All little girls dream of being princesses. They want to be able to talk to animals and defeat evil stepmothers, but most of all, they want their happy ever after. Who wouldn’t want to live a life where everything turns out perfectly in the end? I sure wanted to live their lives. However, it wasn’t until years later that I discovered the real stories of some of the Disney princesses written by the original authors. The truth is gruesome and horrifying, so here  are the true stories in full detail:

Sleeping Beauty by Giambattista Basile: Our lovely tale begins much the same as the Disney adaptation. Sleeping Beauty is unconscious in her castle and a prince stumbles across her. He finds the princess and calls to her, but she doesn’t wake up. Now here’s where the story gets ugly. The prince, instead of tamely kissing her, as he does in the Disney adaptation, proceeds to rape Sleeping Beauty. She awakens because she gives birth to twins and one of her twins sucks the the spindle flax from her finger. Do you still dream of being awakened  with a kiss like Sleeping Beauty?

The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen: Ah, the Little Mermaid. She rescues the prince from drowning and falls in love with him. But he doesn’t know it was her and he doesn’t know who saved him. So the Little Mermaid visits the sea witch, who gives her legs -- in exchange for her tongue. When the Little Mermaid receives her legs, it feels as if she is walking on sharp glass. Though she endures it, it all goes to waste in the end because the prince marries someone else, as he thinks she is the one who saved him. So the Little Mermaid throws herself into the sea, and turns into sea foam. Happily ever after, right?

These two princesses aren’t the only ones who had tragic tales. Many of the so-called happy-ever-after stories that Disney tries to sell us aren’t true. People base their lives and goals on these stories, but they were never even meant to be this way. Many of the stories teach women and girls that they don’t need to be intelligent or strong; they just need to wait around for a man to save them. They also teach girls that if they’re attractive enough, they don’t have to do any work because they can just get wealthy men to fall for them.

So maybe the real princess stories aren’t as happy as people make them out to be. But maybe it is a good thing to expose the Disney princesses because it will teach women to stand up for themselves and not fall victim to the false ideal that women don’t need real ambitions, so long as they have a strong male in their lives. On the other hand,