd has a serious sweet-tooth, given the amount of sweets that we see in his room.

For the life of me, I could not tell you if this is a trash bin or not, but if it is, it looks like whatever Floyd put in there has teeth marks on it.

Another thing of note about Floyd's room, while there's a lot of things that are strewn around, there's not actually all that much trash around. He has a single empty container on his desk, but otherwise his floors are clean, and it seems like things that need to end up disposed are. Again, whether or not that's Jade intervening because they share a room, it's hard to say.

Floyd's hidden Mickey is on his pillow.

As was mentioned in Jade's section, both Floyd and Jade's Night 2 versions of their backgrounds are missing the hidden Mickey. Floyd's background has an additional error however!

Floyd's box of cookies is actually missing the box in his Night 2 artwork. If I had to guess, since I have experience with digital art, more than likely, the layer containing these details was accidentally deleted when making the edits for the Night 2 cards, resulting in these things disappearing when the background were published. It's a minor error, all things considered, and gave me a little giggle because now it just looks like Floyd has haunted cookies floating in his room.

Addendum

Excellent catch by @twistedminutia that Azul's fish bone pen is likely in reference to the pen Ariel signs her contract with in the original movie! (To be quite honest, and I know this is ironic given that this blog has such a heavy octavinelle theming, but the little mermaid was my least favorite Disney movie growing up, so I never would have caught this myself!)

[martianbugsbunny]

Maybe Disney needs to try taking on a fairytale they haven't done yet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy more original stories like Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto that as far as I'm aware don't originate from any particular legend (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong tho). Those are fun. Exploring different magical concepts like dragons and the miracle is awesome.

But that being said, I think Disney needs to go back to its roots and do a fairytale. Something with a princess and a big bad that comes from an existing legend. That's (generally) where Disney excels. That's why people love Disney. Little Mermaid? Classic. Beauty and the Beast? Classic. Princess and the Frog? Classic. Cinderella? Classic. Snow White? Classic. Really, I just think Disney does what Disney does best when they're taking a story that already exists and turning it into a beautiful piece of animation with a gentle, kind soul at the center of it, maybe with a different little spin like setting the Frog Prince story in 1920s New Orleans or having Beauty's father be an inventor. Little touches like that to make the story uniquely Disney, but with a solid basis in a folk narrative that touches something deep and instinctual inside most people.

Give me a girl who's cursed. A girl who either falls prey to evil or makes a deal with it, and whose sweetheart fights for her like Aurora or who does the brave thing and sacrifices to fix it like Ariel.

Give me a girl who's trapped. A girl whose family keeps her down or who just hasn't found where she fits yet, who stays kind despite her troubles like Cinderella or who finds her own alternative way out like Belle.

Heck, even a weird-ass thing like Shakespeare But Lions would be welcome. That's such a Disney thing to do, taking a story like Hamlet and filling it with whimsy and giving it a happy ending. Plus, Simba is one of the strongest protagonists and learns one of the best lessons in all of Disney fight me.

(I'm not going to count Frozen in the folk story group because the departure from the original was so wild I don't think it deserves to count. I love Elsa with my entire soul but I would also die to see Disney do a proper version of the Snow Queen fairytale.)

Look, my point is that I'd like to see something that really makes Disney dig a little deeper and recapture the spark of its classics. Because as much as I enjoy stuff like Tangled and Frozen and Moana (I've watched all of them loads of times and I cry about them consistently) they don't come to mind as Disney classics for me. Maybe that's just me. Maybe it simply hasn't been enough time. Maybe it's the difference in the animation. Speaking of that, however, I would actually love to see a Disney movie done in a 2D style again; I don't think 3D has any inherent superiority and I'd love to see what Disney could do with a 2D movie now. And there are so many folk stories in the world, surely there must be one that Disney can bring to life the way it used to. They haven't retold every story that's been told already.

Am I being a little picky? Probably. But I'd love to see something that reminds me of the Disney classics where a gentle person with a courageous core has their life touched by magic, faces an obstacle, and has a happy ending. Something that's not a variation on "X needs to be saved" but a specific character longing for a specific thing and either doing what they think is necessary to get it (like Tiana and Ariel) or giving it up for the sake of someone else, but getting a happy ending nonetheless (like Belle and Simba). Also a clear-cut badguy who gets to be absolutely cunty and evil about it with no peculiar twist.

I'd like to see something Classic Disney again.

[its-wabby-stuff]

How Human is your Animal?

Based on animalistic representation in Media. Ranging from anthropomorphic to everyday pet.

A tier list for your convenience

S Tier- Humans don’t exist here

Qualifications: the world has no humans, animals tend to walk on hind legs and participate in human like societies, most likely anthropomorphic but not required

Zootopia, Kung Fu Panda, Sing, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Chicken Little, My Little Pony, Goofy Movie, Ducktales, Robin Hood, Angry Birds, Samurai Rabbit, Paws of Fury, Spiderhams Universe

A Tier- I see, a little co-op happening

Qualifications: the world has humans, humans acknowledge animals in some way, they can be hired/considered for jobs and/or are active in society. Might be considered mutants

Paddigton, Muppets, Stuart Little, The Bad Guys, Pinnocio, Shrek universe, Care Bears, the Bee Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, and subsequently the entire MCU, Monsters Inc, Storks, Looney Tunes, TMNT, MHA, Yogi Bear, We Bare Bears, Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hop, Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, Hoodwinked, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Ichabod and Toad, Sonic Movie

B Tier- Your getting suspiciously close

Qualifications: act more human like, perhaps develop a hidden society or walk on hind legs or plan elaborate heists, it’s just not quite right for an animal

Madagascar, Ice Age, Shark Tale, Surfs Up, Snoopy, Rescuers, SpongeBob, Ratatouille, Horton Hears a Who, Free Birds, Great Mouse Detective, Chicken Run, Flushed Away, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Tom and Jerry, Secret of Nym, Tale of Desperaeux, American Tail, Once Upon a Forest, Garfield, Over the Hedge, Rango

C Tier- Communication is key in fostering animal relationships

Qualifications: Perhaps by magical transformation or special gift or something that has always been kept a secret until now, these animals are able to talk to you

Cinderella, Tarzan, Jungle Book, Epic, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Charlottes Web, Scooby Doo, Happy Feet, Snow White, Pete’s Dragon, Princess and the Frog, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Spies In Disguise, Emperors New Groove, Enchanted, Sophia the First, Peter Rabbit, Meet the Robinsons, Anastasia, Swan Princess, Dr. Dolittle, Leo, Up

D Tier- Oh look, it’s gaining complexity

Qualifications: although animals have been known to convey emotions nothing is more complex than creating Shakespearean like storylines. Humans take to the sidelines

Lion King, Finding Nemo, 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, Land Before Time, The Secret Life of Pets, Bugs Life, Oliver and Company, All Dogs go to Heaven, Lady and the Tramp, Fox and the Hound, Aristocats, Migration, Bolt, Dinosaur, The Good Dinosaur, Super Pets, Dumbo, Home in the Range, G-force, The Wild, Spirit, Rio, Curious George

F Tier- It’s all okay, animals are just animals here

Qualifications: Imagine your pet in a movie, that’s prolly what fits here. The everyday dog, or cat, or shark. Likely plays a part in the plot progression of the movie

Babe, Jurassic Park, Milo and Otis, Old Yeller, Life of Pi, Sword in the Stone, Beethoven, A Dogs Purpose, We Bought a Zoo, Pokémon, Dolphins Tale, Homeward Bound, The Black Stallion, Marley and Me, Jaws, King Kong, How to Train Your Dragon

Z Tier- So it doesn’t work like other places, but it works for you

Qualifications: a Universe with its own set of rules, perhaps jumping into a place outside of their own where rules seem just a little different. Who can say if it was real, or a dream?

Mary Poppins, Spiderverse, Fantasia, Mario Bros, Song of the South, Alice in Wonderland (cartoon), Calvin and Hobbes

Each placing is based on the highest human to animal ratio in universe even if that is one exception. This is for fun, don’t take it too seriously. You’re welcome to fill in anything you think is missing. If I mentioned one of your favorite movies you have to reblog, I don’t make the rules.

😉

[airasora]

I just realized something about King Triton versus Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.

Obviously Triton and Eric are two completely different people, but the movie actually very cleverly shows this early on in the movie when we first meet Triton and when we first meet Eric.

The very first scene with Triton is basically a concert in his honor; a performance with a song basically singing his glory and while you could argue it's Sebastian being a fin-licker, you can't argue that Triton looks very happy about being praised like this.

Look at this shit-eating grin. This is the face of a man who believes he deserves every inch of respect and adoration shown to him in this concert dedicated to him. Put simply: he's a bit full of himself and, taking into account what happens throughout the movie, he believes he's always right and doesn't make much room for anyone else to argue with him. He has reasons for this, as we find out in the later movies as well, but that's essentially what we already find out in his first scene.

Now, while this technically isn't the first time we see Eric, the scene where Ariel first sees him is when we get to know him better and we see one of the key differences between Triton and Eric.

Eric receives a birthday present in his honor, a statue that looks like him. His reaction to this, let's be honest, really arrogant present is one of, well, confusion or even disgust. He's a bit overwhelmed, says it's too much, but still being polite about it. Clearly, unlike Triton, Eric is NOT full of himself and this gift honoring him in this way makes him uncomfortable.

This is a very basic, clear contrast between the two most important male characters in this movie and the two most important men in Ariel's life. Ariel grew up with a father who had concerts dedicated to him probably all her life, and now she sees another a man, who is also royalty, but behaves like a "normal" man. With the exception of him living in a castle, nothing about Eric is stereotypical royalty.

Ariel doesn't just fall in love with Eric's looks, she falls in love with everything she sees; a man who cares and loves his dog (Ariel is obviously also an animal lover, though a different kind of animals hah), he's playful, doesn't take himself too seriously, and doesn't care for mindless adoration - practically a complete opposite of Triton.

I'm not trying to hate too much on Triton here, but it's interesting how many contrasts is between him and Eric and most of them are fairly subtle, like this one.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I will always find the fact that Eric loved and accepted Ariel as she was, presumably mute (without being aware of what had taken place prior at all) to be very loving and amazing. That goes to show how much he loved her and also how much of a compassionate and patient person he was. This is also the only Disney Princess couple where one party wasn't even human, and that did not bother him at all, either. I think that's a great message to send to children, and since the movie has a leading lady, to girls, specifically. You will be able to find a guy who loves and accepts you as you are and will support you in your dreams.

[anonymous-gambito]

Saw a comic where the Prince's bride falls in love with the Little Mermaid and decides to run away with her and realized that's kinda what happens in rgu

[quinncadens]

Venti living amongst his people is so nznsgorkjwne and then his people not knowing that the silly little bard is their archon is just gahdnzjnhhxm LIKE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HIS IDENTITY IS DISCOVERED?! THAT WOULD BE SUCH A FUCKING COOL PLOT POINT!!!!!

Imagine:

Celestia is waging war on Teyvat. All the nations have to rise up together and defend themselves, including their Archons. Venti has been laying as low as possible, only finally revealing himself when he is forced to fight to protect his people during an attack.

How would his people react once they realize that the bard they all know and love has really been their beloved Archon the entire time? What would their knowledge and belief do to Venti's strength at that moment?

He could have the most badass cinematic sequence where he can unleash his full power and we finally see him at his best. It would be so impactful to see the transformation of Venti as we have known from the very beginning into Barbatos, one of the remaining original Archons.

There is obviously more to him than meets the eye. He is a part of the Thousand Winds. His inverted statue in the Abyss. The fact that he is the only playable archon that hasn't gotten a second CQ and is tight-lipped regarding anything to do with the Cataclysm, yet is still gently pushing the Traveler along their path to the truth of the world. Homie knows some shit.

[ajthebumblebee]

Thinking about how people like gay coded villains, and I think it's bullshit. The conclusion I've come to is that when people say this, they really just want catty characters.

They want gay coded characters who are powerful, cocky smartasses because its a nice fantasy to have. The gay coded characters they like are Scar and Ursula, who are those things. It's never for Ratcliffe or Professor Marmalade- Because they're fucking lame.

Even more blatant in The Bad Guys, people latched onto Wolf and Snake's close relationship over Marmalade. And guess what? Wolf and Snake are cool, powerful, cocky smartasses. And Marmalade is none of these things, and has just as much gay coding, if not more than these two.

You can tell this is what they really want, because those two things are not synonymous. You can have fun villains that aren't gay coded, and have cocky powerful smartass protagonists that are gay coded, or are actually gay. Puss in Boots 2 is a good example of all of this. Puss and Kitty both have a lot of bisexual energy to them, and none of the villains there are gay coded. But people love all the characters in that film nonetheless. And no one is trying to suggest that they should've been gay coded. Even the people who simp for Death don't say that.

Do you associate being catty and mean with being gay? Because that's what these gay coded villains were trying to do, thats what this propaganda is for. To show you that The GaysTM are bitchy, mean, deviant assholes. When they're not lame, embarrassing fops, they're threatening and menacing. And you fell for it, and tried to pretend it was a good thing.

People say Amity became less interesting when she became a love interest. But in reality, they just mean she's not as bitchy as before. So do you really want gay villains, or do you actually fantasize about being the bully?

[ifthesewings--couldfly]

I dare say, 2023 Ariel became human for Eric more than 1989 Ariel did.

Disclaimer: this post does not involve mermaids trading their voices for a vagina.

My analysis is supported by these points:

1. Up until Ursula makes her human, Ariel literally idolizes the human world. Then, as soon as she sets foot in Eric’s palace, her bubble is burst, as we can see in the song ‘For the first time’. The only thing easing her discomfort through that time is spending time with Eric in his library;

2. The next day she goes on a trip to the village with Eric, and we see do several things - combing her hair with a fork, eating a flower - that are considered weird by the villagers, and that, again, cause her discomfort. Hadn’t she been with Eric at that moment, the day would have been really awkward for her, possibly ending with her feeling out of place and unwelcome on land;

3. The final scene indicates that Ariel and Eric are leaving their castle to explore uncharted waters, which has Ariel especially excited at the perspective. No mention of the fact that she is gonna miss her new home on the land. Then, right before leaving, she makes this face at the ocean

which clearly indicates that she misses her old home more than the new one. It’s only when Eric brings her attention back to the present, that she literally puts a happy face on for him.

Through the entirety of the movie, the directors make a point of showing Ariel loves the sea more than she loves the land. Which means, Ariel chose to become human because she loves Eric, not because she loves the land.

So, 2023 Ariel is the one who actually left the sea for Eric. 1989 Ariel left the sea because she loved the land.

[artist-issues]

I know we're all over this topic right now. But one of the main things I think was important in the original The Little Mermaid that the remake totally missed was that Ariel's faith was in a person.

She starts out having faith in an idea. A vague concept. "Humans might be wonderful and worth loving because they make wonderful things. They might not be barbarians. They might even understand me."

And that's great. She has some evidence to put her faith in. But that evidence is how kind and harmless a scatter-brained seagull is, and his nonsense explanations of human trinkets.

So she deduces that the humans might not all be bad and they might actually be wonderful. If they can make things, maybe they must be inventive--maybe they see the world as full of possibilities--just like she does.

And that's enough to make her argue with her dad, the king, and buck against the entire undersea worldview.

It's enough to make her spend her days collecting and dreaming.

It's enough to make her visit the surface despite the fact that it's forbidden and potentially a risk to her life.

But the collection, the good Surface-Seagull, and all her guesses about the Surface are not enough to make her leave her family and her world behind.

And the original movie's creators knew that the audience needed to see that, in Act 1.

She thinks about it. But she doesn't actually pull the trigger. She doesn't actually take the leap of faith, or make the big sacrifice.

Not until she meets a person who embodies all the things she's hoped were true after her experiences with trinkets and seagulls.

When Ariel discovers Eric, he brings all her dreams about what the Surface might be like to life. He makes it real.

That's why she's in love with him. There's a combination of "he's everything I hoped humans would be...and he's even better, because I know how he feels."

In the Script for The Little Mermaid, when Eric asks if Grimsby is still "sore because I didn't fall for the Princess of Glowerhaven," there's just one break in the dialogue before Grimsby responds. It says "Ariel listens closely."

Because that's important. It's not just because she thinks he's handsome and she's listening to learn more about what his love life is like. She's listening closely because there's a conflict, like the ones she has with her father, and she wants to see if this human is "reprimanded" for his way of thinking or not.

She not only finds a human who is brave, sacrifices himself for an animal, and free to explore--she also finds a human who has dreams that the people around him can't understand.

He makes her ideals real, and expands on them, just by being himself.

Ariel learns precisely what she needs to about him, in one scene, for her in-character response to be "falls deeply in love."

And he's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Suddenly it's all real to her. Now she can sacrifice. Now she has something powerful enough to put her faith in--now she has someone worth loving enough to take a big leap of faith to.

That's why having her forget that she needs to kiss him, and having her only decide to give up her life under the sea when Ursula specifically mentions "never leave home again," is not Ariel. It implies that most prominent reason for her sacrifice was so that she could be free to explore instead of imprisoned where nobody gets her. But that's not Ariel. That's not the most important reason behind why she left in the original movie. She left because she finally had someone to love, and put her faith in.

She left for love, not independence. She left for Eric, not just for herself. You can dislike that all you want, but then you're disliking Ariel. Because that's who she is; that's why she did it.

[princesssarisa]

Some questions about Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" (not Disney's)

I'd like to ask other people these questons:

In Hans Christian Andersen's original story of The Little Mermaid, how do you feel about the Prince? And how do you think we're supposed to feel about him?

Reading various comments about The Little Mermaid online or in non-fiction books, it's clear that it's popular to hate the Prince. People talk about what a "jerk" he turns out to be, and how he "betrays" the Little Mermaid.

Some adaptations also make him more blatantly selfish and unlikable he is in the original. For example, by having him become the Mermaid's lover, only to betray her with another woman, or to reveal that he's already betrothed and never planned to marry her. Disney of course makes Eric fully sympathetic, but does have him fall in love with Ariel and only stray from her because Ursula hypnotizes him. And a few versions have him realize too late that the Mermaid was his true love whom he should have chosen to marry, which never happens in Andersen's version.

Part of the hate Andersen's Prince gets is obviously irrational. At the very least, in the original story, he never betrays the Mermaid because they're never a couple.

But each time I reread the story, I don't know what to make of him. Are we meant to like him or dislike him?

The first detail in his favor is that his subjects seem to love him. The Mermaid overhears fishermen praising him in their boats. When a character is in a position of power, it's always important to notice how the people under his power talk about him.

But speaking of people under his power... his family has slaves. Now, from what I've read, Andersen was anti-slavery. But in the context of this fairy tale, I'm not sure if he meant for the presence of slaves to paint the royal family negatively, or if they're just a part of the implied "exotic" setting, like the presence of citrus and palm trees.

Now let's move on to the heart of the issue: the Prince's treatment of the Little Mermaid in her mute human form.

Obviously, we can't blame him for not realizing that she saved his life, or for crediting the Princess who found him unconscious on the beach with saving him. He has no way of knowing that it wasn't just the waves that swept him to shore.

And it's hard to fault his basic treatment of the Mermaid. He finds a mysterious mute girl on the beach, and despite having no idea of her family, her background, or where she comes from, he brings her to live in the palace, has her richly dressed, and makes her his constant, dearest companion. His affection for her is clear and strong throughout their time together and she loves him more every day.

Yet instead of giving her a proper bed, he has her sleep on a velvet cushion by the door of his room. Like a pet.

He never treats her as an equal, but loves her "as he would love a little child," despite being only a year older than she is. Just because she's mute, and because she's socially beneath him (or so it seems, since he doesn't know she's a princess), he infantilizes her.

Yet sometimes, he shifts away from treating her like a little sister or a pet, and does seem to treat her as a potential romantic partner. He tells her that she reminds him of the girl he loves, whom he thinks he'll never see again – it's implied that much of his fondness for her stems from her resemblance to the Princess. He also tells her "you have almost driven her image out of my mind" (what does that bode for his future with the Princess, if he can freely talk about almost forgetting her in favor of another girl?), and that if he has to marry but can't have his beloved, then he would rather marry his "little foundling" than anyone else.

He freely takes her in his arms too, kisses her forehead and mouth, plays with her hair, and rests his head on her chest. By 19th century standards, would this have been "seemly" or not?

What are we supposed to make of all this? Is the Prince just a kind, affectionate friend who takes comfort in his "little foundling's" presence after losing his beloved, and who values her enough that if he can't marry for love, a platonic marriage to her would be the next best thing? Or should we see him as toying with her and using her as a substitute for a romantic partner, yet because of her disability and lack of status, never humanizing her enough to go all the way?

Then, when he reunites with his Princess, he fails to see the Mermaid's pain, but expects her to "rejoice at my happiness." Is this innocent on his part, or unforgivably self-absorbed?

Part of the problem is the fact that this story is from 1837. The cultures of friendship, romance, male-female interactions, class relations, and disability were obviously all different back then, and hard to fully understand from a modern perspective. I'm not sure if the original readers would have viewed the Prince with more sympathy or less than modern readers tend to.

When his treatment of his "little mute foundling" seems ableist by today's standards, did Andersen mean for it to be ableist? Or would he have seen it as "only natural" to treat a mute girl that way? Was Andersen critiquing ableism, or being ableist himself? And in an era when social class was more rigid than it is today, would it have seemed "only natural" for a prince to treat a homeless girl of unknown origins like a child or a pet instead of an equal, and to never consider marrying her even when romantic potential was clearly there? Still, you'd think that even by 1830s standards, her sleeping on a cushion by his door would be seen as dehumanizing.

Of course it doesn't need to be either "the Prince does nothing wrong" or "the Prince is a self-absorbed jerk." It could also be that he's a good, warm-hearted person, but unfortunately has grown up in a classist, ableist, slave-owning environment that hasn't taught him to treat people like "the little mute foundling" as equals. Andersen might have meant to criticize class divides and ableism without meaning for us to dislike the Prince as a person.

This issue is complicated even further by the generally agreed-upon fact that the Mermaid is Andersen's gender-bent self-insert, and that the story is based (a) on his struggles to fit into upper class society despite his lowly birth, and (b) on his closet bisexuality and unrequited love for his friend Edvard Collin, the son of his patron. He's known to have sent Collin a copy of the story, though it seems that commentators disagree about whether it was meant as a "rebuke" or a "love letter."

I tend to like versions of the story where the the Prince is sympathetic and a true friend to the Little Mermaid, just not in love with her. Maybe that was Andersen's intent; after all, he and Edvard Collin stayed close friends throughout their lives, long after The Little Mermaid was published, and were even buried together.

But maybe he didn't mean it so kindly. Maybe at the time when he wrote the story, Andersen did feel dehumanized and toyed with by Collin, and by the upper class in general. Maybe we are supposed to blame the Prince for the tragedy, and maybe to portray him too sympathetically robs the story of its power.

I'm sorry for rambling on and on. But the Prince is a difficult character and it's no wonder that he's so divisive, or that adaptations tend to change his character drastically in some way or other.

How are we supposed to feel about him?

[imagitory]

Okay -- so my visual aids for this post are very limited since Disney+ will not let me properly screenshot this and there are no good quality versions of this on Youtube anymore...but I need to talk about Disney's The Little Mermaid TV series for a second. Specifically, one episode very near and dear to my heart called Metal Fish, which features a human explorer going down in a fish-shaped submarine to the bottom of the ocean, getting stuck, and being found by Ariel and her friends.

Now honestly, watching the episode again, there's a lot I don't love about it. Sebastian's whole subplot with the crab scouts is really kind of annoying, and I skip every bit of it. But I love the character of Archimedes (even if he never appeared in the show again! Boo!), and -- more importantly to today -- there's this wonderful moment right toward the beginning of the third act of the episode where Ariel and our human explorer lay eyes on each other for the first time, and there's just this electric connection.

Something that bypasses words -- this sense of wonder, enchantment -- almost enlightenment. And is it surprising? No! Ariel is the spitting image of what the human explorer had in his mind, when he was dreamily sketching out what a mermaid could look like, back on land.

And of course, at the end of the episode, what else should the explorer end up being named, but Hans Christian Andersen? And what else would he do, after being rescued by a mermaid, but use it as inspiration for one of his most famous fairy tales?

Okay, yeah, admittedly Hans Christian Andersen was a much sadder and more dysfunctional brown-haired human being IRL (just watch this video for a nice deep-dive about this disaster gay/bi/honestly-maybe-even-romantic-ace)...not to mention he wasn't even half this dashing nor close to being vocally similar to the great Mark Hamill...but one thing I absolutely love about this episode, and the aspect I personally respond to most, is the choice the series' creators made to have their interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen and Ariel have a very striking visual similarity, as well as similar personalities.

Many theorize that the original little mermaid was a self-insert character for HCA, with his fairy tale being a fantastical lament about the one-sided love he felt for the son of his most significant patron, Edvard Collin, who -- like the mermaid's prince in the original -- fell in love with and chose to wed another. There's even preserved correspondence by HCA where he writes of his feelings for Edvard being "those of a woman." And although this is more likely about HCA struggling to express romantic feelings that felt out of place in the very religious, heteronormative world he was a part of than about HCA himself identifying as transgender, I still think it was such a sweet little gesture for this episode to highlight Ariel and HCA seeing themselves in each other.

And this is where I wish SO MUCH I had some good quality video so I could truly share this piece of the episode with all of you -- because the moment where Ariel and Hans see each other for the first time gives me such life.

When Hans first sees Ariel, he's lost for breath, and he sounds and looks almost bereft when she disappears from view. When Ariel first makes eye contact with Hans, she clutches her face and hair, almost as if seeing herself clearly for the first time. And the whole time, they're looking at each other not fully face-to-face, but through glass and water -- almost a reflection of each other. Because...they are.

I'm sorry, I fail to articulate how utterly beautiful this is. No love story could ever capture the emotion this short scene instills in me. A platonic connection so powerful that it transforms you and how you see yourself forever. Meeting another person and, in doing so, truly knowing yourself for the first time.

However much I might praise The Little Mermaid TV series primarily for its music, there are also moments like this that remind me how wonderful Disney's adaptation of Andersen's story really is.

[darkscorpiox]

Analysis on TWST’s time loop theory

The time loop theory is popular among TWST fans. As I was trying to find similarities between Yuu and the protagonist(s) of each movie, I noticed how certain things about the latter and the order of the TWST chapters could support said theory.

Alice – Beginning

Among the main characters, she is one of the youngest and remains so till the end of her movie (along with a lack of character development), so it makes sense to have her at the beginning of the cycle. Her wish for a world of her own creation is what started her story, her venture into Wonderland.

Simba – Awareness

Like Alice, Simba wanted things to go his way and he thought being king meant no one would tell him what to do. He got a taste of the hardships of life first at the hands of the hyenas in the Elephant Graveyard (powerlessness) and next, by the death of his father (loss). Unable to face the trials and tribulations ahead of him, he exiled himself in a paradise-like location (his Wonderland) where he found contentment, but only on a superficial level. Eventually, his past caught up to him and told him to come back to reality, a life which consisted of more than just him, himself and he.

If we compare his young self’s idea of the position of king in his song, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”, and his ascendance to the throne at the end of the movie, we see his growth, from a child presenting his status of heir with great fanfare to an adult solemnly accepting the responsibilities of a ruler.

Ariel – Inquisitiveness

While Simba came to term with his purpose in life, Ariel was dissatisfied with the one given to her. Not only was she aware of a world beyond hers, but she wanted to be a part of it as well (reference not intended). Even with her father trying to extinguish her interest in the surface world, it didn’t waver, but instead double in intensity. As Aristotle said in Metaphysics (book 1, chapter 1): “All men by nature desire to know.” In other words, he could have never changed her nature.

Aladdin / Jasmine – Change

Going against a parent is one thing, but it’s another when the opposing party is the law. Aladdin and Jasmine may not come from the same social circle, but they both wanted more than what everyone around them said was their lot. The former was playing the system by disguising as a prince, changing himself (like Ariel) into what he thought was socially suitable, but the latter wanted to take it down because it wasn’t suitable for her.

Snow White – Hope

Snow White had also been trapped by circumstances outside of her control (she was supposedly 14 in the movie, barely a teenager), forced to be a servant in her own castle by the person supposed to provide and care for her. Despite said lifestyle, she remained steadfastly optimistic about her chances of getting (the change for) a happy ending.

Hercules / Meg – Deprivation

Sadly, not everyone, no matter how much they hope and pray, gets the happy ending they want easily. Hercules wanted a place to belong and thought he could find it among the gods of Olympus, but Zeus told him it can’t be given to him just because he had accomplished great feats. As a result, he had no idea on how to reach said goal. Meg had once been one of those girls who believed in the power of love and said belief got trampled by her own lover. As a result, she believed love brings you nothing but pain. In short, their optimism about the world they live in was dying.

Aurora – Withdrawal

Aurora was another character who had been denied what they wanted. She had dreamed of someone to spend time with and had found said person in Phillip whom she had met just shortly before she had learned the truth from her fairy godmothers (her royal status and her betrothal to a prince). Obviously, she didn’t take the revelation well.

And who else didn’t like the idea of being in an arranged marriage?

And what did she do?

See the similarities?

It was mostly the doing of Maleficent, but I want to believe Aurora pricked her finger on that spinning wheel out of her own volition on some degree. Just because she had accepted the title of princess along with the expectations and the duties attached to said position didn’t mean she mustn’t have felt some degree of trepidation in the face of such burden. A part of her had longed for the simple life of a peasant girl, when her dream had barely become true. So if said dream couldn’t come to reality, then she would retreat to the safety of her dream world (Wonderland) till the real world would conform to her wish.

So if Twisted Wonderland is the dream world created by Yuu based on and / or caused by events from their past, then that means they can go back to their world (or reality) only after they get what they want (or are forced to face the truth). Otherwise, they’ll be stuck in a time loop for the rest of their life.

[schadenfredde]

The story of Foo Fighters parallels The Little Mermaid in so many ways (the original version by Hans Christian Anderson, not disney)

FF's identity was so important to them, they feared losing that sentience and no longer existing

The mermaid was troubled by the thought of their kind turning into sea foam and simply ceasing to exist when they die

FF and the mermaid were turned human by someone powerful, and then later tasked to kill the ones they loved so they can keep their humanity, but they were unable to bring themselves to and died for it. However, in doing so, they realised they had a soul and they were real and they did exist and they were content with their fate

:') I'm gonna cry.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

The "Eric never loved Ariel and was only spellbound by her voice" theory quite frankly needs to go away and never see the light of day ever again. It might sound "interesting" to many (it doesn't to me), but if people bothered to actually pay close attention to the movie for once in their entire lives, they would notice that the love was indeed genuine, otherwise Ursula wouldn't have transformed into Vanessa and literally enchanting Eric with her own magic powers through Ariel's voice. Ariel's voice serves the exact same purpose Snow White's looks serve: They are symbolic representations of virtue. The princes fall in love with them through that because of the fact that that very thing is representative of their benevolence, virtue and selflessness. This whole thing of reducing their romance to a spell makes me hella mad, ngl.