A Case Study of Character Developement borrowing the Universe of Disney's "The Little Mermaid"
Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story belong to Disney's 'The Little Mermaid'. I make no claims to ownership and make no profit off this work beyond personal satisfaction.
Long summary:
At the start of the movie, Ariel is a young princess, intelligent, overflowing with a sense of wonder and curiosity. She wants nothing more than to leave the confinement of the castle, her home, to go out and explore and learn things.
Then she meets Eric, and becomes completely infatuated with him. She is just following the same mistake as so many young girls in countless times and culture have made before- believing it's true love, she chases after him. A whole mess of problems follow along to mess up her whole life, and when all is said and done, they marry, and for the rest of her life, her personal desires, aspirations, goals, all become second to her relationship with Eric. Her world is centered around Eric, and her character stagnates until she dies.
But what if she never had to rescue Eric during that storm, never had to bring him back to shore? What if she never got a chance to meet him, never got a chance to be infatuated? This is the story about the ripples of change that emanate out from that one small divergence.
Prologue – the point of divergence
Eric laughed heartily as his dog, Max, tripped a dancing sailor, only for the sailor to get back up and join another sailor in a happy jig on top of a table. This was turning out to be quite the birthday celebration, and they hadn't even broken out the fireworks yet. The night was just getting started.
"Ah! Excuse me! Prince Eric!" Eric turned to the source of the voice to see the ship's navigator looking worried and nervous for some reason.
"Timothy, my friend! Why the long face? This is a party!" Eric wrapped an arm around the skittish young man, gesturing towards the festivities with the other.
"Ah, sir, you see, that's what I needed to talk to you about… It looks like there is a bad storm coming in. We need to head back to shore!" The navigator, Timothy, blurted the last sentence out all in a rush. A nearby, sailor, overhearing this, started to grumble.
"Is it that bad?"
"Well, sir, we might be able to make it through. This ship and her sailors are plenty experienced, but I'm sure none of them would be willing to risk your safety, your Majesty. I recommend immediately heading back to shore."
Hearing this, Eric sighed, but decided not to put up a fuss. "Well, if that is what you believe, then we better head back."
The captain, who had been alerted to the storm before Timothy went to talk to Eric, turned around to yell at his crew. "You heard him, men! Change course for land! Full speed back to shore!"
"Ariel," Sebastian soothed, "you're under a lot of pressure down here. Come with me, I'll take you home and get you something warm to drink. We can talk about this trouble in the morning." With that said, he grabbed her arm, dragging her back towards the castle, Ariel not putting up more than token resistance. Once they returned to the castle, Sebastian took Ariel back to her room, and did as promised before setting her to bed.
And so the two never met, and 'destiny' and 'infatuation' were avoided, and so the ripples in time move outward, slowly turning to waves.
a/n: (skip this if you want, just some fun background details, nothing important) Okay, so this is a weird story with a weird backstory. I first came up with this idea when talking to my main brochacho, Shea, the other day. We were talking about how smart Ariel seemed at the start of the movie, and how when she met Eric, a bunch of crazy bs happened that just completely messed up her whole life. Someone pointed out 'oh hey, but she got her happily ever after once she got through all that stuff, yeah?' and then we got on the subject of just what happily ever after means, specifically for Ariel. Suddenly we realized her happily ever after wasn't really happy at all. She got married to Prince Eric, focused her entire life on becoming a good wife to him, serving him, and loving him, then giving birth to his child, and focusing on being a good mother. What the hell? No personal satisfaction, no mention of her intelligence or curiosity, nothing about WHO she is- it's like that kind of thing is unimportant once a relationship is dangled before her eyes. So I decided to do a writing exercise on 'what if ariel never met eric that day' and that writing exercise turned into a story which was fleshed out into a full length novel.
At that point of course I figured I should probably post it on here. Don't know how many people will read this, seeing as how it is in the Little Mermaid category, not something more popular like Harry Potter, Naruto, or that type thing, but here goes!
This 'chapter' is more of a teaser than anything else, just writing out the point of divergence here. I assure you, all the real chapters will be longer.
Well anyway, review and tell me what you think!