Hans Christian Andersen was the fucking worst with this, I swear to God. The man could have written a story from the POV of a tongue scraper and it would have been full of pathos, tragedy, and an unbearably sad ending.

FUCK YOU HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, I AM NOT OVER THE FIR TREE OR THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER, AND I NEVER WILL BE

;A;

ETA: lmao I just checked his wikipedia page and look at this shit.

A very early fairy tale by Andersen called The Tallow Candle (Danish: Tællelyset) was discovered in a Danish archive in October 2012. The story, written in the 1820s, was about a candle who did not feel appreciated.

ridiculous.

The Andersen book I have is broken up into thematic sections. There is an entire "Anthropomorphic Objects and Animals" section in that book.

Ceaen, who's the publisher of that edition?

It's one of the "Barnes and Nobles Classics" books

Thanks!

I remember that! The roots of my malady are slowly being exposed! :-)

OH MY GOD. I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT FIR TREE STORY FOR YEARS NOW.

I had a picture book of it as a kid and I swear it's traumatized me for life as far as getting real Christmas trees go. I've told other people about it and no one else had heard of it. Their reactions to my summaries were pretty much all along the lines of "Jesus Christ!" Looked on amazon and google for Christmas tree children's books, but do you know how many Christmas tree books there are?

So thank you. (And omg I should have known it was HCA! *shakes fist*)

ETA: No really. I even described to people how the Christmas Tree felt pain after it was chopped down but bore through it because it was so happy to covered in decorations and lights, just like the Little Mermaid when she got her feet. Fffffffffu- I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!

I'm happy to help you recall your childhood trauma.

Mine involves a Mercer Meyer book about a sad rabbit whose friends all forget her birthday and okay I really can't talk about it. Even though they all throw her a surprise party at the end, it does nothing, NOTHING, to make up for the fathomless depths of pain she and the reader have suffered.

That's because candles are ***holes. Especially Danish ones.

And matchsticks just bring tears.

Apparently a friend of his made a bet with him that he couldn't write a story that would make people feel sympathy for a pin. Hans won the bet.

The Tin Soldier story confused me so much as a kid. I couldn't understand the point of a story where no one rescued him.

The point is pain and tears.

Isn't that the point of all of Hans Christian Andersen's work?

Not The Snow Queen, aka best fairy tale ever!

But yeah everything else lol.

You forget: Frozen happened to that.

LALALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU

GERDA x KAI OTP, LITTLE ROBBER GIRL BEST SIDE CHARACTER, FABULOUS TRUE NEUTRAL SNOW QUEEN, CRYING AWAY MIRROR SHARDS AND SNATCHING UR FAVS' WIGS

Please. Little Robber Girl/Gerda/Kai post-story friendship and eventual OT3 is where it's at. (SO pissed that they basically took all the side characters and turned them into Kristoff. YOU HAD A PERFECT CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING PROGRESSIVE WITH YOUR LINE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE LIKE THE 1930S, DISNEY, YOU HAD DAMN WELL BETTER MAKE UP FOR IT IN THE SEQUEL.)

(Seriously though I will forgive... not all, but like 65% of that movie's faults if they cash in on its mediocrity and give Elsa a female love interest. If we have to get a sequel, at least give us that.)

Gerda and Kai? I'm sorry, I can only view them as being like brother and sister. GERDA AND ROBBER GIRL FOREVER.

Robber Girl is the BEST.

The point was that he fed on the tears of children.

Totally! I'm so glad you mentioned him and his anthropomorphic ways! That fir tree .... and the Steadfast Tin Soldier .... why, Hans C.A.? Why?

Have you read the Oscar Wilde "Fairy Tales"? Many people know The Selfish Giant, but the others are much darker and pretty much have tragic endings. The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose are my favorites, even though they destroy me every time.

I did read the Nightingale and the Rose and it was heartbreaking. He and HCA are similar in that their fairy tales are either heartbreaking, satirical, or The Snow Queen.

I guess The Ugly Duckling had a happy ending, but man that poor bb swan suffered ;_; And it was satirical for a good while! As was Thumbelina!

Yeah, nothing at all like that Danny Kaye movie. In Andersen, the only escape is death.

The red shoe murder in Roger Rabbit was NOT COOL. It was disturbing to me as a kid. I think it's probably still disturbing but I don't want to watch it again to find out if a sentient being slowly MELTED ALIVE while you watch the anguish and terror IN ITS EYES is still disturbing. ಠ_ಠ

Sara also pointed out the other thing that disturbed me, beyond the melting alive bit--what about the other shoe? there's supposed to be two shoes. That's how shoes work. What will the other shoe do now?

And why the hell did none of the human characters do anything about that?

It's sad about the other shoe but I'm more concerned with the shoe that got fridged to feed the other shoe's pathos for the gritty revenge tale, Roger Rabbit 2: The Shoe Judge Doom Forgot!

But on a more serious note, as a adult, I see the whole Toontown story for what it is: a parable for segregation and racism. The reason none of the humans did anything to save the shoe is the same reason white people didn't do anything to save black people from being lynched.

I'm going to go be depressed now.

And like how the Ink and Paint Club has toon performers and staff, but toons aren't allowed as customers?

Hell, the word "toons" is pretty close to a racial slur.

Oddly reminded of a former coworker. A hawk had eaten one of the cardinal pair that frequented her yard, and she was extra distressed because they mate for life. A colleague wanted to comfort her, but all he could manage in the moment was "Maybe it'll get the other one too."

So sad! My grandmother loved cardinals and planted and put out feed to attract them. Lovely creatures! This makes me think of Sad Squirrel from The Sword in the Stone. Noooo!

I need fanfiction where someone finds the widowed shoe a person with one leg so it can be happy again.

This so needs to happen. <3

I agree! It had such a sweet little face! :-(

Here's something nice to know. The original Rudolph didn't have the Island of Misfit Toys. That was added for the next year's broadcast. People were so saddened by the tale of the poor toys that they wrote in DEMANDING that the toys get a happy ending. For the third broadcast, the network added the scene of Santa picking up the toys and delivering them.

Though as a kid I wondered why Santa could be so mean as to exile the Misfit Toys in the first place, and then suddenly they were good enough to give to kids when they hadn't been before. Which kids got the Misfit Toys, the poor ones who wouldn't have gotten presents anyway?

I didn't know that either!

I FORGOT ABOUT GOLDIE ARGH

Seriously, Goldie and Brave Little Toaster were the worst (I love them so). Toy Story was bad, but it was still mostly just toys that got anthropomorphized. Okay, fine, I can play nicely with my toys and make sure they feel loved.

But Brave Little Toaster made little me feel like, no, not just toys. All of your stuff. You toaster, your blanket, your lamp. They're alive, and they love you and they're loyal to you. They will be sad if you abandon them or throw them away. (I, too, finally had to give up my little Saturn about a year ago. She'd been with me for 11 years and it just about broke my heart, especially knowing that she'd never get sold as a used car, just parts. Loyal little thing.)

But Goldie.

It's not just your toys.

It's not just your stuff.

Every piece of paper is sad when it gets thrown away. Mourn! MOURN FOR THEM!

This trend is pretty much entirely responsible for my packrat ways (though watching my relatives wade through 50+ years of family stuff at my grandmother's house the past few years is helping curb it finally).

Jim Cummings, man. Voice of our childhood in all the best and most traumatic ways. I hope I meet him at a con one day.

So I actually DID meet Jim Cummings at SCDD. Well, I saw him on the voice acting panel. Then I saw him walking down the street as I was leaving for the day and while I was at a stop light, I literally stood up in my convertible and shouted "Mr. Cummings you are AWESOME" at him and he smiled and waved.

So jelly right now!

my younger sister's kids (4 and six respectively) each have their own "coveries" blankets, that they have had since, like, forever, and who we have to wash when they are asleep because otherwise we can't get it away from them. they talk to them and play with them like they were toys :)

My nieces (from my older sister) are a sophomore in high school, and in junior college. The younger one (in high school) has a pillowie (you guessed it, a pillow) that she has had from birth (seriously, it was her birth pillow) that she takes with her everywhere, it is pretty much held together by hair ties and prayers, and i am pretty sure will be the pillow her wedding rings rest on. The older one, has a mimi (blanket) that she stole from my younger sister (mother of the two boys) and i am pretty sure it will be the veil at her wedding.

My younger sister (mother of both boys) had a TWO mimis, a pink one (the only my older niece stole;) and a white one (well... it hink it was white, it might have ended up that way...) that my mother torn into rags when it got too... holey.... that almost traumatized my sister (who was in junior high when it happened:) she is still determined to steal back the pink one from my niece. lol

and then there is me (yes a 31 year old man), who has my own blue mimi that I use to cover my legs when i want to read on cold days, and 4 favorite stuffed animals from my childhood that have a seat of honor on my gaming chair....
this is my long winded way of saying... i come from a long line of family that has feels for inanimate objects

Your story reminded me of how a young Princess Eugenie couldn't be convinced to leave her doll behind when she was a bridesmaid at a relative's wedding in the nineties and insisted on carrying it around for the whole ceremony: http://theroyalpost.com/201...

Mind = blown.

I never knew this Jim Cummings dude by name before....but I was madly in love with Darkwing Duck when I was a kid, and I watched the Brave Little Toaster like, every other day. Aside from all the other random and assorteds from childhood, he was Urndot Wreav's voice in Mass Effect 2, a random voice in Skyrim. lol.

Jim Cummings is so fucking amazing. I've been noticing his voice acting since the late 80's. He's a really funny guy, too. He's managed to voice so much of my childhood and onward that I can't imagine my life without his voice in it.

The man is in EVERYTHING. If you like an animated voice, it's probably him. :-D Darkwing Duck is the absolute awesome.

I had a huge crush on Darkwing Duck when I was a kid lol. I had this plastic ring in a jewelry box that I told my mom Darkwing Duck gave me....she said not to tell anyone at school that was where I got it. Haha :)

I love your comment pretty hard. <3 And I would also love to meet Jim Cummings. He had me at Don Karnage.

"I FORGOT ABOUT GOLDIE ARGH"

well I see someone already made my comment.

I had pretty much a full breakdown once - in my 30s - when my faithful breadmaker, after all those years, was no longer working, but I couldn't bear the thought of putting it into the trash. My husband found me sitting on the floor in the kitchen, sobbing and holding the breadmaker on my lap.

I wonder why so many cartoons from my childhood encouraged emotional attachment to material things. I don't see that happening in cartoons and movies now. I guess the consumerism of the 90's might be to blame, but wouldn't that actually cause people to dispose of more and replace it with the latest thing? Maybe those cartoons were actually an example of the older generation responding to the negative aspects of consumerism. Either way, I think they may have accidentally created a bunch of hoarders in the process.

Brave Little Toaster was definitely against consumerism. They have a whole villain song by the newest, shiniest gadgets.