Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of hoangnt.
Apparently, we’re getting a live-action Little Mermaid movie. I’ve been thinking a lot about people who change between people and animals, lately, if only because of the pop culture I’m consuming. There are the skinchangers in A Song of Fire and Ice, people who can send their minds out into wolves or eagles, and the shifters in the Southern Vampire mysteries. I feel like I ought to be more interested in this development, but I’m not. The little mermaid changes out of love, not because it’s in her character to want to live fully in two worlds, and I think it’s the character that’s important and interesting. Or at least, more interesting. I do think, at least on an intellectual level, that great love is an interesting subject for culture and analysis, as are the choices that people make for love, or what they think is love. But I have a hard time with that as a sole or consuming motivation. I want to see how people making choices and achieve balance, especially when they’re doing something as momentous shedding one skin for another.