ATTENTION!
Video contains SPOILERS and might even be PG. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Now enjoy the video.
Pinocchio
The real version of Pinocchio was the one made by Carlo Collodi called "The Adventures
of Pinocchio". Its a very long story which involves a talking wood that was then carved
into a marionette doll by Gepetto. Very different from the Disney version where Gepetto was
the one wishing for Pinocchio to be a real boy.
The Disney version was already weird and quite dark for a kid's cartoon but the real version
was weirder and darker, that in the story, Pinocchio was more gullible, rude, hard headed
and mischievous than the Pinocchio we know.
So much so, he got Gepetto to mistakenly be put to jail, accidentally killed the talking
and advice giving cricket, lost his own legs for sleeping near a stove, almost got eaten
when he became a donkey, tricked by the cat and fox a couple of times, got robbed of all
his money and left hanging by a rope a couple of times as well. There's more to be honest,
Collodi tortures Pinocchio a lot in the story and its hard not to see his message that bad
things will happen to bad children.
Anyways, at least the part where his nose elongates when lying and Pinocchio finally
learning his lesson by the end of the story is the same. But that itself is quite interesting
because the author actually planned to conclude the story with Pinocchio dying a horrible
death by hanging.
Which goes something like this:
"…a tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar angrily, and it beat the poor
puppet from side to side, making him swing violently, like the clatter of a bell ringing
for a wedding. And the swinging gave him atrocious spasms…. His breath failed him and he could
say no more. He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder,
and hung stiff and insensible."
But because Collodi's young readers were horrified at the ending, his publishers forced him to
continue the story.
Pied Piper of Hamelin
The story of the Pied Piper is actually a legend of the town of Hameln in Lower Saxony,
Germany from the Middle Ages. The story we are accustomed to has the ending where the
children were given back to the townspeople after they actually paid him what they promised.
So one of the disturbing version of the story goes like this: it starts with a town that
was plagued with a rat infestation. The townspeople have done everything from cats to poison but
the rats always thrived on. Then one day, a man, the piper, came to their town meeting
and offered his service as a rat catcher with a certain pay. An agreement was achieved and
the piper played his pipe which enchanted the rats into following him and lured all
the rats into the Weser River where they all drown.
His part of the bargain was done but the townspeople regretted their promise that they used all
kinds of excuses and refused to pay him. Reaching no conclusion,
The piper went away bitter and angry.
Then one night, he returned to the town for revenge. He started playing his pipe and this time
all the children over the age of 4 became enchanted and started to follow him heading
towards the mountain, where they were never to be seen again.
Though the earliest record of the story came from a stained glass window in the church
of Hamelin. The window was destroyed in 1660 but several accounts of it survived. There
was no real indication of any rat infestation originally but it was certain that the loss
of a few hundred children did happen and the Pied Piper was either a true magical person
or was just a symbolic figure of Death.
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Anderson, a Danish author.
The story is about a young mermaid that fell in love with a young prince and liked the
thought of having a human soul because she believed it to be eternal even after death,
which differs significantly from mermaids that when they die, they turn into sea foam
and cease to exist even if their lifespan is around 300 years.
So the story goes on almost exactly like the Disney version especially the first part of
the story but when it came to the conditions by the Sea Witch the conditions were a bit
different than the ones we know. We know that in exchange for human legs, she needs to give
up her beautiful voice, but this is when there's more to it.
She wasn't given any specific time limit but she must marry the prince for her to finally
turn into a true human and if he marries someone else, she would die and turn into sea foam.
There's also the curse that even if she has legs, she would feel like walking on knives the entire time.
By the end, she didn't marry the prince, rather the prince married a different princess whom
he thought was the one that saved him. The little mermaid then did turn to foam but rather
than ceasing to exist she found herself turned into an air spirit that apparently could obtain
an immortal soul by doing good deeds to mankind for 300 years.
The Little Red Riding Hood
Similar stories of a wolf disguising itself as a close relative for it to eat can be traced
back further than the 17th century's version by Charles Perrault and might even have started
in East Asia. But Charles Perrault's version is the most oldest published version that
everyone nowadays use for adaptations.
This one is very simple, the only difference to what we have now is that, it ends with
Little Red Riding Hood being eaten and no one stopped by to save them.
Sleeping Beauty
The one we know involves the true love's kiss that would wake the princess up from the curse
when she pricked her finger on the needle of a spindle. That version of the story came
from the collection by Brothers Grimm from the tale by Charles Perrault.
But the most original concept of the story dates as far back to the 13th century but
rather than a true love's kiss it involved a woman in a deep coma and a man's lust.
And the oldest an closest story published in terms of plot with the version we know
was by an Italian poet called Giambattista Basile in the story called Sun, Moon and Talia.
Well at least the first part of the story is quite similar.
The story starts like this: a baby was just born into a lord's household and this great
lord, the father of the newborn, asked wise men and astrologers to predict the future
of his little princess, Talia. He shouldn't have done that as they predicted that Talia
will be in danger from a splinter of flax from a spindle.
So the lord banished and prohibited any spindle and flax in his household. But a few years
later, Talia, out and about, saw a woman spinning flax on a spindle and she got curious. She
had never seen a spindle nor flax before and we know what happened next,
curiosity killed the cat.
Well everyone thought she was dead but little did they know that Talia was just in deep,
deep sleep. The father sadly acknowledged the incident as an unavoidable fate even after
trying so much to prevent the exact thing from happening.
So, he just couldn't bury his daughter.
That's why he puts Talia in one of his country estates and he sat her on a velvet throne,
said his goodbyes, closed the doors and abandoned the house forever
thinking that the house would be her tomb.
This is when the story turns into something entirely different. The one that found Talia
was a King and seeing how beautiful Talia was, inside an abandoned building, that won't
wake up no matter what he tried, he raped her.
Then Talia got pregnant and she didn't even wake up when she was giving birth to twins.
She only woke up when one of the twins sucked on her finger with the splinter and managed
to get the splinter out. Imagine her shock waking up into a nightmare. A nightmare where
she's suddenly a mother and all alone.
Anyways, the King came back to the place and to his surprise finds Talia awake and now
he's a father of twins, which are now named Sun and Moon. He felt responsible and explained
everything that he did to Talia. Talia probably just glad that she doesn't need to be alone
anymore accepted his feelings but the King said its not time yet because he still has
a wife. So he returned to his kingdom.
So one thing led to the other, the queen found out the King impregnated a girl from the King's
secretary so she tried to kill the twins by getting the Cook to cook the twins and feed
it to the King. Then she even tried to burn Talia to death but ends up getting caught by the King.
The queen told the King that Talia should be burned and that he already ate his own
children a few days ago. Hearing this, the King went into King mode and dismissed everything
the Queen said and ordered that his wife, secretary and the Cook to be captured and
thrown into the fire instead.
The Cook managed to survived as he quickly pleaded innocent and that the twins were safe.
So with the Queen gone, Talia, the King and the twins lived happily ever after. It's quite
sad though for the Queen, the King, throughout the story, never really mentioned anything
about Talia nor his kids to his wife. He must have been glad that his wife did all of that,
that he could just kill her then and there as punishment without explaining himself.