The Terrifying Origin Stories Behind Your Favorite Disney Movies

Cinderella.

How You Thought It Ended: In the 1950 Disney movie, Cinderella and her Prince were married, and lived happily ever after.

How It Really Ended: In the “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” version of the story, Aschenputtel and her prince also lived “HEA”… but her stepsisters met a bloody, horrifying end. The movie version of the sisters just had to live with their jealousy and rage over Cinderella getting her prince, but the real story left them horribly disfigured. One of them cut her toes off to fit in the golden slipper, while the other sliced off her heel.

But that’s not even the worst of it — during Aschenputtel and her prince’s wedding, doves flew down from Heaven and pecked the sisters’ eyes out. Geez.

The Little Mermaid.

How You Thought It Ended: Ariel was turned into a human permanently by her father, and lived happily ever after with her husband, Prince Eric. 

How It Really Ended: The Little Mermaid was pretty dark...for example Hans Christian Andersen's Mermaid didn't only wish for legs to get the boy, she wished for legs because Mermaids don’t get to go to heaven like humans do. Also, in this version of the tale, she felt like she was walking on sharp knives every time she took a step. She also failed in her mission to get the prince to love her — if she succeeded, his kiss would breathe part of his soul into her body, allowing her to have an afterlife — and on the day of his wedding, she flung herself into the sea and died.

However, there's sort of a happy ending in this story...after dying, she became a "daughter of the air" who could eventually earn her way to a soul if she did enough good things. 

Snow White

How You Thought It Ended: The prince kisses Snow White, wakes her up, and carries her off to his castle. Also, the Evil Queen dies by falling off a cliff.

How It Really Ended: Same, but the Grimm brothers once again give the story’s villain a much crueler fate. The Queen was invited to Snow and her prince’s wedding, which was nice, but when she arrived she was given a pair of hot iron shoes and forced to dance to death in front of the wedding party.

Sleeping Beauty:

How You Thought It Ended: The prince defeats a dragon, kisses the sleeping maiden, then dances with her awakened self as her dress changes colors.

How It Really Ended: In Giambattista Basile’s 17th century tale “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” the prince didn’t kiss Talia when he found her sleeping — he was a king, and he raped her. She woke up months later with twin babies, Sun and Moon, then was reunited with the married king. She got her happily ever after, but only after the current queen tried to make the king eat his own babies. He threw her in a fire and married Talia as punishment.

Pinocchio:

How You Thought It Ended: Pinocchio saves Geppetto from the whale and is rewarded with human life by the Blue Fairy. Jiminy gets a job as a certified conscience.

How It Really Ended: The “real” Pinocchio, from Carlo Collodi’s story, was a dick. He murders the story’s version of Jiminy in the first act, and Geppetto goes to jail for negligence. Once he gets out, poor Geppetto sells his only coat to send Pinocchio to school and buy him a school book, which Pinocchio promptly sells for theater tickets. He gets worse and worse from there, so it’s hard to even feel that bad for him when Fox and Cat hang him from a tree, leaving him to suffocate to death.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame:

How You Thought It Ended: Quasimodo doesn’t exactly get a happily ever after with Esmerelda, but he does accept the fact that she does not love him like that. Also, he finally enters society after he defeats the villainous Frollo, and the people love him!

How It Really Ended: “Hunchback” was originally written by Victor Hugo — the same guy who wrote Les Misérables — so you knew it was going to end badly. Basically, Frollo hangs Esmerelda, Quasimodo kills Frollo, then Quasimodo mourns by Esmerelda’s discarded corpse and starves to death............

The Fox and the Hound:

How You Thought It Ended: Tod gets to live out his life as a fox, Copper gets to live out his life as a hound, and they remember their years of friendship fondly.

How It Really Ended: In Daniel P. Mannix’s source material, Copper chases Tod until he dies of exhaustion. Then Copper’s master moves to a nursing home — but not before murdering Copper with a shotgun! Happily ever after, indeed. :(