12 Disney fairy tales, which are not based on children's stories at all

If you believe the Walt Disney cartoons, then in all classic fairy tales, a happy ending is inevitable. This is a world of talking cute animals, kind fairies and love. But was it all in the original? In fact, the original versions of the same fairy tales, which were carefully collected and recorded by the folklorists Charles Perrault and the brothers Grimm, described much darker and bloodier events.

In the Disney version of Cinderella, the princess, who is offended by her stepmother, goes to the ball and meets the prince there, but she has to escape before midnight, and she loses her shoe. Then the prince takes this shoe and tries it on to the girls living in the district. He finds Cinderella, to whom this shoe fits perfectly, they get married and live happily ever after.

In Charles Perrault's version of Cinderella, when the prince arrives at Cinderella's house, the stepmother orders her two daughters to cut off their toes and put on shoes. Her trick does not work, and Cinderella gets both the prince and a happy ending. But the misadventures of the half-sisters of the main character do not end with cut-off fingers: during the wedding, birds peck out their eyes.

In the Disney version, the princess pierces her finger with a spindle and plunges into an eternal sleep. The brave prince wakes her up with a kiss, and they live happily ever after.

In the original version of Giambattista Basile, Aurora wakes up not from a gentle kiss, but from the birth of twins. Oh, yes, they forgot to say: the prince does not kiss the princess, but makes her children and leaves, because he is already married. When Aurora and her children arrive at the palace, the prince's wife tries to kill them, but the king stops her and allows Aurora to marry the man who raped her in her sleep.

In the Disney version, the Monster kidnaps Belle (hence the name — "Beauty and the Beast"), and she lives in a luxurious castle with talking dishes and furniture until she discovers the inner beauty of the Monster. Falling in love, she kisses him and saves him from the spell that made him scary, because physical beauty does not matter.

In the original version of Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbeau de Villeneuve, Belle persuades the Monster to allow her to go to her sisters for a week. After seeing a large amount of jewelry on her and hearing about Belle's luxurious life, the sisters persuade her to stay longer, hoping that the Monster will get angry because of her delay and tear the girl to pieces.

The only sin of Snow White was that she was the lightest-skinned in the fairy tale, because of which she had to run away to the forest, where she settled with the seven dwarfs. The evil witch gives her a poisoned apple, Snow White falls asleep, the dwarves try to take revenge, and the witch falls off a cliff and dies. While Snow White is sleeping, the prince appears out of nowhere and brings her back to life. After that, they live happily ever after.

In the original fairy tale of the brothers Grimm, the witch does not die under a block of stone. As punishment for trying to kill Snow White, she is forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes, which causes her to fall and die.

In Disney, Ariel, the daughter of the sea king, exchanges her voice for her legs and swims ashore, where she looks for her love and combs her hair with a fork. She falls in love with Prince Eric, and together they kill an evil witch who made a deal with the little mermaid, after which they live happily ever after.

In the original version of Hans Christian Andersen, the contract states that Ariel's new legs will always hurt, as if she walks on blades. Since pain and seduction do not get along well in one person, in the end the prince marries another woman, and Ariel throws herself into the sea and turns into sea foam.

In the Disney version, Mulan is a girl with a grasshopper and a dragon who pretends to be a man in order to fight in the Chinese army against the Huns. Showing bravery, Mulan wins the war and returns home to play with his grasshoppers.

In the original poem about Hua Mulan, China is losing the war. The enemy khan leaves Mulan alive on the condition that she will live with him, and Mulan escapes. When she gets home, she discovers that her father has died and her mother has remarried. Then she says: "I am a woman, I have survived the war, and I have done enough. Now I want to be with my father." And commits suicide.

In the animated version, Rapunzel is a beautiful princess with long blonde hair, locked high in a tower. One day she meets a robber, and together they experience many adventures that are not mentioned in the original fairy tale in any way.

Probably, this is the most successful fairy tale of the brothers Grimm from this collection. Rapunzel's parents were peasants who exchanged her for a small amount of rapunzel (bellflower plants) for salad. So, as a baby, she fell into the hands of a witch. When she was 12 years old, a witch imprisoned her in a tower without doors and stairs with one window. The only way to get into the tower was to climb up there by Rapunzel's long and beautiful hair. One day the prince was passing by the tower and heard a girl singing. He climbed the tower. That same night, Rapunzel agreed to marry him.

When the prince returned for her, he climbed up her golden hair, but met a witch in the tower. She pushed him out of the window, and the prince fell on the spikes that pierced his eyes. Blind, for several months he walked through the fields and forests, until he heard Rapunzel's voice in the distance. When he found her, she already had two children, and her magic tears restored the prince's sight. Rapunzel and the prince got married and lived happily ever after.

In the Disney version, Pocahontas is a woman who talks to trees, and her best friend is a raccoon. One day she falls in love with an Englishman and almost provokes a war between the two peoples.

In fact, Matoaka, better known as Pocahontas, was the daughter of Chief Powhatan in the territories now belonging to the state of Virginia. The Indians kidnapped John Smith to exchange him for hostages, and Matoaka saved his life. That was the end of their relationship. After the Indian princess was kidnapped by settlers who held her for ransom. At the age of 17, she married an Englishman and died at the age of 22 for unknown reasons.

In the Disney cartoon, Hercules is the youngest son of Zeus, who saves Megara from the clutches of Hades, becomes a real hero and ascends to Olympus.

In the original, Hercules was a barbarian, and one post is not enough to describe all his crimes, but let's first talk about Megara. She was the daughter of the king of Thebes, and Hercules literally forcibly took her to wife. They had two children, and they lived happily until Hera, the wife of Zeus, sent a madness on Hercules, and he killed Megara and the children. Tormented by guilt, Hercules still completed the 12 tasks described in the film, but with a lot of violence and complete disregard for the lives of other people.

In the Disney version, Quasimodo is a young man with a congenital deformity who falls in love with a gypsy woman and saves her from execution by the Inquisition.

In the original novel by Victor Hugo, Quasimodo fails to save Esmeralda from execution (in fact, he accidentally turns her over to the authorities), and he watches as she is hanged. Then Quasimodo goes to her grave, where he stays until he dies of hunger. Many years later, when her grave is opened, someone finds both their skeletons, but when they try to separate them, the bones crumble into dust.

In the Disney fairy tale, Pinocchio is the son of an old carpenter who always wanted a son, so he made him for himself from a log. On the way home from school, Pinocchio puts his father's life in danger, and in the end becomes a real boy.

In the original fairy tale by Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio is a real asshole. Since his birth, he has been behaving terribly, stealing, and even his father calls him useless. One day, because of all that he has done, the cat and the fox hang Pinocchio on a willow tree and watch him die, and the wooden boy swings in the wind.

In the Disney version, Mowgli is a boy who was abandoned by his parents in the jungle, and a bear and a panther taught him to sing songs and get food himself.

In Rudyard Kipling's original work "The Jungle Book", Mowgli kills the cruel tiger Sherkhan and discovers that his real parents were captured by peasants from the village. With the help of wolves and elephants, Mowgli destroys the village and kills its inhabitants. After that, he has to run away, because the villagers consider him an evil spirit. As a result, Mowgli finds peace in a village where the English rule.