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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