The little mermaid is often disparaged for leaving her whole world in pursuit of an infatuation. But fairy tales are not meant to provide role models, they are meant to show us important truths of the world so that children can navigate it better.

Ariel is an archetype of every teenage girl who loses her mind over some guy she barely knows. The point is that the guy is just a nominal, what she really wants is freedom from her nest. Through most history, women could have only done this with the protection of a husband.

Fairy tales are ancient things. Their ideas so powerful that no generation is able to forget them. Immortal, they resurface with new skins and different details. They are a mirror to human nature, presented in the only dimension in which we can bear to look at ourselves: fiction