Can we talk about the original ending for The Little Mermaid?

I just found out Hans Christian Andersen's version ends with the mermaid dissolving into sea foam. I read this in a book of classic fairy tales from my local library. What's a surprising detail you've found that changed a story for you?

4 comments

4 Comments

jakeb812mo ago

Wait, that's actually a common mix-up! The sea foam part is right, but she doesn't just dissolve. In Andersen's story, she gets turned into an air spirit and gets a chance to earn a soul through good deeds. It's still super sad, but it's not totally hopeless like people remember. Finding that out made the whole story feel different to me. It's less about punishment and more about this weird, hard path to redemption.

owens.anthony3mo ago

Oh man, that original ending is rough. It reminds me of finding an old, beat-up copy of Pinocchio at a yard sale. The part where he kills the talking cricket with a hammer right at the start was a real shock. Kinda changes the whole vibe from the Disney version. Makes you wonder what other stories got a serious polish for kids.

aaron_adams3mo ago

The sanitizing goes both ways. Modern horror movies are basically just Grimm's fairy tales with better special effects.

sean8543mo ago

Yeah, that Pinocchio detail is wild. It makes me wonder what the original moral of those stories was supposed to be before they got cleaned up. Like, was the point just to scare kids into behaving, or was there something darker adults understood back then?