Episode 11 – Goodbye, Laura

One of the most interesting things about folklore is that there is no “original story.” There was a story that was written down first, usually by folklorists who were dedicated to preserving oral narratives, but you can’t really point to a story and say, “This. This was the first.” That’s not the case with most people. AndersenOf course, since they are literary fairy tales rather than folklore, but Goodbye, Laura Keep the spirit of folklore alive – because Laura herself is not the original Little Mermaid.

Years ago, before Laura was born, Grace and her twin sister Rigmore had dreamed of the surface. While Rigmor ultimately gave up on that dream for Rowan’s love (and, dare I say, her princess duties of bringing the Light to the merfolk), Grace took a potion, traveled to land, and fell in love with a prince. When he, like Lara’s prince, rejects her after seeing her true form, she takes the knife in her heart and kills him. It can be said that Grace lived according to the original meaning of the story – she understood the betrayal of mankind and returned to the sea.

I keep thinking back to the first episode of this show, when its creators thanked Andersen, not just because little mermaidbut for all his stories. I said before Lisa is Elisa wild swan (note the swan in this episode), I think Grace represents another one of Andersen’s characters: the Snow Queen. In her story, the mirror made by the devil is broken. Even if a tiny piece falls in your eyes or heart, you will become cold and only see the ugliness of the world. Grace has been associated with mirrors from the beginning, and this week, her skull-faced eel guides Mary to her secret underwater room, where her magic mirror resides. Mary watches Grace’s story through the mirror, seeing her transformation from a beloved, adventurous princess and sister to a murderous witch—and then the mirror shatters. The point wasn’t to chill Mary’s heart, but to serve as a metaphor for what Grace was going through. The moment she was rejected by the prince and stabbed him with a heart knife, the fragments of the mirror entered her eyes and heart. When her twin sister Rigmor dies trying to save her, the fragments take root. Grace’s heart is frozen when her brother-in-law Rowan casts her out as a witch. Before being cast as a witch, she was not a witch, nor was she a ruthless woman.

It’s worth considering how Grace’s experiences shaped her view of Laura. She seems to want herself to fail as much as she wants to succeed – yes, the Light needs to be brought back to the merfolk, but how does she think that can be done? At times, Laura seemed to be searching for true love; In other cases, Laura kills her true love with the knife in her heart and becomes a witch herself. What is a witch but a possessor of power and knowledge beyond what the world can accept? Grace didn’t bring her any happiness, but maybe she wanted something different in Laura – maybe a witch queen, or just someone who loved herself in a way that Grace hadn’t had in a long, long time.

Pain can make people do unfathomable things. We’ve seen ample proof of this over the course of these eleven episodes, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Rowan and Grace’s shared past. Both of them live with the pain of loss, the pain of mutual betrayal over Rigmor’s death, and their inability to accept that Rigmor made his own choices, just like they did. Laura was the sum total of all their hopes, but none of them saw her for who she was. Only Mary does this, and if that’s not a reason for true love, I don’t know what is. As Grace’s mirror whispers, living for love rather than rules may be the only way to break a generational curse.

Laura is the Little Mermaid, but I think she’s also Gerda. exist ice queenGorda continues her quest to save her friend Kai from the Snow Queen’s influence and remove the mirror shards from his heart and eyes. If Laura could do that for Rowan, Lisa, and Grace, maybe everyone could still be saved.

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Recommended reading: robber girl ST Gibson’s Queer Retelling ice queen.

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