Ever think abt how much Disney flattened the Little Mermaid story?

Littlest needed it most, & whose hair fell out w grief on learning her fate

Or her sisters who loved her to death, who entertained her w their own adventures at the surface, who came to her aid when they saw her upset, who helped her find where the Prince lived, & who traded their long hair to the Sea-Witch (implied to be very important in mer-culture) in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her life

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This particular problem really comes to a head when it comes to how the Sea-Witch is characterized.

In the book she's truly a Chaotic Neutral

She isn't there for long, but she leaves an impact. Living on the outskirts of mer society surrounded by whirlpools, sunken ships, skeletons, polyps & sea snakes, she harbours no particular malice to Littlest. She doesn't try to interfere w her goal or to manipulate

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her into making the deal either
On the contrary, she directly tells her that it is a terrible idea that will bring her only pain, and when the conversation turns to Littlest losing her voice, her exact words are "it is NOT a trifle I ask"

She IS depicted as scary and dangerous...*because Littlest is making a scary and dangerous decision*

Disney's Ursula is loud, takes up space, aggressively wields & seeks

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power, actively thwarts Ariel's goal & in fact orchestrates most of Ariel's choices & pitfalls by constantly watching her from afar so she can eventually use her as a hostage. When she mentions the voice thing, she dismissively calls it "a token, really, A TRIFLE".

&, yes, considering what a fundamentally queer story this is, this does have some very uncomfortable "grooming" implications which lead to

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very bad things in real life when that idea is taken to heart by people from childhood (not to mention seriously cheapening Littlest's active role in her story of her own accord, for better or worse no matter what)

This shit is not neutral!

I mean seriously the Hays Code had been abolished for decades by this point
They didn't "have" to depict queerness like this!

Just..UGH! BAD DISNEY! VERY BAD DISNEY!

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Don't try & tell me that the original Sea Witch wasn't interesting enough either.

I dare you to try & tell me they "had" to replace a personification of the wild & chaotic nature of magic & miracles, who always keeps her word & extracts only the price required for what you ask...with yet another queer-coded campy disney villain...because she would be "boring" otherwise

She's basically the only other woman

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Ariel interacts with in the whole movie, too!

We really went from Littlest's final action in the story being to kiss the Prince's new bride on the forehead before ascending to heaven, a gesture of feminine solidarity & a blessing to be happy w him, towards a woman she barely even knows, despite every circumstance pitting them against each other

To..."other women are scary & predatory & will undermine

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your relationships w men"

Where's the nuance?
It's like a whole ocean of depth has been dried up

At least Snow White, Cinderella & Sleeping Beauty had a clear bad guy in the original story

Why HERE?

Why did The Little Mermaid *specifically* need another "jealous older lesbian-coded evil woman vs pure quiet younger more hetero-coded good woman" plot which Disney had already done to death by that point?

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It just feels so dull to subsume a story like this into the "traditional hetero christian marriage good, everything else bad" Disney formula

Even the Prince feels flattened

He went from a generally well-meaning but painfully oblivious & often condescending guy who, not unlike the Sea-Witch is not malicious but ends up screwing her over bc he has his own motives & is left genuinely blindsided & devastated

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by the apparent sudden disappearance of his strange new friend overnight

to "ooh he wants to find love, but he doesn't feel quite ready, oh wait the story has to wrap up with a marriage so now he conveniently is"

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Well, anyway tldr

Why does the Sea-Witch feel oversimplified into a moustache-twirling villain now?

Because she's not the Sea-Witch. She's Ursula

Why does the Prince feel like he's not allowed to have flaws or honestly much of a personality or motives of his own at all, really?

Because he's not the Prince. He's Eric

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Why does the Little Mermaid feel like she's just stumbling through the plot not changing or learning anything or having any arc or agency of her own?

Because she's not the Little Mermaid. She's Ariel

Thank you for coming to my overly long and pretentious ramble about a fairy tale with a fucking mermaid in it from nearly two hundred years ago

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