Over the years, Disney has had the tendency of taking the original dark fairy tales and turning them into classic children's films. Though it isn’t fair to say that all of these fairy tales were dark to begin with, some certainly have more tragic endings than others.
1. "The Little Mermaid"
In Anderson’s "The Little Mermaid," the mermaid princess falls in love with the human prince, same as she did in the Disney version. However, a human girl lies to the prince and tells him that she is the one who had saved him, and he ends up falling in love with her. The prince never realizes the mermaid princess saved him since she couldn’t speak. On the prince’s wedding night, the mermaid princess’s sisters give her a knife obtained from the same sea witch that had stolen her voice. They tell her to kill the newlyweds so that she can gain her mermaid form back. She refuses and dissolves into foam.
2. "Sleeping Beauty"
Disney’s "Sleeping Beauty" is the common portrayal of the fairy tale in which the princess falls into a deep sleep for a hundred years and is awakened by the prince’s kiss. The origins of the story can be traced back to the Italian poet Giambattista Basile’s "Sun, Moon, and Talia." The story revolves around a lord’s daughter, Talia, who was abandoned by her father after she succumbed to the prophecy of falling into a deep sleep from a splinter flax. Talia is later raped by a king happening by the house, and gives birth to twins. It was the twins who sucked the flax out of Talia’s finger and woke her.
3. "Hercules"
The 1997 film "Hercules" depicts the Greek mythological hero, Heracles. Contrary to the film, Heracles was not born from Zeus and Hera, but from Zeus and Alcmene, wife of the king of Tiryns. He eventually wedded Megara, daughter of King Creon, as he did in the film. However, later on, Hera inflicted a madness on him that led him to murder his own children.
4. "Hansel and Gretel"
In the most common version of "Hansel and Gretel," the two were lost in
the woods, where they discovered the witch’s gingerbread house. After the children were enslaved for some time, the witch attempted to eat them, and that
is when they managed to escape by burning the witch. In the earliest
French version of the story, "The Lost Children" were
abandoned by their parents, and were enslaved by the Devil in the woods.
Unlike the witch, the Devil discovered the children’s trick, and made a
sawhorse to lay them to bleed to death. The children then tricked the
Devil’s wife for a demonstration, cut her throat, and fled.
5. "Snow White"
We all know Snow White’s story. Though Disney did not alter too much of the original story line, they replaced (or erased) some dark details, such as
the fact that the Queen asked for Snow White’s innards instead of her heart, and was ready to prepare them for dinner when they were obtained.
In addition, instead of the princess being awakened by a kiss, she actually
returned to consciousness during a rough horse ride back the castle. It leaves
us with the following question: why would the prince want Snow White's dead body?
