My favourite Disney Characters:
Ariel - My tribute to a Mermaid
"The Little Mermaid" is my favourite Disney movie. Stop.
That's a fact you can never ever put down. But I noticed that I'm maybe
the biggest "Hercules"-geek in the Disney Forum, too. My favourite heroine
- Ariel or Megara? It was a hard choice, really, until I realized that
you can't compare them! See, Megara is a figure I love because of her unique
character, her indepentness, and her design (We've been through this, Christy,
she's drawn awesome well) Close, and I'm meaning very close when I'm saying
close, comes Ariel, a princess with a dreaming heart, and the desire to
make it come true. She would give up everything for being happy with her
life, and that are only few reasons why I love her. Her story, her
voice, her song fascinated me so much in a way nothing else would. I grew
up with "The Little Mermaid", I knew it since I was three, and now I'm,
heck, fifteen. After all, she is a mermaid, and as a magical mermaid she
will stay in our hearts..
Well, who doesn't know the famous story by H.C Andersen, telling about
a kingdom way, way down the ocean and beyond all our imaginations, where
the water is as blue as a cornflower, yet clear as the purest glass? Down
there the merfolk lives, ruled by their mighty king. The king had been
widower for a long time, and his old mother was his most loyal advisor.
No one but she could care better for the king's six daughters, who were
all beautiful mermaids. But the youngest was the most beautiful of all.
What was mostly special about her was that she could sing lovely with her
marvelous voice. Every fish around started listening when she began singn.Yet,
like all of them, she had no feet - Her body ended up in a fish tail...
That's about how the original story begins. Already this beginning
and the description of the merfolk in the way down sea overwhelmed me as
a little kid. I was captuated by Andersen's portrayal, and that stayed
for so many years, till now. No imaginal figure in mythology and stories
has me fascinated more than people living in the sea and having a kingdom.
Andersen's story went on, involved into the nagging wish of the little
mermaid to live up there to those who have feet, especially after she meets
and rescues a handsome prince. It was a wonderful (yet, a little brute)
story, and it stayed my favourite fable.
Disney's version, coming back to that, still warms my heart up, after so
many times watching it. It made the characters more colorful and loveable,
especially the headstrong, innocent mermaid Ariel. Ariel has enchanted
thousands, millions of people, not only me, and not only children. I don't
know any people that can say "I don't like Ariel." and I will never ever
know anyone can say that. I'm completely sure. Ariel's....Ariel.
The film. had some really thrilling parts, but a happier ending than
the original. It turned the story of the little mermaid and the prince
into the legendary romance between Ariel and Eric, torn apart because of
their only difference. The things I love about the film are best described...without
words.You must have seen it to feel it for yourself.
But as I said, the thing I love most about the film was the mermaid,
Ariel, herself. There's something about her that just makes you like
her. Or there are many things. Maybe that she's a mermaid and therefore
a figure you need to imagine in your fantasy. Maybe it is her innocence,
staying through the entire film, proving that true love will last forever.
Maybe it is the desire she keeps on dreaming of becoming a human, join
the human's world. She was curagious willing to give up her voice,
her fin, her home. She was willing in a wicked deal with Ursula, to make
Eric fall in love with her in three days, mute, and when Eric is always
thinking of this girl that rescued him singing (not knowing it is Ariel!)
Maybe it is the happiness she discovers, seeing our boring old shore with
the eyes of a little stunned child. Maybe it is her voice, maybe her red
hair. For me, it was everything.
