Board Thread:Fanon Discussion/@comment-14800267-20140205232944/@comment-4598697-20140211025847

Jade Encrusted Bugs wrote: Fun fact: Jasmine's physical appearance was based on a white woman that one of the animator's knew. Theoretically speaking, the first Disney princess of color is a white woman with a tan (well, has a whitewashed design at least). Made even worse since her skin is often made lighter in her merchandise...

Also, CreativeMadness, and I'm assuming you're talking about the version as written by The Brothers Grimm, I'm pretty sure that Cinderella's step mother gave that knife to her step sisters, not Cinderella herself. They cut off their toes in order to fit Cinderella's golden slipper, but their falsehood was revealed due to their bleeding feet.

I wouldn't go around saying that their version is the "original" Cinderella story, however. Far from it, as LillyKitten excellently pointed out, the Grimm Brothers has done a lot sanitizing of their tales as well, particularly in later prints. Charles Perrault's version of the tale, which is actually older than Grimms', is more well-known than their take on the story, and doesn't include the mutilating of the step sister's feet (nor them having their eyes gouged out by pigeons). Stories about young women with stepmothers (or biological even), cruel sisters, and said young women escaping their abusive household and marrying someone of high standing are particularly common in various cultures. A good example of this is Ye Xian, one of the oldest known variants of these types of stories. Notice the similarities.

As for that older version of Sleeping Beauty, it's called Sun, Moon and Talia. Definitely not for kids, to say the least. I can understand why Mattel puts preference to certain versions of their stories over others, however. Keep in mind that the dolline is aimed at those in their late childhood/preteens, so Briar isn't going to be the child of Talia (it seems that EAH's take on Sleeping Beauty is going to combine Perrault's and Grimm's). Same thing with Disney, although I really wish that some stories could have kept more to accuracy (Frozen was wonderful but in almost nothing like Andersen's The Snow Queen). You also may want to refrain from using "fuck" in the context that you're using (it's easier to say sex, although really, Sun is basically a story that ignores the the psychological consequences of/romanticizes  rape).

Also, when reading Storybook of Ledgends (not revealing any major spoilers, read ahead), it was actually suggested that everyone's fairy tale parents aren't the original characters from their respective fairy tales, but that there are many generations of snow Whites, Sleeping Beauties, and the like, and that their titles are passed down to a different generation. There was also a mentioning about how each generation lives out their parent's story a little bit differently, so perhaps Sun, Moon and Talia took place at a much earlier time (Briar's umpteenth-greaf grandmother?). Maybe that's the reason why the stories used on the show seem sanitized? I think Briar is made with the Grimms' Briar Rose in mind. Perrault's Sleeping Beauty is a rather unusual story. It's darker than the Grimms', and a lot more descriptive. In Perrault's version, there are eight fairies, the princess has no name, the old spinning woman is not the same person as the evil fairy, and the princess' parents leave the castle after their daughter and everyone else there is put to sleep. The biggest difference is that Perrault's story continues after the marriage of Sleeping Beauty and her prince. The couple have a daughter and a son (Aurore and Jour, or Dawn and Day). The prince's mother is an ogress and when the prince is away at war, the ogress queen tries to eat Sleeping Beauty and her two children. Her plans are foiled thanks to her merciful cook, and she commits suicide by jumping into a snake pit. It's probably not appropriate for little kids, though I did find a French picture book that came out relatively recently that is based on Perrault's version and includes the second part of the story (it's by an illustrator named Olivier Desvaux. There are other Sleeping Beauty picture books based on Perrault's version, such as the nicely illustrated one by Margaret Early - but hers and most other ones I've found based on Perrault's version don't include the second part and end at the wedding. It's a rarity that you find one with the second part.). I'm guessing the standards for what is appropriate for kids is different over there since that probably wouldn't sell too well in America.