12 Messed-Up Stories That Disney Fans Won’t Believe Are Actually True
You really don't want to know what the original version of Snow White was like.
1. In J.M. Barrie's novel, Peter Pan is actually a murderer.
Specifically, he kills the Lost Boys to stop them getting any older. Barrie writes: "The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two." Whoa, no need. Also J.M. Barrie really needs to learn what full stops are.
2. And the original Pinocchio kills Jiminy Cricket.
Pinocchio first appeared in a 19th-century newspaper serial called The Adventures of Pinocchio, and in the story the puppet-boy is joined by a character called "Talking Cricket"...which he kills with a hammer. "At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket... With a last weak 'cri-cri-cri' the poor cricket fell from the wall, dead!" What a dick.
3. The prince in the Brothers Grimm version of Snow White is basically a necrophiliac corpse-thief.
The original version is called Snow Drop; in it, Snow Drop chokes on a piece of the evil queen's apple and appears to die, so the dwarves put her in a glass coffin in a clearing. When the prince stumbles across her, he's captivated so he GOES TO THE DWARVES TO ASK IF HE CAN HAVE HER CORPSE. They're like WTF no, so he steals it instead. As the prince's underlings are transporting the coffin, the piece of apple dislodges and she wakes up, so the prince marries her. Weirdo.
4. And Sleeping Beauty is just as twisted.
In the Giambattista Basile version of the story, Aurora isn't woken up by a kiss, she's jolted awake by the birth of her twins...who were conceived while she was asleep. Her rapist (the "charming" prince) didn't want her to wake up because he's married, so he just left her in the forest. When a confused Aurora goes in search of her children's mystery dad, the prince's wife tries to kill them all. Literally no one is nice in fairy tales.
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Specifically, he kills the Lost Boys to stop them getting any older. Barrie writes: "The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two." Whoa, no need. Also J.M. Barrie really needs to learn what full stops are.
2. And the original Pinocchio kills Jiminy Cricket.
Pinocchio first appeared in a 19th-century newspaper serial called The Adventures of Pinocchio, and in the story the puppet-boy is joined by a character called "Talking Cricket"...which he kills with a hammer. "At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket... With a last weak 'cri-cri-cri' the poor cricket fell from the wall, dead!" What a dick.
3. The prince in the Brothers Grimm version of Snow White is basically a necrophiliac corpse-thief.
The original version is called Snow Drop; in it, Snow Drop chokes on a piece of the evil queen's apple and appears to die, so the dwarves put her in a glass coffin in a clearing. When the prince stumbles across her, he's captivated so he GOES TO THE DWARVES TO ASK IF HE CAN HAVE HER CORPSE. They're like WTF no, so he steals it instead. As the prince's underlings are transporting the coffin, the piece of apple dislodges and she wakes up, so the prince marries her. Weirdo.
4. And Sleeping Beauty is just as twisted.
In the Giambattista Basile version of the story, Aurora isn't woken up by a kiss, she's jolted awake by the birth of her twins...who were conceived while she was asleep. Her rapist (the "charming" prince) didn't want her to wake up because he's married, so he just left her in the forest. When a confused Aurora goes in search of her children's mystery dad, the prince's wife tries to kill them all. Literally no one is nice in fairy tales.
