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Many of the original Grimm and Andersen fairytales had tragic elements in their endings. The Little Mermaid got legs, but every step felt like walking on broken glass, and she doesn't win the princ...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:19Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9406 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:11:41Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9406 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Many of the original Grimm and Andersen fairytales had tragic elements in their endings. The Little Mermaid got legs, but every step felt like walking on broken glass, and she doesn't win the prince; she dissolves into seafoam and bubbles without ever getting her voice back. Cinderella's stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to fit the glass slipper, and her stepmother had to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she dropped dead. Sleeping Beauty was raped in her bespelled sleep, and only awoke when one of the twins she bore sucked on her finger and pulled out the poisoned bit of wood. These were stories _for_ children. I guess the difference between tragedy for children and for adults is mostly in degree, not in kind. The Grimms don't talk about how the knife feels cutting through the foot, or how the blood fills the toe of the slipper and spills out onto the floor which Cinderella (originally Ashputtel) spent so many hours on her knees scrubbing. You get the idea.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2013-11-14T18:42:16Z (about 11 years ago)
Original score: 3