Nooo, babies no. The Pocahontas one is very important, but can we also focus on two others?
Notably the Mulan one is wrong! Mulan never dies in any other version of her other than the Sui Tang Yanyi version (which we all know was historical fanfiction).
We can’t pass of that version as the ‘Original Version’, because it’s as fictional as the Disney movie. And, while it gives her an honorable death, Mulan’s heroism is cut short with the tragedy of her life.
I’m 100% certain the Disney version takes its plot from the 1939 film, Mu Lan Congjun. (Where Mulan returns to China as a hero and is offered a place in the imperial court, but chooses to go home and marry her true love). Consider that just as canon.
Originally posted by fa-dynasty
Also the Beauty and the Beast one is wrong, too.
The list references a different fairytale under the Aarne Thompson Fairytale classification system: “The Beast Husband” is AT425C but, “The Beast that Eats his Wife” story is AT311-312.
This difference is important! AT312 contains stories like “Bluebeard” “Mr Fox”, “The Bloody Chamber” and “Fitcher’s Bird”, where the Beast is not always animal-like, but sometimes just a regular serial killer.
Like an episode of Criminal Minds, the heroine must outsmart her Beast Husband before she is eaten - and she usually does! She calls for help, she plots her escape, she outwits her husband in a court of law.
The version called Mr Fox involves an arranged marriage between a young maiden and a scary monster called Mr Fox (he’s never described, and some artists literally draw him as a werefox):
Here is the maiden showing everyone the hand of Mr Fox’s last victim as proof that he’s been killing his Belles throughout the story; thus allowing the girl to escape his marriage with her life.
Saying the Beast just “eats Belle” erases her escape, and all the empowering autonomy that it is worth!
Be careful when you see some “Disney vs Original Fairytales” lists out there. It’s true Disney sanitizes these stories, but sometimes, these lists like to go for the opposite: gore and shock value. They leave out the fact that the originals are just as powerful, empowering, and magical as you’d find in a cinema today.
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