If Disney rocked our childhood, the tales from which the big-eared firm was inspired are not so encouraging. The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty … Discover the origins of these famous stories. It's pretty terrifying.
Did the Disney rock your childhood? Have you ever wondered what the original stories these cartoons are based on looked like? Because many original stories have nothing to do with what Disney told us. Princesses do not necessarily have happy endings and many are the violent passages that have been erased by Disney. We take stock of these scary original tales that we would not leave in the hands of any child …
The little Mermaid
If in The little Mermaid of Disney all ends well and that Ariel marries her beloved, the original version is much darker … It was Hans Christian Anderson who wrote this tale, in 1837. Basically, as in the Disney, the little mermaid falls under the spell of a handsome prince and gives up his golden voice to become human and seduce him. But the conditions signed with the sea witch are much terrifying than those of Disney. In addition to losing her voice, the young woman may have a human appearance, when she walks, it is as if she felt glass spikes piercing her feet. The little mermaid therefore has bloody feet as soon as she walks. A horror ! We understand why Disney has omitted this detail in its cartoon version. And that's not all. Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid fails to seduce her suitor in the end. He marries another woman and to become a mermaid again, she must kill him. But all the love she has for him obliges her to refuse this act of cruelty. Faced with this, she is forced to throw herself into the sea and turns into foam. A very sad end …
The Sleeping Beauty
The Sleeping Beauty is a popular tale that has been repeated many times. If Charles Perrault's version is one of the best known, it is based on Sun, Moon, and Talia scored by Giambattista Basile. In this version, Belle is Talia. She is the victim of a spell at birth. A few years pass and she falls asleep in a deep sleep, pricking her finger. Her father, sad, lets her rest in the castle and leaves forever. One day, a married king enters the castle, sees Talia sleeping on the bed and rapes her. Following this, this prince leaves and leaves Talia who becomes pregnant with twins, Sun and Moon. While looking for breast milk, these two toddlers remove the splinter from Talia's finger. The king returns to the castle to discover Talia, awake, with her two children. When the king's wife finds out about her husband's infidelity, she demands that the twins be murdered and then cooked for the king's meal. If Talia is doomed to be thrown into the fire, the king comes to her defense and throws his own bride into the flames.
Cinderella
In the Brothers Grimm's version, Cinderella is Zezolla. While her father remarries, she would have preferred this new union to be with her governess. She then makes a plan with the latter by breaking the neck of her new stepmother. If Zezolla thought she had got rid of her stepmother, she will quickly realize that her housekeeper and her six daughters are horrible characters. She becomes the servant of the family house and lives a real ordeal. One day, she meets a good fairy who allows her to go to the prince's ball, as in the version of Disney. There she meets a handsome prince who immediately falls under her spell. It's love at first sight ! After the ball, the young man wishes at all costs to find his beloved. For this, he organizes another ball by inviting all the young women of the kingdom to try on the slipper that Zezolla lost when they met. The terrible half-sisters of the young woman see the opportunity to become queens and go so far as to mutilate their feet so that they fit into the slippers. The king realizes this and the half-sisters end up having their eyes gouged out by birds.
Peter Pan
Did the character of Peter Pan rock your childhood? Know that he is not that nice and innocent. Basically, Peter Pan is a character in the novel The Little White Bird by J.M Barrie. In 1904, the author decides to put it at the center of a play: Peter Pan where the boy who didn't want to grow up. We then discover the characters of Captain Hook as well as Wendy and the Tinker Bell. While Neverland seems like an idyllic haven for the lost boys in the story, Peter kills them as soon as they start growing up. The iconic character has always been seen to be afraid of growing up, admittedly, but he seems to be much more fascinated by death: "Dying will be a terribly great adventure" he said during the play. A character who is probably very creepy … We prefer the version of Disney, we do not hide it from you.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a cult animated film today at Disney but the version of Victor Hugo's novel is depressing. Disney shows us a happy ending as we are used to seeing in its productions. Esmeralda lives the perfect love with Phoebus and Quasimodo, he is finally emancipated and lives his best life with his new best friends. Victor Hugo himself wrote a tragic fate for these characters. The beautiful Esmeralda is hanged after being accused of the murder of Pheobus. Following this, Quasimodo, inconsolable, lets himself starve to death on the corpse of the one he loves. We are far from the version of Disney and even less from a story accessible to children. Our three characters therefore die at the end and no one has a happy fate …
Pocahontas
The Disney version of Pocahontas is completely flawed, know that. Pocahontas really existed and his experience is far from the positive story of colonization embodied by the cartoon. Born around 1595 near the English colony of Virginia, she was part of the Powhatan tribe. According to legend, in 1607 she met John Smith while he was captured by his tribe. Put to death, she took his defense and asked her people to spare her. But this story was invented from scratch by John Smith. Pocahontas and the Explorer never had an affair and simply passed each other around the colony. At that time, between the settlers of Jamestown and the Powhatans tribe, tensions raged. Pocahontas is captured by an English captain in order to put pressure on the Indians. She learned the English language, dressed like Europeans before being converted to Christianity. She is then married to John Rolfe, a settler. This union is set up and accepted by the tribe of the young girl to ease the tensions between the two communities. In 1616, Pocahontas and John Rolfe went to England where the young girl was seen as a "object of curiosity". If she is instrumentalized and becomes a symbol of colonial propaganda, she does not support her new life in England. Pocahontas fell ill and died, no doubt of epidemic dysentery.
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