I saw you mention Apple White not too long ago, and it got me thinking about some of the other characters fates in EAH. Like can we acknowledge how brutal some of these fates are? Especially considering the show uses the Grim Brother’s version, which is significantly darker and scarier than anything Disney has done.
Here’s a list of all the fates that I think are the most brutal/ scary:
1) Apple White: It’s already shown what happens when Apple eats the poison apple in the dragon arc, but I don’t see a lot of people talk about how Apple was basically suffocating the whole time. Like we see her holding her throat and gasping for air. I LEGITIMATELY THINK THE APPLE CLOSED HER THROAT UP OR SOMETHING BECAUSE OMG?? We already saw that the apple itself had rotten away after Apple bit it, so it really gives you an idea of its effect on Apple’s body. Not to mention she needed someone to give her air in order to save her.
2) Meeshell Mermaid: If you’ve ever seen or heard of the origin Little Mermaid, you probably know that it doesn’t have a happy ending in the slightest. In the original story, Ariel falls in love with a prince, but he is already set to be married. And due to the sea witches contract, she must either marry the prince, or kill him to break the contract. But since she loved him so much, she couldn’t kill him, so she ended up jumping off the boat and turning into seafoam. So in short, MEESHELL WOULD LITERALLY FALL IN LOVE, HAVE HER HEART BROKEN, AND THEN TURN INTO SEAFOAM.
3) Briar Beauty: This one is without explanation. While yes, Briar technically doesn’t die or anything, but it doesn’t change the fact that everyone around her does. In Briar’s story, she is set to be cursed to fall asleep for a hundred years. And within that time, everyone around her would age and pass away, meaning eventually when Briar’s curse was broken, she’d be alone. No friends, family, or direction of where to go from there. (Side comment, but to this day, I still genuinely don’t blame Briar for snapping at Apple about their destiny’s. Apple literally sleeps for a day, while Briar is just stuck in an eternal sleep.)
4) Cerise Hood and Ramona Badwolf: Do I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE?! Little Red Riding Hood is such a horrifying story that’s disguised as a kids tale. First off, in her destiny, Cerise would be Little Red Riding Hood, destined to be eaten by a wolf. And what do you know? Her sister, Ramona, IS THE WOLF. And what happens to the wolf in the story? The wolf gets cut open by the hunter and has its belly filled with rocks. After the wolf wakes up and tries to run away, the weight of the stones causes the wolf to collapse and die. (This is the Grimm brothers version btw) DO YOU KNOW HOW DISTURBING THAT IS??? Also recently I heard someone say that if Cerise had kids, and her kids had kids, she would end up as a grandmother. Aka the grandmother that gets eaten in the original story. Yeahhh this family is escaping anything :(
5) Ginger Breadhouse: Again, DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS?? In the original story, the witch was outsmarted by Hansel and Gretal and was pushed into the oven, where she proceeded to burn to death. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW PAINFUL THAT WOULD BE? AN OVEN IS HOT PEOPLE. LIKE SCOLDING HOT. Not to mention that Ginger would more than likely be locked inside the oven, meaning even if she tried, she couldn’t escape or save herself. And not to mention, but Ginger loves baking for people! Imagine getting killed while doing the one thing you love to do; baking sweet treats for others to enjoy..
6) Raven Queen: Our girl did not deserve that fate at all. Bro what was Apple thinking??? It’s shown that after poisoning Apple, Raven would go on to being publicly exiled and (what I assume from the clips) end up homeless on the streets. But her story doesn’t end here. After loosing all of her friends, her home, and the respect of her peers, she is imprisoned and trapped away forever, just like her mother. How cruel is that?!
7) Duchess Swan: Forgive me because I barely know anything about the Swan Princess (I watched the Barbie version once, but I can’t remember anything about it). Duchess is listed as the only royal without a happy ending. In the end of her destiny, she loses her prince and is forced to remain a swan forever. Like can you imagine being stuck as a swan? I remember hearing that Duchess couldn’t speak to her mother as a child, since her mother was cursed to be a swan forever. Duchess ended up being raised by the castle staff! And I’d like to point out that in the scenes were she transforms into a swan, she is literally honking. She can’t speak. She. Can’t. Speak. That is literally horrifying to think about.
Phew I think that’s all of the characters I can think of.
I love being a yapper nerd <3
Well, I'd also like to throw in that Disney's going off different source material. They're usually going off the Perrault versions of the stories, and we don't know directly which iterations of the fairytales that EAH is going by. Just because the Brothers Grimm are characters in Ever After Lore, that doesn't mean that Brothers Grimm translations are necessarily the source inspiration for any of this, especially when the Brothers Grimm (EAH) don't resemble the irl Brothers Grimm.
I wouldn't call Red Riding Hood "disguised as a children's tale". Media made with children in mind can often have darker themes (case in point, the 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' frequently slaughtering demons who, if assuming all are like Jinu, are humans). Regardless, there's solid wisdom to be gained from Red Riding Hood that could very much be useful to a younger audience. Stranger Danger, for instance.
And depending on which translation of Grimm you're using, they're not all that much darker from the Disney films. That, and neither Swan Lake nor The Little Mermaid are Grimm Bros.
What's important to note about interpretations of stories, especially something so mainstream as fairytales, is that none of them are necessarily superior to the other. They're simply using fairytales as a basis to get their own point across. 'Wicked' and 'Dorothy Must Die' are deeply different from their source material, and to each other, because they're different stories with different goals. They just use Oz as a springboard to talk about certain topics. Same with EAH and fairytales.
Evil Queen's imprisonment and homelessness varies on the version of the tale. Some versions, she just straight-up dies. They kill her with red hot dancing shoes. She falls off a cliff. It's all about what better suits the narrative you're trying to tell as an individual. Which is why I've found this sort of mentality around EAH so strange.
EAH takes plenty of creative liberties, much like Disney does. Some Cinderella retellings have birds peck out the stepsisters' eyes, but that's never mentioned in EAH. Evil Queen's mirror imprisonment is far less violent than red hot iron shoes that she's forced to dance in. Meeshell's fate is never even mentioned, and that was probably because it wasn't relevant to this fairytale world.
It's not some sort of "sanitization" conspiracy to make gorey stories okay for kids, but just what works better for that interpretation of the story. Yet, we know EAH exists in its own world with its own Brothers Grimm. (Milton and Giles over Jacob and Wilhelm). So, I'm a little less inclined to just start applying the fates of certain older fairytales to EAH canon. It's not like Snow White runs a corporation in 'Little Snow White'.
I'd definitely recommend reading original Grimm Bros texts and, by extension, Perrault. Andersen as well. Fairytales are so much broader than people like to discuss!
