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It's interesting that the article mentions Hans Christian Andersen's “The Little Mermaid” as an example of a story that was “sanitized” by removing the part whe

by sltkr 2y ago

It's interesting that the article mentions Hans Christian Andersen's “The Little Mermaid” as an example of a story that was “sanitized” by removing the part where Ariel is forced to choose between killing her prince or turning into foam on the waves. But Andersen's story was itself a sanitized version of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's “Undine”, a fairy/morality tale in which a water spirit marries a human knight in order to gain an immortal soul. In that story, her husband ultimately breaks his wedding vows, forcing Undine to kill him, and losing her chance of going to heaven. Andersen explicitly wrote that he found that ending too depressing, which is why he made up his whole bit about Ariel refusing to kill Prince Erik, and instead of dying, she turned into a spirit of the air, where if she does good deeds for 300 years, she's eventually allowed to go to heaven after all. Even as a child, it felt like a cop-out to me. But my point was: “The Little Mermaid” is itself a sanitized version of the original novella, adapted to the author's modern sensibilities.

chewxy 2y ago
I told a variant of the original Little Mermaid story as part of a school outreach program. The kids came to the conclusion that God wasn't a fair being because he didn't give mermaids souls. I walked away satisfied that my little counterprogramming against catholic school indoctrination might have worked. I wasn't invited back (at least for school year 2024).
- b800h 2y ago
  I'm not surprised the school didn't invite you back. Was the school outreach programme organised by your employer?
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  You made the common mistake of assuming God was/is a being: https://nwcatholic.org/voices/bishop-robert-barron/who-god-is-and-is-not https://nwcatholic.org/voices/bishop-robert-barron/who-god-i... Setting up a strawman for the kids would be par for the course though.
  - copperx 2y ago
    I wouldn't blame anyone for assuming God is a being. It's hard to reconcile the idea that God is both an abstract entity, like a force in the universe, but it also can become fully human as Jesus Christ.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    That framing is a bit of a stretch given the widespread tendency of the religious to anthropomorphize God in terms like having human-grokkable preferences and communicating them to us. I'd say that argument has itself preemptively "retreat[ed] onto ever-shrinking intellectual turf. Defining God as something akin to the entire existence of the universe is something that essentially cannot be proved or disproved. Stick to that definition strictly, and yes there is nothing that an atheist can take logical issue with. But that strict definition also yields no conclusions/advice/insight either, so it's not very interesting. Hence seemingly no one ever being able to adopt such a definition and actually stick to it.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Any metaphysical framing of ‘why existence’ is a bit of a stretch and can never be proved or disproved. I’ve also wondered whether a logical atheist would care if they were logical considering time is zero sum :) Also, these ideas are harder to grok in the modern mindset of reductionism (also unprovable), but this conception of God and being is millenia old.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        I mean the framing of an abstract non-entity God is a stretch from how basically everyone actually invokes God. Sure, that conception of God has been around a long time - however I've yet to come across any religion that sticks to that conception. Instead it's generally used as part of a Motte and Bailey setup - such an abstract conception of God cannot be disproved, and so one has to agree that such a God may exist. But then having established that, the general feeling that there is some kind of higher power is used to give weight to a whole bunch of assertions of what a completely different conception of a higher power supposedly wants us to do.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  In some novel, the author discussed Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac [0] as not a test of Abraham by God, but a test of God by Abraham. As in, 'I am about to murder my only son on your orders. If you are indeed the kind of god who would order me to do such a thing, then we'll see where that leaves us...' That interpretation always struck me as truer to Old Testament tone. [0] https://biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/22.htm https://biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/22.htm
  - mhuffman 2y ago
    I don't know. If memory serves life was pretty cheap in the old testament with millions being murdered and everyone(?) killed if you count the flood.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Weren't those non-believers, though? Old Testament God is pretty firm on that line. :D
    - edflsafoiewq 2y ago
      Within the context of the narrative, Isaac's importance to Abraham was practically infinite.
  - kristianbrigman 2y ago
    At the time, child sacrifice was apparently common, enough that if a country was in trouble, the populace would demand the king sacrifice his kid to save the country (even shown in scripture … see 2 kings 3:27 though later in time). This was a very _public_ display that this God does not want that. In short, it wasn’t really a test of either one, it was a public declaration that child sacrifice is bad.
    - kridsdale3 2y ago
      Didn't work out very well for Stanis Baratheon either.
  - chowells 2y ago
- indoordin0saur 2y ago
  Leaving the classroom, I tip my fedora and chuckle to myself. As I smile at my own cleverness I wonder how much karma this story is going to get when I post it on the atheism subreddit later.
BurningFrog 2y ago
True. But there is a big difference between... (1) HC Andersen writing his own version of an old story, and (2) A 2024 editor rewriting HC Andersen's story and selling that as written by HC Andersen.
- geysersam 2y ago
  In this context that's a rather small difference though. At that point the discussion is not anymore about if it's wrong or right to rewrite stories and tell rewritten stories to children, it's more about the rights of the author to not be associated with work that isn't theirs.
  - AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
    No, it's about not being lied to when looking up a work of fiction. Revisionism of historic facts and artwork is one of the oldest forms of political manipulation and has never served a good purpose, no matter how well meant. If you want to alter a story, make it clear that you altered it, don't replace the original with your version and then lie to people.
    - foldr 2y ago
      The article is talking about the Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid. I don’t think anyone went to see that assuming that it was a 100% faithful adaptation of the original text (insofar as such a thing exists in this case) so I don’t see that anyone is being lied to.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    To me it's 98% about the book buying consumer's right to get the product they paid for!
- sumeno 2y ago
dirkt 2y ago
> But Andersen's story was itself a sanitized version of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's “Undine” Now I got curious. Wikipedia actually has a summary of each chapter of "Undine" [1], and it's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT both in style and plot from Andersen's version [2]. Basically the only similarity is that it is about a mermaid and a prince/knight, and the (potential) death of the prince/knight at the end. For it to be a "sanitized version", it should be MUCH closer. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine_(Friedrich_de_la_Motte_Fouqué) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine_(Friedrich_de_la_Motte_... [2] https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/andersen/maerchen/chap127.html https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/andersen/maerchen/chap127....
konschubert 2y ago
I like the take that Noah had on Twitter: the Disney version, where the evil witch gets killed, teaches an essential lesson too: That we can overcome danger. We have basically cured Aids, we have fully eradicated smallpox. The daemons are real and dangerous, but we can win.
selimthegrim 2y ago
The erstwhile namesake of Ondine’s curse.
foobarian 2y ago
What a very satisfying thing to connect to my favorite 90s game! https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Undine https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Undine
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by sltkr 2y ago

chewxy 2y ago

I told a variant of the original Little Mermaid story as part of a school outreach program. The kids came to the conclusion that God wasn't a fair being because he didn't give mermaids souls. I walked away satisfied that my little counterprogramming against catholic school indoctrination might have worked. I wasn't invited back (at least for school year 2024).

b800h 2y ago
I'm not surprised the school didn't invite you back. Was the school outreach programme organised by your employer?
mensetmanusman 2y ago
You made the common mistake of assuming God was/is a being: https://nwcatholic.org/voices/bishop-robert-barron/who-god-is-and-is-not https://nwcatholic.org/voices/bishop-robert-barron/who-god-i... Setting up a strawman for the kids would be par for the course though.
- copperx 2y ago
  I wouldn't blame anyone for assuming God is a being. It's hard to reconcile the idea that God is both an abstract entity, like a force in the universe, but it also can become fully human as Jesus Christ.
- mindslight 2y ago
  That framing is a bit of a stretch given the widespread tendency of the religious to anthropomorphize God in terms like having human-grokkable preferences and communicating them to us. I'd say that argument has itself preemptively "retreat[ed] onto ever-shrinking intellectual turf. Defining God as something akin to the entire existence of the universe is something that essentially cannot be proved or disproved. Stick to that definition strictly, and yes there is nothing that an atheist can take logical issue with. But that strict definition also yields no conclusions/advice/insight either, so it's not very interesting. Hence seemingly no one ever being able to adopt such a definition and actually stick to it.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Any metaphysical framing of ‘why existence’ is a bit of a stretch and can never be proved or disproved. I’ve also wondered whether a logical atheist would care if they were logical considering time is zero sum :) Also, these ideas are harder to grok in the modern mindset of reductionism (also unprovable), but this conception of God and being is millenia old.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      I mean the framing of an abstract non-entity God is a stretch from how basically everyone actually invokes God. Sure, that conception of God has been around a long time - however I've yet to come across any religion that sticks to that conception. Instead it's generally used as part of a Motte and Bailey setup - such an abstract conception of God cannot be disproved, and so one has to agree that such a God may exist. But then having established that, the general feeling that there is some kind of higher power is used to give weight to a whole bunch of assertions of what a completely different conception of a higher power supposedly wants us to do.
ethbr1 2y ago
In some novel, the author discussed Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac [0] as not a test of Abraham by God, but a test of God by Abraham. As in, 'I am about to murder my only son on your orders. If you are indeed the kind of god who would order me to do such a thing, then we'll see where that leaves us...' That interpretation always struck me as truer to Old Testament tone. [0] https://biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/22.htm https://biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/22.htm
- mhuffman 2y ago
  I don't know. If memory serves life was pretty cheap in the old testament with millions being murdered and everyone(?) killed if you count the flood.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Weren't those non-believers, though? Old Testament God is pretty firm on that line. :D
  - edflsafoiewq 2y ago
    Within the context of the narrative, Isaac's importance to Abraham was practically infinite.
- kristianbrigman 2y ago
  At the time, child sacrifice was apparently common, enough that if a country was in trouble, the populace would demand the king sacrifice his kid to save the country (even shown in scripture … see 2 kings 3:27 though later in time). This was a very _public_ display that this God does not want that. In short, it wasn’t really a test of either one, it was a public declaration that child sacrifice is bad.
  - kridsdale3 2y ago
    Didn't work out very well for Stanis Baratheon either.
- chowells 2y ago
indoordin0saur 2y ago
Leaving the classroom, I tip my fedora and chuckle to myself. As I smile at my own cleverness I wonder how much karma this story is going to get when I post it on the atheism subreddit later.

BurningFrog 2y ago

True. But there is a big difference between... (1) HC Andersen writing his own version of an old story, and (2) A 2024 editor rewriting HC Andersen's story and selling that as written by HC Andersen.

geysersam 2y ago
In this context that's a rather small difference though. At that point the discussion is not anymore about if it's wrong or right to rewrite stories and tell rewritten stories to children, it's more about the rights of the author to not be associated with work that isn't theirs.
- AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
  No, it's about not being lied to when looking up a work of fiction. Revisionism of historic facts and artwork is one of the oldest forms of political manipulation and has never served a good purpose, no matter how well meant. If you want to alter a story, make it clear that you altered it, don't replace the original with your version and then lie to people.
  - foldr 2y ago
    The article is talking about the Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid. I don’t think anyone went to see that assuming that it was a 100% faithful adaptation of the original text (insofar as such a thing exists in this case) so I don’t see that anyone is being lied to.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  To me it's 98% about the book buying consumer's right to get the product they paid for!
sumeno 2y ago

dirkt 2y ago

> But Andersen's story was itself a sanitized version of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's “Undine” Now I got curious. Wikipedia actually has a summary of each chapter of "Undine" [1], and it's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT both in style and plot from Andersen's version [2]. Basically the only similarity is that it is about a mermaid and a prince/knight, and the (potential) death of the prince/knight at the end. For it to be a "sanitized version", it should be MUCH closer. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine_(Friedrich_de_la_Motte_Fouqué) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine_(Friedrich_de_la_Motte_... [2] https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/andersen/maerchen/chap127.html https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/andersen/maerchen/chap127....

konschubert 2y ago

I like the take that Noah had on Twitter: the Disney version, where the evil witch gets killed, teaches an essential lesson too: That we can overcome danger. We have basically cured Aids, we have fully eradicated smallpox. The daemons are real and dangerous, but we can win.

selimthegrim 2y ago

The erstwhile namesake of Ondine’s curse.

foobarian 2y ago

What a very satisfying thing to connect to my favorite 90s game! https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Undine https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Undine

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]