looking at the corpse bride script
in this draft emily has actually been watching victor for a long time, and has fallen in love with him and his gentle spirit from afar before he happens across her corpse in the woods
which almost makes it even more sad, she knows him and she loves him but he doesn’t know her or care for her
and it also means hes been haunted by an undead corpse for who knows how long,
victor’s parents briefly consider replacing him with a broom
victor and emily originally would return to the living world as ghosts, which actually makes more sense (it’s called a “haunting spell” after all, ) and im not sure why they cut it except for. convenience i guess
except that it possibly creates the problem of victor being a ghost when he’s technically not actually dead/Where Is His Body Then/etc
this also gets forgotten when everyone comes up for the final wedding but it also does in the final version too so /shrugs
the songs are all earlier drafts/definitely were massively improved on later, “tears to shed” has a super weird vindictive tone
victor never makes the choice to remarry emily, the whole thing with him choosing to die to be with her isnt there, elder gutknecht realizes that emily didn’t say her vows in the forest so the marriage isn’t really binding, and emily actually tricks victor into coming with her to say them again at their “wedding party” just for the sake of romance and he goes along with it because he believes victoria’s given up on him
it’s less of a choice and more just a defeated acceptance
however we do get victor’s parents meeting emily and they love her even though shes kinda half decomposed which is excellent
and we get her last name which id never heard before
barkis is not emily’s ex lover but just a random highwayman who killed her, im not sure what happened to her previous fiance
and he gets taken away by the police rather than dying, victoria asks the priest for an annulment and has it granted on the spot (the corpses all have a :) we’ll see you one day :) at barkis but its more of a looming eventual threat)
anyway overall the final version is MUCH better even if we did lose a couple nice details