Mermaid / Joanna
The roots of mermaid mythology are more varied than one would expect. In modern myth we tend to see mermaids in a singular way - kind and benevolent to humans who keep to their own kind in the deep waters of the ocean. Not all stories go this way, though, and in most cases the most ancient tales of mermaid mythology follow quite a different view.
The earliest known mermaid legends come from Syria around 1000 B.C. where the Syrian goddess Atargatis dove into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the powers there would not allow her give up her great beauty, so only her bottom half became a fish and she kept her top half in human form.
Some believed that even well-intentioned mermaids would cause great danger to men who believed they saw a woman drowning and would dive into the waters to save them. Other tales suggest that mermaids either forgot or didn't understand that humans could not breathe underwater, and they would pull them down into the depths of the sea, accidentally drowning them in the process.
In the modern mythology of mermaids, however, this is rarely the case. Today these beings are more likely to be seen as innocent and sweet, if not helpful in many cases to human kind.
When it comes to The Devil's Carnivals mermaid, she's a little bit of everything. Being trapped in a gigantic pool at the middle of the carnivals place, she's been a prisoner for ages always attacked by curious eyes. Beautiful and sympathetic, but don't go too close to her – you can never know what might be on her mind.
