YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday-No New Tails to Tell (Bad pun I know)




This week’s topic: What tale or fable would you like to see a retelling of?

I love this topic, because there is one in particular that has been eating a hole in my brain for a while.  I want a retelling of….wait for it…The Little Mermaid.

Wait! It’s not what you think. I’m not talking about bubbly seashell-breasted cartoons with singing crabs, I want to take back what Disney stole from us. I want to reclaim the original dark and glorious beauty that is the original Little Mermaid tale. 

I grew up on Hans Christian Andersen. My mother had a huge leather-bound tome with exquisite illustrations that had been handed down from mother to daughter in her family for generations.  This was the Little Mermaid I knew.



I remember the first time I saw the Disney movie I was outraged.  I kept whispering in not-so-quiet tones “They are butchering the story!” which would inevitably induce “hushes” from all my fellow spectators.

Here’s the thing, the original Little Mermaid is a very dark tale. There is no slapped-on happy ending. The ending is tragically, gloriously sad. Mr. Andersen famously did not have a happy life, and he was almost quintessentially unlucky in love, and nowhere does this come out better than in the Little Mermaid.

Let me see if I can sum up some of the major differences: The Sea Witch doesn’t magically remove the Little Mermaid’s voice. She cuts out her tongue. And although this bargain gains her legs, she is told that every step she takes on land “will be like walking on knives”. But she does it anyway, because her love for the prince is so consuming. And when the prince asks her to dance, every step in the dance is like walking on knives but she somewhat sadistically enjoys it because she is dancing with the man she loves.  Oh, but things go horribly wrong and the prince falls in love with another woman and marries her instead. The Mermaid’s sisters make another bargain with the Sea Witch this time giving up their hair to purchase an enchanted knife. The Little Mermaid is given two options, either stab her love and his betrothed in their wedding bed or die and waste her sisters’ sacrifice. And she almost does it. She sneaks into their room at night and sees them sleeping in each other’s arms, but she can’t do it.  Instead, as the sun rises, she throws herself into the sea.

See what I mean…so not singing crabs. More unrequited love and torture and death. Call me old fashioned, but it’s a much, much better story. It absolutely haunted me as a child. Maybe that’s why kids today are fed the pabulum that they are. No one wants to deal with that many lawsuits involving traumatized children.

Am I out of my skull to want to write this one? And if so/if not, what tale would you like to see retold?

11 comments:

  1. Out of your skull? Absolutely not! It could certainly work, especially for a YA novel. It might be a little dark for MG, but certainly not for YA. As a re-telling, it might be interesting to see how you could re-cast it away from mermaids and sea monsters. That would be a tantalizing challenge! Great choice, Kris! :)

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  2. That is a very dark version of Little Mermaid. I personally love the happy ending from the Disney version, but I would LOVE to see this retold too!

    Great post! I had no idea.

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    1. Believe it or not from that post, but I'm a sucker for a happy ending too. I think I would even be mad at myself for killing off a protagonist like that!

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  3. This would be a fantastic tale to retell. I love Hans Christian Andersen and chose one of his tales for my RTW post. I'd especially love to see darker versions of commonly known tales, which is actually so much closer to the original (ish) ways that they were told. I definitely think there's a market for darker versions of fairy tales, especially in the YA market.

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  4. Aw, I like Disney's version of a Little Mermaid, but that may be because of my 5yo girl ;) Can you imagine if Disney told it as it is? *shudders*
    But the original certainly is great! Like you said, a much better story ... for adults--or at least teenagers ;)

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    1. That is so cute that you can share these with your 5 year old. And you are totally right, this version would Sooo not fly with small children. Still, even though I was upset at Disney at the time, it didn't stop me from singing the songs for weeks after that. *cough cough* (Did I just admit that in print.)I think someone finally had to slap me to stop me humming Under the Sea. :)

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  5. I think it's kind of hard to have the protagonist die at the end in any book, much less a YA book. Unless she DOESN'T die but comes back as some kind of vengeful sea hag in book II.

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  6. Thanks for sharing the original story. I knew it was dark but I couldn't remember the details. My mom didn't care for fairy tales so I had one mother goose ryhmes book and that was it. I grew up not knowing any of those, but I guess I had plenty of other kids books to keep me entertained. Disney definitely spins those stories into family-friendly fare, and you're right, there's no way something that dark could get made now for kids. I don't even think Bambi would these days! I hated Bambi as a kid. A forest fire and a dead mama deer?! Here's my YA Highway Post

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  7. The original story is so sad! But I think you're right, that theme of unrequited love would be easy to update. It's such an ingrained part of the human experience that I think we can all relate to that idea.

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  8. That's cool I didn't what the REAL story was, thanks for sharing it! So sad though!! New follower by the way! :)

    http://lifeisgood-forever21.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-cinderella-story-ya-highway.html

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  9. Oh my gosh, your post made me leap for joy - I didn't grow up on HCA, I grew up on Disney BUT when I went through intensive speech and drama classes during my teens, we studied HCA fairy tales and wow, they're not like Disney at all. I actually really like the HCA ones, I like the darkness and the heartbreak. An retelling of this Mermaid story would be amazing. Really.

    (I once performed a retelling of both the original Cinderella where they cut their toes off, and Snow White, all so very dark...!)

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