Disney's Not So Happily Ever Afters

Disney is famous for its cheerful stories about good overcoming evil and how love saves the day, but in reality the source materials they draw from have a lot of very different ideas. Where we see cute and cuddly forest animals was once dark and horrifying stories of misfortune and woe. Here are my top picks from the original fairy tales:

Cinderella

In this Disney classic, the princess Cinderella is practically a slave to her step mother and sisters. However, the original Brothers Grimm version was even worse. When the prince arrives at Cinderella's house to have the girls try on the glass slipper, her stepsisters get a bit desperate. In an attempt to make it fit both girls end up chopping off parts of their feet. One of them almost gets away with it too, until the prince notices the blood! And as Cinderella finally rides off to happily ever after her stepsisters and mother have their eyes pecked out by birds, the same birds who and listened to Cinderella throughout the tale.

Pocahontas

Another classic, this time loosely based on real events. While historians can't truly agree on the exact series of events we know the young Pocahontas was only 10 when John Smith, 27, arrived in America. Not to mention the fact that most of her descendants say she hardly ever met the man, who forced tribes to give colonists their food right before winter by threatening Chiefs with guns. She was eventually kidnapped and forced to leave her husband and child behind as she was taken to England where she married, renamed Rebeccah and had a second child. She eventually died at around the age of 21.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the original version, Quasimodo betrays Esmerelda after she rejects his love ending with her being hung. Then, feeling sorry, Quasimodo goes to the crypt where she's buried and lays with her until he eventually dies of starvation. Then, 18 months later when someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bone turn to dust. Cheerful.

The Little Mermaid

Just like in the Disney version Ariel trades her voice to get legs and go get herself a prince, however in the original there isn't just the risk of staying mute forever. For starters, whenever she walks it is to feel like walking broken glass, further lessening her chances with the prince. Then, when the prince marries another woman Ariel wanders into the ocean and becomes sea foam. Sea foam. No singing fish either.

The Lion King

This children film is legitimately based on the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet. The play ends with Hamlet, AKA Simba, dying along with pretty much everyone else. Truly a child friendly story.

Peter Pan

Everyone wants to stay young forever, always a child with all the time in the world to play games and have fun. However in the original book, the lost boys want to stay young for another reason. In one line the author talks about how the number of lost boys changes. It’s always from a death by two ways: one - by the Pirate’s hands or, two - at the hands of Peter himself. Yes that's right, if Peter thought a lost boy was getting too old he would 'thin' out his ranks of the ageing boy. Suddenly, Captain Hook seems a lot more reasonable.